Weekly Dish

Towards the end of February, I get a little antsy. Some might call it cabin fever, but that isn’t really accurate; I get out of the house often enough. No, my end-of-winter jitters stem from the kitchen end of things. I look in the fridge, especially at the end of the week, and I try hard to get excited about finding a creative use for the bunch of carrots languishing in the crisper or the bag of sweet potatoes that seems to never end.

But sometimes I just can’t do it.

And, so, sometimes, instead of concentrating my energies on making a healthful dinner out of the seasonal ingredients I’m desperately trying to still adore (but am secretly wishing to bid goodbye for a time), I make dessert instead.

Please don’t tell anyone.

It’s just that dinner can get a bit routine come March. We eat lots and lots of broccoli: simply steamed and tossed with sauteed garlic, dressed up a little more with cashews and soy sauce, tossed in pasta, folded into an omelet with caramelized onions, pureed with chicken broth and cheddar cheese for soup. And while I love all of these meals — truly, I am thankful that farm-fresh broccoli bears only the slightest resemblance to its tough-stemmed bland cousin carried in supermarkets, and I happily toss the tender, earthy-tasting florets and stalks into all manner of meals. These quick dinners get us through the winter without breaking our budget or sending us calling for take-out.

Yet, at the end of the day, especially fickle, neither winter nor Spring days, I find myself staring into the recesses of my tiny pantry hankering to do something more with my culinary energy. Something with a little more fanfare than broccoli, again.

Last week, when this urge struck, I found a bag of Meyer lemons calling out to me, as they so often do to waken me from my winter slumber, and they asked, quite emphatically, to be made into a simple cake.

Because I grew up in the South, heiress to a whole host of vintage recipes calling for ingredients that I don’t normally buy now that I’m a little fussier about things like chemical additives and artificial sweetners, I particularly love the idea of taking an old recipe and revamping it. I heard about this one, for lemon-lime ice box cake, on NPR’s lovely segment, Kitchen Window, some time in the fall, and when I saw those Meyer lemons, I knew this cake was the one for me.

I wasn’t so concerned with the green that make the original recipe lemon-lime, — I like the striations of yellow, personally — so I stuck with lemons for all of the citrus flavor and left out the food coloring. And, while I’m sure run-of-the-mill lemons would work perfectly fine, if the season has left you any Meyers, their tempered tartness and hints of sweet florals make this cake truly irresistible.

So irresistible, in fact, that it might just get me from broccoli to asparagus. Maybe even, come fall, I’ll be wishing for winter days and the lemons they bring. That, my friends, would be a powerful cake.

Happy Easter to one and all!

Lemon Icebox Cake
Just a single layer, topped with a simple whipped cream topping, this cake’s humble appearance belies its big flavor. Which, to my mind, makes it an even better candidate for taking to an event, like an Easter dinner — no one will expect the buttery, lemony explosion as they take the first bite, and you, the humble baker will get all the praise. Not that that’s why you bake for others, of course, but just in case it’s an added bonus you appreciate.

A couple of ingredient notes: I find measurements that suggest how many lemons you need for the amounts of juice and zest to vary so widely that they are unhelpful; I measured the quantities of both as I used them, but especially for the zest, it’s okay to estimate. Fresh lemon juice is absolutely essential; yes, it takes time to zest and squeeze all of those lemons, but the result is well worth the effort.

As for the curd, a high-quality store-bought version would probably be fine; the original recipe calls for stirring it with a little water, so that it’s the right consistency to pour over the cake. I found that the texture of homemade curd, especially just after it’s made, worked perfectly.

Lemon Ice Box Cake

For the cake:

3 cups cake flour
3 t. baking powder
1/4 t. salt
1 cup butter, at room temp
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 cup buttermilk (whole milk works too)
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
2 t. grated lemon zest

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Stir together the flour, salt, and baking powder in a small bowl and set aside.

In an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, and continue to beat until the mixture has doubled in volume.

Remove the bowl from the mixer, and with a rubber spatula, fold in the flour mixture and the buttermilk, alternating by thirds, until both have been incorporated. Stir in the juice and zest.

Pour the batter into a greased cake pan, and bake for 30-35 minutes, or until just moist (not wet) in the center. Turn the cake onto a rack to cool.

