Calorie Friendly Comfort Food

There's something truly comforting about a bowl of soup and something even more comforting when that soup is covered with cheese. My mom has been making this easy French onion soup since I can remember. After my parents contentious divorce my dad would still get cravings for it--it's that good. And while it's neither complicated nor pretentious, this recipe still tastes fancy and makes you feel with each and every bite like everything is right in the world. And considering how rich it tastes and the fact that it's made with butter and cheese, this soup is still pretty low in calories (though those calories do come from fat).

The "trick" to making a flavorful soup is to use sweet onions. I swear by them. Whether it's a Vidalia from Georgia or a Maui Sweet, caramelizing a premium onion will make your soup taste that much better. When I've got beef stock made I like to use my own, but using Better Than Bouillon (pictured above) will still yield a much more flavorful soup base than using a canned or boxed broth. Traditionally the French used croutons, but I'm a big fan of a slab of Texas toast (which tastes even better if you slather it in garlic before toasting it). The only thing that would make this soup better is having crocks--all I have is bowls so I'm not able to get that cheese-dripping-off-everything look that a restaurant version will have.

French Onion Soup
--2 lbs. sweet onions, thinly sliced into rounds and separated into rings
--1/2 stick of butter, divided
--4 cups condensed beef broth
--1 1/2 TBSP Worcestershire
--salt and pepper to taste
--8 slices french bread or Texas toast, toasted
--Parmesan or Gruyere cheese, either 4 oz. grated or 6 thin slices

In a stock pot with a tight-fitting lid, melt half of the butter over medium heat. While the butter melts, line the pot with the onion rounds. Top the onions with the remaining butter. Cover and cook the onion slices in the butter until tender, about 20 minutes.

Add the beef broth, Worcestershire, and salt and pepper to the pot. Bring to a roiling boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes before scooping soup into bowls.

Classic french onion soup is served with the bread on the top. Every inch of the bread has been covered with cheese and the crock is then stuck under the broiler for a few minutes to melt the cheese and give the dish a nice crust. I have recently purchased a crème brulée torch to test out on future soup-making adventures. I'll let you know how that goes...

For this version, I topped each soup bowl with a piece of toasted garlic-smeared Texas toast before covering the open surface (toast, soup and all) will grated Parmesan cheese. Just pop a tray of trussed up soup bowls into the oven and broil for a few minutes until the cheese melts and browns slightly.

If you're looking to shake it up (or you don't have oven-safe bowls to broil in), here's an alternate approach: Sprinkle cheese onto toast and broil until cheese is lightly browned. Place the toast in the bowl and spoon onion-packed soup on top of it. You rebel!

Dammit Jim, I'm a cook, not a doctor...
Time: 55 minutes
Serves: 6
Calories: 377 per serving

The 3 C's of Stew: Coconut, Chickpea, Curry

Hey look! Again I'm trying to use the Flip-Cam; again I've failed to post a video, but instead I have stills from the botched shoot for you. You still win. You are a winner! You are full of as much winning as Charlie Sheen! (Is that joke old yet? The answer--yes. Am I deleting it? The answer--no.) Bonus prize? This recipe is not only vegetarian, it's vegan too. So the weekday vegetarian and animal-free among you can rejoice and we can all nom-nom together.

I've been a very busy girl--working, eating out, working out, rinse, repeat. I notice that my default go-to style of meal is the soup/stew. Why? Because throwing a bunch of things in a pot is fast, easy, super-forgiving, and almost always awesome (there are rare bad batches but everyone has a bad day now and again). Because my go-to on the go dish is a soup/stew, I steal ideas and grab inspiration from all over the place and all over the world. Today's dish combines Asian favorites coconut milk and curry powder with Middle East treats chickpeas, Oceana's sweet potatoes, and broccoli of the Roman Empire.

Curried Chick Pea Coconut Stew
--1 TBSP olive oil
--garlic, minced
--1 small onion, diced
--1 tablespoon yellow curry powder
--cinnamon and cumin
--1 large sweet potato, peeled and diced
--1 yellow bell pepper, de-seeded and diced
--1 small head of broccoli, chopped into florets
--1 14oz. can coconut milk
--1 14oz. can diced tomatoes
--2-3 cups vegetable broth (depending on whether you want more of a soup or a stew consistency)
--1 15oz. can chick peas, rinsed and drained
--1 lime

--salt and pepper to taste

Heat a Dutch oven or stock pot over medium heat. Add the garlic and onion and sauté over medium heat for two-ish minutes. Add the curry powder and a dash each of cumin and cinnamon. Stir to combine, letting the seasoning mix into the oil, onion, and garlic--this will deliver flavor throughout the dish in these tiny little spice hosts.

