Broccoli

Broccoli & Cheese Soup
This recipe is from my niece, who used frozen broccoli and Kraft Velveeta cheese. However, any kind of broccoli will work, fresh, frozen or the little tougher tid bits that grow on overly mature plants at the end of the season. When using tid bits, peel or strip outside skin of the stem, like stripping celery or rhubarb. Steam a few minutes before adding to other soup ingredients. Grated old fort cheddar gives it a hearty flavour.

My niece in Florida served this soup when we went to visit her in Palm Beach several years ago. In high school, Pam was an energetic young woman, who worked as a waitress, played basketball and had her own car at sixteen. Even though I was only able to visit my brother in Michigan every couple of years, she came in and out of the house like a whirlwind, lingering only a few minutes. She liked the drive-through at MacDonalds; at home, her preferred meals were white beans and cornbread or meat and potatoes, drowned in gravy. My brother worked daylight to dusk and sometimes into the night using helium lights as a foreman for an asphalt company. Regardless of the time he came home, he had a hot cooked meal. My niece was usually out of the house by the time her Dad came home for supper. Certainly, I never once saw her within ten feet of the kitchen while meals were being prepared.

Fast Forward fifteen years. Both she and her husband have a Masters Degree in Business from some Michigan University; they now live in Palm Beach, where Tim, her husband, works in Marketing and Sales with the Gary Player Golf Group. She has 3 beautiful, healthy children, ages two to six. She lives in a white, highly glassed, expensive house, with a pool, in a cul-de-sac where the children play happily, with other healthy, beautiful children who come and go from the similar houses with patios and pools. Every driveway has an SUV for Mom and the children and BMWs, or something on the same scale, for Dad and the business.

When we went to visit, Pam was a wonderfully attentive mother and gracious hostess. The main menu were two soups, the Broccoli and Cheese Soup (recipe below) and a steak soup, equally delicious. Both were made from scratch, served with fresh bread, salad and dessert. The meal was prepared after we arrived, with the phone in one hand, the toddler on the hip and keeping track of the older children who were playing outdoors with other children. She showed me the triangular shaped valances that her neighbor made for the den window, using fabric she purchased at $65.00/ yard. She proudly explained she chose that design because it only took 1 1/2 yards. She watched the children while Sally made the curtains. The Africian theme in the pillows and repeated in the valance was accented by the chest high, carved animals in the corner.

The table was simple but elegant, with placemats and candles. The children sat quietly while their Dad, only home from the office a few minutes, offered a prayer of thanks. The soup turteen of white china was probably a wedding gift. I felt fortunate to experience the family life of my now grown niece, who is still energetic and still a fast food addict, but also a wonderful mother and hostess. I have often expressed my surprise at the skills my niece posses and her apparent success in this motherhood role, when it seemed she was never involved in those roles when she was growing up. Her mother and father admit they are just as surprised and pleased to see how their daughter has taken to family and parenting like a duck to water.

So when you make this broccoli and cheese soup, raise your soup turteen lid to Pam and remember that children absorb their skills and attitudes in many ways. You might also drink a toast to my brother, who is now retired, so he can go back and forth between Michigan and Florida to visit the grandchildren. By the way, the way he usually travels from Michigan to Florida is on a white Harley-Davidson, with his wife, Sherry, riding behind.

Ingredients
1 ½ cups Broccoli, Frozen
½ (small) block Velveeta Cheese
2 Potatoes, Cubed
1 Onion
1-2 Carrots, Grated/Chopped Finely
10 Tbsp Flour
½ cup Butter
3 cups Milk
4 Chicken Bullion Cubes
2 cups Water

Directions
Cook vegetables and bullion in 3 cups of water for a short time.

Melt butter in microwave; add flour.

Mix and add 3 cups of milk slowly, 1 cup at a time cooking for 1 minute after each cup is added.

Cut Velveeta in small cubes. Add gradually 1/3 at a time, cooking for 1-2 minutes for each 1/3 added, stirring until smooth.

Hint
Of course, you can double the recipe.

Cucumber

White Gazpacho (Cold Cucumber Soup)

Absolutely Wonderful!!

Ingredients
2 big cucumbers
2 tsp. white vinegar
1 big clove garlic
1 can chicken broth
1 cup sour cream
sliced almonds

Directions
Peel and chop cucumber. Blend in blender with garlic and some of the chicken stock. In bowl, add rest of chicken stock, vinegar, salt to taste and sour cream. Whip to blend. Chill in Fridge.

Serve chilled with bowls of finely chopped parsley, tomatoes, green onions. Actually, I put all of this in the bowl before serving. (and most important) sprinkle top with toasted sliced almonds.

