A "Golden" Soup and a "Heavenly" Cake

For Christmas this year, I received a bag of gold.

O.K. it wasn’t exactly gold.  It was a bag of wild rice from my brother and his family who live in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Apart from its gastronomical and economical (it’s not cheap) worth, this bag of wild rice was valuable because it opened up a treasure chest of Northwoods memories. 

I remember that when I was a child, my father would often take me  on weekends to visit his dearest friend, Paul Munninghoff, who lived with his family in a log home on a branch of the Wisconsin River outside of my hometown of Rhinelander, Wisconsin.

Paul, who worked for the county highway department, was also a trapper, a backwoods philosopher, a builder of birch bark canoes, a jazz pianist, and a before-his-time ecologist. He was truly a Northwoods Renaissance man.

My memories of being at the Munninghoff home include playing with baby foxes in the living room,  hand-feeding apples to their horses, watching otters frolic in backyard pens (one of their otters starred in a Disney movie), studying Paul as he skinned muskrats he trapped, and observing the harvesting of wild rice.

I’m not sure what the economic arrangement was, but every fall several Native Americans would arrive at the Munninghoffs’ home, camp in Quonset huts Paul had built on his land, and harvest the wild rice.

I particularly remember sitting with my dad in the middle of a canoe as a man in the back of the canoe slowly paddled through the wild rice stalks. The man in the front used a stick in one hand to bend the stalks on one side over the bow and then used a stick in the other hand to “knock” the seeds into the boat.  Then he would do the same to the stalks on the other side of the boat as we glided through the water. 

My memories of the process after the harvest are not very clear, but I recall large flat baskets for winnowing, slow fires, and stirring.  But even in my youth I understood that wild rice was a very precious commodity, and when my mother made meals with it, I savored the nutty taste and chewy texture.

So, a few days before the spring semester began here at LSU, I invited two of my dearest friends, Sharon and Brian Andrews, for a very informal dinner featuring my Christmas gold—wild rice—and the most perfect cake of all time.

Winter Menu

Cheese straws, cocktail peanuts, olives

Strawberry & Pecan Salad

Wild Rice Soup

Jalapeño Muffins

Butter Almond Cake

Cheese Straws, Cocktail Peanuts and Assorted Olives

Since this wasn’t a very formal meal, I served these simple snacks in white ramekins.  Cocktail peanuts? Who doesn’t love these?  Olives?  How did we survive before grocery-store olive bars? 

And cheese straws?  They are delicious but laborious to make.  Ours were from Southern Straws, a company in my husband’s hometown of Columbus, Georgia.

Strawberry & Pecan Salad

This salad is by no means an original or particularly creative recipe.  But it is my go-to salad, especially when I want to showcase a few southern ingredients.  Also, it is very visually attractive—I plate individual portions instead of serving it from a large bowl—especially for Christmas.

I’m not going to give ingredient amounts as this recipe can be adapted to any number of servings and can be tailored to individual taste, but I guarantee that the combination of flavors is perfect!

Ingredients:

Salad greens (I prefer a spring mix but any combination of dark, leafy greens will do)

Ken’s Steakhouse Lite Sweet Vidalia Dressing (or a similar, slightly sweet dressing)

Green onions, green parts only, chopped  

Strawberries, stemmed and sliced the long way

Spicer Pecans (or plain or lightly salted pecan halve or whatever crunch element you have—other nuts, sunflower seeds, pepitas)

Process:

Place the greens, about one generous handful per serving, in a large bowl. Dress the greens with the dressing by adding a little bit at a time, mixing by hand and “feeling” so that the greens are not overdressed.  Plate the dressed greens on individual plates and garnish each salad with a sprinkling of the chopped green onions, strawberries and pecans.  

Wild Rice Soup

So maybe I should call this “Gold Soup.”  In all (no) modesty, I will say that this soup turned out perfectly.  

The portions and ingredients are flexible.  The chicken could be leftover or from a grocery-store rotisserie.  (On a slow day, I often pick up a couple of rotisserie chickens and “tear off” the meat and freeze it for meals such as this.)

I could even imagine chopped cooked ham or browned ground beef as meat substitutions.

You could add more vegetables, such as diced sweet or regular potatoes, especially if you want to make this a meat-free soup.   But you should aim for a very “hearty” soup, so adjust your ingredients and amounts accordingly.

As for the seasoning, Old Bay seasoning or poultry seasoning could be substitutions for the sage and thyme.  Since I used the bacon and boxed chicken broth, I did not add any salt. 

If you don’t want to add the white sauce (for a gluten-free option), you could add some cream to the soup toward the end or briefly run an immersion blender in the soup to give it a creamy texture.

But do not even think about using anything other than pure wild rice—no wild rice blends!

I’m sure this recipe could be adapted for a slow cooker or InstaPot.

What could be wrong about a recipe that begins with bacon?

