White Bean Soup with Greens and Barley

so here is an attempt at document the soup i recently ate for a week straight.  i am not entirely sure i remembered all the seasoning i used, but i think the most important thing is to season it well.  it is really really good.  and hearty. and nice with some parmesan cheese sprinkled on top :)
Ingredients
1 1/2 pounds greens - Trader Joes sells a bag of m1.5 lbs ixed greens for cooking - i think it is spinach, mustard greens, collards, etc
about 3/4 cups pearled barley
at least 2 boxes of low sodium chicken broth, maybe more
2 cans of white beans (I used one can of cannelini and one labeled "white kidney beans"  i couldn't tell the difference...)
garlic powder
onion powder
oregano
bay leaf
a little bit of fennel seed (i think this added a really good taste)
pepper (i used a lot of pepper - both white and black, also shallot pepper blend, and some other random seasonings)

Instructions
Bring a large pot of water to a boil over medium-high heat. Add the greens and cook for 5-7 minutes, or until barely tender. Drain the greens, squeezing out as much water as possible.

Cook the barley according to package directions in chicken broth (should take about 30-45 minutes)

After the barley is cooked, add more broth to the pot and bring the broth to a simmer over medium-high heat. Add the greens and season. Place beans in a strainer and rinse them under cold running water to remove excess sodium. Add the beans to the broth. Simmer gently, partially covered, for at least 10 minutes.   You might need to add more broth.  Check seasoning and adjust.

Serve with parmesan cheese.

Beef Bourgignon and a Surprise

Happy Birthday to Me!
So today is my birthday.  And my big plan for 35 was to host a dinner party for my friends and make them Beef Bourgignon.  One would think that the complicated part of this plan was the beef, but I was wrong.  It turned out that while I was planning my own dinner party my friends and sister were planning a surprise party.  My excitement and insistence on my dinner party created quite the complicated scenario for my friends.  After generously offering their nicer and bigger apartment for my party, my friends had to deal with my constant trying to go over to their house too early, so the party turned into a day long affair.  I arrived at their house at 1 with many grocery bags of lovely ingredients, only to find a house full of all of my favorite people (including sister and nephew from Maine and friends from Ithaca) and a dining room filled with food.  After recovering from my initial shock - with the help of several beers - the party became the perfect combination of friends, babies, and kitchen activity.  I still got to make my beef, and it was fabulous.  We followed Julia's recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking (a little different from the recipe she follows on the French Chef cooking episode).  Because of all of the excitement I only ended up with one picture, taken after the beef browned and went into the pot, but before the braising.

 

Beautiful, right?

The rest of the menu was fairly traditional and fabulous -

a variety of cheese and crackers

small yukon gold potatoes cooked in duck fat my friend just happened to have in his freezer

buttered peas

french bread

salad of arugala, belgian endive, and herb mix tossed with candied walnuts and a lemon/olive oil dressing.

Oh, and I made a non-french appetizer adapted from this recipe from Giada De Laurentiis for Cheese Stuffed Dates with Prosciutto.  I used 5 oz. goat cheese, 4 oz. marscapone (ended up with some left over which turns out to be a fabulous spread on its own) and increased the chives.  Also, I don't know if it was the size of the prosciutto I used (I bought the Trader Joe's brand) but I ended up cutting each piece in quarters instead of halves and that was enough for each piece.  It helped to cut the prosciutto with kitchen shears while it was still on the paper.  Maybe it was the size of the dates I used (I couldn't find Medjool and mine might have been smaller - just generic dates from Whole Foods).  They were a big hit and even better after several hours in the fridge.

The day became the perfect party extending from lunch into evening and continuing the next morning with apple pancakes and leftover prosciutto, cheese, and peaches in champagne.

Yum, and a perfect beginning to 35.

Here are some pictures as the beef reheats for dinner tonight.  Leftovers are the best.

an experiment in blogging

I am starting a blog.  There.  I did it.  I don't imagine anyone will read it, but we'll see.  For a long time I have played with the idea of a knitting blog.  More recently I have become obsessed with the food and cooking blogs of others, so that idea has made its way into the recesses of my mind.  Then I figured, why not?  What is there to lose?  And since one of my New Year's resolutions is to spend less time thinking about why not to do things and more time doing them, here we are.
Who am I?
My name is Laura, I'm 34 (at least for the next 6 days), single, and live outside of Boston, MA with my crazy cat Clementine.  I have fabulous friends, a good job, and an abiding love for cooking and knitting things for my friends and family.
I learned the confidence to cook from my mother, and the love of knitting from my grandmother on my dad's side.  My mom is also a knitter and has fostered my love for this along the way.  My grandmother, wonderful and brilliant woman who she was, was a terrible cook. 
Most of my recent knitting has been inspired by my almost 1 year old nephew.  From his voracious appetite I believe he will soon be an inspiration for my cooking as well.
My next big cooking project is a dinner party in honor of my 35th birthday, where I will make Beef Bourgignon (I know, its a cliche, and seems a little too pop culture referential, but its what I want to do so I don't care).  I recently took a cooking class where we learned this classic, and immediately decided that I could not think of a better way to celebrate my birthday than cooking for my friends.  So, I imagine my next blog post will be about the party.
P.S.  The picture above is of the turkey I made for my family this past Thanksgiving.  Prettiest and tastiest turkey I had ever had if I do say so myself.