Blue Cayenne

Have I ever mentioned that I love soups?

OK. I know I have—over and over and over.  Forgive me. 

Here is a new favorite. This is a Deborah Madison recipe from her cookbook Vegetable Soups. This is her recipe for Broccoli Soup With Garlic, Ginger and Chile. That constellation of ingredients sounds (and is!) wonderful. You’ve got to try this one! It will sooth away those holiday jitters that are coming on about now. (Vegetable Soups is available through your local bookstore or on Amazon here.)

Here is the recipe as I prepared it in my kitchen. 

This is a truly great cookie.

This recipe is from Helen Goh’s new baking cookbook, Baking And The Meaning of Life. (Great title, by the way!) You can order her cookbook through your local bookstore or on Amazon.

This is Goh’s debut solo cookbook. She previously co-authored the cookbooks Sweet with Yotam Ottolenghi and was one of the authors of the Ottolenghi Group cookbook Comfort. Goh was the chief pastry recipe developer for the Ottolenghi Group.

Goh’s cookbook explores the many and varied ways that baking connects us to our communities. In a chapter she titles “Ritual and Tradition,” she writes: “Our lives are punctuated and strung together by moments of tradition that give us structure, certainty, a sense of purpose. They affirm not only our belonging to our community but the belonging of others to it as well.” She includes this recipe for Peanut and Black Sesame Sand Cookies in that chapter. In the lede to the recipe, Goh writes that her recipe is a variation on a traditional Chinese New Year cookie thought to bring good luck to those who receive them. The cookies are traditionally exchanged in Malaysia where she spent her early years before her family migrated to Australia.

This would be a great (and unexpected) cookie to add to your holiday cookie tray.

And, who couldn’t use a bit of good luck right about now?

Here is the recipe as I prepared it in my kitchen.

This recipe is from Helen Goh’s new baking cookbook, Baking And The Meaning of Life. (Great title, by the way!)

Here is the recipe as I prepared it in my kitchen.

Got those change-of-seasons blues?

This Soup Au Pistou is just the right soup to blast you right out of those doldrums. 

It hits all those fall color vibes, too. Look at those orangey colors! Not visible in this photo is the dollop of basil pistou stirred into the soup at the time of serving. Mervilleux!

You’re probably asking yourself “What in the heck is pistou?” though. Is that just a misspelling for pesto?  The answer? Kind of. 

Pistou is a cold basil sauce original to the Provenςal region of southeastern France. The sauce originated in the 16th Century. It is the French cousin of pesto and is a side of the family that doesn’t include pine nuts. To carry this analogy a little farther, this Soup Au Pistou is the French cousin of Italian minestrone. 

This is a Melissa Clark recipe from her cookbook Dinner In French. It is a great cookbook to have in your personal library and is available through your local bookstore or on Amazon here..