Smoky Green Bean Soup

About once a week, I need to make a fast dinner for two, so we've been having a lot of soup and sandwich suppers.

Since the sandwiches cover the protein and carbs, I want the soup to provide at least a serving of vegetables.  Unfortunately, most canned soups throw in half a day's worth of salt with 1 serving of vegetables, so I decided that I needed to start making some homemade vegetable soups.  Over the summer, I saw a recipe in Eating Well magazine that suggested that you create the smoky flavor of green beans and potatoes cooked with bacon by using smoked paprika.  That seemed like a great combination for a soup.

We ate 2 cups of this soup with our lunch, and had 8 cups to go in the freezer.

Green beans can be very green or they can be very tender.  In soup, you really need to accept that tender is more important.

2 ~ 3 T extra virgin olive oil

2 medium onions, chopped

2 t smoked Spanish style Paprika

1/4 ~ 1/2 t Hungarian Half-Sharp Paprika (optional)
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

24 oz. frozen Italian cut green beans

1 quart unsalted vegetable broth

12 oz. V-8, original or Spicy
3 medium Yukon gold potatoes
Salt to taste (may not need any)

Heat the olive oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat and saute the onions until they're translucent.  Stir in the smoked paprika, half-sharp paprika, and black pepper and cook until you can smell the spices.

Stir in the green beans and vegetable broth, and increase heat to high.  Bring the soup to a boil, reduce the heat to low.  Cover and simmer for 25 - 30 minutes, until the green beans have turned to a dull olive.

Remove any deep eyes or blemishes from the potatoes, and cut into half inch cubes.  Add the V-8 and potatoes, return the soup to a simmer.  Taste the broth and add a little salt if it seems flat.*

Simmer until the potatoes are tender.

*A note on salt --  You will probably need to add at least a little. A 12 oz. bottle of original V-8 is 975 mg of sodium (the spicy hot is 720), but you have 10 cups of soup in the pot.  The quart of unsalted stock contains about 600 mg of sodium, so your soup is about 157 mg of sodium per serving. (The onions,green beans, and potatoes also contain traces of sodium, which add about 10 mg per cup of soup.  I looked those up in the USDA Nutrient Database.)  Even if you add a whole teaspoon of kosher** salt, you're only up to 269 mg of sodium per serving.  I find that when I make soup using low-sodium canned goods and broths, I need to add some salt to make it taste good.  On a few occasions, I've needed to add a *lot* of salt, but when I sit down and work up the total sodium in the batch, I realize that it's only about 250 - 300 mg per cup of the final product.

** If you care enough about sodium to read the first note, you really should be using kosher salt, which is less dense than table salt because it has a different crystal shape.  The Serious Eats Food Lab has a good article explaining it here.  http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/03/ask-the-food-lab-do-i-need-to-use-kosher-salt.html

Gluten free pizza crust

I avoided pizza for the first year of baking gluten-free, but I finally gave up and started trying various crust mixes and recipes.  So far, none of them was anything I wanted to eat -- even adding garlic and herbs to the dough resulted in sort of disappointing crusts.  But this crust can be rolled very thin, bake up crisp on a pizza stone, and be chewy and satisfying.  I think it can still be improved on upon, but it's good enough to serve to guests.

This dough seems to taste a lot better if you give it a long rise in the fridge.  I make this dough on Thursday night to make pizza for dinner on Saturday.

This recipe makes four 12 ~ 14 inch thin crusts or three 16~17 inch thin crusts.  I make a big batch of dough every 3-4 weeks and freeze 2 or 3 extra pizza crusts.  You can halve the recipe if you don't want to have extra crusts in the freezer.

