July 16, 2014 Lunch Soup, Dinner Pizza, Cut finger, and Vichyssoises

July 16, 2014  Lunch  Soup,    Dinner  Pizza,   Cut finger, and Vichyssoises

I ate the rest of the soup for lunch with a newly sprouted handful of purslane from the driveway.

Purslane is what Suzette calls a “super food”.  It looks and cooks like green algae, but it makes me feel clean and clear and good.

After 5:00 we were removing the cloves of garlic Suzette had roasted on Sunday from the pods and putting the sticky cloves of garlic into bottles and Suzette added olive oil to preserve the garlic for later use. 

At 6:15 I cut my finger badly with my new knife when I started to cut leeks for vichyssoises.  I was holding the leek stalk and cutting down from the outside and the outer skin of the leek and the knife slid onto my finger and made a surgically deep cut into the skin and nail.  The lesson here is to not put your finger near where the knife blade can go, but more importantly to organize your cutting so that you do not have any place for the knife blade to slide.  What I discovered was that you can organize the cutting.  In this case I cut segments crosswise along the stalk of leek and then cut vertically down through the sections that now could lie flat on the cutting board, so the knife cuts down through the flat surface of the column of leek and can not get pushed off the side of column by a sliding piece of skin because there is only a flat surface for the knife to pass through.  Anyway Suzette went to Walgreens and bought lots of butter fly bandages and several bandages I had never seen before that are made especially to bandage fingers.  One made with gauze wrapped around rubber bands that can be pulled over a finger to protect it with a sheet of gauze and a more ingenious one that is actually a tiny rubber condom that seals the finger in a protective sheath of rubber.  Here is a picture of my finger with sheathed in the latter.

Suzette put a blob of anti-bacterial ointment on the cut and then a rolled gauze bandage and then the small condom and rolled them up the finger to cover and hold the cut closed and they sealed the cut from the air.  Suzette said that the two finger bandages are used in the food service industry and are considered sanitary and safe methods for treating cuts.  Who knew?

Anyway, after I stopped most of the bleeding and got the bandages on the finger that acted like a tourniquet the bleeding stopped and I was able to continue cutting leeks and potatoes for the Vichyssoises.  I used Julia Child’s recipe for the Vichyssoises from her Mastering the Art of French Cooking Vol. 1., page 39. It is simple.

Vichyssoises

3 cups of chopped potatoes

3 cups of the whites of leek, chopped

1 ½ quarts of white stock, chicken stock or some other stock

A dash of salt

1 cup of heavy cream

Salt and pepper to taste.

Preparation directions: You cook the chopped potatoes and leeks in the stock until they are soft.

You then puree the cooked soup mixture in a blender with 1 cup of heavy cream (Suzette used half and half)

Add salt and pepper to taste and chill overnight.

An incredibly easy soup, and my favorite summer soup.  I especially like it garnished with finely minced chives.

Suzette is going to serve Vichyssoises in August at the Bistro with the surface decorated with streaks and dabs of different colored herb and spice infusions to imitate the actively colored surface of a Jackson Pollack painting for the Art of Food tour sponsored by Edible Santa Fe.  She informed me that she will be taking some of this batch of soup to the Bistro tomorrow for decoration experimentation.  We discussed how to make a yellow and I suggested mustard, but I now think turmeric would work well for a more orange color.

So after my big surgical emergency with my finger and a couple of hours of cleaning garlic, Suzette suggested that we not cook and instead eat a pizza for dinner and I agreed immediately.  I drove to Little Caesar’s shop across the bridge and bought a $5.00 large pepperoni pizza.  When I returned home with the hot baked pizza, I sliced the whites of three large Mexican scallions and two white mushrooms and spread those ingredients on top of the pizza and we baked the pizza for an additional 5 minutes at 400˚ to bake the ingredients into the pizza and I went to the basement for a bottle of chianti.

I selected a 2010 Castello de Monastero produced by Lionello Marchesi (Denominozione di Origene Controllata e Garantita).  The back label offered this additional information:

                “Legendary inventor and entrepreneur Lionello Marchesi has fulfilled his lifelong dream and passion for wine, pioneering state of the art techniques to create high quality artisanal wines that fully express the terroir and sprit of Tuscany.  85% Sangiovese with 8% Merlot and 7% Cabernet Sauvignon”

We both agreed that the Chianti was delicious and very clean tasting.  The merlot seemed to give the wine body and the cab gave it a lightness and floral quality.   We liked it a lot and at $4.99/bottle on closeout at Quarters it was a deal.

I know I am supposed to act like a grown up and buy better wines for $10.00 to $20.00 per bottle but some of the best wines I have ever drunk are among the least expensive and I count this Marchesi Chianti Superiore among them. I guess I just keep gambling on hitting a great closeout deal like this one.  Of course this one was tried and liked at Barry and Kylene's Christmas party on or about December 15, 2013

After dinner Suzette fixed me a bowl of European yogurt and PPI figs poached in port.

Bon Appétit