Simple White Bean Soup and Spinach Quiche

Fall is upon us evoking the desire for a comforting bowl of warm soup. I love making soup. It can run the gamut from very simple to quite elaborate, but no matter what, the outcome is a meal in a bowl. There is lots of room for experimentation and it’s pretty hard to completely screw it up.

Recently Erika invited me over to dinner using ingredients she had sourced from Mugshots which included a quiche, sautéed green beans and peanut butter bacon cookies. I offered to make a soup as my contribution. In my cupboard I had several cans of different kinds of beans, including white beans. I grabbed the can of beans, a box of vegetable broth, some onion and garlic, a spring of dried rosemary, bay leaves, a jar of truffle olive oil and one of my favorite kitchen tools, the hand emersion blender. I am not one for fancy kitchen appliances and particularly ones that only do one task while taking up room in your cupboards. My very first immersion blender actually belonged to an ex boyfriend. I made all sorts of fun of him for what I deemed a useless appliance. Yet, but the time we split up I was a convert and got to keep his blender which lasted me nearly 15 more years. There’s a lot to be said for a small appliance that saves you from having to pour a vat of hot liquid into another appliance; it saves on the cleaning and is less hazardous. Having an option to make a blended soup adds a level of refinement to the dish and provides for more variations.

Arriving with all the ingredients, I was able to make the soup in 20 minutes. Here’s how to make it. Saute some chopped garlic and onion in olive oil and then add the can of beans. Don’t bother draining them as the liquid makes a great base for the soup. Add 3 cups of broth, a sprig of rosemary (a shorter sprig if fresh), 2 bay leaves and some salt. Let every boil and then simmer for 15 minutes to absorb the flavor of the herbs. Remove the whole herbs. Blend the soup until creamy. Add more broth if necessary for your desired consistency. Then ladle into bowls and serve with a dash olive oil (I used the truffle oil) and fresh ground pepper.

Since the soup was so quick, I was able to help Erika with the quiche. The quiche was so delicious and surprisingly quick that I want to share the recipe for that as well. The original recipe from Gourmet magazine but the filling we completely changed to winterize it as it was a recipe for a summer squash quiche. Erika pulled a recipe off the web for a quick easy crust and whipped that together while I was making the soup, so I don’t have that information to share. I was impressed by the recipe though as it was quick and the end product tasted flakey and crisp. I’ve typically been using the Pilsbury pre-made dough for my pie crusts, but seeing how easy this was I might have to reconsider next time. She didn’t have a rolling pin, but a full bottle of wine works pretty well for rolling out the dough. Once the dough was rolled out, she laid it in the pie plate. In order to save some time, we did not pre-cook the crust as the recipe indicated. It still turned out wonderfully. We sautéed onions together chopped bacon (about 1/3 lb) in the same pan and then drained off the excess fat (saving it for use at another time). Then we added a bunch of chopped spinach to the pan, cooking briefly until wilted. In a bowl we mixed 3/4 c of gruyere cheese, 3/4 c of whole milk, 3./4 c of half and half, two eggs, along with a pinch of nutmeg and cayenne and whisked together. We then added the spinach mixture and poured into the pie crust and baked at 375 until set and the crust was browned, about 30 minutes. It needed a little time to cool before cutting during which time we enjoyed the soup as our first course. The bacon could have easily been eliminated from this dish for a vegetarian option.

I brought over a bottle of Root (mentioned in previous post, Reinterpreting Pedestrian Dishes), so we mixed up an appropriately autumnal cocktail using 1/3 Root and 2/3 fresh apple cider (from a local farm and pesticide free as apples are particularly prone to retaining the chemicals). It was served over ice with fresh ginger slices.

We ran out of time and steam to bake the peanut butter bacon cookies. Erika did bring me a few the next day. I was dubious about the concept, but if you think about carmelized bacon or honey ham it’s not that far off the mark. I enjoyed the smokey flavor in conjunction with the peanut butter; although was a little less thrilled about the pieces of chewy meat. I wondered what the cookie might taste like if only bacon lard was used and not the meat….it gives me another option of something to do with all my saved bacon fat.