For the curd:

1 cup fresh lemon juice
1 cup sugar
1 T. grated lemon zest
4 large eggs, beaten
2 T. butter, diced

Whisk together the juice, sugar, zest, and eggs in a small saucepan. Stir constantly over medium-low heat, until the mixture thickens and coats a spoon. Remove from the heat and stir in the butter. When the cake has cooled slightly (it’s fine if it’s still warm, just not oven-hot), poke holes all over it with the bottom of a wooden spoon. I like to poke holes of varying depths — for some, go all the way through to the bottom, for others, just a prick in the top, and then, some in between. Pour the curd over the punctured cake, allowing it to seep into the holes. I had about 3/4 cup of curd left over. Let the cake stand while you whip the topping.

For the topping:

8 ounces mascarpone cheese, at room temp
1/2 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 t. grated lemon zest
4 T. lemon juice

Whip the cream on high until soft peaks form. Add the powdered sugar, zest, and mascarpone; beat on medium-low until just combined. With the mixer running, slowly pour in the lemon juice. Spread the topping over the whole cake.

If you beat the mixture too long, the mascarpone will curdle, but that’s okay; it will smooth out some when you spread it on. And if it gets really lumpy and ugly, it will still taste good, but if you’re concerned about the appearance, whip some extra cream by itself to spread on top (like I did).

You can serve it warm — straight from the pan — or refrigerate and serve it cold. We liked it equally well both ways. It cuts into neater pieces once it’s been chilled.

–Adapted from April Fulton’s adapted recipe on NPR’s Kitchen Window 

My dad has always reveled in the curiosity of little ones. As I was growing up, the firstborn, I think he was always terrifying my mom by tossing me higher and higher in the air, spinning me faster and faster as he swung me in circles, coaxing me into trying all manner of new things. Now that I’ve given him his first grandchild, I have a feeling that he will turn his daredevilish attentions on my daughter.

Part of what’s magical about grandchildren, I think, is that the wonder of a baby who’s just learning her world never changes, but now, fearing for her safety is my responsibility. Dad gets to enjoy the unblemished joy of my daughter’s laugh when he places her face to face with her first live puppy without worrying about whether or not she’ll be afraid. If she gets upset, he can just hand her back over. The thrill-seeking of adventure has always been a favorite pastime of my father’s, so having a brand new pair of eyes to delight with his antics provides lots of entertainment when we visit, for both Dad and Josie. She lights up when he comes around the corner, greeting her with his big smile and booming voice. He wears the mantle of grandfatherly delight like he’s been doing this for a long, long time. Of course, my mom might tell you that fearing for our safety was never Dad’s territory; perhaps he’s been a doting grandfather at heart all along.

It is fitting then that it was Dad who first introduced me to raw oysters, what seemed to me at the time as the most adventurous of foods. He convinced me to try lots of different things simply by pretending that I wasn’t grown up enough; if Dad thought it would be daring and precocious for me to try it, I desperately wanted to. Which is perhaps the reason I started drinking coffee with my breakfast before junior high. I wonder what would have happened had he declared broccoli and spinach stuff for more mature eaters only.

But oysters it was, and joining my father in raw oyster consumption became something of a holiday tradition around our house; come December, they always seemed to appear in our kitchen, piled in a slippery mound in a colander, awaiting Dad’s famous cocktail sauce and Saltine crackers. That’s still my favorite way to enjoy them, but when I married David, I joined my culinary adventures to a man who does not share my love of raw mollusks. So over the years, I’ve experimented with different ways to cook them, and this is my most recent favorite. It’s perfect for our combined preferences — the oysters are poached just briefly enough to take the chill off, while retaining the silky texture I so love about raw ones.

Because of my association of oysters with the holidays, I tend to buy them this time of year, particularly when we’re having a meal to celebrate something, whether it’s our first Christmas as parents, or the start of my last semester before I start dissertating (Lord willing).Paired with champagne, this dish made for a deliciously simple celebratory meal a few weeks ago, as we toasted the end of our first semester juggling our roles as parents, teachers, and students. As we discussed what kind of eater our daughter would be, we both hoped that she would fall on the adventurous side, willing to try anything. As long as she spends time in her grandfather’s kitchen, I’d be willing to guess that she’ll be as eager to take culinary risks as I was; perhaps she’ll at least join us in our raw oyster revelry. And if not, there’s always this middle ground, which I like just as well so long as I’m sharing it with someone I love.

