Mini-Calzones

I had some leftover brisket wallowing in my fridge on last week and got it in my head to make some mini-calzones over the weekend. I thought I'd add some caramelized onions and roasted red peppers, but got stumped on the cheese. I stood in front of the cheese fridge at Trader Joe's for at least fifteen minutes picking up one cheese and then another, squinting my eyes and tasting various imaginary flavor combinations in my mouth. Goat cheese? No.... Sharp cheddar? Possibly... Maybe with some BBQ sauce? Sigh.... And then my hand wavered over some smoked gouda. I can't remember the last time I had gouda. No reason, really, I just...haven't.

And standing there imaging how gouda would taste with my smoky brisket etc. etc., I remembered my dad coming home from work with a shopping bag, all excited and jittery as he pulled out a round of smoked gouda and some tart apples. I was probably fourteen or fifteen at the time, and I just remember how happy he was as he cut up the wedges of apples and arranged them around some slices of gouda. "Here," he said, pushing the plate toward me, "Try this!" And with a fair bit of curious trepidation (likely disguised as teenage sass), I mirrored him as he took a slice of apple and layered on a slice of gouda. I bit off a corner and oh my! Good stuff!

I think this was the first time that I realized that cheese could be something other than what was sprinkled over pasta. It could be something more. It could transform my quiet, reserved father into a euphoric, cheese-pushing gourmand. That's some powerful stuff, right there.

And that's how I ended up with smoked gouda in my calzones. Not precisely a 'traditional' filling for calzones, true, but then I've never exactly been one to stand on formalities. I think my calzones and I will be juuuust fine.

I started making these mini-calzones a while back as part of my open-ended quest to find healthy, better-tasting, freezable, and easily-transportable lunch alternatives instead of things like Hot Pockets, Cup-o-Noodles, Lean Cuisines, and their ilk. It took a while to find a crust that fit the 'healthy' profile, until it dawned on me (like a skillet to the forehead) to use my thin-crust pizza recipe. Duh. That dough is perfect for this--thin, but chewy; easy to make and healthy to boot; just enough flavor to give you a nice bread-y background but not so much that it steals the show. Splitting the dough into eight portions seems to give just the right amount of dough for a six-inch calzone. Poi-fect.

The combinations for fillings are really endless. I usually do a medley of meat, cheese, and sauteed veggies--whatever I have on hand. Keep in mind that they are mini-calzones, after all, so there's a limit to what you can stuff in them. I usually weigh out a half-ounce of meat, a half-ounce of cheese, and then layer on as many veggies as I think will fit. Some combos I've done in the past are spicy pulled pork/goat cheese/caramelized onions and red peppers, sausage/cheddar/veggies, eggplant/kalamata olives/feta. You can also throw in a sauce of your choice--BBQ sauce works really well and a dab of tomato sauce is never out of place. Obviously, these calzones can be entirely vegetarian--even vegan, since the crust doesn't have any dairy! Woot!

The only drawback is that these are pretty labor-intensive to make, so I usually set aside an afternoon, make a double-batch of dough and keep on trucking until my fillings run out. I have found that it helps to lay out little piles of fillings in a row so you can just scoop and fold, scoop and fold.

