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Actually pickle soup is good when the weather is cold, too. And its equally delicious when I’m in a good mood.

Did my mood improve after I ate this soup? well, I ate two bowlfuls, and by then I was  hydrated and resalted from the pickle juice and soup broth, and to tell you the truth: I WAS in a better mood.

I must take this moment to mention COLD pickle soup, which i have teased people with my mentioning in various social networks, but that is a completely different soup, a different recipe. I will put it up though, i promise. But in the meantime, this pickle soup was something I tasted first in a Polish restaurant (“c’mon: pickle soup???? cream of pickle soup????” yes that really was me, hard to believe, i know) and was won over just one spoon into my pickle soup experience. In Poland I discovered it was also garlicky, and meaty, and lush. At home in my own kitchen I realized I could put a whole garden of vegetables in it, and if i didn’t have a meaty broth, with chunks of meat, I could use a porcini bouillon cube and a handful of meatballs.

Instead of sweet cream, I used sour, then i used yogurt which i like even more. And in addition to the dill, I snipped a handful of chervil and found it brought the whole pickle-y thing together like magic.

this is the soup without the meatballs, just the vegetables. and these, are the meatballs.

Broccoli with Chile-Bean Sauce and Tofu

Serves 2-3 or more, as part of a meal, or 1 as the whole meal itself

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 small chunk of ginger, grated or chopped: about 1/2 teaspoons worth, or to taste

2 green onions, thinly sliced, or 1/2 small leek, thinly sliced, or other onion such as shallot, red, yellow or white onion

1 teaspoon vegetable or peanut oil

1 small head of broccoli, stem cut into bite sized pieces, florets separated and cut bite-sized, too

1/2 teaspoon mild paprika, preferably the smoked type (pimenton)

Sprinkle (big pinch) Chinese 5-spice powder

1-2 tablespoons mild miso or 1 sachet of instant miso soup

1 1/2 cups chicken broth or water

1-2 tablespoons Chinese Chile Bean Sauce (hot bean sauce)

1 tablespoon tamarind chutney (Indian) or tamarind paste+1/2 teaspoon sugar, or hoisin sauce+dash vinegar

6-8 ounces (175-225 g) firmish tofu, torn into chunks

Drizzle of sesame oil

1 tablespoon chopped cilantro/coriander leaves

Extra hot sauce such as garlic-chile or siracha, to taste

In a heavy nonstick frying pan or wok quickly stir fry the garlic, ginger, and green onions/leek/onions in the vegetable oil until aromatic, then add the broccoli and cook a few minutes (should still be crunchy and raw-ish).

Sprinkle with the paprika and five spice, cook and stir fry a minute or two, then add the miso and broth or water. Stir together, cover, and cook a few minutes only until the broccoli is crunchy-tender.

Add chile bean sauce (hot bean sauce), tamarind chutney or hoisin sauce, and tofu. Season to taste with soy sauce and extra hot sauce if desired/to taste, and serve drizzled with sesame oil and sprinkled with cilantro/coriander leaves.

Leftovers are terrific served with noodles, and a sprinkling of chopped peanuts.

Thanks to Amanda Johnson and Pamela Sheldon John, whose recipe this is adapted from.

Makes one nice cake. Very Nice Cake.

2 eggs

2 cups sugar

1 cup extra virgin olive oil, with lots of flavour (I used a Greek oil, from Crete)

1 cup milk (I used skim) or: EVEN BETTER: 1/2 cup milk, 1/2 cup Greek yogurt (fat free is fine)

Grated zest of 2 lemons

2 cups plus 1 tablespoon self rising flour, or enough to make a texture of cake batter

1/4 -1/2 teaspoon baking powder (admission here: i didn’t measure, just pinched, so its somewhere in between)

pinch (or two) salt

Optional: About 1/2 cup dried or half dry half fresh (and pitted, macerated with a bit of sugar) sour cherries

Powdered sugar for sifting over the top, if you like.

Preheat oven to 350F/ 160C/ gas mark 5. 

Prepare a baking pan–I used a tarte tatin pan which has a heavy bottom and sides and is about 10 inches in diameter– by rubbing with butter or oil, then dusting with flour to coat the inside of the pan.Set aside.

Beat the eggs with the sugar (I used a fork–very low tech), and when mixed well add the milk and lemon zest, and mix in well.

