Hello and welcome back to The Stone Soup Cook–I’m glad you’re here!
This week, I’m continuing my series on home-keeping vs. house-keeping. My last few posts focused on the spirit of home-keeping and how it differs from house-keeping: house-keeping is the nuts and bolts of providing a clean and wholesome place to live, and, as my friend Ann very elegantly put it–home-keeping is the art of making a house into a home. But how does one practice the art of home-keeping without being overwhelmed with the process?
Many years ago, my mother gave me one of my favorite cookbooks: “Thought for Food, A Cookery Book for Entertaining Occasions” by Cecily Finn and Joan O’Connor.
It’s long out of print, but well worth the purchase if you can find it in a vintage book shop. It features menus for occasions such as a “Dinner for an Angry Client” and outlines the details of the entertaining situation. First, it explains the aim of the dinner, in this case to: “soothe his inflamed emotions and reinstate his confidence,” and goes on to suggest a setting: “solid and substantial…gleaming silver, damask cloth, no nonsense.” It continues with suggestions for a menu, in this case: pate en terrine, filet steak with mushrooms, creamed potatoes and french bean salad. The book has dozens of such “occasions” outlined in a similar manner for everything from “First Dinner given by Bride to Her Parents,” to “Dinner for a Charming Stranger,” to a “Midnight Meal for Famous Personages.”
The book was written in 1957. It is a simply delightful little read and fully embraces the idea that one can have it all–a job, a house tidy and organized enough to create a welcoming ambiance for famous persons to relax at midnight while arranging for alternate transportation, while you disappear into the kitchen to make, in the case of a “Midnight Meal for Famous Personages,” French onion soup, scrambled eggs with tomatoes and toast and little homemade scones with jam.
My ass.
In my last post I discussed that chaos is the enemy. This cozy scene presupposes a world where chaos has never reared its ugly head: there is never a pile of socks on the couch waiting to be sorted, hair never goes unseen in the sink, all newspapers make it to the recycling bin every night and no flowers ever wilt and start to smell bad in the vase. So let’s say that I stipulate that all of these things could be accomplished with better organization–and I’m CERTAIN that there are many of you out there who are more well-organized than I am. But the French onion soup and homemade scones while the guests wait for a tow-truck to arrive?
Come on.
Don’t get me wrong–I absolutely adore this cookbook and the scenarios are perfectly lovely! However, really delicious French onion soup takes a good bit of time to let the onions saute and caramelize into a rich, warm brown color with a gorgeous silky texture. And while you’re stirring and watching that process, you’re also supposed to make little scones? I’m seeing a scene where you’re a half an hour away from getting the soup done, the tow truck has arrived, and you’re standing there with flour in your hair and a grease-splattered apron over your pajamas begging the famous people to stay and eat your jammy scones.
However…I still love the idea of being able accomplish this impromptu meal for Frank Sinatra when his car stalls in front of your house at midnight.
Hence, I would like to propose a version of this cozy scene that could be accomplished with minimal effort, and would allow you to collect the material for the wonderful story you will have after having entertained said famous personage–the one that doesn’t include a restraining order being issued at the end of it.
Enter tomato-basil soup using fresh pesto and homemade bread.
If you’ve been reading for a while, you might remember last year when I canned tomatoes with my friend, Em–click here for the link to that post. I enjoyed using the canned tomatoes all winter and summer for all kinds of recipes. But I think my favorite way to use them was to make fresh, yummy tomato soup, to which I added fresh pesto to make the best tomato-basil soup ever. And when paired with a loaf of fresh bread, a cold winter day turns into a delightfully cozy, warm hug.
But now to the question of the day–how do you accomplish this in 15 minutes or less, while Frank Sinatra is sitting on your couch calling a tow truck?
By having it already basically assembled, that’s how.
I always make about a dozen cup-sized jars of pesto before sweet basil season is over and they wait patiently in my freezer to be used whenever the mood strikes. As for the tomatoes, I was lucky enough last year to have had freshly canned sun-ripened tomatoes in my pantry, but there are lots of good commercial brands of tomatoes out there. The one I particularly like is the SMT brand:
They taste very “tomatoey” and are widely available. What I like best about them, though, is the thoughtful packaging–rectangular and in cardboard–very nice and easy to store! There are a couple of brands that are more highly rated out there, but for convenience sake, I always have these tomatoes on hand and in a pinch, they make a wonderfully serviceable bowl of tomato-basil soup–in about 10 minutes.
I also almost always have some homemade pesto sauce on hand, but there are good commercial alternatives, as well. I particularly like Pesto Di Basilico and it’s readily available at your local supermarket:
As for the bread, when I make it, I make one large loaf to enjoy with the pot of soup I usually make it to go with, and I also make several smaller loaves that I freeze for future use–like when Frank drops by!
The bread can be wrapped in foil and popped into the oven on about 300 while you make the soup. If the bread isn’t totally defrosted by the time the soup is ready, you can always zap a couple of pieces in the microwave for a few seconds–be careful because it’ll dry out and get hard in places if you’re not careful, but just zap it a few seconds at a time and you’ll be fine. Serve with some fresh butter and Frank will be putty in your hands!
And here’s my home-keeping tip for the day: don’t wait for a famous person to get his car stalled outside your house to roll out this menu–make this soup and bread combo on a Tuesday night and go ahead and serve it with a really nice chianti! It’ll turn a run-of-the-mill Tuesday into a restaurant-quality meal for a fraction of the price and minimal effort.
Tune in tomorrow when I’ll continue my tips for home-keeping that won’t make you crazy–next up: salads!
Until then,
Peace, love and good food,
Keri
