Cream of Trinity Soup

To download a copy of the recipe for Cream of Trinity Soup, click HERE.

When the French settled into Louisiana, they brought their famous mirepoix, a mix of celery, onions and carrots that formed a reliable base for a wide range of soups and sauces. Over time, that venerable combination evolved into the celery, onions and green bell pepper blend that serves a similar purpose in Cajun-Creole cooking and that has come to be known throughout Louisiana as the Holy Trinity.

Most Louisiana dishes using the Holy Trinity involve a long, slow cooking process that breaks down the celery, onions and peppers until they are more like seasoning than vegetables. Other vegetables are then added.

This week’s recipe, for Cream of Trinity Soup, involves a much shorter cooking process that allows the celery, onions and peppers to be the dish’s main vegetables that shine as a very flavorful combination in their own right. Some of the cooked vegetables are pureed into the soup liquid, and some are mixed into the soup as is. A third layer of texture is added by garnishing the soup with a bit of the Trinity vegetables, fine-diced and uncooked.

For good measure, we’ll also use bacon – turkey bacon, in this case – both as part of the soup filling and as one of the items pureed into the soup liquid, thereby ensuring the bacon’s goodness is part of the very DNA of the creamy liquid.

Also worth noting: by using fat-free half-and-half to replace the cream normally used in soups of this kind, we make the soup low fat and guilt-free. (In general, I’ve found fat-free half-and-half to be a very valuable asset when making creamy dishes low-fat. It’s definitely an item to include in your low-fat tool box.)

This recipe makes 2 quarts of soup.

We’ll start by sautéing the vegetables.

Heat 1 Tbsp butter substitute and 1 Tbsp olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat. Add 2 minced garlic cloves and cook till aromatic, another 30 seconds to one minute.

Place 4 cups of thin-chopped celery (about 1/8”); 2 cups of chopped onion, and 2 cups of chopped green pepper in the pot. (If you’re using sliced mushrooms, add 8 ounces of them now also.) Sauté until the onions are translucent and the remaining vegetables are soft but not mushy.

Set the cooked vegetables aside in a separate bowl.

Next comes our soup base.

Reduce the heat to low. Add ¼ cup of butter substitute. When it has melted, add 6 Tbsp of all-purpose flour and mix to form a roux. Cook till golden, about 30 seconds to 1 minute.

Add 1 quart of vegetable broth and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, stirring till the liquid has thickened, for about 10 minutes.

Add a pinch of red pepper flakes; ½ tsp dried thyme; ½ tsp dried oregano; and ½ tsp dried rosemary. Add 1/3 cup of uncooked white rice and simmer until the rice is softened, about 10 minutes.

Remove the pan from the heat. Add half of the cooked vegetables, and 1-1/2 ounces of cooked, fine-diced bacon.

Add 2 cups of fat-free half-and-half, 1/4 cup at a time, stirring constantly until each ¼ cup is incorporated before adding the next.

Using an immersion blender, puree the vegetables till smooth.

Add the remaining cooked vegetables and another 1-1/2 ounces of cooked bacon cut into ½” square pieces. Add salt and pepper to taste.

All that's left is to dish it up!

Serve in bowls, garnished with a drizzle of olive oil and some uncooked, fine-diced celery, onion and green pepper. (For great accompaniments, be sure to add some good bread and a fresh salad!)

To download a copy of the recipe for Cream of Trinity Soup, click HERE.

You’re all set for the chilly weather. Bring on the fall!

Thanks for visiting this site. Please come back next week for another great-tasting, home cooked recipe! Till then, stay well, keep it about the food, and always remember to kiss the cook. ;-)

“Braised-n-Glazed” Mirepoix Side Dish with Lemon Mushrooms

To download a copy of this recipe for “Braised-n-Glazed” Mirepoix Side Dish with Lemon Mushrooms, click HERE!

Mirepoix (meer-PWAH), the classic French combination of carrots, onions, and celery, is generally used to add great flavor and aroma to soups, sauces, stews, stocks, and other foods. (As a side note, when the French settled in Louisiana, the mirepoix concept they brought with them eventually evolved into the region’s famous “Trinity” – equal parts celery, onions, and peppers – that serves a similar purpose in that local cuisine.)