Poached Oysters with Bacon, Spinach, and Cream

We like to eat this just the way it comes out of the oven, with a couple of slices of bread to mop up the pan juices, but I can also imagine that it would pair nicely with thin pasta or a bed of mashed potatoes.

4 slices bacon, diced
Half a medium yellow onion, chopped
1/4 cup chopped green onions
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 cups fresh spinach leaves, chopped
1 pint oysters, shucked and drained, liquor reserved
2 T. heavy cream
2 T. reserved oyster liquor
coarse salt, to taste
1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs
1/4 cup Asiago cheese, grated (Parmesan will also work)
zest of 1 lemon
2 T. butter, softened

Preheat the broiler. In a large, lidded oven-proof skillet, cook the bacon until crispy. Remove the bacon pieces from the skillet, reserving a thin layer of the rendered fat (a tablespoon or two). Cook the yellow onion in the bacon fat over medium heat until very soft and golden, around 10 minutes. Add the garlic and green onions and cook for a few minutes more, until the garlic is soft and aromatic.

Add the chopped spinach leaves to the skillet and stir quickly, coating the leaves with the fat and wilting as you move them around the skillet. Add the cream and oyster liquid, stirring to combine, and cook and stir for a few minutes, until some of the liquid has reduced and the spinach is tender. Sprinkle with salt.
Stir in the bacon pieces, and spread the spinach mixture in an even layer in the skillet. Lay the oysters on top of the bed of wilted spinach, nestling them into the liquid, and put the lid on, allowing them to poach for just a couple of minutes, or just until the edges curl up slightly.
Meanwhile, combine the bread crumbs, cheese, lemon zest, and butter.

When the oysters are curling up at the edges, remove the lid, and stir them into the spinach. Spread the crumbs on top and broil briefly, just long enough for the crumbs to crisp and brown, about a minute (but watch carefully). Serve immediately, with crusty bread, if you like.

Did you have black-eyed peas and cabbage for your New Year’s meal? We did — twice, in fact; once, prepared by some friends who invited us over on the actual first, and Thursday too, because I had already bought the fixings for the traditional peas, cabbage, and cornbread.

This might sound strange to those who know me well, as I have never been a lover of either peas or cabbage. I have learned to fix them to my liking, though, mostly because my husband loves them so — the cabbage, I braise with a green apple and red onion, while the peas get a more Tex-Mex treatment: garlic, jalapeno, cumin, and chile powder. Perhaps not as traditional as it could be, but a definite improvement for me and my finicky relationship with both legumes and cruciferous vegetables.

Even if I have learned to like them this way, the whole time I was braising the cabbage and stirring the peas this year, I couldn’t stop thinking about salad. Oh, yes, it was in the twenties outside, frigid for this part of the world, even in January. And I enjoyed my hot meal of cabbage, peas, and cornbread, which we topped with poached eggs, just fine. After it was over, though, I was still thinking about what those ingredients would taste like in salad form, despite the chill in the air.

So salad it was, for dinner last night, a panzanella of sorts, modified with southern ingredients, particularly those considered lucky to eat on the first of the year. The pepper jelly vinaigrette softened the cornbread croutons and jazzed up the cabbage, while the goat cheese melted into the creamy peas in a way I wouldn’t have expected (I’m imagining the peas in dip form, blended with goat cheese…) to make a salad that was surprisingly tasty. In case you have some of these spare parts rumbling around in your fridge, post-New Year’s, here’s a delicious way to use them up. And it just might make you doubly lucky to boot.

New Year’s Cornbread Panzanella with Hot Pepper Jelly Vinaigrette

These proportions will make two dinner-sized salad. If you have a heartier eater on your hands, I think bacon or ham would work well to up the caloric anty; a poached or fried egg would also sit nicely atop this meal.

2 cups cornbread, cut into cubes
Olive oil
1 cup black-eyed peas*, cooked and cooled
1 T. red onion, finely chopped
2 cups green cabbage, sliced into ribbons
1 ounce goat cheese
Hot Pepper Jelly Vinaigrette (recipe follows)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Toss the cornbread cubes with olive oil and toast them in the hot oven for about 20 minutes (or as long as it takes to chop everything else and mix up the dressing).