Once they're cool, I wrap them up in saran wrap and throw them in a zip-lock bag in the freezer. A few minutes in the microwave gets the cheese melty and all the insides piping hot.

~~~
Mini-Calzones
(makes 8 with one batch of dough)

1 batch of thin-crust pizza dough (Recipe HERE)
4 ounces of cooked meat, separated into 8 half-ounce piles
4 ounces of cheese, separated into 8 half-ounce piles
sauteed veggies of your choice (onions, green or red peppers, eggplant, zucchini, mushrooms, etc.)

Pre-heat oven to 475-degrees F.

If you haven't already done so, cook your meat and set it aside to cool. Then sautee your veggies in a little olive oil until they are mostly cooked through and set them aside to cool. It's important to cook these ahead of time because they won't cook all the way through in the oven. Also, if you add the veggies raw, they will likely release a lot of liquid in the oven and you'll get mushy calzones.

Find a bowl in your kitchen that is about 6 inches across (in diameter). Use this bowl as a guide to trace 8 circles onto parchment paper. Cut the parchment into 8 pieces with once circle on each piece of parchment. Flip the parchment upside down so the actual pencil/pen mark of the circle is against the counter and your food-surface is clean.

Cut the pizza dough into 8 equal pieces. Place one piece on a piece of parchment paper in the middle of the circle. Press down on the center of the dough and then use the heel of your hand to gently push outward on all sides until you've filled the circle. The dough will be about 1/8 inch thick. Repeat with the remaining pieces of dough and parchment.
Cover each rolled-out circle as you finished with saran wrap or an upside down bowl to keep it from drying out while you finish the rest of the circles.

Place the meat and cheese in the center of the dough and layer on as many veggies as you think will fit (you'll get a feel for it after making one or two). Leave about 3/4 - 1 inch of space around the edge.Lift one side of the dough over onto itself and pinch the dough together in the middle. Pinch all the dough to one side closed and then go back and pinch the other side closed, forming a half-moon. I find it easiest to do this if I pick up the calzone and hold it upright in my left hand like a taco, and then I use the fingers of my right hand to pinch the rest of the dough closed. You can poke any errant bits of filling back inside. Repeat with remaining calzones. (Note--the parchment paper will continue sticking to the dough and that's fine! When the calzone bakes, the parchment will gradually un-stick itself.)
Arrange as many calzones as will fit on a sheet pan. Just before baking, use a paring knife to cut three steam vents in the top of the calzone--go right through the parchment paper. Bake the calzones for five minutes and then flip them over. Bake for another 5 minutes and flip them over again. Bake for another 3-5 minutes until the calzones are golden and browned in spots. This whole baking process takes about 15 minutes in my oven, but it may take shorter or longer in yours. Since the filling is already cooked, you're really just looking for the crust to be a nice browned color. If the edges start to char, that's a sign that they're likely done cooking.

Remove calzones to a cooling rack and bake off any remaining calzones. Once they're completely cool, wrap each calzone in plastic wrap and keep them in a ziplock bag in the freezer. They'll last in there for a few months (if you don't manage to eat them all first...)

I don't get too worried about the calzones splitting open, honestly. These are more functional than beautiful and I'm usually the only customer I have to please! Once they're cool, I tuck any tumbling bits of filling back into the shell and wrap it all up in saran wrap so it's a tidy package for grabbing in the morning and sticking in my lunch bag.

Re-heat for 1-3 minutes on High. I've also eaten them cold (like cold pizza) if they've been thawing in the office fridge for a few hours.

For interested parties and Weight-Watchers folks: The calzone shell alone is 2 points. A half-ounce (14 g) of meat is usually 1-2 points, and a half-ounce (14 g) of cheese is also usually 1-2 points. If I only use a dab of olive oil for the veggies, I usually count them as zero points. So! One calzone is usually 4-6 points or so. Not too shabby for a meal-on-the-go!

Photo of the Week: Behold! More Pasta!

Shaking excess flour from cut pasta.

I know! Pasta! It's really just so cool! And I know you're all out there going, "Yes, Emma! I'm with you! Pasta is really just so cool!" Excellent. I knew I liked you.

This here's some spinach pasta--same basic pasta recipe with a pound of steamed spinach cuz it's pretty. And also because it's "good for growing girls and boys." We rolled it out fairly thick (Level 5 on most pasta machines), so it had a nice chew to it. And it slurped up nicely with a Gorgonzola Cream Sauce.

Tagliatelle Verdi Al Gorgonzola
(c) Roberta L. Dowling 2004, CSCA

Pasta Dough
1 lb fresh spinach, de-stemmed, steamed, squeezed dry, and chopped (I'd imagine you could also use frozen grocery store spinach here if you wanted to save your self some steaming)
3 eggs
4 cups of flour

Stir the eggs together with a fork and then stir in the spinach. Make a well in the flour and pour in the egg/spinach mixture. Gradually incorporate the flour into the egg/spinach with a fork until it comes together in a cohesive ball. (Note: You'll probably end up using more flour with this pasta because of the spinach.) Knead until smooth and let rest for a half hour. Roll out and cut into thick noodles.

Sauce
4 oz. butter
1 c. heavy cream
1 lb gorgonzola, rind removed and cut/broken into small chunks.
3/4 c. Grana Padano cheese, grated
1 pinch nutmeg
salt and pepper
chopped parsley for garnish

Melt the butter and add the cream until it simmers. Cook for a few minutes on low heat. Add the Gorgonzola and half of the Grana Padano cheese tot eh cream sauce and stir gently over low heat until thoroughly melted. Add the nutmeg and season with salt and pepper. Cook the pasta in large amount of salted, rapidly boiling water. Drain the pasta and toss with the Gorgonzola sauce. Serve with an extra sprinkle of Grana Padana and some chopped parsley.

Simple Crispy (No-Knead!) Loaf

This past Thursday, I left my cube to get something at the printer and by the time I walked back (muttering to myself because I'd ALREADY found a typo I'd have to fix), the sky out the window was full of thick, fat flakes. Our offices closed about an hour after that. I was supposed to have class later, but honestly? I just wasn't feelin' it. What I WAS feelin' was going home, curling up on the couch with some knitting and watching the season premiere of "Crowned" taped the night before. And so I sat at my computer in my empty office pressing the refresh button on my internet browser until ("C'mon! C'mon!") the note went up on the school website that classes were canceled. YES!

Three full trains passed through the station before one came with enough space for me to smoosh myself, my two bags of shtuff, and my equipment roll into the crevice between the first step and the door. Two hours later, I finally got off the train and forged the last stretch of the journey on foot because I could walk faster than the traffic. It was cumbersome with the bags, but I actually think they made good ballast to keep me afloat in the snow. And though I managed to keep my footing the whole way, I like to think they would have cushioned my fall. Except for my equipment roll. That would have...yeah, not the equipment roll.

So after I thawed out with a glass of wine and some mother-daughter pageant action, what did I do with my evening off from baking class? Why, I BAKED of course! I mean DUH! What ELSE would I be doing with a night off from school?!

Ahem.

I first saw this recipe for "Simple Crusty Bread" in the New York Times a few weeks ago. It pledged to be an alternative to the No-Knead Bread of recent fame, but even simpler! quicker! and more flavorful! It was this last promise that really caught my eye since, for me, the lackluster flavor of the No-Knead Bread outweighed it's convenience. I was also intrigued by the fact that one recipe made four loaves and the dough would keep in the fridge for up to two weeks, allowing you to lob off a piece whenever the mood struck. In general a slow rise will give you a more complex flavor and better texture, and a 'retarded' or 'delayed fermentation' rise in the fridge will result in a slightly sweet bread, like the slackdough breads I was working on a few summers ago--HERE. I baked off one loaf right away and stored the other three in the fridge for taste-tests over the next few weeks.

Dough just after combining ingredients

My initial reaction to this bread is....(drumroll!)....pleasant surprise. The just-mixed dough was stiff and tacky, and I had very low expectations of being able to shape it into anything resembling loaf. But somewhere over the next two hours of rising, it really pulled itself together. With only a light dusting of flour, I was able to handle it relatively easily and shape it into a nice little ball. I decided to rest my dough on the countertop instead of on the peel as the recipe suggests since I've had a few too many experiences of resting the dough on the peel, going to shuffle it loving into the oven, and having it stick to the peel and turn out looking like THIS despite a generous dusting of cornmeal. I was able to pick the ball up off the counter and plop it onto my peel without too much fuss. It stuck a bit, but then willingly slid out onto the pizza stone. It didn't rise very much in the oven, but it did keep it's nice round shape without deflating at all--an amazing feat for any loaf, if I do say so myself.

The dough after the 2-hour rise

The crust browned very evenly and crackled when I cut into it--thumbs up for that. The crumb was tight and moist with a few larger holes here and there--a second thumbs up. And the taste? Decent! Not as much flavor as a traditionally kneaded bread, but also not too shabby. It's a little salty, but I'm a fan of salt so no complaints here. It even past the second-day-toast-test with flying colors. I also like that it's a smaller loaf, which means that I have a chance of eating it before it goes completely stale or moldy.

I'm really excited to try the other loaves as the dough ages over the next few weeks. Even if there's not much flavor development, I think this is still my new standby Lazy Girl's Loaf!

Shaped loaf

This is what the underside of the loaf looks like after you stretch the top

~~~~~~

Lazy Girl's Loaf (a.k.a. Simple Crusty Bread)
Recipe alone: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/21/dining/211brex.html
Full article: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DEEDB153FF932A15752C1A9619C8B63

Adapted from "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day," by Jeff Hertzberg
and Zoë François (Thomas Dunne Books, 2007)

Time: About 45 minutes plus about 3 hours' resting and rising

1 1/2 tablespoons yeast
1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt (If you don't like salty, try cutting this down to 1 Tablespoon)
6 1/2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour, more for dusting dough
Cornmeal.

