Food

Note: we served this with a nice Parrano cheese melted onto a slice of baguette.

2 T EV olive oil
3 leeks, sliced, soaked to remove grit and drained
3 stalks celery, cleaned and chopped
1/2 cup chopped fresh marjoram
1/2 cup fresh flat-leaf Italian parsley chopped
2 medium kabocha squash, cut into quarters, roasted in oven on cookie sheet, cooled, peeled and chopped into chunks
1.5 quarts chicken or veggie broth
1/2 t pepper (white is better, but can use black)

Saute olive oil with leeks and celery until green color has turned. Add marjoram, parsley and bay leaves and stir a bit. Add squash chunks, broth and pepper. Simmer for 35 - 40 min. Cool and puree and return to the pot

1/2 cup dry sherry
1 1/4 t turmeric
3/4 cup heavy creme
1 T salt
2-3 pinches of saffron

Stir in the remaining ingredients and adjust salt and pepper to taste. When ready to serve, bring back to a simmer on the stove. You can garnish with creme fraiche or greek yoghurt, crisped leeks, chopped pecans, toasted seeds (squash or pumpkin), etc.

Posted by Mary Hodder at 03:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

That friend I mentioned who taught me to make Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic (Karen Bryant) also used to make this. I remember a lot of wonderful family dinners of roast beef or leg of lamb, with this relish on the side. It's the best. So even though it's not pepper season in California, it is in Mexico. And the Berkeley Bowl had Organic Red Bells on sale Friday, so I bought 20 of them and made this.

Sweet Red Bell Pepper Relish

Step 1:
Cut the peppers in half, core and remove seeds, and mince using a mandoline, or a food processor (be careful not to pulverize.. you want little chunks) or chop them into tiny little squares of pepper.

I used about 20 in this dish to make the relish.

Step 2:
Use a large collander, and drain them for about 6 hours.

Step 3:
Take drained chopped peppers (save the liquid, which you can use for stock or a soup or just drink.. it's amazing stuff.. or poach salmon in it with a few herbs, and on and on) and place in a large sauce pan.
Add two cups organic raw sugar and 2 cups organic apple cider vinegar. Also add a pinch of salt.

Bring to a simmer and cook for about 25 minutes, until soft, with a relish taste.

Cool, and serve. Also, you can can it, but either without canning or once opened, you do need to refrigerate it.

Makes about 1.5 quarts.

Posted by Mary Hodder at 07:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)