To assemble: lay the cabbage ribbons in a single layer on two plates. Top each pile of cabbage with cornbread croutons, peas, and red onion. Divide the goat cheese into two equal portions, and crumble it on top of each salad. Drizzle with dressing.

*I used frozen peas that had been cooked in water for about 25 minutes, but I think leftover peas, cooked as you like them, would work too.

Hot Pepper Jelly Vinaigrette

1 clove garlic, minced
3 T. hot pepper jelly
1/4 cup cider vinegar
Squeeze of lemon
1/4 cup olive oil
Salt, to taste

Whisk together the garlic, pepper jelly, vinegar, and lemon. Pour in the oil in a slow steady stream, whisking vigorously until well-incorporated. Salt to your liking.

By nature, I am not a baker. Bakers, see, are precise. And organized. And neat. Rule-followers, usually. I am a cook. Intuitive, messy, and definitely a spirit-of-the-recipe kind of girl.

But, oh how I love to bake. Yes, this seeming paradox sometimes manifests itself in a great big doughy mess — cakes, especially, sometimes go terribly, terribly wrong under my erratic hand. Sometimes, though, every so often, a recipe for a baked good just feels right. As if I could do it little harm, even if I tried. These are the sorts of recipes that fall into my kitchen routine quietly, and before I know it, I’ve made the same kind of cookie or muffin or bready item a dozen times, and by some happy accident, they have turned out deliciously every time.

I first made these sandy butter cookies last holiday baking season, after I read about them on Orangette. Molly is right — this is quite an unassuming cookie, nothing much to look at. But it is exactly the sort of cookie that you can pile high on a plate, and before you know it, the plate has only tiny little crumbs to show for all your baking work. Left out, these cookies just get eaten, that is all there is to it.

I made these a number of times through the course of citrus season last year — I love them with Meyer lemon zest, as the original recipe calls for, but as you know, I have a supply of orange zest needing to be used. Orange zest marries so marvelously with plain old butter and sugar, I thought it would land happily in these simple little cookies.

Everyone has her own form of procrastination, and mine happens to be baking. So last week, when I should have been working on the semester’s final projects, I decided to make cookies for my students to eat while they took their final exam. David thought this recipe was an odd choice — he says these cookies are too sophisticated for college students’ palates. Perhaps he’s right, but as happens when they’re at our house, the platter piled high with cookies sat empty as my last student turned in her stapled stack of papers. As she walked out the door and wished me happy holidays, she turned around and said, “Oh, by the way, those cookies are good.”

Indeed they are. Simple, yes. But the separate flavors — orange here, a kick of sugar crystal there, finished with a bite of salt — come together after the crumbly texture has dissolved to make you want to take just one more bite.

Before you know it, you’ll be itching to make them again. Perhaps, like they have done with me, these cookies will work their way into your holiday baking ritual, and before you know it, you’ll have made them a dozen times. Happily they make great gifts. Or so I tell myself when I’m trying to remember what happened to all those little buttery disks.

Citrus Sables

–Amanda Hesser, via Orangette

Molly says you can bake and freeze them to give away, and that would be a lovely thing to do if you could keep from eating them all. That hasn’t happened around here yet, but I’m planning to wrap up the next batch to send with a couple of holiday care packages. They might not mail terribly well — they crumble a lot — but maybe if wrapped really well, they’ll do okay. I have frozen the wrapped cylinders of batter with good success; in fact, for a while, I kept at least one log of dough in the freezer for good measure — just in case a rainy cookie day appeared out of the cold, clear blue sky.

I usually hate recipes that call for only egg yolks or whites. Once I tried these, though, and kept making them, I had to think of something to do with all those whites, as I can’t stand to throw them out. Hang onto yours and stay tuned — a 4-egg-white recipe is coming your way shortly.

Other than that, the recipe is pretty straightforward, and I haven’t changed it much. I used demerara sugar in place of the turbinado, (Do you know demerara sugar? It is a lovely, lovely molasses-esque coarse sugar that I have grown to adore. They have it at my local grocer’s, and if you come across some, buy it. You’ll be happy you did.) and substituted orange zest for the Meyer lemon.