1. In a large bowl or plastic container, mix yeast and salt into 3
cups lukewarm water (about 100 degrees). Stir in flour, mixing until
there are no dry patches. Dough will be quite loose. Cover, but not
with an airtight lid. Let dough rise at room temperature 2 hours (or
up to 5 hours).

2. Bake at this point or refrigerate, covered, for as long as two
weeks. When ready to bake, sprinkle a little flour on dough and cut
off a grapefruit-size piece with serrated knife. Turn dough in hands
to lightly stretch surface, creating a rounded top and a lumpy bottom.
Put dough on pizza peel sprinkled with cornmeal; let rest 40 minutes.
Repeat with remaining dough or refrigerate it.

3. Place broiler pan on bottom of oven. Place baking stone on middle
rack and turn oven to 450 degrees; heat stone at that temperature for
20 minutes.

4. Dust dough with flour, slash top with serrated or very sharp knife
three times. Slide onto stone. Pour one cup hot water into broiler pan
and shut oven quickly to trap steam. Bake until well browned, about 30
minutes. Cool completely.

Yield: 4 loaves.

Variation: If not using stone, stretch rounded dough into oval and
place in a greased, nonstick loaf pan. Let rest 40 minutes if fresh,
an extra hour if refrigerated. Heat oven to 450 degrees for 5 minutes.
Place pan on middle rack.

Husk Cherries: A Love Story

Husk cherries stole my heart this summer. They rustle in your hand, weighing nothing and smelling of dust. It seems impossible that inside each paper lantern can hide one single golden berry. They're the humble Cinderella of the farmer's market, for sure.

I walked by them for weeks, achingly curious about what wonderful delight could go for $5 a half pint, until I finally caught one of the farms offering samples. I hovered nearby, pretending to inspect a box of bean varietals while sneaking covert glances at the farmer's demonstration of the proper way to husk these cherries. He grasped the fruit by the stem and gently pinched the shell until the berry popped out the bottom. Denuded berries were passed and sampled. The reaction from the crowd was mixed. A few "mmm..."s and some "Huh"s. One or two folks paused dramatically before saying "Now that's different" and wandering off. My heart fluttered. Could my summer crush really be a bust? When the group departed, I sidled in and casually picked up one of the remaining samples.

"Ever had a husk cherry before?" The farmer asked.
"Me? Um..." (As a chronic know-it-all, my first instinct is always to feign experience.) "Well, actually no."
"Oh great!" He said with real enthusiasm, "You'll love these!"

And without further ado, he popped a marble-sized berry into my open palm. I looked at it dubiously. It was yellow-orange (I'd been expecting red). I could see thin veins running just underneath the taut skin. I gingerly lifted my hand, rolled the berry into my mouth, and bit down. The skin broke without any resistance and my mouth was filled with the subtle, caramelized flavor of just-baked cinnamon bread. I kid you not. I thought immediately of bread. And my second thought was, "Omigod, omigod, omigod, what can I DO with this fruit?"

I've seen them called husk cherries, ground cherries, husk tomatoes, and cape gooseberries (though I think the last one is actually a different variety). These guys are indeed cousins to the similar-looking tomatillo, as well as to tomatoes and wild tobacco. The taste is described as vanilla pineapple, which I was able to agree with upon extensive further sampling and a gentle "down, boy" to my baker proclivities. I would also add "honey" to that description. They range in size from pea-sized to plump marbles like the one I first sampled. In my research, I also discovered that this plant is in the "endangered" section of the Slow Food USA Ark--Rock on, Boston-area farmers! I also found evidence that this would make an excellent container plant. I happen to have several containers and a "warm but not too sunny" back porch....see where I'm going with this? (Yup, already planning next summer's garden and it's not even November yet. This is going to be a long winter.)

So what CAN you do with a handful of husk cherries? The flavor is so subtle that it can get easily overwhelmed by other fruits, so they're perhaps best as solo-players in a green salad, thrown into a fruit-mix or paired with a subtle-yet-tart fruit. They're high in pectin, so if you can afford it or steal enough from friends with CSA's, you can make some very lovely jam. One site I found recommended dipping them in chocolate, which immediately sent my salivary glands into over-production. Personally? I couldn't let go of that first baked-bread taste and have had visions of tartlettes dancing in my head.

Actually, I can't claim that I actually set out to bake a tart. A few weeks ago I was setting out to bake a plum tart (you know, to practice my pate brisee) for a friend who had just returned from a jaunt in La Jolie France. I had just admitted to myself that I didn't have as many plums in my fridge as I thought when my friend walked in with a bag of husk cherries to share. I looked at my handful of plums. I looked at the bag of husk cherries. A little niggle in my brain reminded me of some candied ginger I'd been saving for a special occasion. Brilliance ensued. And here is the recette, in honor of my friend the Tart Savior:

Rebekah's Plum and Husk Cherry Tart

Pate Brisee:
1 1/2 c. flour
3/4 tsp salt
9 TBS cold, unsalted butter, cut into 1" pieces
4-5 TBS ice water

I'll do a longer tutorial on how to make classic pate brisee later on, but here's a basic method:

Combine the flour and salt on your counter top. Use a pastry scraper to cut in the butter until you get pea-sized chunks of butter (you can use the tips of your fingers to break the butter, too, but be careful that the butter doesn't get too warm). Add the water one tablespoon at a time and use just the tips of your fingers to incorporate it into the dough. When you can squeeze the dough in your hand and it doesn't fall apart, stop adding water. Gather it into a ball pat it into a thick disk. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for one hour.

Plum and Husk Cherry Filling:
~10 oz of tart golden plums (weighed un-cut with the stone in), cut into slices
1 pint husk cherries, husks removed
1/2 c. candied ginger
1/2 c. sugar
zest of 1/2 lemon
zest of 1 orange
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2 TBS flour

Combine all ingredients. Cover and set aside while preparing the dough. (The liquid in the plums will dissolve the sugar to make a thick paste. At this point, you can taste a bit and adjust the flavorings to your liking.)

