House Spouse

I don’t eat chicken. I love tempeh (seriously love it). So I attempted altering a recipe for arroz con pollo in Mexican Everyday to make it vegetarian. It was mostly successful: it tasted good and was a much healthier version of the meaty alternative, but was very uniform in color except for the flecks of cilantro used to garnish it. I suppose with white rice there would have been a bit more variation, but I have a bin of brown rice around. While I like for food to look pretty, sometimes an ugly meal suits me just fine (especially with a hefty spoonful of sour cream and a pour of salsa).

Spicy Tempeh and Brown Rice with Black Beans
Serves 4

Ingredients:
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 package tempeh (10-12 oz)
2 1/2 Tbsp ground ancho chile powder
1 medium white onion
1 cup brown rice, rinsed and drained
4 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
2 cups vegetable broth
1 15-oz can black beans, rinsed
1/3 cup chopped cilantro
sour cream and salsa for serving

Slice the tempeh into 1/4-inch thick pieces. Sprinkle both sides with some salt and one tablespoon of the ancho chile. Heat the oil in a medium large heavy pot over medium-high heat (a Dutch oven works well). Brown the tempeh and remove to a dish leaving behind as much oil as possible.

Add the onion and rice to the pot and stir for a few minutes. Add the garlic and the rest of the chile powder and cook for about a minute. Add the broth and a teaspoon of salt. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium-low and cover. Cook for 30 minutes.

Uncover the pot and add the tempeh and beans. Stir together and cook for about 15 more minutes (or until the rice is done). Add the cilantro and stir.

Serve with the sour cream and salsa.

Days like today, the kind of days where I spend the majority of the day outside, always make me think of Texas. I think it’s because I spent a lot more time outdoors while living there than I did after I moved to Virginia. I only remember eating lunch outside when I was in high school there. I was also in marching band, which obviously meant a lot of time outdoors practicing. And I spent most of my evening nights in 9th and 10th grade sitting at the end of my driveway with my best friend and romantic interest, Harlan. (Though, those terms hardly seem accurate, but to call Harlan my first love feels cliché and terribly understated.)

I associate afternoons like this one with those nights in my driveway because of the deep happiness I would feel while sitting outside and for hours afterward. I slept well after watching stars and talking for hours with Harlan, and I imagine I will sleep soundly tonight after eating and drinking and talking for hours with two of my best friends in my backyard. We dined on green garlic and spinach soup, the bread I made last night, and grilled asparagus.

This soup is one I tried making a few years ago. I was confused and didn’t really understand the difference between green garlic and garlic scapes. I tried making it with garlic scapes and ended up a nice tasting, but strangely textured soup. I’ve since wised up and am able to make a distinction. I noticed some green garlic at the farmer’s market yesterday and, knowing our friends would be coming over for lunch today, I purchased some and made plans to retry the soup.

This recipe comes from Orangette. In my attempts to make the soup go a little further, I added water to the stock and used slightly more spinach than the recipe calls for (11 to 12 ounces versus 8 to 10 ounces). I didn’t have quite enough green garlic, so I used a few additional garlic cloves and two small spring onions. The end result was a little thinner and bodiless than I’d hoped, so I puréed a half of an avocado into the mix. So, the recipe below reflects my adaptations, but I think it’s worth trying the original if you have all the green garlic you need and aren’t trying to make more than a quart of soup.

Green garlic and spinach soup
Adapted from Orangette
Serves 4 as a light meal

2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp unsalted butter
1/4 lb green garlic, thinly sliced (white and pale green parts only)
3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
2 spring onions, thinly sliced
1 qart vegetable broth
1 cup water
11 to 12 oz. baby spinach leaves
1 1/2 Tbsp. crème fraîche
1/2 avocado
salt

Warm the olive oil and butter in a large saucepan or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add all the garlic and onions and a pinch of salt, and cook, stirring frequently, until it is soft and translucent.

When the garlic is ready, add the stock, raise the heat a bit, and bring it to a boil. Then adjust the heat to maintain a gentle simmer, and continue to cook for about 15 minutes. Add the spinach, and immediately turn off the stove. Let it sit for 5 minutes.

Purée the soup with a hand blender or in a blender by working in batches. (Remember never to fill the blender more than a quarter or a third full, because the hot liquid will expand when you turn on the motor.) The soup should be a rich shade of green and very smooth. Add the avocado and purée again.

Return the soup to the pot, and place it over low heat to rewarm gently. Add 1 to 1 1/2 Tbsp crème fraîche (or just plain heavy whipping cream) and another pinch or two of salt. Taste, and adjust seasoning as necessary. You might even want to stir in a Tbsp of pesto for a bit more punch, which is what I did.

Serve warm or hot, with a drizzle of olive oil or a dollop of crème fraîche, if you like. (A bit of pesto works well, too.) We used chive flowers to garnish ours which makes for a really pretty presentation. (The flowers taste like chives.)