600 grams 40/60 Gluten Free All Purpose flour

300 grams chickpea flour (aka besan) or garfava flour

3 T whole psyllium husk

2 t sugar

2 t yeast 

1 t kosher salt

1 1 T flax meal

3 T boiling water

6 T extra virgin olive oil

2 1/2 ~ 3 cups warm water

Parchment paper for rolling

Cooking oil spray

Measure the 3 Tbsp of water into a microwave safe container, and boil.  Stir in the flax meal, and allow to rest.

Place the dry ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer, and mix on low speed to combine. With the mixer running, drizzle in the olive oil and the flax mixture.  Then drizzle in the water.

Use at least 2 1/2 c. of water... the dough will be more of a batter, but it will dry out a lot in the fridge.  Scrape the dough into an oiled 3 quart bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 24 ~ 48 hours.

1 1/2 ~ 2 1/2 hours before you want pizza, remove the dough from the fridge and let it rest on the counter to warm up.  It's also a good idea to preheat your oven and pizza stone now, so the stone is really hot when the pizza goes in.  I have a convection oven, and find that the crust burns a little by the time the cheese is browned if I heat it above 450.

After the dough has had at least an hour to warm up up, tear off 5 pieces of parchment paper.  Place one piece of parchment on the counter and give it a light spray of cooking oil.  Form 1/4 of the dough into a flat disk and set it in the center of the parchment.  Spray one side of another piece of parchment and lay it oiled side down over the dough.  Roll the dough into a 12 ~ 14 inch circle with a rolling pin.  Peel off the top sheet of parchment.  The edges may be crackly and split -- press them in with your fingers to form a smooth, round edge. You want to roll the dough about as thin as you'd roll a pie crust.

Set aside the first crust on a cookie sheet and let it rise.  Place the top parchment paper, oiled side up on the counter, and repeat, adding another sheet of oiled parchment on top.

To freeze the crusts : slide the crust and parchment paper on the pizza stone and bake for 5- 8 minutes, until set, and lightly browned on the bottom.  Cool completely.  Store the crusts, with the parchment in between, in a large plastic bag and freeze.   I usually thaw the crusts and bake them on a pizza stone, but you could probably top the frozen crust and bake it directly on the rack.

To eat the pizza now :  top the crust with sauce, cheese and toppings to the edge.  Trim the excess parchment paper away from the corners so it doesn't burn in the oven.  Slide the pizza and the parchment paper on to the pizza stone and bake for 18 ~ 25 minutes, until the crust and cheese are as brown as you like them.

Chicken and Spinach Sandwiches

This filling would be good rolled up in a pizza crust to make a calzone, or layered on top of a pizza crust and baked.  You can leave out the chicken for a vegetarian...or leave out the mushrooms for someone who doesn't like them.

For 4 servings :

Olive oil
6~8 oz of mushrooms
6~ 8 oz of cooked chicken breast, shredded

10 oz. box frozen chopped spinach
2 T chopped parsley (6 Dorot cubes)
2 cloves garlic, minced (2 Dorot cubes)
2 T Parmesan, Romano, or Italian Cheese blend
1/4 ~ 1/3 c. crumbled feta cheese
salt and pepper
hot sauce (optional, to taste)

1 c. shredded mozzarella
4 brown rice tortillas

Remove the stems from the mushrooms, cut larger caps in half, and slice.  Warm 1/2 Tbsp of oil in a non-stick skillet, add mushrooms.  Season with salt, and cook over medium heat until the mushrooms have given up their moisture.  Pour off the liquid to cook the mushrooms dry more quickly.

Meanwhile, thaw the spinach in the microwave, and press out as much water as you can with your hands.  Remove mushrooms to a plate, and add the spinach, garlic, and parsley.  Cook until heated through, season generously with black pepper.  Stir in Parmesan and feta, and season with salt and hot sauce to taste.

Spread 1/4 of the spinach mixture over half of a tortilla. Top with mushrooms and chicken.  Sprinkle 1/4 c. of mozzarella over the filling.  Fold the tortilla over, and toast both sides in a skillet or on a griddle.  Slice each sandwich in half for easier eating.