Preheat oven to 375-degrees.

Roll the dough out into a rough, 10" circle of even thickness. Lift the dough frequently as you roll and flip it over to make sure it doesn't stick to the counter. Use a light dusting of flour if things start to get sticky. This is a rustic tart, so the exact size of the crust doesn't need to be exact. Transfer the crust onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Pour the filling into the center of the pie crust and spread it to within 4-5 inches of the edge of the crust.

Looking at the crust as the face of the clock, fold the lip of the dough over the filling at 12:00. Next fold the lip over at roughly 2:00. Then at 4:00. Then at 6:00. Then at 8:00. At 10:00, fold the lip over but then unfold the 12:00 fold partway to tuck the 10:00 fold under so that all the layers fall in the same direction. Brush the top with egg or milk thinned with a little water.

Bake for about 40-50 minutes, until the crust is a deep golden brown. Let cool for about 15 minutes before serving. Sprinkle the top of the tart with Demara sugar (or the spiced gold sugar mix from THIS place) just before serving. Enjoy!

Wednesday Roundup

Current Reality Reading:
Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton

because I've had it on my shelf for, oh, four years without reading it, and now I have been given a big poke in the keister by THIS interview with Paul Elie about his book The Life You Save May Be Your Own, which looks into the lives of Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Flannery O'Connor, and Walker Percy. Because I'm slightly insane, I feel obligated to read at least one work by each person before reading Elie's book. To add another layer of intrigue--at one point or another, I have tried to read at least one book by each person and have failed each time.

Current Escape Reading:

The Woman Who Rides Like a Man (Book #3 of the Song of the Lioness Quartet) by Tamora Pierce

Currently eating:

Spinach Pesto Pasta with Chicken

Followed by too many:

Crunchie Bars that the Engineer's aunt and uncle brought me from Scotland. Soooo delicious and addictive. P.S. Here's a link to how you can make your VERY OWN Crunchie bars! (Click HERE). I dipped mine in chocolate, and will eventually post pictures, I plomise.

Currently wanting to make:

Fruit and vegetable preserves (a.k.a. Stuffing my squirrel cheeks for winter)--link HERE.

Also thinking about:

Starting a food-only satellite blog to My 3 Loves. Any suggestions for clever creative names that haven't already been taken by some of these clever creative people? A dinner (or goodie care package) courtesy of yours truly if I pick your name for my blog title!

Almost done knitting:

THE DAISY DUKES!!!

Then I'll be on to knitting:

Christmas Presents. For real. I mean it this year. No, I really do!

And that might actually be possible because:

Patriots Season (I mean Football Season) starts on Sunday!

Except I'm probably going to be just a leeetle bit distracted by THIS....

Sick Days and Daisy Dukes

I got bowled over by a summer cold yesterday, completely out of the blue. No sniffly warning signs, no dry-cough indicator. Just woke up yesterday morning and proceeded straight to the moaning stage. Where normally I would soldier through and keep on trucking through my regularly scheduled life with no regard to what my body was trying tell me, I thought I'd try something different this time around and actually take a break. So I came home early yesterday and ended up staying home again today. The past 48 hours have been a tough regimen of naps, tea, movies ("Shortbus" was not what I expected--wowzas), and more naps.

Having said all this, I'm now at the antsy "everything in my apartment bores me, but sitting upright for more than a few minutes feels like dying" stage. And then I remembered, Oh yeah. I have a blog! So far this post has taken me about an hour to write because I keep putting my head down on my desk and taking a little catnap. That sounds more sad than it really is. I think. Actually, I feel a lot better!

Here, help me with my knitting:

I started working on the daisy dukes a while ago, loosely based on the Sweetheart Shorts pattern over at Knitpicks (I keep typing that as sweatheart shorts, but that's...not at all what I'm going for). I decided to use some navy blue cotton yarn because I couldn't find any denim at any of the yarn stores within public transit distance. I also accidentally threw away the label, so I can't tell you exactly which yarn or dyelot I'm using. I know, I know. A knitter's biggest faux-pas. Alls I can say is that it's been a rough few months, and well, it's just yer basic navy blue cotton dishtowel yarn, so I think we'll be ok.

I also decided to use the pockets from an actual pair of jeans instead of knitting my own. The tricky part was figuring out how to knit the front so that the pockets from the jeans would line up. I spent the entire time while I was waiting for a standby flight to Minnesota last April inexpertly plotting the slope of the pocket and matching it to my gauge. I felt veeeery smart when I was done, let me tell you!
The knit pocket actually lines up perfectly with the jean-pocket, but I moved the knit piece askew a little so you can see what an awesome job I did with that pocket shaping.

So--I will knit the front and the back in two separate pieces and then join them together at the bottom of the pocket. I already had to rip out and restart once because I am knitting the front and back pieces separately on straight needles, but my gauge was taken from knitting in the round. I know, I know--another big knitting faux pas to so brashly assume my gauge would be the same (unless you're a knitter, I know you don't care a lick about gauge, but trust me, it can be a real brat). Anywho, easily remedied by going down a needle size for knitting the front and back and then switching to the larger needles when I joined the pieces for working in the round.

And then I realized my second mistake. The sweetheart shorts pattern has you start increasing for shapeliness around the hip and bottom region after about an inch and a half. I figured (again, oh-so-brashly) that my pockets would be about an inch and a half and I'd start shaping as soon as I joined the pieces. Well, this would have actually been fine. If I'd remembered. Instead, I was so excited at working in the round that I whipped off several rows and now I'm at about two and a half inches. So here's my Dilemma Emma, do I rip the three rows and go back to do the shaping correctly? Or do I soldier through and keep on trucking through my regularly scheduled knitting?

No, don't say it. I know what you're going to say. I know what I have to do. I have to. My conscience will never let me live with subpar knitting. Even for a pair of daisy dukes. I will have to rip it, and rip knowing full well that I may very well drop all those cast-ons at the bottom of the pocket and just have to start completely over. It's ok. I'm still going to be sick another few days. I still have plenty of daytime TV to catch up on. *sigh*

Oh, but here's the exciting part that I need to figure out soon: I want to intentionally knit little tears in the bottom hem of the shorts--like Kay's Raspy sweater HERE. I can probably figure it out myself, but it would probably be a good idea to track down a copy of Denim People to get the full story.