One urging — don’t skimp on the salt, and whatever you do, don’t use plain old table salt. What happens when you stir the coarse salt in at the end is that the granules hold their shape rather than dissolving into the batter, so the flavor is concentrated in tiny little bursts (rather than making the cookies salty). If you’re skeptical, at least try it with the full 3/4 teaspoon. It will look like a lot, but once you bite into a cookie, I think you’ll be glad you did.

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 t. baking powder
2 T. orange zest, grated (or other citrus zest)
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3/4 t. coarse sea salt
4 large egg yolks
1/3 cup coarse sugar, like demerara

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone mats.

In a small bowl, combine the baking powder and flour. Toss in the orange zest and stir until it’s coated with the flour mixture.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter and sugars with the paddle attachment until smooth and creamy. With the mixer running, add the egg yolks. Scrape down the sides of the bowl if you need to to make sure the egg is fully incorporated into the creamed butter and sugar.

Turn the mixer down to low and add the flour mixture, a little at a time, just until the flour is no longer noticeable. Stir in the salt.

Divide the dough into 4 equal portions. Drop each portion onto a piece of plastic wrap, and using the wrap to work the dough, form it into a long, slender log. Refrigerate for at least an hour.

Now the cookies are ready to slice and bake; I’ve left them in the fridge for as long as a week, or you can freeze the logs of dough by wrapping them in foil or dropping them into a plastic freezer bag.

When you’re ready to bake, spread the coarse sugar onto a plate. Roll each log of dough in the sugar, pressing with your fingers to make sure it sticks. Slice disks of equal thickness (about 1/4 inch) and place on the baking sheet. They will spread out a little bit, so leave a little space between them. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the bottoms take on just a hint of color and the edges are beginning to turn golden. Makes somewhere between 6 and 7 dozen cookies, depending on the size of your slices.

Last fall, David and I bought an orange tree to plant in our yard, next to the Meyer lemon tree he bought for the first birthday I celebrated in Baton Rouge, right under our bedroom windows. We’d just found out that I was pregnant with Josie, and the tree planting felt symbolic somehow, a visible reminder of the life I was busy growing inside of me. Oh, I know, I’m such an English teacher — my students would tell you that I find everything symbolic. Still, the orange tree meant something. Something important, even if just to me.

When we bought it, the man at the nursery told us that citrus trees are generally safe to plant here because it only freezes in southern Louisiana about once every ten years. Citrus trees don’t like to be frozen.

The winter after we bought our orange tree (and many other non-freeze-tolerating plants), only the second winter we’d lived here, it froze. Twice. The hibiscus leaves shriveled, the elephant ears bowed their heads to the ground, and the basil finally kicked the bucket. But the citrus trees, especially the orange tree, I was determined to protect. During the week of the freeze, David would scamper outside before we went to bed, and stake up bedsheets to cover the little still-green shrubs. Every morning, I’d wake up and look out the windows to see if I could tell if they were still alive. And every morning, they were.

So, when they blossomed in the spring, basking our backyard in a sweet, flowery aroma, just weeks before my due date, my attachment grew stronger. I photographed them and talked to them and breathed in their heady scent with a sentimentality that is probably particular to women in the third trimester of pregnancy.

And, as the rules of nature dictate, the flowers eventually gave way to tiny round green globes, and Josie made her way from inside my belly out into the big bright world.

Once the oranges were there, hanging from the branches, they didn’t do much deserving of notice. They were growing, to be sure, and every so often, I’d glance out the window and think, “Wow, those are really getting bigger.” Unlike the care they required to keep them alive during the freeze, or the showy way their flowers demanded attention with their unmistakable scent, the little green oranges grew inconspicuously, day by day, drinking up the sunlight and water they needed to ripen.

Until, one day a few weeks ago, they seemed ready to be picked. I took my basket outside, gathered the small, orange orbs, and brought them into my kitchen. I ate a couple of them just as they were, but they don’t have the most exciting flavor. They are sweet, but subtly so, and not very acidic. The scent of the zest, however, is overpoweringly orange-y, so I grated it all, and started trying to decide what to do with it.

David went through a scone phase over the summer — he tends to bake in frenzied sprees: first, there were muffins, then cookies and biscuits and bread, and, for a while, scones. I remembered that he made the orange chocolate chip ones from Once Upon a Tart…, and they were good, but we agreed that the chocolate overwhelmed the delicate orange flavor, and made them quite rich for breakfast.

