Vegan Corn Soup

I didn't start out trying to rid my kitchen of meat. Once I got started though, I couldn't stop! It became a challenge: how long can I keep the meat-free kitchen going? And so healthy eating month gradually became Vegetarian Cooking Month, with the eggplant, squash, and chickpeas dominating my cooking. And boy howdy has it worked. That's right ladies and gentlemen, with a week to go I weighed in at 132.3 this morning! Two asterisks here. One, there's been some serious gym attendance involved. Like 6 out of 7 days last week type of gym attendance (after returning to yoga for the first time in several months, I could barely lift my arms the next day).

And two, I am not a vegetarian. Not even temporarily. I have been eating meat, I'll order it when we go out and I'll grab a turkey sandwich for lunch at work. As far as cooking goes, however, I have been meat free since late July and since I prepare most of my own meals, that means a significant reduction in overall meat consumption. Apparently I am not alone on my quest to cut back on meat without cutting it completely from my diet. I heard a story on NPR about Meatless Mondays, a movement to reduce meat consumption across the country by 15%. The idea is to take Monday, a day where you are starting fresh and making good choices, and reducing the amount of saturated animal fat that you consume. Once this month of meat free cooking is over, I think I'll continue on by joining this campaign!

Strolling around the local farmers market last Sunday, I realized with horror that I had been neglecting one key late summer veggie. Corn. How could I have forgotten about sweet, fresh, summer corn! It's one of the first things I ever learned to cook when I moved out on my own, and yet the only time I've even glanced at it this summer was the experiment with grilling back in early July. I've been cheating on corn, running around with that little hussy the eggplant and those trampy chickpeas. As the farmer dumped a fresh bag of corn out on the table I dove, begging corn to take me back. $2 and 5 ears of corn later, I had just the dish to make things right with the betrayed.

I wanted to make a corn soup. My first thought was corn chowder, with its creamy deliciousness. As I shopped recipes, however, I quickly realized most of these required ridiculous amounts of heavy cream. Heavy cream that has 50 calories per tablespoon. Not the slenderizing soup I was looking for. Finally I hit upon a recipe that called for only low fat milk, and most of the comments said the milk really wasn't necessary at all. Swap out the chicken stock for vegetable stock and suddenly my soup was fully vegan. Score.

Vegan Corn Soup
Adapted from Bon Appetit

Ingredients:

- 1 1/2 teaspoons of corn oil
- 1 small yellow onion, chopped
- 1 small fresh Poblano chili, chopped
- 3 garlic cloves, chopped
- 3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
- 5 ears of sweet yellow or bi color corn, kernels cut from cob
- 1 1/2 cups vegetable broth
- Chopped fresh cilantro

Directions:
Heat oil in a large heavy saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion, chili, garlic, and cumin and saute until onion and chili are tender, about 10 minutes.

Add corn to the pot. Stir in broth. Cover and simmer over medium-low heat until corn is very tender, about 45 minutes. Use immersion blender to puree soup until fairly smooth. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Ladle into bowls; garnish with cilantro and serve.

If you like, you can garnish with an avocado. It complements the flavor nicely!

A few side notes. If you don't own an immersion blender you can puree in batches by transferring to a blender or food processor. I heart my immersion blender every time I make a pureed soup and don't have to haul hot liquid, clean a blender, or worry about steam blowing the lid off said blender. If you make a lot of sauces and soups, this thing is great. Since it isn't a closed device, however, you don't get nearly as smooth a blend as you would if you used your other blending appliances. I liked a slightly chunky corn soup, Will felt it could have been smoother. Use your own judgement. Also the original recipe called for mixing in the milk at the blending phase to get the soup to a desired consistency. If you don't care about the soup being vegan and you want something creamier, you can add about 1 1/2 cups of milk at that point. Personally I thought the soup was a little on the thin side anyway and did not require additional liquid, and a taste test confirmed it was excellent without the milk. But the option is open to you.

The soup was a lovely late summer treat, very sweet (which could change depending on the type of corn you buy) and almost indulgent, without being indulgent at all. Will asked the question that always lets me know the truth of whether or not he's liked a dish. "There's more of this, right?"

