Last night I flicked through the Junior League cookbook for inspiration, and settled upon French onion soup for dinner, because it’s freezing, and there’s nothing quite like French onion soup, with oozing gruyere cheese, to warm you up.

I added some thyme and red wine. Many recipes call for the addition of cognac, brandy, sherry, or white wine, and you work with what you have, and it is also fine to leave out the alcohol altogether. I wish I had put the thyme in a small bag of cheesecloth (or one of those gauze bandages we all have in the back of the first aid cupboard), tied up with string. I ended up fishing it our rather carefully, as I realised it felt a bit like crunching down on pot-pourri.

Speaking of working with what you have, I decided to adapt a Jamie Oliver recipe for the main course - In Jamie’s Italy he has a recipe for pork chops with sage, and he stuffs the pork with a heavenly flavored butter, which uses apricots, prosciutto, garlic and sage.

I realised however, standing in the pantry frantically scouring shelves, that I had no apricots. This is only surprising because The Sherpa has said, not unkindly, that heaven forbid there were to be an emergency and there was no food available, we could all quite happily live off the food in my pantry for a good year. This is not untrue. I have cans and cans, and jars and jars, and boxes and boxes. I seem to have this fear of running out, and heaven forbid there are no anchovies when you need them…

But there were no apricots, and I am lazy, so I did what I so often do, and searched for a substitution, which is sometimes wonderful, and sometimes beyond Godawful terrible. Last night I used dried figs instead of dried apricots, and it was magnificent - I even, dare I admit it, preferred the figs to the original recipe.

I also used dried sage instead of fresh, as had no dried, and my friend The Artist had brought me round a ’smudge stick’, to clear my house of bad energy after the incident with Knife-Wielding Maniac. I haven’t got round to using the smudge stick, which now looks like a smudge stick that has been on a starvation diet for about six months, thanks to me throwing half in to dinner last night.

And as a side, braised red cabbage, the cabbages being the last of my crop from the vegetable garden. Have no idea what the gopher has against red cabbage - he seemed to bloody well like everything else in the garden, but I’m rather glad he left the cabbages for us.

This is a sweet and sour dish that I remember my mother making in my youth. I drew on a number of different recipes for inspiration, because the first round was incredibly bland, and it needed some oomph, which I found with Allspice, and cinnamon.

It was quick, it was easy, and it was impressive - always a good thing for a lazy gourmet like myself. I haven’t got the time or the patience to fiddle around for hours with hundreds of ingredients. I want quick, easy, but I want it to look like it took me all day.

The pork loin truly was the easiest thing in the world, and would have been eminently suitable for an evening far more formal than a casual kitchen supper.

My boyfriends, Beloved and I went through the plans with a fine toothcomb. We all agree on the changes, and there is only one major one, which is moving the staircase in the main house. I felt like we were so close, and it’s so hard to go back to the architect and ask her to change something as important as a staircase, but necessary.

One of the things I am learning is that this is a process that has to take time. The longer we live with the plans, look at them, talk about them, the clearer our needs are, and those niggling little doubts, that something could be better, leap out in sharp focus after a few days, and you know you have to make it right.

One last thing. In flicking through the Junior League cookbook, I notice there is a recipe for Narcissa Titman’s curried pea soup. I love curried pea soup. It’s one of my most favorite recipes in the world, mostly because I make it with an onion, a bag of frozen peas, stock, and flavor it with curry, cumin, ginger and coriander.

(Could not be easier: soften a finely chopped onion in butter and oil, add bag of frozen peas, add stock, simmer, puree with a hand-held blender, season to taste with the spices, simmer on very low heat to let spices absorb. Serve with dollop of sour cream or creme fraiche).

Narcissa Titman makes it with a french base called a ‘mire-poix’, which is the standard base of all French stock, and the foundation of most soups: finely diced onions, carrots and celery, but I wasn’t interested in the recipe (although I’m sure it is delicious). I was interested in the name.

Isn’t it the most fabulous name you’ve ever heard? I’m now dying to use it for a character, but of course I can’t because, um, she exists, and she’d probably sue me.

(Whoops. Just back from googling Ms Titman. She is friends with Amanda Hesser who is a fabulous food writer - I have all her books and recommend them hugely - and seems Ms Titman is a wonderful cook. May now have to - gasp - roll up my sleeves and get working, finely chopping those vegetables for the mire-poix to try out her recipe.)

In the meantime, here are my recipes from last night, which are very little work, do not involve any fine dicing, but taste wonderful, nevertheless.

French Onion Soup

1/2 stick butter (8 Tablespoons)
4 onions, thinly sliced
4 cups beef stock
1 tablespoon of brown sugar
1 cup red wine (or brandy, cognac, sherry or white wine)
seasoning
dash of Worcestershire sauce
thyme
grated Gruyere cheese
grated Parmesan cheese
one baguette
olive oil

Melt the butter in a large heavy pan (I use a Le Creuset which are perfect) and add the onions, stirring constantly on a low heat until they are soft and caramelising - around 20 minutes.

Add brown sugar. Stir. Add stock, wine, seasoning and booze. Bring to boil, cover and simmer for 1/2 and hour to an hour. Add Worcestershire sauce.

When ready to serve, slice baguette, toast, ladle soup into bowls and cover each with thick handful of Gruyere. Top with slice of toast, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with parmesan then run under broiler to melt and brown.

Loin of Pork stuffed with figs, prosciutto and sage

1 loin of pork, around 1 1/2 lbs
6 dried figs
1/2 stick butter
4 slices prosciutto
1 clove of garlic
8 fresh sage leaves, or about 1 teaspoon if using dried which is far more pungent.
Seasoning
Tablespoon dijon mustard
2 Tablespoons honey
olive oil

Cut a pocket along the length of the pork, almost going through to the other side, but being careful not to. Think of the Muppets, and you will get the idea.

In a cuisinart, pulse the butter, figs, prosciutto, garlic, sage, and seasoning, until a paste.

Fill loin with paste, and wrap with string to keep it together.

Mix mustard and honey together, covering meat with the paste.

Drizzle with oil, cook on 350 for an hour.

Braised red cabbage

1 large red cabbage, thinly sliced into strips
1 apple, peeled, cored, thinly sliced into strips
1 onion, chopped small
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 cup balsamic vinegar
1 clove garlic, chopped small
1/4 teaspoon Allspice
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
Olive oil
Knob of butter

Sautee onion and garlic in oil and butter, in shallow casserole dish with lid.

Add cabbage and apple, stir until softened.

Add rest of ingredients, stir well, cover with lid, and cook over low heat for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, stirring occasionally.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 24th, 2008 at 10:54 am and is filed under Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.