So, with the zest and juice from our newly harvested oranges, we made scones, buttery, soft scones with a lovely whisper of orange in every bite. As we sat on our deck this past Saturday, nibbling scones made from our first oranges and watching our giggly baby, now almost seven months old, I was reminded that the emergence of life is at once the most ordinary and the most remarkable event, no matter how expected or natural or commonplace.

And so it is with food, it seems, as our daily existence requires that we fuel our bodies with what the earth produces, or some variant of it, but that act, the act of feeding ourselves and each other, however everyday and routine, can possess great magic. Perhaps I am imbuing a simple scone with more meaning that it deserves, but I have to tell you, as I sat with people I love, eating food that my hands had made from ingredients our little patch of earth had grown, I felt a sense of connectedness and joy that I don’t find in many other areas of life. As the busy, harried holiday season is gaining speed, I hope that you will find a way to share a little food magic with people you love. And, if you happen to want that magic to come in the form of a scone, I highly recommend this one.

It is, after all, the season for both citrus and sharing. Happy magic-making to all!

Orange Scones

4 cups all-purpose flour
4 t. baking powder
1 t. salt
1 cup sugar
1/4 t. freshly grated nutmeg
3 sticks butter, diced
4 large eggs
1 t. vanilla extract
1/2 t. almond extract
1/2 cup freshly squeezed orange juice*
1/4 cup orange zest (loosely packed strips)*
2 T. orange marmalade (optional)**

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, and nutmeg until well-mixed. Add the butter and work it into the dry ingredients with a pastry blender. Be careful not to over-mix; you just want to blend until there aren’t visible traces of the butter and the mixture looks like little round crumbs. (Jerome and Frank say to do this in a food processor, but we don’t have one big enough.)

Toss the orange zest with the flour and butter (I use my hands; you just want the zest to get evenly distributed).

In a small bowl, whisk the eggs, and then stir in the vanillla, almond extract, orange juice, and the marmalade, if using. Pour this mixture on top of the buttery crumbs, and fold, just until the dough sticks together and the flour has disappeared. (Jerome and Frank recommend a wooden spoon for this job; I like to use a sturdy spatula). Watch carefully to prevent over-mixing. As my friend Tee will tell you, over-mixing makes for a tough baked good. (And just in case you’re put in charge of mixing in his kitchen, be very careful! He hates to see anything over-mixed, much to the amusement of his wife, Kathryn, who probably over-mixes just to annoy him.)

Spoon the dough onto the parchment-lined baking sheets in scant 1/2-cup rounds (about a palmful of dough from my hands). Make sure to leave space between the scones, as they will spread as they bake. You may have to bake in batches, depending on the size of your baking sheets. Bake for 18-24 minutes, or until the tops are golden and the edges are beginning to brown. Serve immediately. Baked scones are only good for the next couple of days, but the batter will keep in the fridge for at least a week. We usually bake 4 at a time until the batter is gone. It will make about 12 scones.

*You’ll need about 3 medium-sized oranges or 2 large ones for the zest and juice; I use the long strips of zest you get from using a claw zester.

**We’ve made the scones with the marmalade and without (it’s not something I keep in my fridge), and I can’t really tell a difference, so I’ll leave it out from now on.

–Adapted from Once Upon a Tart… by Frank Mentesana and Jerome Audureau

As I have written here before, I do not winter well. Granted, I do not live in a climate with an especially long or harsh winter, but perhaps the perception of the deep south as a relatively warm place tricks me into thinking that I shouldn’t have to suffer winter at all. Adding to the illusion, cold weather doesn’t really kick in here until after Christmas, so I come up from a brisk, chilly holiday season thinking that spring should soon be on its way.

Only, I’d better get through January and February first. This winter has been especially cold and wet — it rained and stayed below 40 degrees every day for the first three weeks of the spring semester — but I’d braced myself to be prepared. After all, aren’t pregnant women chronically hot? I’m afraid carrying an extra person around with me has not made the wet chill in the air easier to endure as I’d hoped.

Just when I thought I could duck beneath the covers and stay until April, the Japanese magnolia in our front yard burst into purple and white blooms, showering the ground beneath with a welcome carpet of petals quietly announcing that the end must be near. Armed with this tiny bit of hope for warmer weather, I determined to make it through the next few weeks of blustery cold. To get me through and provide sustenance for our growing little family, David and I got into the habit of making soup on Sundays.