And on that note, I feel another nap coming on. Or some tea. But not together. Bad combo.

Emma's Feel Better Tisane/Tea/Whatever-Cuz-It-Makes-Me-Feel-Better Drink:

Cuppa hot water
A coupla scoops of honey
A teaspoon-ish of fresh grated ginger
Half a squeezed lemon

Ahhh....

First Signs of Spring

The sun was so shiny this morning that immediately upon waking, I flung open all the windows and opened the back door wide, letting in all the fresh air and sunshine I could. Last November when I was cleaning up my little container garden and making everything tidy for winter, there was one stubborn pot of zinneas and snap dragons that just refused to give in to the cold weather and kept popping out new flowers. I decided to let well enough alone and enjoyed the view of these hardy few blossoms through my kitchen window well into December. It was so cold by that point that I never got around to cleaning the dead stems from the pot.

This morning I decided that I was well past due for this particular task--especially since I need to soon start planning more wee little seedlings--and went at it with gusto. I yanked out the dry brittle stalks and rubbed grains of warm, damp soil between my fingers. Task completed, I was patting the soil dreamily with visions of bounty to come when I noticed a little fleck of green off to one side. Closer inspection revealed one tiny zinnea seedling, an ungerminated leftover from last year who somehow knew it would have a very important role to play on this April morning. I sighed with contentment and said a little prayer in thanks of unexpected beauty. New growth from old growth--I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere, but for now I will simply stroke its leaves with my fingertip and murmur praises in its lime green ears.

Food: Reunited with Old Friends and a Brief Parting

This is a short little post (though like so many of my posts, it will likely ramble on beyond what could technically be called "short") to let you know that I may be a bit sparse with my postings for the next few weeks. There are a lot of things swirling around in my life right now to which I need to give some attention. I just need wait and see what the view is like when the dust settles. In any case, never fear; I will return with tales of what I've been up to and recipes and musings in short order. This blog has become a home to me and you always come back home eventually.

Until then, please content yourself with the following Artifacts of Comfort and Joy. At least they bring comfort and joy to me if only because they wander into my life so rarely these days.

Nutcracker Sweet Tea is hands down one of my favorite teas ever, and believe me, I've tried a lot of teas in my day. I usually find the teas made by Celestial Seasonings to be a bit...'too much.' Too sweet, too pungent, too...zingy. Despite these experiences, I was lured in by the description of black tea with vanilla extract and cinnamon--so many of my favorite flavors. And indeed, it is a basic traditional black tea smoothed with a subtle taste of vanilla, a pleasing nuttiness, and just a touch of cinnamon. It's also one of the rare times when a beverage tastes just as good as it smells--I could happily sit here typing away and inhaling the scent of this tea for hours, taking little sips when the mood struck. I drink it black, but it would probably be grand with milk. A word of caution, be sure to remove the tea bag after about 5 minutes or the tea gets too bitter.

Since Nutcracker Sweet is from their "Holiday Tea" line, it's only available during the holiday season. Once I fell in love with it, spotting the first boxes in the grocery store became my personal sign that the holiday season had officially begun. A few years back, I realized that if I stocked up right at the end of the season, I could just stretch my boxes through the spring and summer until the next holiday season rolled around. I did this with a bit of trepidation that the magic and delight of this tea would wear off if it became an everyday commodity, but there was nothing to fear. Love knows no holiday season.

Unfortunately, the past two years, these boxes of Nutcracker Sweet have been even more scarce than usual. Last year, I didn't see any being sold in stores until after Christmas and I was barely able to stock enough boxes to last me through April. This year, I didn't see any at all. I'd been toying with the idea of actually going to the Celestial Seasonings website and ordering a case of the tea (Love, folks, this is love) when I spotted two dusty, lonely boxes sitting discarded on the very bottom of the discount shelf last week at my co-op. Last week! As in April. As in not at all close to the holidays. Where these boxes came from and how long they'd been in the stock room, I have no idea (and I don't really want to know). I'd been checking the shelves of this co-op regularly for months (a few other favorite bagged teas of mine have recently disappeared from shelves, but that's another post), and never saw Nutcracker Sweet in stock. You can be sure I grabbed these two right up, went straight home, and brewed myself a fresh cup. Ahh....Love.

And the other week, a second reunion was celebrated in my kitchen when a friend brought back two bricks of Smoked Cheddar Tillamook Cheese from her recent trip to Portland, Oregon. When the Engineer and I lived in Portland, we put this stuff in EVERYTHING. In fact, I can't think of a single dish we regularly ate that a healthy handful of Smoked Cheddar Cheese wouldn't make better. Eggs? Check. Pizza? Check. Annie's Mac and Cheese? Check. Stale crackers? Double check. Tillamook Cheese is an Oregon icon. It's fun to wander around their website HERE and a stop to wander around their visitor center, licking fresh ice cream and nibbling on squeaky cheese (cheese curds that literally squeak between your teeth when you bite down) was a requisite part of any trip to the Oregon coast. If you're in the area, I highly recommend stopping by.

This smoked cheddar cheese has a sharply cheddar bite and is literally infused with the hardwood smoke for a truly unique cheese experience. Every bite is like sitting around a campfire. These two bricks are literally and figuratively gold! (That's my one Pun o' the Post. I'll quit while I'm ahead with that one.)

And if you manage to get your hands on some Tillamook Smoked Cheddar, one possible manifestation of your riches could be in the form of my For-Real Sandwich Loaf.
My thought behind this loaf was to take the sandwich prep out of...um...making a sandwich, and just put all the typical sandwich ingredients in the loaf. That way, if I'm crunched for time in the morning because I forgot it was Recycling Day or I fell asleep in the shower completely by accident, I can just cut off a slice and call it lunch.

Dang, I just realized that I never posted my recipe for basic, non-sourdough bread to this blog, which is what I used for this recipe. Oh, well, I'll do an abbreviated version of the recipe here and describe it in detail another time (see what I mean about this post no longer being technically 'short'?!). In any case, if you don't want to use my recipe, or if it's confusing, feel free to use any bread dough you like and just add the cheese, spinach, and sausage when I say to in my instructions. (PS if you don't eat meat, just leave out the sausage and this would make an excellent cheese loaf!)Summer Sausage Cheese Loaf (a.k.a. For-Real Sandwich Loaf)

For the poolish (starter):

1/2 cup (4 oz) water
1/2 tsp dry yeast
3/4 cup (4 oz) flour

In a medium sized bowl, dissolve the yeast in the water, add the flour, and mix these all together really well--about 100 strokes. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit on your counter overnight or about 12 hours. It will rise and fall, but ultimately it will about double in size and the surface will look really bubbly.

