COOKBOOK/A TABLE - Curried Mushroom Soup with Rosie!

Rosie’s back! I have spoken of my love of Oprah’s former personal chef Rosie Daley, and in particular, her Unfried Chicken. Daley’s cookbook In the Kitchen with Rosie really taught me a whole methodology of how to prepare food when I was just beginning to cook for myself. She also enlightens us with tricks to keep recipes...light and ways to eat healthier. 

This recipe for curried mushroom soup has been on the back burner for a while—too long! It’s low in fat, easy to make, and so tasty too. 

In the mood for more mushrooms? Click here for a toothsome mushroom lasagna, here for a duxelles preparation—and read about my first dubious experience with mushrooms here!

Curried Mushroom Soup
Ingredients
2 cups boiling water
1 cup dried oysters
1 cup morel
1cup porcini mushroom
1 1⁄2 cups chopped leeks, white part only
2 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon curry powder
4 cups skim milk
1 chicken bouillon cube
2 cups chopped fresh portabella mushrooms
4 cups chopped fresh shiitake mushrooms
1 tablespoon dry sherry
1 tablespoon chopped fresh chervil (if you can’t find chervil, a blend of parsley and tarragon works out nicely)

Directions
Pour the boiling water, the oysters and dried mushrooms in a bowl and set aside to soak.

Preheat a heavy stockpot over medium heat for about 1 minute, then spray it twice with the vegetable oil. Add the leeks and sauté for about 3 minutes, stirring constantly, until translucent. Add the flour and curry powder. Stir with a wooden spoon until the leeks are well coated. Add the milk and bouillon cube. Raise the heat to high and cook just until bubbles begin to form around the edge.

Reduce the heat to low and whisk until all ingredients are thoroughly combined. Stir in the fresh mushrooms and cook for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile remove the reconstituted mushrooms from their soaking liquid, strain, squeeze out excess moisture, and roughly chop. Add to the stockpot and cook for 1 minute more. Stir in the sherry.

Garnish with the chopped chervil.

Do enjoy!

Tonight's Menu - Light Delights

A menu light in fat, calories, ingredients, deed and task!

Tonight's Menu
Chilled Butternut Squash Soup
Asparagus with Pixie Tangerines
Unfried Chicken
Crab Cakes
Popsicles!

I love to hover over and linger in the kitchen but it's not always possible--that's all well and good when you have your own show and staff everyday, but I don't--so when ease and time is a consideration, more often it is a must to just get down to it and cut as many corners as you can, while still creating an elegant, carefully composed meal wrought from thought and imagination, devoid of ideas revolving around Sandra Lee's Jell-O and ice cream laden concoctions (although I did pull orange popsicles out of the fridge for dessert). Insert blushing emoticon here.

A box (don't cringe) of delicious, chilled butternut squash soup led to the asparagus that I topped with supremed pixie tangerines and a drizzle of bottled shallot vinaigrette; the inspiration from a recipe on PureWow.com may be found here but I opted instead to order a bag of microwavable asparagus from FreshDirect.com.

 

The gently sauteed crab cakes were pre-made and also enlivened by a little shallot vinaigrette. The unfried chicken has long been one of my favorite preparations and is courtesy of Rosie Daley.

Thanks to PureWow.com for the photo, just above! Credit to Squire Fox, who we believe just may be in league with Squirrel Nutkin. 

Rosie Daley's Un-Fried Chicken

This is a finger lickin' dish from Rosie Daley's book, In The Kitchen With Rosie, that I've been making for years! I owe many thanks to spa-trained Daley, who helped Oprah lose all that weight back in the mid-90's, and taught me a wonderful methodology to use when making any kind of food. What joy I found back then, discovering ways to make perfectly reasonable meals that are low-fat and health-conscious--there is so much flavor cleverly incorporated into Rosie's creations, using spices that are probably already in your pantry.

Instead of dealing with removing the skin from chicken drummers and breasts as the recipe below suggests, I just buy boneless chicken breasts. I also skip the whole ice bath process and thaw my chicken until it is malleable but still cold, so the yogurt will cling to the chicken before being marvelously, lightly breaded with proportions of the spice ingredients that best suit your fancy!

