Salmon chowder meets Potato Leek Soup
Have you ever fallen off your bar stool, walked home in 25 degree weather, and woken up on the couch with bruised shins and New Girl faintly playing in the background? If so, you’ll definitely need this soup to recuperate.
To make this you’ll need: leeks, potatoes, salmon (I used smoked because if you think I’ll be paying $30 for a piece of Atlantic salmon from the NY grocery store when there’s deli lox next door you’re so wrong, but longing for a pacific filet from the freezer. If you have access to that, use it), carrots, garlic, white onion, corn, dill, lemon juice, butter, salt, pepper, stock, milk (oat, regular, cream, whatever you have) white wine and red pepper flakes. You’ll also need John Mayer, preferably a candle lit somewhere in your apartment, extra wine for drinking (or tea…), some slippers, and some time to yourself.
Dice your onion, garlic and carrots finely, leave your leeks in slightly bigger pieces, and chop your potatoes into cubes. Sautee leeks, garlic, and onion in a healthy amount of butter (we’re making recoup soup not dieting here, keep that in mind) on medium low heat until everything is soft and just starting to brown. Deglaze your pot with white wine and add in potatoes and carrots to sautee with aromatics for a minute or two. You should be feeling some steam creep into your sinuses here. If you’re congested like me some, red pepper flakes at this point make all the difference.
Chop your salmon into small, bite sized pieces, and add to your pot, alongside liquid. I used roughly half veggie stock and half oat milk because I forgot to get cream at the store. If one did have cream, I’d change the ratio to 3/4 stock, 1/4 cream. Make sure there’s enough liquid to cover all your veggies and salmon with an inch or two of liquid to spare. I had some butter beans in my fridge to use up, so those went in at this point too. The beauty of soup is in its’ versatility— it’s all just layers and warmth so throw in whatever you like once your base is settled.
Add in about 1/4 of a lemons’ worth of juice, 1/2 a can ish of corn, and a few tablespoons (eyeball measuring, of course) of fresh, chopped dill. Turn the heat to low, cover, and go dance around your apartment for awhile. Or clean your kitchen, whichever feels right.
Come back when you feel like it, which should be when everything smells good enough that you’re hungry, which should be when your potatoes are fall apart soft, which should really be about 30 minutes. At this point you get to decide how you like your soup! I liked mine with a little more salt, some black pepper, extra fresh dill, and some more lemon juice. This soup honest to goodness felt like being tucked into bed while someone reads you a bedtime story. It also makes leftovers, so you can be tucked into bed and read bedtime stories all week. Enjoy!
Sun. Apr. 14
Good food fuels good finals… I hope?
Breakfast:
Greek yogurt and frozen blueberries:)
More breakfast… for lunch:
Obviously can’t go a day without my cheesy eggs and tortilla.
Dinner:
1) The last of my tofu/mushroom/eggplant toppings from this week
2) Broccoli- cut into chunks, stir-fry with butter, garlic, salt, and black pepper. To make it softer, you can add a little water to your hot pan and the steam will soften it up.
3) Tomatoes- stir-fry with butter, garlic, and salt
4) Rice, salad greens, pickled red onions, soy sauce.
Easy dinner to use up leftovers!
Sat. Apr. 13
Back to a full day of eats today!
Breakfast: Butter Miso Oats
This was a new way to make oats for me- inspired by someone on tik tok and my mom reminding me about savory cereal the other day
1) Cook your oatmeal as normal, roughly 2-1 water to oats ratio
2) While cooking, add in 1-2 tsp. of miso paste and stir
3) Add salt and black pepper to taste
4) Add lots of butter and splash of soy sauce before eating
I was skeptical about this as I don’t think of oats as being savory, but it was actually super good.
Virtually the same lunch and dinner- see Apr. 11 for details. I added some rice to dinner which was a nice addition!
Evening snacks:
It is now a luxurious 80 degrees most days in Madrid, so Saturday chips/guac and Caipirinhas with friends are a must. Highly recommend you indulge if you find yourself in warm weather:)
Thurs. Apr. 11
Just a dinner recipe for today:
Surprise Surprise another bowl!