For the bread dough:

2 1/2 cups (20 oz) water
1/2 tsp dry yeast
5-6 cups (26-31 oz) flour
1 Tablespoon sea salt
1-2 cup spinach
3 c cheese, shredded (alternatively, shred half and cut the other half into strips. Add the strips at the same time you add the sausage)
2 10-oz summer sausages (or chorizo, un-cut salami, or any other hard sausage)--cut into long strips

Dissolve the yeast in the water. Add the poolish and mix until slightly frothy. Add in enough flour until the dough begins to pull away from the sides of the bowl. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead for a few minutes just to bring the dough together. Cover with the upturned bowl and let rest for 10 minutes.

Create a well in the center of the dough and add 1/3 of the salt. Fold the dough on itself and add another 1/3 of the salt. Fold again and add the last of the salt. Knead dough for 10 minutes. Cover with the upturned bowl and let sit for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, clean the spinach and cut it into small pieces about the size of your thumb. Steam it slightly (I microwaved it on High for about 30 seconds). You want it wilted, but not complete mush.

Knead the dough for about 5 minutes more. As with the salt, add the cheese and spinach in batches and knead until they are evenly spread throughout the dough. The dough will get a bit wet and you might have to add more flour than normal. It's ok if it feels a bit wet, but it shouldn't be sticky or gummy to your hands.

Place dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and allow to rise for about two hours or until doubled in size.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface without deflating it. Divide it into two pieces and set aside one piece. Pat the remaining piece into a long rectangle with the shorter end closest to you (in other words, lay the rectangle out like a portrait rather than a landscape image). Lay half of the sausage strips like rungs on a ladder across the width of the dough. Lightly press the strips into the dough. Roll the dough away from you, making sure that the strips stay positioned so that they roll up in a spiral rather than all clumped together. Place loaf in an oiled loaf pan. Repeat with second half of the dough.

Allow dough to rise until the surface of the dough just clears the rim of the loaf pan--about an hour. Preheat the oven to 450-degrees. When the loaves are ready, pat the surface with a bit of flour and cut three diagonal slashes about 1/2 inch deep. Spray the tops with water and put in oven. During the first five minutes of baking, quickly spray water a few times into the interior of the oven and on the surface of the loaves. Bake for 20 minutes and reduce heat to 400-degrees. Bake for another 20 minutes until the surface is a nice caramelized golden color and the loaves sound hollow when thumped on the bottom.

Let cool and enjoy! Slices are best when toasted.

Cooking: Snow Days and Soda Bread

Since I didn't manage to extract myself from the cozy, multi-blanketed nest of my bed until well after the snow had passed from pristine prettiness into half-melty sludge, I give you this picture from Boston.com taken yesterday afternoon. Besides being yet another beautiful example of the fashion faux pas and arch-collapsing train wreck that is the Ugg boot (oh, why do I torture myself?), this photo so perfectly captures how unwilling we Bostonians were to deal with snow after a week of 55-degree weather--much less the blizzardy ice storm with sideways blowing snow pellets that we ended up getting. In my my three years in Boston, I can't help but notice that Bostonians have quite a time-honored "willing suspension of disbelief" going on here. To name a very few, we are willing to believe:

• That work on the Big Dig will eventually be finished.
• That if I dig my car out of the snow and leave a lawn chair on the spot with a note saying, "My Spot--Don't Take," no one will, in fact, take my spot.
• That the T runs on time, and when it doesn't, this is a completely unprecedented event.
• That Dunkin' Donuts makes the best coffee in the universe.
• That every year is "Our Year" for the Red Sox to win the World Series (And when the Red Sox really did win back in 2004, the entire city shut down for days--not because everyone was so elated that they finally won, but because literally no one knew what to do with themselves.)
• That if you let your dog poop in the un-shoveled sidewalk snow, the poop will magically have disappeared come spring when the snow melts and will not, in fact, sit in a frozen, petrified pile two inches from where I'm waiting for the bus. (I don't have a sassy web link for this one, but maybe it's better that way.)
  

Fuggedaboudit.

A good pummeling of snow seems to bring out the best and the worst in people. This morning, it's bringing out the best. Determined to make Irish soda bread for a St. Patty's Day party later today and lacking the proper ingredients, I cinched on my snow pants, laced up my snow boots, and prepared for the worst. But then...the worst never came! When I realized that my local CVC doesn't carry buttermilk* and realized that a bus trip to the nearest Stop&Shop would be in order, I was sure my good mood was doomed. But then, miracle of miracles, a bus appeared on the horizon mere moments after I arrived at the bust stop. In attempting to board the bus, I managed to drop my shopping list, wallet, and T-pass at the same time, thus delaying the boarding of fellow passengers and departing of the bus. I apologized profusely to the bus driver, but instead of rolling her eyes or gazing disdainfully past my left ear--a normal and accepted reaction to passenger ineptitude--she actually said (get THIS!), "No problem. Welcome aboard." No problem? Welcome aboard?! Did anyone else hear that? But no, my fellow passengers were gazing placidly out the windows, not even minding that I was (continuing) to delay the bus by standing in the doorway, immobile with disbelief.

At the grocery store a group of local firefighters all dolled up in their boots and suspenders were shopping for a St. Patrick's Day dinner together--a very meaty St. Patrick's day dinner, as became increasingly obvious as I followed them around the grocery store. (Side note: I wasn't actually "following" the firefighters in the stalking sense; our shopping routes just happened to coincide is all. Though they were pretty adorable.) There was one Papa Bear Firefighter with the cart and all the other firefighters kind of orbited around him, bringing him cuts of meat for approval, adding condiments to the cart, dropping off sodas. I was especially touched when one swarthy-looking fellow added two beautiful purple rutabagas to the mix. I loves me a veggie-eatin' firefighter! And the whole time, the group was joking with each other, teasing the Stop&Shop employees (who they seemed to know quite well), and chatting with fellow customers. They even posed for a few pictures. It was all very heartwarming.

