LUNCH: leek-potato soup with chive oil

The leeks were the last fresh thing I pulled up from my garden two weeks ago, and I vowed then to do it earlier next year because my hands were caked with wet black dirt and sluggish from the cold. (The cooling trend didn't reverse: It's 1 degree F. today.)

For lunch today I wanted to use them up, but frankly I'm a little sick of leeks in vinaigrette, and potato-leek gratin, and potato-leek soup.

In a gush of mad creativity, I thought "what about leek-potato soup?" It sounds like a brainstorm you'd hear from a three-year-old, but when pushed to its limits, and with the addition of some of the chive oil I made and froze in September, this soup managed to squeeze one more facet out of plain old potato soup. It tastes profoundly of fresh leek (the chive oil really helps) and more like summer than winter, which is a welcome change.

(dirty garden fingerlings)

Just after adding the potatoes to the stockpot, a little northern drama arose. Aaron had said that he was going to go to the little pond to skate and I said, Okay, okay, not thinking much of it, busy editing something and thinking of soup. After an hour passed, I called his cell, which went to message. I started to get scared, envisioning him falling through the newly-frozen ice. (We've only had a week of low temperatures--how thick could it be?) I'll just add the chicken stock, I thought and put the soup on the diffuser on low. Wait, but it would be so much better with garlic. I grabbed a couple and then had a moment of self-scathing doubt: "you're adding garlic to the soup when he could be freezing from hypothermia?"

What happened next tells the story of my obsession better than anything I could ever write.

I whacked one clove out of its skin, found my micrograter in the big drawer in record speed, grated it quickly into the pot, added the stock and threw on my boots and hat and coat and ran out the door. Grabbing a 2 x 8 from where it leaned up against the wood pile (in case I'd have to pull him out from the shore), I jammed the dirty board against the upholstery of my car and took off down the road, turning off onto the trail to the little field which is scarred with frozen ruts. I ran down to the pond, finding him happily circling around our little private skating pond.

He was cold when we got back, though, and appreciated the soup. Slurping it down, he told me that the pond's only 3 feet deep in the center. Good to know.

Leek-Potato Soup with Chive Oil

4 ounces bacon (4 thick slices), diced
4 Tablespoons butter
1 pound leeks (3 large)
1 pound potatoes, such as fingerling or yukon gold, peeled and diced
1 clove garlic, grated finely or pressed
2 1/2 cups chicken stock
1 cup water
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme, crushed
1 bay leaf
3/4 teaspoon salt
15 turns ground black pepper
2 1/2 cups milk (some half-n-half or cream would make it richer)
1/3 cup chive oil (recipe below)

Trim the bottom and top of the leek, leaving 3 inches at the top from where it begins to split off. Cut them in half and split them lengthwise. Run each half under running water, pulling back the leaves, to remove all dirt. Place face-down on paper towels, and then dice into small squares.

Cook the bacon in a stockpot until lightly crisp and remove. Add the butter, leeks and some salt and pepper. Cook until wilted and bright green.

Add the potato, seasoning with more salt and pepper and cook until beginning to soften. Add the garlic and cook one more minute. Add the chicken stock, water, thyme and bay leaf and simmer for 1 hour, or until the vegetables are tender.

Smash roughly with a potato masher, leaving some coarse chunks of potato. Add the milk and remaining salt and pepper to taste. Keep the heat below a simmer at this point to prevent the milk from curdling. Stir in 1/4 cup of chive oil. Serve immediately, with bacon and the remaining chive oil for garnish.

Chive Oil

1 1/4 cups thinly sliced fresh chives
1/2 cup canola oil
1/4 teaspoon salt

(Unless you have a high-speed vita-mix blender, slicing the chives is crucial. Put long lengths in there and you'll be rewarded with a mixture that looks like chewed-up grass. It won't ever puree. I speak, sadly, from experience.)

Put the chives in the blender and add the salt and a drizzle of oil. Blend on high, continuing to drizzle in oil until you have a fine puree. Don't strain. Pour out into a metal bowl set inside a bowl of ice water. Stir continually until cold. Store in the refrigerator, or portion into freezer bags and freeze up to 1 year.

Get Your Ducks in a Row

Here it is, Midwestern Bounty. Or, Food for the Hard Times, which may be coming our way.

Aaron's Grandma Irene saved this picture to give to me. It was taken in the basement of her house in Grand Island, Nebraska, probably circa the 1970's. You can almost feel the coolness of the basement and the insistent, bright heat trying to muscle its way in through the window. Not everyone knows this, but it can be ungodly hot in the middle plains states in September.

But the thing that strikes me about the photo, after the sheer volume of jars and all the hard work it took to fill them, is the inevitable homogeneity of the winter table. After all, this is a family of three we're talking about here. That's a lot of applesauce! Daily applesauce, I'd say. And twice-weekly carrots.

Crunchier By the Day

Living up here in the middle of the woods, all hippied-out, shuttling between garden and pantry, I feel like I should be making more granola. I love my mother in law’s granola when I’m at her house: the almost burnt peanuts, the way the darkened clumps bleed into the milk and turn it beige.

But I’m never happy with the granola I try to make at home. It’s never as sweet nor as crisp as it should be, never quite good enough to make me forsake my daily fried egg and toast.