Add the sweet potato pieces and sauté for a few minutes before adding the bell pepper. Stir to combine and sauté for several minutes, allowing the vegetables to become tender. Add the broccoli, again, stirring regularly and only allowing the broccoli to slightly sear.

Mix in the coconut milk, then the tomatoes, and finally the vegetable broth. Bring the mixture to a boil before adding the chickpeas. Cover and reduce heat to a simmer. Allow to simmer for 15 minutes, stirring twice before serving. Season each portion with a dash of salt and a few cranks of fresh black pepper. Take the lime and squeeze juice into each portion. Serve!

Dammit Jim, I'm a cook, not a doctor...
Time: 45 minutes
Serves: 6

Calories: 399 per serving

Wine's The Way To Go

I drink enough wine, it's about time I spent more time cooking with it! So recently I have begun experimenting with making various wine sauces. Wine sauces are an easy way to add a nice rich flavor to dishes. I made dinner for family last weekend and decided a pork tenderloin with a white wine sauce was the way to go, adding some dried cherries that friends from Michigan sent us to give the dish a sweet little pop.

Cooking for groups can be tricky, especially as kids tend to be pickier, many people have allergies or dietary restrictions, and some of us are more adventurous with our food than others. This meal was a filling, healthy, tasty combination we all could agree on. Success!

Pork Tenderloin w/ Glazed Cherries Sauce
--2 lbs. lean pork tenderloin, any excess fat or skin removed.
--salt & pepper
--2 tsp olive oil, divided
--1 medium shallot, minced
--1 cup white wine
--2 cups chicken broth or stock
--1/4 cup dried cherries

Heat the oven to 375 degrees.

Heat a medium skillet over medium-high heat. Add 1 teaspoon of the olive oil and swirl to coat the pan. Season the pork with a few sprinkles of salt and pepper and sear the pork tenderloin on all sides for 2 minutes each. Searing the meat will help to lock in the juices. Place the meat in an oven safe dish and place into the oven for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes turn the pork loins and cook another 7 minutes. Use a knife plunged into the thickest part of the pork loin to check doneness. You want the interior of the pork to be a light pink in color as the pork will continue to cook while it is resting. When the pork is done remove it from the oven and allow it to rest for 4-5 minutes before slicing.

Heat the remaining teaspoon of olive oil in the pan, again, swirl to coat. Add the shallot and sauté over medium-high heat for a few minutes, stirring regularly, until the shallot is soft and begins to brown. Add the wine and the stock/broth.

Up the heat if necessary to bring the liquid to a boil. Then, reduce it to a simmer and cook until the sauce begins to reduce.

Add the cherries and stir to combine. You may wish you add a little more wine or stock as needed to make more sauce. If your sauce is thin and not thickening or reducing well, you can add 1/2 teaspoon of cornstarch blended well with 2 TBSP of warm water (mix this together well before adding it to the sauce). Slice the pork into 1/2" thick rounds and serve with the cherries sauce spooned over the pork rounds.

Dammit Jim, I'm a cook, not a doctor...
Time: 40 minutes
Serves: 4
Calories: 442 per serving

Charlie Sheen's Cooking Show is Made of Even More Winning Than He Is

I guess Charlie Sheen is even more awesome at life than he purports to be. I mean, he has a cauldron of awesomeness, so there's that.

Charlie Sheen's Winning Recipes from Charlie Sheen

Soup To Satisfy A Pho-natic!

So the BF got me a Flip video camera for Christmas and I've been experimenting with it [Read: Figuring out how it works]. Thus far I haven't made a video that could be posted without editing (shockingly, not many meals can be cooked and filmed in under 5 minutes to fit the YouTube standard) and my poor little laptop doesn't have the memory to edit video. But soon there will be Bacon & Other Bad Habits videos! I'll let you just take a moment to imagine all the potential kitchen catastrophe and debauchery...Yes, there will be wine involved, that much is certain. Yes, potentially even before noon.

One of our favorite meals is the Vietnamese beef and broth soup known as Phò and it is our go-to "I don't want to cook, let's go eat out somewhere" meal. While the Asian markets do carry the spice mixture that purports to make this delicious broth I'm nervous to try to make it at home. (This is truly a case of why mess up a good thing?). However, that doesn't mean I can't take my inspiration from phò and the Vietnamese and make a rice noodle brothy soup with beef. Not in the least!

Since I haven't yet got that whole editing/posting thing together, here's a recipe that I filmed and then pulled the stills out. The images are a little blurrier than the usual, but you still get the idea. Plus, maybe later on you'll get a bonus video prize when I hire a middle school-er to figure out newfangled technology. Kids these days. Your bonus prize for now is that this sucker is really really cheap to make, super filling, and notta lotta calories. For the win! All ingredients can be found at an Asian market or specialty grocer (Whole Foods carries all this stuff, even the lemongrass, if your local grocer doesn't have it).