I found all my purchases, trotted back to the bus stop, and again waited mere moments for another bus to show up. The doors slid open and who should I see but my new favorite bus driver! "Good morning," she said as I climbed up (managing not to drop anything this time). "Good morning!" I chirped in reply. When I got to my stop, I actually walked all the way to the front of the bus just so that I could say, "Thank you!" as I got off. "You're welcome," she said gravely as the doors wheezed shut behind me.

And in one last feat of snowy-day good cheer, I passed the mailman on the short walk from the bus stop to my house. I always feel bad for mail carriers on the particularly gross weather days--rain or shine, they're always out there, but they always seem quite willing and happy to be doing what they're doing. In any case, peering at me from beneath his fur-lined, US Postal Blue hat**, my mailman said, "Hello! How are you?" "Quite well, thank you! And you?" I replied. "Oh, I'm great!" he said, and slushed past me, whistling a little tune.
-----
*By the by, I'm not quite sure why I thought CVS would carry buttermilk, but I rilly wanted to believe it would--ahh...there's that suspension of disbelief! Hey, I'm a real Bostonian!

**Every time I see a mail carrier now, I totally think of the Project Runway episode where they have to redesign the US Postal Service uniform. I saw a mail woman a few days ago wearing a particularly fashionable uniform (I thought) and I almost stopped and asked her about it. That was on a day when snow was making Bostonians grumpy, though, so I decided not to.
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Irish Soda Bread

I've shied away from soda bread for a long time. My memories of it are of dense, dry, crumbly bricks with little taste or satisfaction, which are left in the bread basket long after the hunks of airy baguette and elegant slices of sourdough have been claimed. In the build up to St. Patty's day, a number of recipes for soda bread--both sweet and savory--came my way and I decided to give it a whirl in my own kitchen.

I decided on a sweet bread with raisins and nutmeg and held my breath as the rocky, unappetizing balls of dough baked into golden loaves twinkling with granulated sugar. In both taste and consistency, this bread reminds me of scones. The crust is both crunchy and crumbly, with a satisfying chew. The interior was cakey and moist, rich with a light sweetness and chewy little nuggets of raisin. This cake was the perfect finish to the corned beef stew cooked by our St. Patrick's Day hostess, and was wonderful on its own, smeared with butter, or paired with the traditional sharp cheddar cheese.

In my research for this recipe, I found that soda bread is traditionally baked in a cast-iron skillet so that the top and bottom get crunchy and brown evenly while the middle stays cakey. I don't have a cast iron skillet (yet--I know, I know, it's sin that I don't have one yet), but I thought I could replicate the effect in my dutch oven. This recipe makes two loaves, so I baked one in the dutch oven and one on a regular baking sheet. (In the picture of the two loaves above, the one on the left was done in the dutch oven.)

Both loaves rose about the same amount, but the dutch oven loaf had a rounder shape and more even surface; where the loaf backed on the sheet was craggier and less uniform in shape. Additionally, the loaf baked in the dutch oven did indeed have a more even brown color and crunchier crust while the inside was noticeably more moist. The verdict? If you have a dutch oven or cast-iron skillet, I definitely recommend baking the loaf in it--just add about fifteen minutes to the baking time and remove the lid in the last five minutes. However, if you don't have a dutch oven, never fear--your bread will disappear just as fast.

Sweet Irish Soda Bread

Makes 2 loaves

4 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
6 Tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon nutmeg (1 1/4 tsp if using freshly ground)
4 Tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into chunks
1 1/2 cups thick buttermilk
2 egg yolks
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/2 cups raisins (purple or golden)

Set oven to 375-degrees. If using a dutch oven or skillet, put it into the oven to warm as the oven heats.

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar, and nutmeg. Add the butter and use the tips of your fingers or a pastry cutter to work the butter into the flour until it reduces to pea-sized bits. Add the raisins and toss to coat with flour (this helps the raisins stay suspended in the batter).

In another bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, th egg yolks, and the vanilla. Create a well in the center of the flour mixture and pour in the liquids. Use a wooden spoon to stir the mixture until all the ingredients are combined and the dough easily comes together into a ball. It will be very moist and shaggy.

Divide the dough in half and form each half into a ball. Use a sharp paring knife to slash a cross into the top of each loaf about 1/2 inch deep, a traditional feature of soda bread that also allows the dough to expand while baking without cracking the surface. Sprinkle each loaf with a few pinches of granulated sugar.

If using a dutch oven or skillet, drop the dough (cross-side up) into the bowl and cover. If using a baking sheet, cover a baking sheet with parchment paper and set the dough in the middle. Bake loaves for 40 minutes or so until the surface is evenly golden, the center is set, and a cake tester (or toothpick) inserted into the center comes out clean. (Loaves baked in a dutch oven may need another 15 minutes to bake. Leave the oven uncovered for the last 5-10 minutes of baking.)

Allow the loaves to rest at least 1/2 hour before serving.

Weight Watcher's Points: Each loaf is about 34.5 points total. If you slice it into 12 wedges, each wedge is about 3 points a piece.

Food: Muffin Bake-Off!

It's a cold and dreary Saturday afternoon here in Beantown, USA--about time given all the warm weather we've been having here this winter. It seemed like a perfect opportunity to finally collect all my little recipe notes and taste-testing thoughts on my Lemon Anise Spice muffins and put everything together in proper recipe formation. Plus the deadline for the recipe contest I want to enter this into is Wednesday, but whatev.

I was hosting a Craft-ernoon at my house a while back and wanted to serve all my crafty little friends some muffins that were both familiar and a bit more...dramatic. Looking through my cupboards, cardamom immediately jumped out at me as a good pairing with the creamy flavor in basic muffins. Think chai tea with milk while lounging sumptuously on a red velvet sofa, and spicy after-dinner toddies just before you snuggle into bed. The anise was really added as an afterthought. I tasted the batter and decided it needed that something "extra," and was surprised at how the anise ended up stealing the show. A few tablespoons of lemon brought all the ingredients together (Lemon goes with poppy seeds and anise is about the same size as poppy seeds, right?).

The resulting flavor is exactly what I was going for--familiar ingredients put together in an unfamiliar combination resulting in something new. The primary flavors are lemon and anise, but that little touch of cardamom rounds out the edge and highlights the best qualities of both the lemon and the anise. The basic muffin recipe I use for this results in a denser muffin than you might be used to seeing. This makes it a perfect brunch item since the cakey fluffiness is a happy medium that both muffin and scone lovers can enjoy. Note: Other citruses would probably work equally well here--tangerine, orange, Meyer lemon...

