Pea and Almond Soup by bookseller

Chops three large carrots, two large onions, and a couple cloves of garlic, and sweat them in 3 T olive oil until soft and light gold. ("Sweat" meaning over very low heat, not shooting for browning.) While the veggies are softening, top and tail a pound of green beans, and half a pound of sugar snap peas. When the onions and friends are soft, add in the beans and peas, stir around to mix them with the rest of the kids in the pool, and let it all meld together over medium heat for about five minutes.

Pour in a quart of chicken broth, cover the pot, and let it simmer away over low heat for about 30 minutes. Somewhere in that 30-minute period, measure out 1 cup or 4 oz. (by weight) of almond meal (you can get it at the health-food store or at Whole Foods; Bob's Red Mill is a very reliable, nationally distributed brand -- it's just finely ground blanched almonds, might also be called almond flour). Pour it into a small non-stick frying pan over medium-high heat, and stir constantly for about 2 minutes, as the almond meal toasts, gets darker, and starts to smell good. Once it has definitely taken on a toasted color (it may not be an even color -- some bits will be darker than others), pour it into a bowl or onto a plate, so it stops cooking.

When the beans et al. have been cooking for 30 minutes, taste the broth for seasoning. I wound up adding a fair amount of salt, some black pepper, and the juice of a lemon. Stir in the toasted almond flour, turn off the heat, and let the mixture cool down a bit. Blend it with a stick-blender or in batches in a regular blender. Should make about 6 cups.

The astonishing thing, for me, is that it not only looks like pea soup -- which I love, but have to steer clear of, mostly -- but it tastes very much like it. Adding the lemon juice actually took it in a different direction, but without that addition, and with a little chopped ham or smoked turkey, it would do a really good pea soup imitation. And the almond meal gives it the body that makes it feel like a meal. Pretty cool.

Wine Sauce for Lamb Chops by bookseller

I did some interesting old-school cooking. I wanted -- don't ask why -- to make a wine sauce to go with lamb chops, and I did it, as I say, really old school. Which is to say that I browned three pounds -- THREE POUNDS -- of lamb neck (admittedly, too bony and gristley to make good eating), working really slowly to brown every side, took about, jeez, an hour maybe. Removed the meat, and in the fat that had rendered I browned -- deeply browned -- some chopped onion and garlic and carrots, with a little fresh thyme and a bay leaf. Added the lamb back into the pot, and poured in an entire bottle of red wine plus about a quart of chicken broth, and let it all cook down for...three hours maybe. Strained it and degreased it (and was delighted to learn that those gravy separator thingies really do work), and then reduced it down to about a cup. Added about 1/4 teaspoon of kosher salt -- the only salt I had added so far, which really made it come together, and then thickened it with a beurre manie, which is a variation on a roux; it's a small amount of softened butter smushed together with a small amount of flour, and then dropped into simmering liquid in tiny clumps.

Anyway, the sauce thickened beautifully, all glossy and with a lovely body, and the salt pulled all the flavors together. And after all of this, I got a scant cup of this gorgeous sauce. It's intensely flavorful; I can't see wanting to use more than, say, 2 tablespoons per serving. But all that meat, and all that wine, and all that time, for ONE CUP of glaze....wow. It's a very 19th-century kind of cooking, and deeply French, rather than American; we just don't do those kinds of reductions. And I had never made one before, but I gotta say, the result is a knockout.

Chicken for Chicken Salad by bookseller

So I had four chicken thighs and I wanted to make chicken salad from them, and I also had a couple cartons of organic chicken broth. Put the thighs in a pan, covered them with chicken broth and NOTHING else, brought them to a simmer and held them there for three minutes, kicked it up to a boil, slapped a cover on, turned off the heat, and let them sit for 45 minutes. The result: PERFECTLY poached chicken, moist and juicy, ideal for chicken salad. And what's really interesting to me is how flavorful the chicken is, as though I had spiced the broth. And the broth, too, is terrific. Straight out of the carton, it's bland and dull, but now infused with double-chickaliciousness, it's something I would actually choose to eat as soup.

[Later] Nomming my chicken salad, and I will never cook chicken -- for salad -- any other way again. This is amazing. I recommend highly.

