More soup + peanut butter cookies, two ways

A batch of muffins, a pot of soup, and two batches of cookies. Yeah, I spent the weekend in the kitchen.

For soup, I made a variation of Mama Pidal's lentil soup, except using the cleverly packaged Goya 16-bean soup mix. I love bean soups because they are filling and also freeze excellently for future meals. I added the usual mirepoix, plus spinach and two packets of Goya sazon, along with some onion and garlic salts and the requisite salt and pepper. It made a LOT of soup, which is living in a giant pot on my stove top. In my dream world, I would have a giant pot of soup simmering on my stove top every day. One of my favorite smells is the blend of aromatics as they hit the soup pot, before they start cooking. If I could bottle it and sell it, I would. I'd call it Essence of Soup Pot---you could just have the odor of fresh soup pervading your kitchen, whether you were cooking or not. Yum.

Jeremy was an absolute gem today and cleaned the house while I sat on my ass drinking pumpkin spice coffee watching Project Runway on On Demand. So as a reward, I made him not one but two batches of peanut butter cookies. Because why stop at just one peanut-buttery treat? He deserves double the fatty delicious love. I made a batch of peanut butter oatmeal cookies and another of peanut butter molasses. I've made the latter before and brought them to work to share, and they were literally such a hit that the pile of them disappeared in just a couple of hours. I saw that I was on to something really good here, so I think these might be my secret weapon cookie. I feel like I could win wars (and hearts) with these things. (I also feel this way about my red velvet cupcake recipe.) So unfortunately, I'm keeping that recipe to myself.

But fortunately for you, I'm not a total selfish brat, so I do want to share the peanut butter oatmeal recipe with you. These cookies are AMAZING! They are so dense and filling. The recipe author, Nicole Rees, suggests arming yourself with a glass of milk, and I agree. So, make haste! Get thee to the oven and make these cookies. They are scrumptious.

CHEWY PEANUT BUTTER OATMEAL COOKIES - by Nicole Rees

• 3/4 cup oil
• 1/4 cup water
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 cup plus 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 2 1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
• 1 cup raisins or chocolate chips (note: I skipped these and found the cookies perfect without them)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Beat oil, water, and sugars, until smooth. Beat in peanut butter until well combined. Stir in egg, vanilla and salt until smooth and creamy.

Stir in flour and baking soda until almost all combined. Stir in the oats and raisins or chips if you're using. At this point, it will be a workout for your biceps to get a spoon through the dough. Allow the dough to rest at room temperature for 10 minutes.

Line baking sheets with parchment paper.* Drop walnut-sized chunks of dough, about 2 tablespoons, onto baking sheets, spacing at least 1 1/2 inches apart. (I found it easiest to scoop up a glob of dough with a metal dining spoon and then gently shaping it into a ball with my fingers; don't overhandle or the dough will get melty.) These cookies don't spread very much, which is nice

Bake for 13 to 14 minutes, until golden at the edges and puffed in the centers but not quite set. Don't overbake! Allow to cool for 3 minutes on cookie sheet before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.

*Using parchment paper on cookie sheets? A revelation. No need to grease the sheets, which always leads to greasy clean-up later. No burnt bottoms. No cookies sticking to the sheet. All around a fabulous tip. I'll never grease cookie sheets again, and neither should you. Thank you, Nicole Rees.

Souper Saturday: Mama Pidal's lentil soup

I seem to be coming down with some sort of weird cold-type thing, so it was a good thing I was prepared with a big pot of Mama Pida's lentil soup. It's hearty, tasty, and really easy to make. This recipe is my mother's and it is one of the first things I ever attempted to cook when I decided to branch out from the pasta/stir fry rut. I love making it in the fall and winter. The best part of this soup is that you can season it and add things to it to your heart's content. That and the fact that lentils don't require any soaking, so you don't have to prepare in advance with this soup the way you have to with other bean soups. I use a minimum of broth and simmer until almost all the liquid has evaporated and been absorbed, so that it's more like a stew. I'll call it a potage (a thick stew-like soup). Sounds fancier.

Rinse 1 cup of uncooked lentils in a strainer and drain. (Pick out any pebbles or nasty-looking lentils.) Toss them in a pot with two cups of water and two cups of vegetable or meat broth or stock. (You can add another cup or two of either if you want.) Add 1 diced onion, 1 cup each of chopped carrots and celery, and 2 cups of firmly packed baby spinach leaves. Throw in 2 cloves of minced garlic and some salt and pepper and turn on the heat until it starts boiling. Cover, and stir occasionally, until the spinach has wilted. At this point you can throw in a diced ham steak or a couple of chopped cooked sausages (but these are entirely optional). Stir a few more times and allow to boil another few minutes. I also like to add some other seasonings, like a bay leaf or two (which you must remove later), some garlic and/or onion salt, or some adobo powder, which is a typical Latin meat and vegetable seasoning.

Adobo: seasoning of campeones!






Lower the heat until the soup is just simmering and then just let it simmer away, stirring every now and again. This is a very low-maintenance soup. I allow it to simmer until all the vegetables have taken on a nice brown color and nearly all the liquid has disappeared, so it's like a stew. Delicious! If you're more into soupy lentils, you can add a cup or two of water or broth to the pot while it's simmering and remove it from the heat before all the liquid disappears.

This soup keeps well in the fridge, and it will thicken the longer it sits in there. To reheat, you can add some water or broth before microwaving. I just like to eat it like a stew, with some nice buttered toast. It's simple, filling, hearty, and comforting. I love soup, and this is one of my favorites. I remember eating it all while I was growing up and every time I eat it now, I feel home. Thanks, Mama!

I like tomatoes! (and gazpacho)

I busted out the Magic Bullet for the first time in 3 years last night for... gazpacho.

Yes, I've owned a Magic Bullet for 3 years (got one right before moving to Boston) and for 3 years I never even took it out of the box. Now I feel like I should be on an infomercial because I find myself wondering how I ever got by without it. Yes, I had to make the gazpacho in batches, because admittedly the Bullet doesn't have a high capacity. But it works so fast, and made such quick work out of things that it was worth it to blend the soup in small batches.

We decided to make gazpacho from Jose Andres's cookbook, which calls for a particular brand of sherry that I hunted for and found at the Liquor World near my office---a particular brand of sherry that happened to set me back $25. Dios mio! At least the recipe calls for a scant quarter-cup of the stuff, so we'll be making batches of gazpacho with this stuff for a while.

But oh! What a difference a sherry makes! This gazpacho was amazing stuff. Jose calls for straining it, but I actually like the chunks in my soup, so it was perfection. It was tangy from the vinegar (we used red wine vinegar), and the sherry added a luxurious taste to it. And of course, this being a recipe by Jose Andres, it was full of olive oil, which just made it all the tastier. And you really do have to add the little cut-up tomatoes and thin-sliced cucumbers (which I sliced paper-thin, thanks to the mandolin slicer I bought this weekend on a whim), and the cubes of bread toasted in olive oil. We used a roasted garlic artisan loaf from Shaw's that's pretty tasty. (Shaw's has a surprisingly good bakery.) Our soup turned out more orange than pink because the market was out of green bell peppers and we used an orange one. Still delicious though. Very refreshing, and surprisingly filling. I definitely recommend trying this one out. It's simple and satisfying. To know that such a fine soup hails from my homeland makes me proud to be a Spaniard!