Rosie Daley's Un-Fried Chicken
Makes 12 pieces
Light vegetable oil cooking spray
3 whole chicken breasts, halved and skin removed
3 1/2 cups ice water
1 cup plain nonfat yogurt

FOR THE BREADING
1 cup dried Italian bread crumbs
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon Old Bay seasoning
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon Creole seasoning
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Dash cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Coat a baking sheet with 3 sprays of the vegetable oil.
Put the chicken in a large bowl with the ice water. Put the yogurt into a medium bowl. Set both bowls aside.
Toss all the breading ingredients into a large, tightly-sealing plastic bag. Seal and shake well to mix.
Remove 2 pieces of chicken from the ice water. Roll each piece in the yogurt. Put the chicken into the plastic bag, reseal, and shake to coat thoroughly. Transfer the breaded chicken to the prepared baking sheet. Repeat the process until all 12 pieces are breaded. Spray the chicken lightly with the vegetable oil.
Place the baking sheet on the bottom shelf of the oven and bake for 1 hour, turning the pieces every 20 minutes to allow even browning.
Serve hot or at room temperature.

The finished dish! Go green and dress with haricot vert as I did, seen here. Thanks, Rosie!

Peg O' My Heart

I hadn't seen my dear friend Peg in 8 years! We finally arranged a visit that lasted only about 24 hours but what a visit! I won't go into all the details but I will tell you this--it involved karaoke, swimming and Champagne on my sundeck.

Peg is a physical trainer and naturally follows a regimen involving dietary restrictions (Champagne is not necessarily one of them). We needed to chat our heads off, so I had a healthy breakfast and lunch that I wanted to mostly prepare at home the day before that wouldn't require a lot of kitchen time and impede on our conversation. Otherwise I made dinner reservations at Blossom, a local vegetarian joint. So the challenge was what could we eat? My thoughts immediately went to Joy Bauer's Slim & Scrumptious cookbook that I featured here recently on Evenings With Peter and also an old mainstay, In The Kitchen With Rosie, written by Oprah's former chef, the spa-trained Rosie Daley. So here are recipes for Apricot Almond Oats and Grilled Vegetable Sandwiches (I omitted the bread and just spread the veggies out on a plate). Although there were just the two of us eating and these recipes supposedly serve four and six people, respectively, make the whole lot even if it's just a meal for one because this is food where availing yourself to further helpings is the only option. Wash it all down with fruity iced tea!

My comments in italics.

Apricot Almond Oats
Adapted from Joy Bauer's Slim & Scrumptious Cookbook
Serves 4 (Serving Size: 1 cup)
Ingredients
1 cup steel-cut oats
15 whole dried apricots, roughly chopped
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon almond extract (or substitute vanilla extract)

Method
Bring 4 cups of water to a boil in a large saucepan. Add the oats, chopped apricots, and salt. Reduce the heat to low and cover the pan. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until the oats are soft and creamy, about 30 minutes. Just before serving, stir in the brown sugar and almond extract.

Grilled Vegetable Sandwich
Adapted from In The Kitchen With Rosie by Rosie Daley
Serves 6
Dressing
1 cup plain nonfat yogurt I pureed extra firm tofu instead
3 tablespoons Dijon-style mustard
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 tablespoons nonfat cottage cheese
1/8 teaspoon Tabasco sauce I used Sriracha chile sauce
2 tablespoons minced shallot (1 small shallot)
1 garlic clove, peeled and minced
1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 small eggplant, trimmed and cut into 1/4 -inch rounds
1 medium yellow squash, trimmed and cut into 1/4-inch rounds
1 medium zucchini, trimmed and cut into 1/4-inch rounds
1 red onion, trimmed and cut into 1/4-inch rounds
3 teaspoons Italian seasoning
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Light vegetable oil cooking spray I ran out halfway through so I splurged with extra virgin olive oil
2 roasted red bell peppers To do this yourself, halve the peppers, core and remove the seeds and broil for 5 minutes or so until the skin blisters, throw in a tightly sealed plastic bag and when cool, pull off the skin and quarter them
2 baguettes Entirely optional
1 large tomato, cored and sliced
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 tablespoons chopped jalapeno pepper I omitted this
8 fresh basil leaves and 8 arugula leaves Roll up and cut on the bias for a chiffonade

Preheat the broiler.
Put all the dressing ingredients in a blender and mix at low speed until smooth. Set aside.
Arrange the eggplant, yellow squash, zucchini, and onion in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Sprinkle the Italian seasoning and cayenne pepper over all of the rounds. Spray the vegetable oil over to coat lightly. Broil the vegetables for about 5 minutes, until brown, turn the rounds over, and brown the other side. Remove the cookie sheet, leaving the broiler on.
Toast halved baguettes if you wish 2 minutes per side. Layer your vegetables either on the baguettes or on a platter, drizzle your dressing, gussy it up with your chiffonade and do enjoy!