2 Concept recipes

As I noted below, last night I cooked for some friends. Luckily I have several Astorians who are willing to try new recipes that I try out, and give feedback as needed. This is a huge boon, as I am inclined, admittedly, to assume everything I come up with is excellent, and I welcome "this needs a little more salt" or "I don't know what to do with the bones in this!" It should also be noted that I flavor a lot of what I cook with pure hunger. Hungry people are more willing to be thankful for anything you cook, but they also admit later that they'd rather you'd make something else next time.

Last night, I had a real hankering to go outside the box, and my grocery bill proved it. I made an appetizer, a pasta that you can sample below, and a soup. My friend Summer's new Cuisinart was the real star of the show, and I utilized it as best I could.

The appetizer was a crab and cream cheese paste on celery sticks.

• 1 small can of crab meat (I'm sure the fresh lump variety would have been better, but the can is more economical for an experiment) This was simply cooked until warm is a skillet with olive oil, salt, pepper, a few dashes of Tabasco, and paprika for color.
• about half a box of cream cheese, softened

I beat this in the Cuisinart until smooth and paste-like in the Cuisinart and spread it on celery sticks. Delicious! Not bad at all for a first attempt!

The soup was a little more dramatic.

Chopped celery root, parsnip, and leeks were roasted in a Pyrex pan at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes with olive oil (extra virgin always), kosher salt and pepper. In a separate foil wrapper I roasted two shallots and a whole bulb of garlic similarly(but still in their skins) in olive oil and salt and pepper. I then transferred all of the roots and them to a pot with 2 cans of chicken broth (homemade would be even better I imagine) and a little more salt and pepper. The roasted shallots were then peeled and thrown in the pot, along with about 3/4 of the garlic that I squeezed in. A little more salt and pepper to taste went in. I then simmered this, covered, until the roots all softened and the broth got a nice brownish color and was very very tasty. I think this took about half an hour, but the softening of the roots might take less or more time depending on all sorts of cosmic factors.

Then, into the washed Cuisinart with all of it! I pulsed this until it was very smooth, and returned it all to the pot. I gave this about another 5 minutes at a simmer before I gave it about 1/2 a pint of heavy cream and let it simmer until very thick.

In a separate skillet, I threw match-sticks of celery root into veggie oil and salt and let them brown quite a bit. Some of the match-sticks even got a bit black, but I found that that didn't really cause a problem. I let them drain on paper towel and seasoned a bit more with salt while still hot before garnishing each bowl with a tongful of the matchsticks. My friends were encouraged to get a spoonful of soup with a few of the crispy matchsticks in each bite.

Since this was a first effort, Id love to get some ideas on how to make both of these essais even better, but I think both were totally worth the effort! Mangia folks :-).

James