The Crabby Cook - by Jessica Harper

I know there is a school of cooking these days that’s all about hiding vegetables in things so you can sneak up on your kids, nutritionally speaking. But I feel the way my mother does: children should get to know and befriend their vegetables. Read More

So far I have stuck to my New Year’s resolutions except for the part abut the peppermint bark. I resolved to eat nothing but healthy foods and have done so religiously since December 31st–except for the peppermint bark. I just gave the peppermint bark (what was left of it) to Aunt Christina so now I am totally on track.

I made this soup which is full of high-fiber vegetables and makes you feel virtuous even before you finish chopping the leeks. Tom and I have been eating it all weekend and we both feel as fit as say, that guy in “Creed.” (Michael B. Jordan, not Sylvester Stallone.)

I gotta be honest, it’s a pain in the ass to make but worth the trouble because you end up with enough to last for ages so it’s three meals for the aggravation of one. Plus you get all that upper-body exercise from the veggie choppage. Okay, it’s unlikely M.B.J. got those biceps by this method but still.

So give your peppermint bark to an unsuspecting relative and make this soup. You will be glad you did.

New Year’s Resolution Minestrone

(Makes about 12 lunch servings.)

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 medium onion chopped

2 leeks (white part only), well rinsed and finely chopped

2 cloves of garlic minced

½ teaspoon dried basil

½ teaspoon dried oregano

½ teaspoon dried thyme

salt and freshly ground pepper

½ head Savoy cabbage, shredded

2 large carrots, peeled and diced

2 ribs of celery, diced

1 medium potato (any kind) peeled and cut into ¾ inch dice

1 parsnip, peeled and diced

2 quarts’ low sodium chicken broth (see note)

1 can (14 ounces) diced tomatoes with their juices

½ cup frozen petite peas

½ cup frozen corn kernels (or fresh if it’s summer and you’re not too crabby to scrape a cob)

1 can (15 ounces) small white bens or pinto beans, drained and rinsed

1 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

1. Melt the butter in the oil in a large soup pot over low heat. Add the onion and leeks and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetable s are soft and translucent, about 15 minutes.
2. Add the garlic, herbs, ½ teaspoon salt and pepper to taste. Cook for 1 minute.
3. Raise the heat to medium-low and add the cabbage. Cook, stirring once or twice, for about 5 minutes.
4. Add the carrots and cook, stirring once or twice, for about 2 minutes. Repeat this with the celery potato, and parsnip, in that order, adding one vegetable at a time and cooking each for 2 minutes or so.
5. Add the chicken broth and tomatoes. Raise the heat to medium and bring the soup to a simmer. Then return the heat to low, cover the pot, and simmer it for about 1 hour.
6. Add the peas corn and beans and cook for 15 minutes (Are you crabby, yet?)
7. Taste and add more salt and pepper if needed. Serve hot, passing the cheese separately.

Variations

If you’re not too crabby already, you can add or substitute any vegetables for those listed, like green beans, broccoli, a turnip, rutabaga – anything your family will tolerate (or not notice). Also, at the end of cooking you can throw in a handful of diced cooked chicken or meat. You can also put a scoop of cooked rice or pasta at the bottom of each diner’s bowl and pour the soup over it.

Note

If I’m too lazy to make homemade, I like to use Imagine Organic Free Range Chicken Broth, which is available at most Whole Foods storesl.

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I am assuming that Italian Wedding Soup was so named due to its popularity at Italian weddings. I’d like to posit that, because of its ease of preparation, the soup is especially suitable for a shotgun wedding, when celebratory food is needed in a big fat hurry. Read More

This is a great bread for St. Patrick’s Day if you are not too drunk to cook due to  all the beer you imbibed at the parade this morning. Read More

Revisited this recipe in The Crabby Cook Cookbook and like it even better now. For my non-dairy daughter I omitted the cheese. She loved ’em.

It’s football season. You’re gonna be glad you have this recipe, trust me.

With a little guacamole on the side, even better.

Trust me. (Did I say that already?) Read More

1. Hungry. Lunchtime. If have to assemble one more turkey sandwich, might puke. Read More

My husband loves tomatoes. Raw tomatoes, that is: he will not eat them cooked. (He has the same peculiar picky streak with regard to carrots: loves ’em raw, hates ’em cooked.) His sister Julie, on the other hand, does not only dislike raw tomatoes, she finds them repulsive. She will not eat anything with seeds, including olives. A pomegranate would give her a nervous breakdown. Tom’s other sister, Ellen, won’t eat spaghetti sauce, hamburgers, meat loaf, cheese of any kind, jelly (hello?), peas or lima beans. Like her father and Tom, she also dislikes onions and garlic, and, a la Julie, ix-nay the tomatoes and olives.

It’s just another example of how kids are genetically designed to drive their parental menu-planners crazy. Read More

I haven’t been to Paris in a while, but I’ve been to the next best place: Encino.

There are two reasons why I go to Encino, a small city (or enclave or district or borough or cluster or whatever it is) in the San Fernando Valley, north of where I live. One is that I have a superior dentist there. The other is that I know a fabulous cook who lives there, and I like to take advantage of every opportunity to eat at her house.

Last time I dropped by (“Oh, is it dinner time? Who knew? What’s cookin’?”) Suzanne offered me a sample of her French onion soup. While my memory is admittedly badly impaired, I don’t recall eating a better version of it, ever. Read More

Vegetable soup always reminds me of my mother-in-law. This is because she used to feed her family “Saturday Soup,” so named because she made it on Saturdays, using Campbell’s vegetable soup as a base and adding leftovers from the week’s meals. Bette’s kids ate the soup happily, oblivious to the fact that it contained finely chopped brisket from Tuesday’s dinner, or the spaghetti  from Thursday’s. Read More