soup weather in June and a little more

DISCLAIMER: Blogger is giving me grief tonight, which you will see by the varying sizes of the type.

Yep, soup weather and it's almost June!  The weather has been so miserably cold and wet here that I have made soup for the last two days.  Yesterday, mussels, clams, and shrimp (not in the original recipe, which just called for mussels) in coconut milk/lemon grass, and other yummy flavorings. We didn't have bread, so I substituted linguine.

NY Times Cooking (recipe below). If you don't have the app on your iPad, you are missing out on some of the best recipes, ever.  I have donated and thrown 2/3 of my cookbooks.

INGREDIENTS

• 2 tablespoons coconut or safflower oil
• 1 shallot, finely chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1 stalk lemon grass, trimmed (outer layers removed) and finely chopped
•   ½ to 1 small hot chile (like Thai bird, Serrano, Scotch bonnet or jalapeño), seeded and finely chopped
• 1 cup unsweetened coconut milk
• 2 pounds fresh mussels, rinsed well
•  Zest of 1/2 lemon
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice, or to taste
• ½ teaspoon Asian fish sauce, or to taste
• ½ cup whole cilantro leaves
• 1 or 2 croissants, split in half.

1. Heat the oil in the bottom of a large pot until hot. Add the shallot, garlic, lemon grass and chile. Cook over medium heat until soft, about 3 minutes. Add the coconut milk and mussels. Cover with a tight-fitting lid and cook until the mussels have opened, 5 to 7 minutes (discard any mussels that remained closed). Remove from heat, and use a slotted spoon to transfer the mussels to a large bowl, leaving the liquid in the pot. Stir the lemon zest and juice, fish sauce and cilantro into the pot. Taste and add more fish sauce and/or lemon juice if needed (fish sauce provides the salt).
Blogger just erased a whole paragraph. Cutting to the chase - the empty shelves on the left of the bookcase took half a day to empty, while I decided what to donate, what to throw, and what to keep.  It barely made a dent, and this does not count the bookcases in the rest of the house.

     

The art books are the most painful ones to part with, although I was able to donate a few.  And the 19th century books on the top left shelves, which were my father's. I am lucky enough to have grown up in a house of bibliophiles.We won't discuss the Thermofax that doesn't work, the slide projector and carousels or  the thousands of photos that have to be gone through.  Change is hard, even when it is something you want.Back to the sewing machine - this will be a late night.