Source:  Original, but I looked at several on-line recipes

Yield: 6-8 servings

Ingredients:

Soup:

6 slices bacon, chopped (or 1-2 T. oil)

1 medium onion, chopped

3-4 garlic cloves, minced

1 c. chopped celery (about 2-3 stalks)

2 c. chopped peeled carrots

8 oz. mushrooms, stems remove and sliced

1 bell pepper, chopped, optional (I used a red pepper, which I prefer to green)

1 c. wild rice, rinsed

6 c. vegetable or chicken broth

½ - 1 tsp. freshly ground or cracked pepper

½ - 1 tsp. dried sage leaves, rubbed between your hands

½ - 1 tsp. dried thyme leaves, rubbed between your hands

1 bay leaf

1-3 c. bite-sized pieces of cooked chicken, optional (I used 3 cups)

White sauce:

4 T. butter

¼ c. flour

1½ c. milk

Process:

For the soup: If using the bacon, sauté it in a large Dutch oven over low-to-medium heat until lightly crispy.  Remove the bacon with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels.  (If using the oil, heat it over medium heat to sizzling.)

To the hot drippings or the heated oil, add the onions and garlic and sauté until translucent.  Add the remaining vegetables and sauté until the mushrooms have lost some of their moisture.

Add the rice, broth, and seasonings.  Simmer covered for about 45 minutes until the rice is tender.  If using the chicken, add it and continue simmering for a few minutes until the chicken is heated through.  (The cooking process could be stopped at this point.  Return to a simmer before continuing.)

For the white sauce:  In a medium saucepan, heat the butter on low heat until melted.  Stir in the flour with a whisk and cook on low heat while stirring for 1-3 minutes until slightly golden. Whisk in the milk a half cup at a time and continue cooking and whisking until the white sauce is creamy and smooth.

Stir the white sauce into the simmering soup a little bit at a time (You may not need all of the sauce) until the soup is a rich, creamy consistency.  Adjust seasonings.

If you have used the bacon, garnish individual servings with the crumbled bacon.

Jalapeño Corn Muffins

Not only are these easy to make, they are moist enough to eat without butter, and they freeze well.

Source:  Kay Ewing’s Cooking School Cookbook: A Second Course

Yield: 24 mini muffins

Ingredients:

½ c. flour

1¼ c. yellow cornmeal

1½ tsp. salt

1 T. sugar

2 tsp. baking powder

2 T. chopped pickled jalapeño peppers

1 c. grated cheddar cheese

2 eggs

1 c. milk

¼ c. melted butter

Process:

Preheat oven to 425°.  Grease 24 mini-muffin tin cups with cooking spray. 

Combine dry ingredients in a bowl.  Stir chopped peppers and cheese into dry ingredients to coat. 

In another mixing bowl, beat eggs with a whisk.  Add milk and melted butter.  Combine dry ingredients with egg mixture. 

Spoon batter into mini muffin tins.  Bake about 10 minutes until golden and tested done.  Turn muffins on their sides in cups to release steam.

Butter Almond Cake

When I first tasted this fantastic dessert, it was, well, a religious experience. 

My church, First Presbyterian Church of Baton Rouge, partners with Buchanan Elementary School.  As one of our projects, we invite the dedicated staff of Buchanan to a sit-down luncheon at our church at Christmas.  

This year the head of our Buchanan Committee, Laura Shaw, somehow miraculously (I told you it was a religious experience) made about eight of these wonderful cakes. Each serving was topped with a dollop of whipped cream and a raspberry making an elegant Christmas-y presentation. 

When the luncheon was over, and before our committee began the clean-up, we paused to savor a piece of this cake.  And it was—heavenly!

As of this moment, I have made this cake three times in less than a month.  It is that easy and that good!   I am a big fan of almond/marzipan flavors, and this one-layer torte-like treat delivers! 

And I can testify that this cake retains its texture and flavor for about a week unrefrigerated.

Amen? Amen!

This picture sort of looks like Santa winking!

Yield:  8-10 servings

Ingredients:

1½ c. sugar

3⁄4 c, melted butter

2 eggs

1 tsp. almond extract

1½ tsp. vanilla extract

¼ tsp. salt

1½ c. flour

3 T. sliced almonds, toasted

1 T. sugar

Optional garnishes: whipped cream, raspberries, and mint

Process:

Preheat oven to 350°.  Toast almonds ahead or in oven while it is preheating.  Grease and flour a 9-inch round cake pan. (Using an 8-by-8-inch cake pan could work for  brownie-sized squares.)

With an electric mixer, blend the 1½ c. sugar and melted butter.  Beat in eggs.  Stir in almond and vanilla extracts.  Add salt and flour and mix well.

Spread batter evenly in the prepared cake pan.  Sprinkle the batter with the toasted almonds and sugar.  Bake for 30 to 35 minutes.  (Underbaking is better than overbaking.)

To serve, garnish each serving with some (or a lot of) whipped cream, a few raspberries (or other berries), and a sprig of mint. 

Variations?  I was thinking since what makes this cake "almond" is the extract and the sliced almonds in the topping, maybe you could  substitute a teaspoon of lemon extract and a sprinkling of grated lemon peal with the sugar?  Maybe a handful of blueberries or chocolate chips?  The possibilities are endless.