Reinterpreting Pedestrian Dishes

I recently had the opportunity to dine at two relatively new Philadelphia establishments, Village Whiskey and Midatlantic Restaurant and Tap Room. Both places share a similar approach to their menu, which is to take traditional, pedestrian dishes and elevate them to a finer dining level. Village Whiskey’s spin on this borrows from southern, style comfort food while Midatlantic’s interpretation comes from typical Pennsylvania Dutch fare with influences from surrounding mid-Atlantic regions, such as crab from the Chesapeake.

Village Whiskey is the brain child of Jose Garces who is the hot chef du jour with 6 restaurants, 5 of them here in our city of brotherly love and one in Chicago, and a contestant spot on the most recent Next Iron Chef. My first encounter with Garces’ food was merely by chance. Passing Amada on the way to a show, a friend and I noted how appealing the place seemed with its dark wood interiors, candlelight and Spanish tapas menu. We returned after the play, took seats at the bar and were treated to an unexpectedly wonderful meal beginning with the tuna and caper amuse-bouche all the way to the almond tuile finale. For quite some time it’s been my favored restaurant here and the go-to place for friends from out of town. I was super excited to hear about Garces’ latest endeavor, especially given my penchant for whiskey.

Robert and I headed over there on a Friday night during his recent visit. Village Whiskey is located on a corner in Center City right next to one of Garces’ other establishments, Tinto. The place is small. The long, narrow space with its high booth seating and whiskey wall display has more of a cozy bistro feel than formal restaurant. Robert had a beer while I ordered a classic old-fashioned highlighting their signature alcohol. I think Robert preferred my beverage choice. The appetizer menu is rife with comfort food; tater tots, cheese puffs and spicy popcorn shrimp. We ordered the deviled eggs which did not disappoint. The most unique starter options however, are the pickles; baby carrots, golden beets, cherry tomatoes, artichokes, and even white anchovies. I would have liked to try the anchovies while Robert’s choice was the beets, so we compromised on the artichokes. All the pickles are served in a glass pickling jar with whipped marscapone, tapenade and bruschetta on the side – definitely refining the notion of pickles. The starters also include raw oysters. Next time I think I will try the Cape May Salts.

Burgers and specialty toppings figure prominently on the menu. As my deconstructed bacon cheeseburger raviolis, previously blogged about, didn’t really satisfy my craving for a hamburger, we ordered a burger with carmelized onions, blue cheese and bacon to share. Not for the diet conscious, but so satisfying. The beef is from sustainably, farm-raised cows in Maine.

The menu includes a pulled pork sandwich with coleslaw, but I had read so much about their short ribs with Sly Fox cheddar sauce and duck fat fries that we had to order that. With the current trend of embracing fat rather than avoiding it, duck fat potatoes don’t seem so unusual these days. Tasting the dish, which comes to the table in a black cast-iron skillet, I had a strong sensation of eating a familiar food. The intensely rich cheese sauce is made with local beer from Sly Fox and a special ingredient, Cheese Whiz! It finally came to me that the plate was reminiscent of eating a gourmet, baked potato with bacon and cheese toppings. The dish was so rich that between the two of us we couldn’t finish it. We asked the waitress to box it up for us and she gave us the great tip that this particular left-over is delicious for breakfast, which indeed it was with eggs over easy and sautéed tomatoes with harissa.

Even the dessert options are refined variations on low-brow, kid-appealing choices – sundaes, strawberry shortcake and smores. With all the rich food we had earlier, I don’t think we could have handled the chocolate dishes, so we went for the shortcake, which didn’t have any difficulty being consumed.

