Recipe Exchange

This morning, someone* invited me to join an online recipe exchange. I was to email a favorite quick recipe to name #1, move up name #2 to line #1, add my name to line #2 and mail this request out to 20 of my closest friends. I had to decline, for four reasons. First—twenty friends? I don’t think I’ve ever had that many friends at any one time (perhaps, ever in my life?—nah, let’s not go there, I don’t want to get depressed on a Friday!**). Second, I had a pretty good idea who two other people were on this person’s mailing list, so I’d have to delete them from my list, which would make my friends list even shorter (and more depression-inducing). Third, doesn’t this smack of a Ponzi scheme to you? Maybe we should ask our friend Norman. Or, maybe we shouldn’t (remember, it’s Friday). Fourth, although the sender wisely sent this email out to the internationally known “undisclosed recipients” list, did I really want my email address everywhere and in everybody’s mail program, to be sucked up when a naïve Internet Explorer person got their mail hijacked by a nasty ’bot?***

But just because I didn’t participate in the email exchange, doesn’t mean I can’t share a recipe. So, here is my quick recipe offering.



Fresh Tomato and Corn Soup

Note: This is only worth making when the tomatoes and corn are vine-ripe and local (from your garden or local farmer’s market). DO NOT make this with crappy vegs. You'll just end up with crappy soup.

2 Tablespoons butter
2 large onions
4 garlic cloves
1-2 ribs celery
1-2 carrots

1. Chop the vegetables, melt the butter, saute them all together until they begin to get brown (10 mins.)

2. While Step 1 is going on, core and cut up:

3 lbs. (5 very large or the equivalent) tomatoes

3. Add to the pot:

those tomatoes
4 cups vegetable broth
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
Generous grinding of fresh pepper

4. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to a burbling simmer and cook 20 minutes.

5. Take pot off the heat, process with a hand-held blender or in a food processor (really, just go out and buy a hand blender. They’re $20 and make your soup-making life so much easier).

6. Return to the pot, and stir in:

1/2 cup parsley, chopped
the kernels from 2 ears of corn

Enjoy!

NOTES: The heat of the soup will “un-raw-ify” the corn without overcooking it. It'll still be crunchy when you eat the soup. I love this soup, and if you wish you could make gazpacho with your garden tomatoes, but really don’t like the bitterness of raw garlic and onion, this is a good compromise. The cooking sweetens the onions and garlic, and makes this soup a more palatable choice for non-gazpacho-loving humans. If you have time, make it early and let it cool. That’s good, too.

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Now, if you’re feeling a bit depressed that I don’t have more friends, you can go cheer yourself up by watching this YouTube video.****



*Who shall remain Nameless. I don’t want a black eye!*****

**No, no—the correct reply is, “Oh, Imperatrix, it’s just that you go for quality, not quantity!” [pat, pat, pat]

***It’s inevitable. It’s Microsoftworst.

****My sister Cowgirl shared it with her email list yesterday, and I thought it was very funny. I’m not really swiping her find, because 24 hours have passed, so it’s now in the public domain. Also, since she isn’t visiting lately, I bet she won’t even know I’ve used it. Hah. Take that, you non-blog-visiting sibling! (Oh, but she’s not the one who sent the Ponzi scam.) (Not that I’m implying it was Three of Four who sent it, either. Nope.) (It was that Other One. The Nameless One.)

*****Yes, you did! You gave me a black eye! I don’t care that you say it was an accident. Three-year-olds do not “accidentally” punch their peaceful 5-year-old sister in the eye (even if by “punch” I may mean “run one’s head into”).