Split pea soup w/ sweet potatoes and extra veggies.

History's greatest minds have faltered, over and over again throughout time, when faced with one vital question. What if I want to make split pea soup, as frequently served with ham, but I don't have a pig? Or, even worse, what if I don't want to eat a pig at all? (This variation of the puzzle eliminates the "go find a pig" out used by Aristotle.)

Today, we at Motherf**cking Black Beans pronounce this puzzle solved through the power of vegetable stock, sweet potatoes, and parsnips. Beyond being a massive contribution to human intellectual advancement, the recipe below is perfect winter dinner food.

(The idea here is that you're replacing the juices from the ham with the veggie stock; sweet potatoes are the most satisfying meat replacement I could think of, but if you overdo it the soup gets too sweet, so I turned to the parsnips to make up the remainder of the additional chewy bits.)

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp. vegetable oil
• 1 white turnip, peeled and chopped
• 2 carrots, chopped
  
• 1 medium onion, chopped fine
• 1 package of split peas
• 1 sweet potato, peeled and chopped
• 2 parsnips, chopped
• 2 cups veggie stock
• 6 cups water
• 2 bay leafs
• ~1 tsp. salt.
• Other spices. I think we went with some pepper and oregano, or something. Do what you feel is right.
  

Steps:

1. First chop everything up. Be creative with the veggie selection if you want--I think you want a mix of flavors--some sweeter, some more earthy--and a mix of chopped sizes. I'm thinking about throwing in some radishes next time.
2. Get a big pot. Cook all the veggies except the sweet potatoes in the oil over medium heat for about five minutes; stir a lot.
   
3. Add veggie stock, water, split peas, sweet potatoes, and bay leaves. Cook for 45-50 minutes, until desired degree of aggressive thickness is achieved. Do the spice thing as desired.
4. Eat. I recommend some cheesy bread to go with it, since that's a nice change of pace. As you can see from the photo at right, this is legitimate Company Food*, and will also bring you dangerously near to overdosing on seasonality. I intend to eat absolutely staggering amounts of this dish this winter.

As you may have noticed, I found my camera. (It was in a plastic crate of my belongings in Bennett's apartment for a year--who knew?) Be warned, John--if you want to contend for the sought-after distinction of having the most aesthetically pleasing posts on this blog, you're going to have to step up your game.

*Company Food (n): Food that can be served to guests without shaming your parents by giving the impression that you were raised in a dog kennel. Definition varies by occasion and setting, but experts generally agree that the term excludes leftovers, stale bread, and anything eaten directly out of a can.

Apple-Butternut Squash Soup

Some days you wake up in the morning and want to rock the "it's fall in New England" thing so hard it hurts. On those days, you may want to eat this for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Ingredients:
1-2 butternut squash
2 apples
1 can veggie broth
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 onion
1 1/2 cups water
1/4 tsp thyme
1 tsp salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1 cup light cream

1. So the first thing, actually, is to figure out how much squash you have. The recipe I was working from called for about 3.5 lbs of squash, so I've been guesstimating their weight using a set of hand dumbells for comparison. I made a full recipe with a ~3 lb squash, and a 3/4 recipe with a slightly greater than 2 lb squash, and those were both good. When I made the smaller recipe, I still used the full can of veggie broth and decreased the water.

2. Cut onions (small), peel and cut apples (small slices), peel, cut, and de-seed squash (1/4 inch pieces). Butternut squash, incidentally, are Not Fucking Around as a vegetable--that's some seriously laborious chopping.

3. In the bottom of a 4 qt saucepan, sautee onions in vegetable oil for 10 mins.

4. Add everything else. Cook for 30+ minutes.

5. If you have a blender, you could pull out some of the mix and blend it, but who has a blender really? I used a strainer and a fork to mash up some of the bigger squash bits. It will be pretty textury soup, but that feels right to me.

6. Eat. Serves 8 if you made a full recipe. I recommend eating it with other summery tropical dishes like potatoes and brussel sprouts.

I've realized that I write recipes tailored to people who have the exact same stuff in their kitchen that I do (strainer but no blender, hand dumbells but no scale). (Technically the hand dumbells aren't usually in the kitchen.) I'm okay with this.

John's Motherf**ing Gazpacho

So I got really into gardening this summer, and it just so happens that the vegetables that I'm growing in my garden coincide almost precisely with the essential ingredients of a good gazpacho (Spanish cold tomato soup).

I was first introduced to gazpacho when I was 17 and spent a summer in La Coruna, Spain, which is in the northwest corner in the province of Galicia. The mother of the family I stayed with, "Loli," an adorable woman who my mother still keeps in touch with, was, typical of most Spanish families, also an amazing cook.

To my credit, I was an amazing guest, and was open to any and all new Spanish foods that she could serve me, including a dish called "Chipirones en su tinta," or mini-squids in their own ink (I remember it being delicious, but it sounds pretty raunch).

Gazpacho, ironically, was the only thing that Loli didn't make from scratch. In Spain, it came in a carton like milk or orange juice (Don Simon was the brand), and you would just pour it out and add a garnish. However, I liked it so much that I asked Loli to teach me the recipe. It was way better fresh.

In any case, during that summer, and during all summers since, I love a cold gazpacho on a hot day. Nothing more refreshing, and it's full of delicious, fresh ingredients that typically grow during the summer. I feel like it was probably invented when a Spanish farmer threw a bunch of his summer vegetables into a pot, and just added some vinegar and olive oil to make it tastier because that's all this recipe is.

So here goes:

Ingredients

4 fresh tomatoes (I used the ones in my garden - Roma and Heirloom)
1/2 large bell pepper
1 cucumber
1/3 cup olive oil
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
3 cloves garlic
herbs/salt/pepper to taste

Garnish:

Any of the ingredients above, diced
Corn
Bread crumbs
Goat cheese

All you do to make gazpacho is put all of the above ingredients into a food processor and liquefy. Pretty simple. If you want it more liquid-y, then you can add V8 or tomato juice, but I prefer mine thick. You can also add more of any of the ingredients or change the proportions to alter the flavor. For example, I like it with more tomatoes and vinegar, but a lot of gazpachos have a lot more cucumbers than the one I've outlined above.

When I was in spain, we would always serve it with fresh bread, and we would have little dishes with diced ingredients (peppers, tomatoes, corn, bread crumbs, cheese, etc.), and you would take a little of each and put it on top of your bowl of gazpacho. Then, when you were done, you would grab a slice of bread and wipe your bowl clean. Damn that shit was incredible....