The Midatlantic Tap Room’s interpretation on pedestrian dishes is similar, but the concept goes farther with the seasonal, local and sustainable effort marrying well with the regional dish theme. Being with a larger group this time was a plus as it meant we were able to try more dishes on their substantial menu. The notably, unique option this time came from the cocktails, particularly those using Root. Root beer when first crafted, pre-temperance, was an alcoholic beverage called root tea made from birch bark, sarsaparilla, and other roots and spices. A small Philadelphia business collaborative consisting of mostly artists has now reformulated this old recipe and it is distributing it commercially in PA and online in some states. The alcohol at 80 proof, is not for the faint of heart. It smells sweetly but has a very herbal, almost medicinal taste when drunk straight over the rocks. It does pair well in mixed cocktails. Their website has a wonderful collection of drink recipes. The cocktail I ordered was the Root mint julep, which tasted very much like it’s namesake mixed with traditional root beer.

The menu is so full of comfort food options and dishes with unusual items, like salsify (a native root vegetable) and spicy pig wings and welsh rarebit fondue and broccoli steak that it was impossible to know what to order, so we asked our chatty waiter. He was definitely a pork man and recommended several dishes with pork. Scrapple, a famous Philadelphia dish, figures prominently on the menu in several variations; traditional pork, crab, chicken and veggie style. Liz recalled having welsh rarebit fondue growing up and recommended that as one of the starters. I still don’t really know what the name has to do with it, but it’s basically a fondue that was served with soft pretzels for dipping. The gravy fries, more like fried hash browns, were extra rich when dipped in the fondue. The spicy pig wings were like eating szechaun pork but the molasses gave it a specific regional flavor. The broccoli steak was not a steak but a whole, sliced broccoli plant, grilled and shaped into a patty and served with a cheese sauce and a spatzle like noodle casserole on the side. It was a very comforting, fall option. Others ordered the seafood stew and the crab scrapple cakes. The stew was more like a casserole than a stew, but still hearty. Crab scrapple is in essence a crab cake, just shaped differently. It’s good, but with so much on the menu to order it might not be my first choice other than it’s uniqueness. The pork is sourced from Berks county and so based on the waiter’s recommendation Liz and I both ordered the roast pork with apple fritters and sauerkraut. The flavors of the dish were very complimentary, but my issue was with the ratio of the ingredients. The amount of meat to the sides was a little overwhelming for my taste. I hadn’t been expected a thick pork chop, but something more like sliced, slow-roasted roasted pork. There were hardly any apples or fritters on the dish and the sauerkraut was really more like sautéed cabbage. Despite that, I really liked the concept of the dish. I ended up taking home half my plate and reinventing my leftovers into a something more like what I envisioned when ordering. I sliced up the pork and cabbage, added some more butter sautéed apples from the farmer’s market and heated it up in frying pan then served it on baked puff pastry shells topped it with raw, organic sauerkraut from Wills Valley Farm in Lancaster.

They also have prix fixe options and specials that correspond to the night of the week. Some in the group were commenting about coming back on Wednesdays for the hot dogs or Tuesdays for the chicken and dumplings.

The desserts were really fun…and humorously named. We had a good laugh about how the root beer sticky buns are really meant to be ordered with the apple long john. The table shared a Peach Buckle, which is like a cobbler, served with buttermilk ice cream and a “Philly-style” butterscotch bread pudding. The latter brings in its local flare as it is made using Tastykake’s Krimpets for the bread base. Tastykake is a homegrown Philadephia company making products similar to Hostess cakes. Apparently the restaurant scrapes off the icing from the Krimpet, cooks it into a bread pudding and adds its own butterscotch icing and maple dipping sauce. Again I loved the concept but was a little less wowed by the actual product, which was a little dense and bland. I was surprised that shoo-fly pie, so traditional of the Pennsylvania Dutch, was not a dessert option.

The restaurant itself is in a beautiful space with tall ceilings, reclaimed barn wood panels on the walls and inventive light fixtures made from old fluorescent light tubes to create the outer barrel casings befitting of the local and sustainable food theme. The service was top notch as well. I sure hope it thrives despite being on a rather under-populated stretch of Market between 37^th street and 38^th. I’ll definitely be back – next time with my mother to celebrate her birthday.

In uncertain times, it’s nice to have restaurant options that offer comforting foods reminiscent of growing up and particular to a certain region. And something even nicer when their presentation, ingredients and flavor profile are refined but still recognizable as that satisfying dish that you find yourself craving.