Add the flour, baking soda, and salt, mix until JUST combined (mine was a bit lumpy), then if using, stir in the cherries. Pour batter into the prepared pan, and at this point I urge you to lick the batter from the bowl and spoon. So good!

Bake for about 50 minutes or so; the outside will be darkish brownish, the cake will be ready when the insides are no longer liquidy. Use a skewer (or dry spaghetti, or paring knife) to check for doneness.

Invert onto a plate, then invert onto another plate so that its right side up. In the process of inverting, this confession needs to be shared: the bottom, or much of it, didn’t come out with the rest of the cake. Not to worry, I just scraped it out with a spatula, patted it back onto the cake, and by the time I inverted it right side up, no one could tell.

And if you like, you can sift some icing sugar (powdered sugar) right over the top.

Lately I’ve been simmering pinto beans, rediscovering how amazing these little beans, such humble beans, are! Especially when i’m cooking for vegetarians, for whom pinto beans in restaurants are often off-limits ( having been simmered with a little bit of pig).

My recent pinto bean epiphany began at New Yorks Union Square Greenmarket, when I discovered a little basket of  Jack and the Beanstalk-like beans sitting by themselves along with a shelf of other vegetables. “They are almost fresh from the stalk” said the vendor “and need no soaking”. At my daughters home I simmered them, without soaking, in water with a chunk of onion, a few whole garlics, and towards the end, a sprinkle of seasalt , cumin, and glugg of olive oil.  They were creamy and tender, and incredibly memorable–it seems like we were all going around murmuring: “these beans are amazing” each time someone brought out the pot for a snack.

For, like any pot of beans, they are delicious eaten almost pristinely the first meal: a bowl of tender beans, their cooking liquid, perhaps a little cheese melting in, a scattering of chopped onions and fresh thyme on top. Or not.

Next day beans morph into a wide array of  dishes: eaten cool, the beans  drizzed with olive oil and sprinkled with fresh rosemary;   they make consummate refried beans, of course,  with melted cheese, tortillas and fresh salsa or simmered with bacon, beer, cumin, diced tomatoes, and a few drops of chipotle for one rockin’ bowl of drunken beans; or you could  spoon your tender beans  into a Nicoise-ish soupe au pistou. Then there is pasta fagioli: the beans and their liquid cooked with pasta, tomatoes, loads of garlic and olive oil. oh yes.

Back at home in the UK I discovered a jar of pinto beans in the back of my shelf, and though they were not farm-fresh (ie they needed to be soaked) they did  simmer up into a potful of beauty:  equally delicious to the greenmarket beans,  so…..how can i say, moodily delicious spooned up from our bowls? so simple and so complex at the same time. Was it the beans (both different),  cooking method (just simmering),  or the olive oil (both different). The only answer I can come up with is a love of beans–somehow it reaches into the beans and brings out their best.

Yesterday I reached the last bowlful or two in the pot and remembered how good rice is when its cooked with beans. This is the result.

We ate it on a hot summers evening, with a meaty beefy garlic and parsley redolant hamburger patties. And sliced hubbard squash cooked with cinnamon and cumin.

Pinto Beans with Rice, Tomatoes and Preserved Lemon

Serves 4

About 1/2-2/3 cup in volume (4 oz/125g) white rice

3 thinly sliced garlic cloves

1 teaspoon or so olive oil

About 1 1/2 cups/400g  cooked pinto beans with their liquid (or…..okay one tin plus its liquid but fresh is the better way to go with this)

A few good shakes of cumin–ground and/or seeds

About 3 oz/ 100g white cheese such as Jack, Tuscan fresh-ish pecorino, manchego, etc, diced

1 green onion, thinly sliced

1 small to medium tomato, diced

1-2 tablespoons tomato paste

Several shakes hot sauce–I used a Chinese garlic-chile sauce (to be recommended)

2-3 tablespoons chopped cilantro (I used the tips and flowers as well from my garden)

About 1/2 or more, to taste, preserved lemon, diced

1-2 teaspoons preserved lemon liquid

Place raw rice in a bowl and cover with water. Rinse well, and repeat; If desired–and I always think the rice has a better flavour this way–soak for about half an hour before hand.Drain.

