Creamy Broccoli Soup

Finally, soup weather!  For the last 10 years we have been living in equatorial Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.  And while KL is near and dear to my heart, and Singapore holds a special place as our very first overseas posting as a married couple, frankly, the weather doesn’t change much.  We had rainy and warm, and less rainy and warm.   So for a soup person like me, really rainy days become soup days.   But Cairo is cold right now! (I had to go out and buy slippers and I can tell you, although you might not believe me, I chose the most demure ones on offer.) This is one of my favorite soups and it’s the starter for dinner tonight, since IT’S SOUP WEATHER HERE.  Simple, easy and delicious.

Biggest broccoli ever - almost 1 kg or 2lbs

Ingredients

One head of broccoli

1/4 cup heavy cream

1 chicken or vegetarian stock cube

Sea salt

Black pepper

Method

Cut the stem off of the broccoli as close to the florets as you can.  Then trim closer so you have only little bitty “heads” of broccoli left.

Peel the stem pieces by cutting into the stem just inside the hard outside and pulling down to pull the outside off.  It should come right off easily, like stringing a piece of celery.

Good inside stem to the left.  Hard outer peel to the right. 

Whenever I am chopping broccoli, Beso waits patiently. Usually he gets the stems. Sorry, buddy, not tonight. 

Chop the stem into small pieces.  Put the stem and half of the florets into a pot and cover them with water.  Add your stock cube and bring to a boil on the stove.  

They were covered!  They are just floating now. 

Turn the fire down to medium and cook until the broccoli is turning to mush.   Take it off the stove and allow to cool slightly.  We are going to blend this and we don’t want to burn ourselves.

Meanwhile, cut your larger florets in halves or quarters, depending on how big they are.  You are looking for bite-sized pieces that won’t take long to cook through. 

Using a hand blender or a regular blender, puree the cooked broccoli until smooth.

Put it back on the fire and heat till just boiling.  Add in the remaining florets and cook until they are done to your satisfaction.  Some people want them still a little crunchy; some want them tender. 

Add in your 1/4 cup cream – or more or less, as you like.  Stir and taste, adding salt, if needed and a good grind or two of fresh black pepper.

Serve with an additional drizzle of cream.  Enjoy!

And here are my slippers.  Go ahead, judge me. You didn't see the other choices.

Bacony Garlicky Carrots and Green Beans

We are in Cairo and counting our blessings.  Not the least of which is having internet again.  And a Carrefour hypermarket about 20 minutes away from our new home.  

Years and years and years ago, we lived in a little oilfield town on the island of Borneo, called Balikpapan.  When I would tell people the name, they would say, “Oh, Bali!”  And I would have to reply, “Don’t I wish!”  They were worlds apart.  We didn’t really have a proper grocery store and there was no fresh milk or cheese unless we managed to get into the Huffco commissary, and even there, shipments arrived so sporadically that I caught them covering the expiration labels with future dates so that they could sell old stuff that had somehow just arrived or hadn’t sold.  We ordered meat from Jakarta and it came frozen, packed in dry ice.  There was only one decent restaurant at one decent hotel, the Benakutai. And the vegetables in the market were limited to local greens, potatoes, carrots and green beans. 

But you know what, those were two wonderful years!  Elder daughter was born while we lived there (not actually THERE, of course) and I made great friends.  One of them was an old friend of my mother-in-law’s from Peru named Clara Hart.  A sweeter, more gentle person, you could never hope to meet.  She showed me around and told me all of the places to get things we needed.  She tried to teach me Bridge, bless her.  She was also my pass to the Huffco commissary, until Vico took over and they finally made it open to the public just before I left Balikpapan.

I picked up this recipe from her.  I don’t know if I make it just like she did but this is how I remember her dish and how I have been making it ever since.  This is one of the things that gives me hope when I move to a new place, that I have gained something from every friend over the years and that gain accompanies me forever, even in a new place like Cairo, where I don’t know many people yet.  There will be much to gain here.  I just need to be patient.