A fitting winter Sunday afternoon project, making soup requires leaving the stove on for hours at a time and ends with comfort food to last through the week. If you are just barely surviving winter where you are, I highly recommend this seasonal therapy. For me, it accomplishes several things at once: it warms me as I cook it, it warms me when I eat it, and it provides food for us on the nights when I just want to come home, put on my pajamas, and crawl into bed without standing over the stove. Soup has surely saved us from many a night of take-out (although we’ve had our share of those too). If you’re hankering for a warm bowl of something to tide you over until spring, head over to A Veggie Venture, where Alanna has been collecting soup recipes all month long.

This tortilla soup, adapted from the Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook, is not particularly difficult, although it does require a few preliminary steps before you throw everything into the pot to simmer. The complexly layered flavors reminds me a bit of a hot gazpacho: fresh with garlic and onions, rich with tomatoes and broth, smoky with the heat of the dried chilies. The onions and garlic I used were especially pungent; next time I make it, I might saute half of them to soften their bite just a bit.

A word about the dried chilies: the Lees call for a combination of anchos or mulatos and pasilla or guajilla chilies. I couldn’t find either of the latter two, so I substituted another dried hot variety, chiles de arbol. If you can’t find any dried chilies at all, I would recommend substituting roasted ones (poblanos would work well, I think, combined with a hotter pepper like a habanero or a serrano). Canned chipotles would also add an interesting note of smokiness and heat.

Whatever you do, don’t skip the toppings — they make the soup, in my opinion.

Vegetarian Tortilla Soup
2 cups corn or canola oil
4 whole dried chiles ancho (or other sweet-smoky pepper)
4 whole dried chiles de arbol (or other hot pepper)
10 soft yellow corn tortillas
Ground cumin
Chile powder
Seasoned salt
5 cups vegetable broth (you can substitute chicken broth for a non-veg version)
1 28-ounce can chopped tomatoes, with liquid
1 large yellow onion, diced
6 cloves garlic, chopped,
Kosher salt, to taste
Cracked black pepper, to taste

Toppings:
1/4 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup sour cream
zest and juice of 1 lime
1/4 t. chile powder
1/4 t. seasoned salt
Cilantro, chopped
Avocado, sliced

Heat about an inch of the oil in a soup pot. While the oil heats up, prepare the dried chiles: slit each one down its side, remove the stem and seeds, and cut into large pieces. (Kitchen shears are well-suited for this job). Add the chile pieces to the hot oil in batches, toasting for about a minute per batch. They should be a little soft and fragrant. Remove with tongs to a plate and set aside.

Add the rest of the oil to the pot and heat to about 350 degrees (medium-high on my electric stove). Meanwhile, cut 6 of the tortillas into thin strips; leave the remaining 4 whole. Line a plate with paper towels. Fry the whole tortillas one at a time for about 1 minute per side, or until crisp. Remove to paper towel-lined plate and season immediately with cumin, chile powder, and seasoned salt. Repeat with tortilla strips, which will crisp faster. Discard the oil.

To the pot (I used the same one), add 2 cups of broth, diced onions, chopped garlic, and the canned tomatoes and liquid. Sprinkle with a palmful of Kosher salt. Bring to a boil. Add the toasted chiles. Crumble in the whole tortillas. Simmer (bubbles just below the surface) until the liquid has reduced by about a fourth, about 10-15 minutes. At this point, you’re going to puree the soup in a blender. Here’s what I recommend: pour the hot soup into the blender and let it sit for a few minutes to cool.

Meanwhile, you can prepare the toppings: stir together the buttermilk, sour cream, lime zest and juice, and seasonings. Wash and chop the cilantro and/or green onions. Slice the avocado. Get out some bowls.

When you think the soup is cool enough not to explode your blender, place a dish towel over the top of the blender, and pulse a few times. If it appears to be behaving, puree until smooth. Return the pureed soup to the pot, add the remaining broth, and bring back to a simmer. Serve with a dollop of the lime cream, a handful of cilantro, slices of avocado, and a fistful of tortilla strips. Be warm and think lovely thoughts of a coming spring!

PS: Thanks to all who have sent pregnancy encouragement my way; your thoughts and words of kindness have brightened many a dreary, tired day!