A friend brought up a bag of special granola a few weeks ago, from a boutique-y food shop in Minneapolis. It was pretty good, if a little finely crumbled—like a bagful of dregs—but it had a curious richness to it. The ingredients on the back listed the expected—oats, honey, maple, flax, sunflower, etc . . .—and then the unexpected: peanut butter. Could you add a paste like that to granola? Wouldn’t that ruin its crunch?

Turns out, the peanut butter tenderizes it and it holds onto its crunch, too. I tried it a few days ago, and it’s fantastic. I woke up too early, as usual, and as I tried to lose the needy baby clinging to my ankles, whining and pulling at my pajama pants, I finally pulled him up to sit on my hip and thought of something to make that would make both of us happy. Peanut butter granola.

I hadn’t even wiped the sleep out of my eyes (or out of his) so following a recipe was beyond me. I plopped a hefty spoonful of peanut butter in a bowl, added honey and water, and whisked until smooth. Rifling through the spice shelf, I found the ground cinnamon. For crispness I needed oil, so I added a stream of canola oil and whisked until it emulsified. Then, (putting the baby down to play with some Tupperware) I dumped in about 3 cups of oats. Spanish peanuts were the only type of nut I had, so in they went. So did the last of the bag of dried coconut in the fridge. Once mixed together, I spread it all out thinly on a baking sheet and baked it at 375 degrees until it was crisp and brown. I like dried fruit in my granola, but not over-caramelized, hardened bits of dried fruit, so I stirred some dried currants into the warm granola after I pulled it from the oven.

Now I’m pretty sure I used a lot more peanut butter than the granola I was emulating, due to a sleepy lack of judgment. But the peanut butter flavor is wonderful. And it has an odd effect of tenderizing the granola, making it more like crumble topping or streusel than granola. Regular granola tends to stick in the baby’s craw, and he makes that terrifying choking face, but this stuff he loves and can eat easily.

This all begs the question: what about adding tahini? Or almond or cashew butter? Like a good little homesteader, I'm headed to the co-op.

Peanut Butter Granola

1/2 cup smooth peanut butter (I'm a fan of Skippy Natural)
1/2 cup light honey
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup canola oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 1/2 cups instant oatmeal (regular okay)
2/3 cup dried coconut (optional)
1 cup spanish peanuts
3/4 cup dried currants or raisins

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Whisk the peanut butter, honey, water, salt and cinnamon in a bowl until smooth. Whisk in the canola oil in a stream until emulsified.
Mix in the oatmeal, coconut and peanuts.
Pour out onto two heavy cookie sheets, spreading evenly. (I line mine with either a silpat or parchment for easier clean-up.)
Bake at 375 for 30 to 40 minutes, or until dark golden brown.
Twice during baking I pull the sheets out and spoon the edges into the centers, then redistribute. This keeps the edges from burning. If some edges do burn, I spoon them out and put them into a bowl for my husband, who actually likes it that way, to snack on. (He's an old-maid popcorn lover, too.)

Buckcakes

As the sound of a distant gun shot recedes from hearing, I am reminded again that we are living through the fourth day of Minnesota firearms deer opener. We keep our fingers crossed: The baby wears a bright orange hat, when he's not yanking it down in frustration.

Signs of the season are everywhere: big trucks, their drivers seemingly gripped by buck fever (hopefully not by beer) make three point turns right in the middle of the highway; you can spot discarded hunting orange knit hats crumpled in the crease of nearly every dashboard; and more literally, the dead deer strapped to roof racks pile up at the Two Inlets Country Store. The hunky iron scale sitting outside the store wears dots of blood.

But there are sweeter notes to this deer hunting thing. Yesterday I passed my neighbor's 13-year old daughter as she stood on the road at the top of the creek bank, drowning in a men's small orange camo jacket. She held her oversized rifle safely, hands at 10 and 2. We exchanged a few words, a few laughs, she shifted from foot to foot, and she seemed under the completely normal spell of middle-school bashfulness. I left daydreaming about how it would dissipate when it came time for her to pull the trigger, and about the resoluteness she'd need to put her knife to its warm belly and the lack of squeamishness she'd need to yank out its guts.

I guess sweetness needs to be tempered. And no one around here seems to see the incongruity of baked goods that commemorate a mass execution. Deer cookies are everywhere, their heavily frosted faces looking suspiciously like Bullwinkle to me. Hank savored his "co-coo" the other day fully, identifying the eyes before chomping them.

Today the Menahga Bakery, a tiny but warm-blooded coffee house at the front of a cavernous but cozy old-fashioned bakery, featured deer and gun cupcakes. They also sell finnish flatbreads and cardamom breads and danishes of all sorts to a faithful crowd--mostly finns from the area, but also some interlopers and locals like us who drive 20 miles out of our way just to swing through Menahga for a little sweet.

Like a couple of leisurely retired people we hemmed and hawed over our choices, as if these were the last doughnuts we'd ever eat. In a last-minute change of heart I went back to basics, picking out the cupcakes and a plain cake doughnut. Aaron chose a cream-filled, chocolate-glazed raised doughnut. I fished mine out of the box when we got in the car and it was still WARM and the nooks still held droplets of fat. I made the right choice, but now the cupcakes are starting to call me.