1) Pickled red onions- see previous or put red onions in your fridge with salt and vinegar
2) Mushroom/eggplant combo- below
3) Miso/Soy Tofu— I marinated my tofu cubes for about an hour in a mix of soy sauce, miso paste, honey, and garlic. Then stir-fried for 5 minutes or so, just until everything is hot and starting to brown
4) Chopped cucumber and salad greens
5) Seaweed salad from your local sushi restaurant courtesy of your roommate ordering sushi
6) Lemon and garlic, a little soy sauce drizzle on top, sesame oil if you have it, dig in!
Mushroom/Eggplant
1) slice mushrooms, sautee with butter, garlic, and splash of white wine until they are browned
2) Cut eggplant into flat pieces, sprinkle with salt on both sides, let sit for several minutes, pat off water that seeps out
3) Cube eggplant, sautee with lots of butter and salt until cubes are soft and melty
4) Combine with mushrooms and put in your fridge to have with all your salads this week
Tue. apr. 9th
Back home, using up all those groceries…
A not-so-photogenic breakfast:
Classic oatmeal in a cup morning - with butter, honey, frozen blueberries, and frozen strawberries.
Snack:
Your sign to go get yourself a Canele if you haven’t had one before:)
Lunch/Dinner:
On the sheet pan we have: chick peas, mushrooms, vegan sausage slices, and broccoli, seasoned with salt, pepper, cumin, turmeric, paprika, and lots of olive oil. I put that whole tray in the oven together at around 350 until everything was cooked through. I cranked the heat up to 400 for about 10 (15?) minutes at the end after giving everything a good stir so the chickpeas and sausage slices could get a little crispy.
In the bowl: salad greens, sheetpan mixture, cheese, avocado, olive oil, salt, pepper.
This made a ton of leftovers that I have in the fridge to keep mixing with more greens.
Apr. 5-7 - SAN SEBASTIÁN
Other than eggs for breakfast, I didn’t cook anything this weekend because I was busy eating the best tapas (or Pinxos, as they’re known in the Basque country) of my life. So while I don’t have photos for every single one, I thought I’d just give you all a little food tour of our weekend.
From left to right above: Basque cheesecake, Calamares, Tortilla for Sami and Crab Crepe for Stella, Gambas al Ajillo, Hake and Purple Potatoes, Huevos Rotos con Patatas, Tuna belly and Tomatoes, and Mushroom Croquettas.
More cheesecake (I kid you not, the cheesecake consumed on this journey was otherworldly), Ensaladilla Rusa (from a Michelin restaurant! San Sebastián is known for their many, many michelin star pinxos restaurants), Bacalao (cod) saturated with butter, Croquettas de Bacalao, Ava’s tortilla and crab/shrimp brochette, and a little glimpse into some of the options available at every bar we walked into.
Obviously this food was accompanied by incredible wine and Estrella Galicia, and a number of pinxos we forgot to take photos of. But if you’re in Spain, I’d highly recommend San Sebastián for incredible food and low prices— nearly everything above cost 3-8 euros depending on the size of the dish. Feeling so lucky, both heart and stomach are full to the brim.
Wed. Apr. 3
A late post from last week
Breakfast:
It’s always a good day when the avocado is perfectly ripe- today was one of those days:) Putting a little milk and cheese in with my scrambled eggs made them extra fluffy, tortilla as always.
Lunch and Leftovers: Creamy White Bean and Spinach Soup
1) start by sauteeing one whole yellow onion until soft with lots of butter, salt, pepper and a little white wine
2) Add in a full jar of white beans or butter beans, as well as 2 ish cloves of chopped garlic and the zest of one lemon
3) Keep sauteeing until butter beans begin to brown slightly. Season with more salt, pepper, and tiny bit of cumin and paprika
4) Add veggie stock (or water and stock cube) to cover beans in about 1 inch of water
5) Cook down until liquid thickens to creamy texture above
6) Add in bag of chopped spinach and juice from one lemon
7) Serve hot with some cheese which will melt in, enjoy:)
This made enough for about 4 servings for me, and kept pretty well in the fridge.
Easy classic dinner:
Quinoa, cooked with turmeric, cumin, paprika, salt, and pepper
Arugula
Mushrooms, sauteed with garlic, butter, white wine, salt
Cucumber and Avocado, chopped small
Lemon/Olive oil/garlic/salt/pepper dressing. Delicious as always.
Tue. apr. 2
Happy Tuesday citchen khronicles fans!
