Pear & Celery Soup

It's been a tough week....

I had intended to post yesterday afternoon after basking in the simple pleasure of a luxurious, lazy long weekend sleep-in followed by a sweet, luscious breakfast to start the day. Unfortunately, the wildly delicious pear and ginger clafouti I had planned to share with my husband (and with you) was an utter flop. Disaster. Ugly, soggy, and barely edible (In the end, we did eat it. My husband managed a half-hearted, "It's good" as he choked down bites.)

But it started out as a simple wish: A sweet & simple breakfast for my husband on our last long weekend of the summer. Pears are in abundance right now and boy, are they good this year. I had peeled and sliced beautiful Bartlett pears the night before as a time saving measure, hoping I could quickly run down stairs, throw the eggs, milk & flour together, add the pears and bake it while my husband slept. The goal was to gently wake him with the fragrant smells of summer-time pears baking in the oven to convince him to start the day. But alas, that would not be the case. The batter was far too runny and thin & when I pulled the pears out of the fridge, they had wept quite abit in the bowl overnight. The result was a runny, unset clafouti even after ninety minutes of baking.

Occasionally, accidents do happen. Next steps, what to do with all those gorgeous pears that are in-season now?

For dinner tonight, we decided we would start with a pear and celery soup. We needed to use up those lovely pears sitting on our kitchen counter and I needed to get back on the horse again. This recipe was decidedly more successful than yesterday's. It's creamy, flavourful with just a hint of sweetness without the calories. Delicious. Unfortunately, the photo was not meant to be. I hope you can use your imagination and still try out this soup! Bon Appetit.

Pear & Celery Soup
2 tbsp vegetable oil (or butter)
3 c peeled & diced Bartlett pears
1 small onion, peeled & diced
4 c peeled & diced celery*
1 liter vegetable stock
1 tsp ginger powder (or 1 finely chopped candied ginger)

optional garnish: Stilton blue cheese (non-vegan) or toasted walnuts (vegan)

In a medium saucepan, heat vegetable oil & sauté pears and onions until onions have become translucent. Add celery and continue to sauté until celery is softened. Add vegetable stock to pan, & simmer until celery is very tender. With an immersion blender, carefully puree soup until smooth. If using, stir in cream at the end. Do not boil again. Serve immediately with a garnish of crumbled Stilton or toasted walnuts, if you like.

*You must peel the celery, otherwise you have stringy bits in your soup - it's worth the extra effort.

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A Different Salad for Summer

Sometimes recipes that you love happen by accident. This week's summer salad is a good example of one. Usually, I have a good sense of what I am going to make before I even step into my kitchen. But several weeks ago, I thought I might make a salad for dinner. In my mind, it was going to be a simple green salad with celery, peppers and tomatoes. Then my husband reminded me that our contractor was going to be arriving the following week which means we needed to purge our clutter.(We are "lowering our basement." I know that concept may sound strange for most people but in our neighborhood in Toronto where the tiniest houses sell for a mint, a way of extending your living space when you can't add an addition to your house is to dig down your basement floor to create enough head space. This gives you an additional floor of livable space. If this sounds expensive, you're quite right, it is, but it is cheaper than moving. Unfortunately, we will be working for quite a while to pay this off. But we hope in the end, it will be worth it.)

That little impetus gave me some thoughts to see what was in our pantry and there I saw it, Israeli couscous, in a gleaming mason jar. I had been thinking about using it and I thought I might try it as sort of a "light" pasta salad in that there would be more vegetables with just a highlight of starch.

The result is a clean, fresh tasting salad with the flavours of summer: tomatoes, peppers, and celery. It's juicy and crisp and feels like the type of salad you want to eat when the days are long and it is too humid to cook dinner. Even leftovers are delicious, it stays crisp even overnight and the couscous continues to absorb the flavours of the gardineria and the marinated mushrooms.

In fact, this “recipe” is so simple that I hesitate to call it that. It is really a couple of ingredients we had in the fridge tossed together. This recipe would work well for a picnic or a potluck where you might have limited access to refrigeration, easily doubles or triples to feed crowds and is easy to transport.

Israeli couscous is often mistaken for a grain, but in reality, it is actually quite similar to pasta. If you can't find Israeli couscous, you could use the more common finer-grained couscous or try a small pasta such as orzo. Israeli couscous can be found near the grains, rice section of your grocery store.


Israeli Couscous Salad


1/2 c Israeli Couscous

1/2 yellow / orange pepper
3 stalks celery, trimmed

1/2c marinated mushrooms*
1/2c gardinieria*

2 medium sized tomatoes

1. Cook Israeli Couscous per package's instructions in plenty of water until al dente. Drain couscous.

2. Meanwhile, chop pepper and celery into uniform medium-sized chunks. Add to a large bowl, toss with marinated mushrooms & gardinieria including some of the marinade. Add the warm couscous and toss well. Leave for at least 30 minutes (for best flavour).

3. Slice up tomatoes and add to salad when ready to serve.

*You can purchase marinated mushrooms and gardinieria (a delicious mixed vegetable pickle usually includes cauliflower, carrots, celery and hot peppers.) Both are so easy to make, but in a pinch we buy it. Alternatively, you could lightly pickle fresh vegetables by cutting up bite size pieces of your favourite vegetables - carrots, celery, cauliflower - tossing them in a boiling mixture of distilled white vinegar for up to 5 minutes. Strain and cool. Save some of the pickling liquid to toss with the couscous.
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