Spanish-Style Pork Chops by Picklehead

Pork chops:

Crush some garlic and fry it in olive oil with a pinch of Spanish saffron.

Cover the pork chops in a mixture of flour, salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, nutmeg, and paprika.

Fry 'em up. When almost done, pour some white wine over them.

Polenta:

Fry it with some salt and pepper. When done, grate a bit of parmesan cheese over it.

We had broccoli for veggies, which worked nicely. It was all very yummy.

Vegetable halva by bookseller

Last night I was trying to figure out what to do with a zucchini and a couple of large carrots. I figured I would just cut them into sticks and eat them as veggie snacks, though that did seem extremely boring. And then I remembered a recipe I had recently seen for "halvah" (though of the Indian, rather than Middle Eastern, variety) made from vegetables. I'd never made anything like this before. The grated vegetables went into a wide skillet, along with about a teaspoon of the little black seeds from inside a cardamom pod, and two cups of milk. Oh, and half an ounce of raisins, which is about a tablespoon. Really low heat, and occasional stirring until the milk gradually, gradually reduced and was almost entirely absorbed -- probably took about two hours. Six tablespoons of sugar (sub), two tablespoons of butter, an ounce of sliced and toasted almonds, and half a teaspoon of rosewater. Mixed it all in, let it cool overnight, and I have to say, this is delicious. Really weird, but delicious.

Apple Clafouti by Picklehead

FOR THE BATTER:

3 eggs

1 cup milk or heavy cream

8 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2⁄3 cup all-purpose flour

1⁄2 cup sugar

1⁄2 tsp. salt

FOR THE APPLES:

4 tbsp. unsalted butter

4 tart apples, peeled, cored, and sliced

1⁄2 cup plus 2 tsp. sugar

2–3 tbsp. brandy

Ground cinnamon

1. For the batter: Preheat oven to 400°. Put milk, eggs, 6 tbsp. of the butter, vanilla, flour, sugar, and salt into a blender, blend until smooth, and set aside. Grease a 10" pie plate with remaining butter, then set in oven to heat.

2. For the apples: Melt butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add apples, 1/2 cup of the sugar, and brandy and cook until apples are glazed and warm, about 5 minutes.

3. Remove pie plate from oven and immediately pour in half the batter. Arrange warm apple slices over batter, reserving juices, then pour remaining batter over apples. Sprinkle remaining sugar and a little cinnamon over batter and bake until clafouti is golden and set in the center, 25–30 minutes. Drizzle with warmed reserved apple juices.

Otter Chowder by Grizzled Adams

1Cup chopped onion

1/2 cup chopped green pepper

1/2 cup chopped celery

3or4 garlic cloves chopped

put a couppla glugs of olive oil in a heavy soup pot add 1st 4 ingredients fry till onions are translucent

1/2 lb mild whitefish

1 qt lowfat/low salt chicken broth

add fish to onion mix, when half done add chicken broth then add

1 teaspoon Smoked Paprika

1 teaspoon Mrs Dash Garlic and Herbs

1 teaspoon Old Bay

1 4oz can chopped green chilies

1 small can tomato paste

1 14 oz can whole tomatoes and juice

add 2 potatoes cut into 1/2 inch cubes and bring to a boil, then simmer for 45 min

next you will need;

1/2 lb "seafood mix"(raw octopus,raw cuttlefish,raw squid,raw shrimp and cooked clams and mussels)

1/2 lb salmon cut into large chunks

4 oz bay scallops

4oz backfin crab meat

4oz oysters

olive oil

white wine

garlic chopped

juice from one lemon

add olive oil to fry pan, when it is hot add garlic after about a minute of pushing the garlic around put in the "Seafood mix" turn the heat down, what you want to do is heat up the seafood mix in a scampi sauce, so add the lemon and wine and let it cook down keep stirring.

when the potatoes are about done, add the scampi, and the salmon chunks and simmer till the salmon is almost done. Then add the crabmeat and about 2 minutes before you serve add the oysters.

Serve with a salad and garlic bread.

Now I thought this tasted pretty damn good, and Leviticus would have tasted it, his book would have been half as long.