I’m back to my egg-cheese-tortilla breakfast lifestyle, and getting increasingly excited to head home to plentiful corn tortillas in the States. But Flour has grown on me this year and still a great breakfast so really can’t complain.
Pre and Post run snacks/lunch? Didn’t really feel like cooking anything so on the left we have cheese microwave melted onto a corn cake, on the right we have greek yogurt.
Unknowing citchen khronicles guests Sami and Natasha made dinner tonight, and might I say they did a fabulous job. Sami the Salad Queen cheffed up this greek inspired veggie filled delight with chickpeas, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, feta cheese, arugula, and a gorgeous lemon/olive oil/apple cider vinegar dressing. Natasha transformed some rather wilted chicken and potatoes from Mercadona into these deliciously crispy salad additions. Bella and I provided the wine, we’ll forgive Ava for falling asleep at the dinner table because she brought some yummy noodles and also paid for the chicken. Cheers to meals with friends and friends who cook for you! Love to all:)
Mon. apr 1
Spent the day trying to think of a witty April fools caption… instead I just made food. Here it is:
Breakfast:
Tried to turn the egg bean and cheese tortilla wrap into quesadilla form- not something I would do again. The egg didn’t get cooked all the way through and while that may not bother you, it certainly bothered me. But this was essentially the same as always, eggs, beans, and cheese in a tortilla.
Lunch:
You may notice a lot of this combo over the next few days- I have lots of these snacks stored up at the moment. Greek yogurt, corn cake:)
Dinner was essentially the same as yesterday, using up the last of the beans. I didn’t put rice in this bowl, and instead made a much larger batch of mushrooms and onions. Instead of chopping them into slices, I cubed them super small and let them get a little crisp in the pan which added some nice texture to the meal.
mwah, xx, enjoy, <3
Sun. Mar. 31
Wow It’s Been SO Long! You’ve probably been on the edge of your seat waiting for citchen khronicles updates.. sorry to keep you waiting! I’ve been galavanting about the Swiss alps, eating almost exclusively grocery store croissants and cheese because while the mountains are incredible, food in Switzerland is $$$$$$$. But I’m home from spring break, ready to buckle down for my last month in Spain and another day of eats.
Breakfast:
Not the most aesthetic breakfast- if you’ve spent time in our apartment you know we do not own bowls, so this morning’s oatmeal is presented here in a cup borrowed from Balmers hostel in Interlaken. Oatmeal, water, milk, frozen strawberries, salt, honey. Cook on medium-high heat until consistency is how you like it:)
Dinner:
I made a big pot of beans right before spring break and put them in the freezer, so I thawed them out for dinner.
This bowl had beans, rice, arugula, pickled onions, cheese, and a mushroom/onion combo and is my version of chipotle which tragically is unavailable in Spain.
Mushroom/onions: Chop into thin pieces. Heat generous amount of butter in pain until melted, add mushrooms and onions. Sautee for a few minutes, until both start to soften. Add generous splash of white wine (this should steam off rapidly and make your kitchen smell delicious). Add salt and black pepper and keep stirring until onions are soft and mushrooms browned. Add more butter if they start to stick too much.
Quick pickled red onions: This is the first time I’ve done this and they will now be a staple in my fridge. Combine apple cider vinegar and sugar- you may need to heat ACV slightly so sugar dissolves. You’ll need enough liquid to cover your onion, you can add more or less sugar depending on how sweet you like it. I added about a tablespoon. Add a thinly sliced red onion and keep in a jar or container in the fridge. The longer they sit, the tastier they’ll be.
As always for rice: Rinse rice well, add to pot in 2:1 water to rice ratio. Keep at a low boil and cover for 30 minutes. Don’t open the lid of your pot until those 30 min are up- you want to keep the steam in there. Should be done after 30, but you can keep it on a little longer if there’s still some water in your rice.
Attaching a mountain photo here to make up for the past 10 days you’ve been left with no citchen khronicles. Enjoy and eat well!
Wed. MAr 20
Feeling like: spring break needs to be here faster.
This was… brunch?