Playing with Fire

In the boiling hot weather that has permeated the East Coast this summer, Americans favorite method of summer cooking has been everywhere. America loves to grill. Loves it. Can't get enough. From the NY Times 101 Ways to Grill last week to the increasing numbers of Food Network stars being shoved out of the comfortable havens of their studio kitchen sets and into really fake looking backyards, everyone has been excited to cook their food on a rack over flames.

Everyone, that is, except me. I have no backyard, no balcony, and therefore, no grill. For me summer doesn't mean "Oh fun, I'll just go outside to cook!" It means trying not to pass out from the heat in my not-air-conditioned kitchen. My grill pan delivers up Turkey Burgers and Steak just fine, but there is none of the atmosphere of standing out side on a summer evening, delivering up piles of burgers and veggies fresh off the open flame. On July 4th, however, I got a bit of a taste of the good life. Using the holiday weekend to shoot of to PA to visit the family, my mother gave me free range of her tiny little Weber grill. In my mom's world, everything is tiny and built for one, and this little glorified camp stove is no exception. Still, it was a grill, and I was going to cook dinner for 3 on it, even if it meant doing everything in shifts.

First up, I was going to grill corn. As corn season has begun I have started seeing the ears everywhere, and though corn grilling is a fairly simple procedure, I had never executed it.

Grilled Corn

Done exactly as Gourmet tells me to

Ingredients:

- 3 ears of corn

- At least 1 gallon of cold water in a pot or clean bucket

- Butter and salt for serving

Directions:

Peel back the corn husks and remove the silk. Pull the husks back up around the corn. Soak corn in water for 10 minutes.

While corn soaks, prepare grill. When fire is hot drain the corn and grill, in the husks on a lightly oiled grill rack, uncovered, turning, 10 minutes. Carefully pull back husks and grill corn, turning, until slightly browned and tender, about 5 minutes more.

I love how easy grilling recipes can be, and the corn turned out great, soft enough to eat but still crunchy, with that slightly smoky flavor you don't get from boiling or steaming. Once it was done I pulled off the husks completely and covered the plate in foil. It was time for round two.

The day before at a picnic at my Aunt and Uncle's house, my very generous Uncle Joe allowed me to raid his vegetable garden. My Uncle Joe has been gardening for as long as I can remember, and quite frankly the garden is an organic localvore's dream. He uses no chemicals, creates his own little plants from seeds, and cares for the garden meticulously every year. From garlic to cherry tomatoes he brings in a great crop every year. My mother looks forward to being in charge of watering every year when they go on vacation so she can raid the freshly grown produce.

Uncle Joe gifted me with a gorgeous zucchini and two beautiful spring onions. The beauty of knowing a grower is you can eat things right after they are clipped from the plant, and I was going to eat that zucchini right away. I did it simply, two simply to lay out a detailed recipe for you. I simply sliced the zucchini into 1/4 inch slices, brushed with olive oil on both sides and sprinkled with salt and pepper. then I just tossed them on the grill, about 3-4 minutes per side, until they looked nice and charred. 

I decided I needed a sauce for the zucchini to be dipped in, so I thought I'd mix some mayo with garlic, to make a kind of aioli. To roast the garlic a bit I chopped up 1 large clove of garlic, brushed it with a bit of olive oil, wrapped in in a tin foil packet and threw it on the grill for 5 or 6 minutes next to the zucchini. Almost as an afterthought I cut a lemon in half and grilled it next to the veggie. Then I mixed the juice (about 1 tablespoon) with about a quarter cup of mayonnaise and the garlic. The zucchini was great, softened and juicy, and the aioli complemented it well giving it a tangy cool topping.

I also made mussels in beer, but that dish I feel is too incomplete to talk about yet, and I was trying to recreate a restaurant dish I had heard about but never tasted. If you've ever made mussels in beer and have tips, leave it in the comments. I'm back in NY now, hiding in the bedroom, the only room in the place with air conditioning. This doesn't mean I've entirely stopped cooking. Last week I made a fresh mint ice cream, and churned it in the bedroom so the bowl wouldn't defrost. Two months before the weather begins to cool, let's see how creative I can get!