Vietnamese-style Beef Noodle Soup
--TBSP sesame oil
--cooking spray
--small onion, diced
--garlic, minced
--TBSP chile-garlic sauce
--TBSP fish sauce
--TBSP lime juice
--TBSP soy sauce
--jalapeno, stem and seeds removed, diced fine
--red bell pepper, stem and seeds removed, diced
--1 lemongrass stalk, ends discarded (slice this if you will plan to eat it in the soup, otherwise leave whole so you can discard it after cooking)
--4 thin steaks (I used top round), sliced crosswise into long, thin pieces
--TBSP sesame seeds
--black pepper
--cilantro, dried or fresh chopped
--2 cups beef broth
--1 cup chicken broth

--8 oz. medium (marked Pad Thai or Banh Pho) rice noodles (about 1/2 of a typical 16 oz. package)
--green onion, chopped into 1/4" rings
--Thai basil leaves (optional)

Heat a large pot over medium heat. After a few minutes spray with cooking spray and add the sesame oil to allow the oil to coat the pan. Sauté onion and garlic under fragrant and onion begins to get translucent. Add the chile-garlic sauce, fish sauce, soy sauce, and lime juice and stir to combine. Add the jalapeno and red bell pepper and saute for a few minutes before adding the lemongrass.

Lemongrass is a spiky little critter that will add tons of flavor to and is a staple of Asian dishes. If you want to try to eat the lemongrass I recommend soaking it in warm water for 30 minutes before cooking it. Otherwise it is a non-soluble fiber that stabs at the gums when one attempts to chew it...so like a bay leaf feel free to put in a whole stalk or one that has been chopped in half and then remove it after the cooking process is complete.

Season the steak pieces with sesame seeds and fresh cracked black pepper. If using dried cilantro, season the steaks with this now. If using fresh cilantro, add it at the end. Add the meat to the pot and stir to combine the mixture

Add the broths and water and bring the soup to a boil. Once boiling, add the rice noodles and cover the pot. Simmer for 20 minutes, covered, stirring occasionally.

Remove lid. If using large lemongrass stalks, fish out and discard. Add the chopped green onion and Thai basil (I chopped mine up). If using fresh cilantro, add it now as well. Stir to combine. Serve! To add more spice, add more chile garlic sauce or use what I call "Rooster" (but is really known as Sriracha).

Dammit Jim, I'm a cook, not a doctor...
Time: 60 minutes
Serves: 6
Calories: 272 per serving

Inspiration for Aspiring Chefs

PB&J from Alinea Restaurant. Photo by Lara Kastner

I have worked in restaurants but never ever in the back of the house. I don't know that I have the necessary skills it takes to survive working the line, so I have the utmost respect for chefs and restaurateurs. Which is not to say hero-worship--not in the least--but I always find these folks to be full of fascinating stories and interesting conversation fodder. Not to mention the way many feel about food and speak about it with the awe of a child and the passion of an addict.

If you didn't catch Terri Gross' Fresh Air interview on Thursday (or you're not lucky enough to have a local NPR affiliate), it is absolutely worth listening to the 43-minute interview with chef Grant Achatz of Chicago restaurant Alinea. Achatz was on the program to promote his new memoir, Life, on the Line, which is as much about his restaurant as it is about his battle with stage-4 tongue cancer (which includes losing, and eventually regaining, his sense of taste). The book is a lot less savory than other scandalous kitchen rags (a la Anthony Bourdain's infamous Kitchen Confidential) but if the interview was any indication looks to be an interesting read.

Octopus from Alinea Restaurant. Photo by Lara Kastner

I love that listening to Achatz, you might think at first that you are eavesdropping on a conversation as told by a mad scientist. Achatz is a scholar of the molecular gastronomy movement--cuisine that involves a lot of science and sometimes science fiction in its toolbox. Cooking in this manner might involve using liquid nitrogen or dry ice, inventing equipment that freezes items that aren't normally frozen (like olive oil lollipops), or, in Achatz's case, using the powerful olfactory sense to include the smell of an item in its taste. (Achatz uses burning twigs or essences in deflating linen pillowcases to add scents of items to the taste of his dishes).

While this is a level of cuisine that I'm not interested in exploring personally I find the whole thing fascinating. It reminds me of little kids who take things apart only to see how they work by putting them back together. And better still it is nice to listen to someone who conveys so much joy and wonder about what they do professionally. It's hard not to get caught up in that giddy school boy's fascination with how he makes and masters his single-bite 23-course meals...

Listen to the interview! (Do it, give in to peer pressure).