October 1999

SIMMERING, STEWING, BAKING

I have just returned from Greece, where it seemed that summer stretched eternally in both directions, past and future, an unbroken expanse of azure sky and sea. Cicadas filled the afternoon heat with their amazing racket, and we ate pungent olives, salty cheese, platters of intensely sweet melons.

I came home to the cool hush of fog in the morning, the delight of wearing a sweater while I made my coffee.

Fall comes suddenly here. At the farmer's market, the tables groan under their loads of blood red tomatoes, juicy berries and cantaloupes - then one day the first giant winter squashes are there, the new crops of apples, Asian pears, and right behind them, persimmons. Albino pumpkins appear like ghosts in the middle of riotous fall color.

It's a good time of year. Everywhere in the world the pace picks up - and in the kitchen it slows down.

Hearty Soups

With cooler weather, it's time for soups and stews, and time to bake again. I get in the mood for the big, filling soups that make a meal, the kind you simmer a long time and serve in deep bowls, with the chewy country breads that complete them. I love mushroom barley soup, and lentil soup, and of course my old stand-by, the ever-changing green soup.

I'll be leaning on that helpful soup this month; I brought back a few extra pounds from my olive oil drenched vacation. To make matters worse, I stopped in Vienna on the way home, where the people believe that it's never the wrong time of day to sit down with a rich pastry and a cup of coffee topped with whipped cream.

Hot, satisfying soups are an indispensable part of the healthy, pleasurable eating I'm used to. It's so easy to develop rich flavor in a soup without using much fat. Soups based on winter squashes are a great example, with their natural sugar, and adding slowly caramelized onions to just about any vegetable soup gives it wonderful body and depth.

Legumes are also terrific in soups - low in fat, high in fiber, and they taste great. This month I'm including a recipe for a soup I made when, as so often happens, I was dealing with leftovers - in this case, Tuscan White Beans with Garlic and Sage. I pureed most of the beans with some broth, then added beet greens sautéed with garlic. It was delicious, and I've made it several times since. It's a simple soup that can be elaborated with a drizzle of fruity olive oil, a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese, or some garlic croutons.

As the centerpiece of a soup supper, it could look like this:

This menu is a template. Any fall salad with some bite would be fine - arugula and Parmesan, or frisee with watercress and a scattering of walnuts, for example. And though the baked pears are very nice (you can find the recipe in The New Vegetarian Epicure, p.206), you might choose to simply serve fresh pears. A perfectly ripe pear is a superb dessert.

Pot Pie

From soup to stew is a very short step, and a stew can easily become a pot pie. I love pot pies. They're so agreeably unpretentious and familiar - you cover a stew with some sort of crust, bake it, and there you are.

I started tinkering with a pot pie recipe this week, and settled on a combination of root vegetables, enhanced with some onions, mushroom, and a few herbs from the garden. I simmered these with the simplest of gravies, just some broth and milk, slightly thickened. I added a few string beans, and the fresh green limas I can never resist at the farmer's market, which made it a pretty balanced meal in one dish. I thought about low-fat toppings, but decided on a pie crust with cheese in it, thinking of my fourteen-year-old son.

A pot pie like this one can be endlessly varied. Use any vegetables you like, as long as you keep the general amount and type consistent. Try rutabaga, winter squash, exotic mushrooms, strips of dark green kale, peas instead of green beans... If you need convenience at dinner time, make the vegetable stew ahead and refrigerate it. It's a matter of minutes to warm it up, add a topping, and put it in the oven. The topping can be varied, too. I've used a thick cornbread batter, and buttermilk drop biscuits, and you could use filo sheets, or puff pastry.

As for my cheese-crusted pie - I'm happy to report that Teddy ate every bite, and even told me it was good. Maybe you didn't really need to know that, but when Teddy tells me he enjoyed his vegetables, I have to write it down. I'm sending along my Vegetable Pot Pie in this month's new recipes. It's been tested on adults and kids alike, and passed. I hope you're having the right weather for it!

October 1999 recipe