Such great flavor and aroma, in fact, that it seems a shame to keep it in the background. I believe it’s time to give this time-honored workhorse vegetable combination a more prominent place on your plate as featured - and great tasting - vegetable side dish.

To make mirepoix a side dish we’ll need to modify it a bit. Classic mirepoix is prepared with 1 part-by-weight carrots, 1 part-by-weight celery, and two parts-by-weight onion. In this recipe, those proportions have been adjusted to emphasize the carrots. A bit of garlic was added. The celery and carrots were browned, braised in seasoned vegetable stock, and the braising liquid was then sweetened and cooked down to a glaze. Finally, to add contrast with the sweetness of the glaze, sliced mushrooms sautéed in olive oil and lemon were added. (Note, too, that for the browning and sautéing, I used olive oil in place of the more traditional, but considerably less heart-healthy, butter.)

This recipe makes four side-dish size servings.

First, let’s make the seasoning mix.

Combine the following seasoning mix ingredients and set aside: ½ tsp dried marjoram; ½ tsp dried thyme; ½ tsp dried basil; ½ tsp dried rosemary; ¼ tsp dried sage; and ¼ tsp dried tarragon.

Next, we’ll prepare our vegetables.

Julienne ½ a Vidalia onion.

Mince 6 garlic cloves.

Slice 8 ounces of mushrooms. (Better yet, open an 8 ounce package of sliced fresh mushrooms.)

Peel 1 pound of carrots, and cut on-the-bias into equal size coins.

Slice 4 large celery stalks to equal thickness.

Next, start browning the carrots and cooking the onions:

Heat a small amount of olive oil over medium-high heat in a skillet. Add the carrots in a single layer and cook undisturbed until lightly browned. Turn the carrots over and cook for a few minutes. When done, the carrots should be cooked only about half-way, not cooked through completely. Season to taste.

While the carrots are browning in the skillet, heat a small amount of olive oil over medium heat in a sauté pan and add the onions. Cook until the onions are soft and browned, adding the garlic for the last few minutes of the cooking. Season to taste. When done, set the onions aside onto paper towels.

Next, we cook the celery and add the carrots:

When the carrots are done cooking, set aside in a bowl, reduce the heat to medium, and put the celery and a small amount of olive oil in the pan. 

When the celery is half-way cooked (similar to the carrots), season to taste, reduce the heat to low, and return the carrots to the skillet and mix with the celery. Add about ½ cup of white wine, the seasoning mix, and enough vegetable stock to cover the carrots and celery about half way. (The amount of stock you’ll need depends on your skillet, but will probably be between 1 and 2 cups.) Cover the skillet and allow to simmer until tender but not mushy.

Now for the mushrooms:

While the carrots and celery are braising, add a small amount of oil and the mushrooms to the sauté pan. Sauté until cooked through, adding the fresh-squeezed juice of ½ lemon. After the mushrooms are at least partially cooked, season to taste. (Adding salt too soon can draw needed moisture from the fresh mushrooms.)

To finish the side dish:

When the carrot and celery mixture is cooked, remove the cover, add ½ tablespoon of sugar, mix to combine, and increase the heat to high.

Stirring frequently to avoid burning, leave the skillet uncovered and let the liquid cook down to a glaze.

Combine the carrots and celery with the mushrooms and the onions. Transfer to a serving dish, and garnish with parsley as in the photo at the top. Serve hot as a side dish.

To download a copy of this recipe for “Braised-n-Glazed” Mirepoix Side Dish with Lemon Mushrooms, click HERE!

Serve this with your next entrée, and you’ve got a vegetable side that’s both delicious and healthy!

Please visit again next week for another tasty, kitchen tested recipe! Till then, stay well, keep it about the food, and always remember to kiss the cook. ;-)

Quiche Me, Baby

Cooking ideas can come from some pretty unexpected places. You just have to be ready. More on that in a moment.