Ingredients

250g or 1/2 pound green beans

1 good-sized carrot or two small ones

2 slices of bacon

2 cloves garlic

Olive oil

Sea salt

Black pepper

Cayenne pepper (optional)

Method

Cut the stem ends off of the green beans.  Holding your knife at an angle, cut the beans into more manageable pieces.

Peel your carrot and cut it into pieces about the size of your green beans.  Rinse the green beans and carrots in a colander.

Slice the garlic very thinly.  Cut the bacon into little strips.

Fry the bacon and garlic in a little olive oil until semi-crispy making sure not to let the garlic burn.

Tip in the green beans and carrots.  Give the whole pot a good sprinkle of salt, black pepper and cayenne, if desired.  (I’m pretty sure that the cayenne is my addition and that Clara would have used only black pepper.)

 Cook, covered, until you are happy with the tenderness of your vegetables.

 The last two nights I was cooking with only the one saucepan and pot I had bought at Carrefour on the house hunting trip, so no lid.  But our AIR SHIPMENT ARRIVES TODAY! YAY!

 Give them a quick taste and add more salt and pepper if necessary before serving.  Enjoy!

The complete meal included mashed potatoes and roast chicken with onion gravy.
On biodegradable plates bought in Singapore. :) 

Here's a photo from our Balikpapan days.  Let's see how many people read all the way to the bottom!

With us is our first Boxer, Bogus (his father named him!) who traveled from Houston to Abu Dhabi to
Balikpapan to Paris. It's good to have a Boxer on one's traveling journeys. 

Angels on Horseback

Angels on horseback are smoked oysters wrapped with bacon and baked till crispy and more-ish. They are soo rich and so good! 

This is one of my very favorite things for Christmas or New Year’s Eve.  I’m not saying that the night would be incomplete without them, but I will say it would not be the same celebration.

If you’ve been reading along for a while, you know that our family Christmas Eve menu is all appetizers.  You may not know that our New Year’s Eve menu is identical. 

I don’t know if it is because we have moved a lot (The moving guys were here to pack up our 500lbs of air freight today and the leader asked how many times we had moved.  “Twelve,” answered my dear husband – and all I could think was, “Really?!” We’ve only been married 25 years – I guess I’ve never really wanted to count, although I can list the countries in succession for you.) but once we start a tradition, we have a hard time varying from it.  

Traditions that remain constant, no matter where we are, ground us and give us a feeling of normalcy in a strange place. Isn’t that why all the immigrants the world over, since time eternal, have tried to keep their traditions in a new and foreign land?  I'm pretty sure it is.

But back to the angels on horseback! These are so easy, so simple, so rich, so delicious. You don’t think you will like smoked oysters because you don’t eat raw ones? Give this a chance. They aren’t the same at all. If you like salty, you will love these.  They do especially nicely with champagne. 

Angels on Horseback

Update: Looking back at this post now in 2024, I'm realizing that my package of bacon overseas was quite narrow compared to the ones I've been buying lately in the United States. They were more like what we call "center cut" here. Depending on your bacon size, you might want to use only 1/3 a slice around each oyster. 

Ingredients

1 can or tin of smoked oysters, or more if you are making these for more than a few people

(Our most recent one had 13 oysters which made counting the bacon slices tricky, but, you’ll be glad to know, I managed the math.)

Half (or a third, see note above) as many slices of smoked bacon as you have oysters

Toothpicks

Method

Preheat your oven to 400°F or 200°C.  

Cut the bacon slices in half. (Or thirds, see note above.) Put one oyster on the end of a piece of bacon.  Roll up the bacon around the oyster.  Secure with a toothpick.

Bake for about 10 minutes in your preheated oven.  

Turn the angels over and bake for a further five minutes or until the bacon is crispy. 

Okay, stop counting.  Yes, I ate one before I took the final photo.  Do not judge me till you have made these and managed NOT to eat one before serving!  

Drain on a paper towel, then serve.  Enjoy!

P.S. These are also good cold, later Christmas Eve, when all the gifts have been wrapped and you are still drinking red wine and watching reruns on television.  True story.