Lemon Anise Spice Muffins
with thanks to Orangette for the basic muffin recipe HERE

Ingredients:
3 c. flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
scant 1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cardamom
2 Tbsp anise seed
3/4c + 1 Tbsp milk
2 Tbsp buttermilk
4 oz unsalted butter (at room temperature)
3/4 c + 1 Tbsp sugar
2 large eggs (warmed to room temperature)
2 Tbsp lemon zest (about the zest of 2 medium lemons)

Note: It's important for the butter and eggs to be at room temperature.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit with rack on the middle position. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with muffin liners (or spray with non-stick coating).

In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cardamom, and anise. In a separate measuring cup, combine the milk and butter milk and set aside.

In the bowl of a stand-mixer or using an electric hand mixer, beat the butter and sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy. Add the lemon zest to the butter-sugar mixture and mix until just combined. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition until just combined and no trace of yolk is visible.

With the mixer on low, pour in one-third of the milk mixture and then one-third of the dry ingredients. Continue to alternate between the milk and dry ingredients until all ingredients are incorporated. Your dough should look pale yellow and shaggy.

Divide the batter between the twelve cups and bake until the muffins are firm to the touch and a cake-tester inserted into the center muffin comes out clean--about 25-30 minutes.

The muffins are wonderful on their own, but you can also brush the tops with melted butter and press them into confectioner's sugar for an added treat.

WeightWatchers: Using 1% milk, 12 muffins is 5.5 points per muffin. These make pretty big muffins though, so you can easily make 24 muffins out of the same recipe and still have a healthy muffin to munch on. If you make 24 muffins, each muffin is about 2.75 points each.

Food: Sausage, Barley, and Alien Soup

At first we were afraid. Very afraid. Imagine, Emma the Innocent is innocently chopping vegetables for a nice pot o' sausage, barley, and mushroom soup. Engineer the Brilliant is expounding on vector-based something-or-other, which involve moments of gobbledegook and forces corresponding to jibberish. Emma the Innocent nods sagely and pulls another parsnip from the grocery bag....or DOES she?! Screams of terror! Vector-based forces collide in moments! Counter attack--we'll EAT him out!
When that proved too crunchy and tasteless, we decided to make friends. Here's the Engineer and his new friend communing.
Aw, shucks. We're gonna miss that little guy!And then we decided to sacrifice him to the Gods of Hunger and put him in our soup pot. As if in comic retribution, the resulting soup was bitter and lacked depth of flavor. I've made this soup before with wonderful, no-leftovers-left-over results, so I can only conclude that parsnips are not a good substitute for carrots (which I loathe) in this particular dish. The whole time I choked down my bowl, I kept thinking, "Dang. I really just want the taste of potatoes in this." So next time? Potatoes.

In an attempt to salvage the rest of the pot, I tried sprinkling my next bowl with a healthy portion of freshly grated Parmesan cheese. (Cheese can never hurt, right? Though I was worried about wasting my lovely Parmigiano Reggiano...) While parsnips still are definitely not the best choice for this soup, with the addition of cheese, the soup went from "inedible" to "acceptably decent." It wasn't until days later while reading "Umami: A Taste By Any Other Name" by Rowan Jacobson (published in The Art of Eating, Issue No. 72) when I realized that what was lacking in the soup--and what the Parmesan made up for--was the flavor of umami.

Umami literally means "the essence of deliciousness" in Japanese, and is a legitimate fifth taste with its very own taste buds alongside those responding to sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. At its most basic, the flavor of umami comes from the amino acid glutamate (of the ill-famed MSG additive). The umami flavor can perhaps best be described as 'savory' and is found in protein based foods where the protein has begun to break down--like aged and cured beef, anchovies, soy sauce, and, yes, you guessed it, Parmesan cheese. In fact, the little tiny white crystals in Parmigiano Reggiano are granules of an amino acid with umami flavor. As Rowan Jacobsen says in his article, "Whenever a soup or sauce 'needs something,' chances are that something is umami--and, chances are, a Western cook will mistakenly add salt instead." Oops. Guilty. Too bad I didn't read that article until after I'd made the soup...

Here is the soup recipe for your very own experiments. Unless you feel like playing around with umami, I'd recommend leaving the parsnips to their alien conspiracies. The original recipe (found HERE) calls for celery and carrots, but since I don't like those things, I leave them out. I might try adding potatoes for a little more body and starch next time I make it, but I've also made it a few times with the recipe exactly as I've written it below and loved it. Enjoy!

Sausage, Barley, & Mushroom Soup
Makes 4-6 one-cup servings

• 1 large onion, diced
• 4 links of turkey or chicken sausage (spicy or sweet, as you prefer)--slit each link down the center and remove from casing. Break into crumbly pieces with your fingers. (Or you can chop them if you're grossed out.)
  
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 tablespoons fresh thyme, chopped
• 1 1/2 cups of portobello or baby bella mushrooms (I use 1 carton from the store)
• 5 cups shiitake mushrooms (about 1/2 lb), stems discarded and chopped (this is best when mushrooms are in season and you can find them at farmer's markets. Otherwise, I add a second carton of baby bella mushrooms.)
• 1 cup barley
• 6 cups chicken stock
• Salt and Pepper to taste

In a large stock pot, saute the onion in a few teaspoons of oil until soft and translucent. Add the sausage and cook until the sausage is browned. Add garlic, bay leaf, and thyme and stir until garlic is fragrant. Add mushrooms and cook until mushrooms just begin to sweat and shrivel. Add chicken broth and barley.

With the lid off, bring the soup to a boil. Once boiling, cover and reduce to a simmer. The soup is done when the barley is tender. If you have quick-cooking barley, the soup will be ready in about 15 minutes. Regular pearl barley will take about 45 minutes. Check seasonings and add salt and pepper to taste.

WeightWatcher's Notes: I use Al Fresco Chicken Sausage in this soup, which is 70% less fat than regular sausage. It comes in a lot of good flavors and the quality is good for use in soups like this. Depending on the flavor you get, one link is 3 - 4 points. The pot usually makes about 6 cups or more, so a serving is about 3.5 points for a one-cup serving. Depending on the type of sausage you find, you should double check the points. The total for the entire pot of soup before adding the sausage is 6 points.

And don't forget, Parsnip Aliens have feelings too.