From Mike’s Colleague and Friend at Tulane University in New Orleans. After Bill and his wife separated, Bill lost weight and also became a Gourmet Cook. Mike brought this recipe back after visiting Bill around 1985.

Gazpacho

Refreshing Soup/Liquid Salad! Serve this ice cold.

From the New York Times Cookbook; makes 8 servings.

Ingredients
1 clove garlic
1 medium onion chopped
1 cucumber sliced
3 peeled tomatoes
1 green pepper seeded
4 raw eggs
1/8 t salt
1/8 t cayenne
1/4 cup vinegar
1/4 cup olive
3/4 cup tomato juice

Directions
Puree first 5 ingredients in the blender. Mix in beaten egg. Combine spices, vinegar, and olive oil in a separate bowl and pour over veggies.

Garnish
1 cup bread cubes
2 Tbsp olive oil and 1 minced clove of garlic.
1 cucumber diced very fine
1 small onion chopped fine
1 green pepper chopped fine

Sauté bread cubes in olive oil and garlic, and save.

Cool cucumber, onion, and pepper.

When ready to serve garnish with all of the above.

Turnip

You say Yellow Turnip! I say Rutabaga!
I did not know rutabaga was a member of the turnip family until I moved to Newfoundland and found them referred to as yellow turnips. When I was conducting workshops in cooking with children in the late 70's for the MUN Extension Early Childhood Certificate program, the young women always corrected me, as though I was trying to be officious. “Do you mean, yellow turnip?” One of the older women explained that her mother made pumpkin pie, using yellow turnip. Pumpkins were both expensive and scarce in those days. She brought in a “pumpkin” pie for the class to sample, to illustrate that all you have to do when you use rutabaga is add the pumpkin pie spices.

As a child in Tennessee, I was very familiar with turnips and turnip tops. We ate the early turnip tops as greens and also sowed turnip seeds in the fall for late, fresh greens. Turnips greens were boiled with meat and served with slices of boiled eggs around the edge of the serving platter, and of course, corn bread. A little glass pitcher with a glass cork, held “Pepper Sauce”. The bottle was replenished every few weeks with additional vinegar and hot peppers, fresh or dried. It was
much like the corked bottle of vinegar found in fish and chip restaurants here before they were
replaced with tear off, throw away, little plastic packages.

Turnip greens and cornbread were among my favourite foods in childhood, but not turnips. They only came in one kind, white with purple collars and prepared in one way, boiled throughly with ham or bacon. The turnips seemed mushy and tasteless. I ate my share of the cornbread and sometimes fished out the ham, but left the turnips swimming in their juices. The cornbread was seasoned with bacon grease, from the grease holder on the back of the stove. The practice of using bacon grease in cornbread only changed after my Dad’s first heart attack.

Turnip Soup? Yuk! You have to be kidding!
Soon after we moved to Seattle in the mid-60's, a local farmer gave us some Rutabaga and the Rutabaga soup recipe. We were delighted with this new, crisp, large, dense, yellow vegetable. It stores well and became one of the centre pieces of our diet over the next few years - steamed, also added to soups and stews and of course, rutabagas soup.

Fast forward to the early 90's. Our gardens are well established here on Churchill Road in Portugal Cove. The children are teen-agers. We often had pot lucks on Sunday evenings. The standing invitation was, if you don’t have something better to do, come on over and bring the kids and your pot of luck. There was always some kind of soup, warming on the stove. More than one teen-ager has turned up their nose at the idea of rutabaga or pumpkin soup, only to try it and then, go back in line for seconds. It sounds trite to say, “Try it, you’ll like it!”

Rutabaga (Yellow Turnip) Soup

Ingredients
2 cups Rutabaga (or Yellow Turnip), Cut into Chunks
1 Onion, Cut into Chunks
1 ½ cups Milk
1 cup Chicken Stock

Directions
Grind vegetables to small chunks; strain through, saving liquid.

Fry vegetables in 1/3 cup butter until soft, about 5 minutes. Add ½ cup water and simmer
for about 10 minutes.

Blend in food processor with ½ liquid.

Put in pot with rest of liquid, cook over low heat for about 10 minutes. Stir slowly; add milk.

Heat to serve; do not boil. Garnish with sprig of parsley, 1 tbsp yogurt or whatever.

Suggestions
Try substituting milk with powdered milk or evaporated milk mixture.

Try adding a dash of cayenne and a Tbsp of peanut butter to give hint of Middle Eastern.

Stir until dissolved. Serve hot.