Warm the thinly sliced garlic in the olive oil, then add the drained rice, cook a few minutes, then add about an equal amount of water to the volume of rice. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat, and simmer for about 5 minutes or until it is half-cooked through.

Add the beans and their liquid plus the cumin and cook together about 5 minutes to warm through the beans and meld them with the rice. Don’t stir so much as fork it up to mix.

Add the cheese, let melt, then remove from the heat and add the green onion, tomato, tomato paste, and hot sauce.

Just before serving mix in the cilantro, preserved lemon, and the preserved lemon liquid.

Recently in San Francisco, California, I ate my first bowl of fluffy soft tofu soup at My Tofu House  (Geary near 10th Ave. and might i add that there’s a wonderful Korean grocery next door with a selection of kimchee, homemade take-out fried chicken (sweetly glazed), uber-savoury green vegetable pancakes, and more…..)

Anyhow, flash-back to me in a booth sitting at the table, faced with warm spicy aromas and a bowlful of fluffy tofu.  I lifted my spoon.  It was one of those transcendental moments when you discover a new love; one mouthful was all it took to fall  deeply under its spell.

Though I had lived in the area for years long ago, and though I had always noticed the restaurant with the rather cozy name (I do love tofu),  I had never been there.  And then I moved away.

But on a recent visit, romping through the Russian shops and bakeries in the Richmond area of The City with food blogger Amy Sherman, we passed by My Tofu House.  Amy was running a delicious commentary of places along our way: what was not to be missed, what was best to avoid, places she hadn’t been but always meant to, new places to discover. We had spent the morning in Russian, on Geary, with a group of food bloggers including the inimitable Faith Kramer of The Jewish Chronicle, eating poppyseed babka; now were now headed to Berkeley for Indian spice shopping. As we passed My Tofu House,  Amy said: “I love this place; go when you have a chance. Get the soft tofu soup, and get it spicy”.

So a few weeks later, back in the neighbourhood, I did. The menu is divided simply, savoury vegetable pancakes and bulgogi are there, but basically its about the soft tofu soup–a good third of the menu is devoted to it. Choose your variation: with meat, fish, chicken, vegetable, or dumplings, then specify your chosen heat level.

A parade of banchan appeared included several types of kimchee, pickled cucumbers,  bean sprouts, a lovely grilled chewy fish, and the server did a sort of ballet scooping out the rice from its stoneware cooking pot. And its all great. But when you come to the soup:  I think you’ll agree: the GREATEST.

A sizzling hot stone bowl of deeply spicy broth/consommee, thick with broken up soft tofu, and studded with tiny bits of meat, as well as rice cakes and a few meat-filled dumplings. Its like a treasure trove of goodies in an ocean of spice-hot and temperature-hot chile broth.

Back home in a Korean-restaurant-desert in UK, I have been longing for that soup. So when I got home from water aerobics, and yoga, and a long long walk, feeling righteously hungry, I whipped up the following soup with what I had on hand. Its not the same as My Tofu House, but its MY tofu soup, in my house, and its delicious. It doesn’t taste Korean, it tastes Marlena!

A Big Bowl of Spicy Tofu Soup

Serves 1 very hungry Marlena; can be multiplied as desired

2-3 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped or thinly sliced

1-2 teaspoons sesame oil

About 1 teaspoon paprika (not the spicy kind, but a bit smoky is okay, is in fact, good)

about 2-3 baby bak choy’s, cut into bite sized pieces

1 1/2-2 cups chicken broth

1 heaping tablespoon hot bean sauce

1 green onion, thinly sliced

3 dumplings, such as won tons, cut into halves, or small handful (about 7) soaked rice cakes

About 6 oz/ 200g tofu (soft, or firm, as you like), broken into various sizes and shapes, from small to big-bite

About 1 tablespoon chopped cilantro

Drop of vinegar

In a saucepan warm the garlic in a teaspoon of the sesame oil until softened, then add the paprika, stir around, and the bok choy pieces, and stir around until the greens wilt; do not let the paprika scorch or burn; add the chicken broth/stock.

Cook a few minutes, then add the hot bean sauce, green onion, dumplings and tofu; cook a minute or two over medium high heat, to warm through (and to cook the dumplings) then remove from heat, sprinkle with the cilantro and a drop or two of vinegar, a drizzle of a little of the leftover sesame oil

Ladle into a big bowl and enjoy.