Since recipes must be called something. I decided to name this week's offering, "Trinity Quiche," in honor of its main vegetable component, Louisiana's famed “trinity” of celery, onions and peppers. (It also has mushrooms. I think everyone who cooks has certain ingredients that seem to find their way into almost every recipe. For me it's mushrooms, for their nice taste, peculiar sort-of-soft-and-sort-of-crunchy texture, and their comically off-balance appearance that makes them the culinary world's version of penguins or, if you like, giraffes.) Adding to the "three" concept are its three cheeses which, combined, get along with each other wonderfully.

One oddity you'll find in this recipe is that the milk usually used in making quiche is replaced by a mixture of ingredients you'll probably recognize as a pancake batter. Here's where getting ideas from unexpected places comes in. Some years back I was looking for a way to improve the texture of the quiche filling I was using in those days. While dining at IHOP, I had an “aha!” moment when I read on the menu that they make their scrambled eggs fluffy by mixing in pancake batter. I tried that idea in the quiche filling and the rest, while not history, did give it the texture I'd been looking for.

Of course, if you prefer other combinations of vegetables, or different cheeses, great! One of the real beauties of quiche is that there's a lot of room to improvise and experiment. If there's something in your pantry, refrigerator or freezer you feel like making part of your quiche, go for it!

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees and blind bake a 9” pie crust. (If you’ve never baked a pie or quiche and aren’t sure how to blind bake a crust, just let me know and I’ll describe what to do. It’s basically getting the unfilled crust to a partially baked state (or, for a refrigerator pie, a fully baked state), then adding the filling and finishing the pie or quiche.) Prepare the other ingredients below during the blind baking, looking in on the crust now and then to prevent overcooking. When it is firm and starting to get “crusty,” take it out of the oven, use a brush to apply an egg wash made from one egg and one tablespoon of water, and set it aside.

While the crust is blind baking, sauté about 1-1/2 cups of mixed chopped celery, chopped pepper, julienned onion, and mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper to taste, but if you're using the mushrooms hold off adding the salt till you're almost done; mushrooms have a high water content and adding the salt early draws some of that water out and affects the final texture of the mushrooms. When the vegetables are cooked (but still have a firm texture), place them in a colander and rinse them well with cold water. This stops the cooking, and cools the vegetables so they won't prematurely cook the eggs in the filling when you mix everything together later. Set them aside.

Prepare the “pancake batter” by combining 3/4 cup all-purpose flour, 1-1/4 teaspoons baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1-1/2 tablespoons sugar, 1 egg-substitute egg,  5 ounces skim milk, and 1-1/2 tablespoons of melted butter substitute. Whisk until they form a batter.

In a large bowl, combine ¼ cup grated Swiss cheese, ¼ cup grated sharp cheddar cheese, 1/8 cup crumbled goat cheese, 3 egg substitute eggs, ½ cup skim milk, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and a pinch of fresh ground black pepper.  Add the cooked vegetables and the batter, whisk until combined, and fill the blind-baked crust.

Bake the quiche at 425 for 15 minutes. During this time, partially cook 2 slices of turkey bacon. (For example, if the 2 slices should be microwaved for two minutes to be fully cooked, microwave them for about one minute. They'll cook more later when you finish baking the quiche.) When the bacon slices are done, cut them into small pieces.

Reduce the oven temperature to 300.  Remove the quiche from the oven, and sprinkle the bacon pieces over the surface. By now the surface of the quiche filling should be firm enough so that the bacon pieces will stay on top without sinking.  Return the quiche to the 300 degree oven and cook for 30-35 minutes, until a knife inserted half-way between center and the edge comes out clean.  Let the quiche stand 10 minutes before serving. A salad or cup of tomato soup on the side goes very well with this.

As an added bonus, if you find you have some filling mix left over after making the quiche, I recommend saving it to make one of the best omelettes you'll ever have. And one of the easiest, since everything's already mixed in.

If you would like a notebook-ready, cookbook-style version of Trinity Quiche or any other recipe on this site, just let me know and I’ll get it right out to you. Ditto for any questions you may have about anything I’ve written that you'd like more information about.

See you next week! Till then, stay well, keep it about the food, and always remember to kiss the cook. ;-)