1) Quinoa: if you don’t know how to make quinoa by now, I suggest catching up on some previous citchen khronicles posts
2) Super good eggplant: I cut the eggplant into flat pieces, sprinkled them with salt, and then left them on paper towels for about 15 minutes to get the excess water out. Skipped this step last time I made eggplant, and it is well worth the effort. Then I cubed the eggplant, and pan fried with olive oil, salt, rosemary, paprika, and a healthy portion of garlic until (seen above) the eggplant is melty soft and just starting to brown and the garlic is crispy.
3) Everything else in here is super straight forward- chopped cucumber, tomato, red onion, olive oil, salt, pepper, balsamic glaze.
Sweet treat of the day: Late lunch? Snack?
You guessed it- yogurt, strawberries, frozen bluebs, some cereal kinda stuff.
Dinner:
Eggplant from earlier, green bell, mozzarella balls, red onion, dismal attempt at poached egg, garlic, lemon juice, salt, pepper, tiny bit of balsamic. I also had some toast with butter, but no photo!
Ended the day with some mediocre microwave popcorn and Brooklyn 99. Happy Wednesday!
Tue. Mar 19
Tuesdays have recently become my long run days, so here’s what I made:
One Meal, Two Mugs
Breakfast yogurt and strawberries, coffee obviously.
More chickpea salad toast situation, although this one didn’t start with the aspiration to be tuna salad and in consequence was much better. I smashed chickpeas together with hummus (aka more smashed chickpeas), added red pepper, diced green bell pepper, paprika, salt, black pepper, olive oil, lemon juice, and feta cheese. I’m really not sure what genre of food this fits into, but it was good and easy!
Dinner
This meal comes to you as a shoutout to Bella, who reminded me to take a picture right as I served it. I promptly forgot and ate my food. Bella saved this little bite to be featured on citchen khronicles, thanks Bella! It’s pasta and butter (cooked together) and cherry tomatoes, garlic, more butter and white wine (cooked in separate pan, added in at end).
Punctuated dinner with hummus and baguette and red wine, also thanks to Bella. Really this post is just a reminder that Bella is an awesome human being! We love her!
Mon. Mar. 18
I got to go out to dinner with Ava’s uncle and cousin who are visiting, so dinner not included. But here’s what I made for the rest of the day:
Breakfast: Cheesy scrambled eggs on toast— easy and fast.
Snack:
Croissant from Acid
Late lunch/pre class meal?
Chickpeas, green bell, cucumber, cherry tomato, mozzarella, olive oil, salt, lemon juice, pepper, garlic.
Dinner was lots and lots and lots and lots of fish, which was super good but not the kind of place in which whipping out a phone to take photos of everything would’ve been appreciated so I’ll leave it up to your imagination. Think fish, if that wasn’t clear already.
Sun. Mar. 17
Ava and I got the best bread ever and basically ate bread all day. Here’s what we put on it:
Brunch ish:
Melted Latin cheese and a fried egg on a Gallegan loaf from our new favorite bakery. Also pictured: coffee and kombucha.
Early Dinner
I was craving something akin to tuna salad, and while this was not it, it was good: smashed chickpeas, cream cheese, spinach, red onion, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and paprika. If I had mayonnaise or pickles I would have replaced the cream cheese and added those in, but I didn’t feel like going to the store. Once again on The Bread!
I’m pretty sure I also made a grilled cheese with this bread later that I didn’t photograph. AND I can’t omit that we got oreo mcflurries post run.. a rare treat but so good.
Fri. Mar. 16
Super lowkey Friday meals
Breakfast:
Greek yogurt, strawberries, frozen blueberries, granola
Creamy Pasta
Bella this one’s for you: DON’T DRAIN OUT YOUR PASTA WATER! You can ladle out a little if you want your pasta al dente, but when there’s about 1-1/2 inch of water left start adding butter and stir vigorously as last of water cooks off and becomes creamy sauce. I add cheese at this point too.
Leftovers for dinner
Quinoa, spinach, hard boiled egg, red onion, saurkraut, lots of soy sauce. Kind of a non-traditional combination, but was actually pretty good.
ENjoy:)
Tues. Mar. 12
Another day another blog post.
Breakfast:
The exact same thing as yesterday: melted cheese on a tortilla, black beans, scrambled eggs and avocado.
Picnic Lunch/Dinner and the moment you’ve all been waiting for… the last of the beans! Inspired by the cowboy caviar Cat and I’s old boss made. Thanks Dustin!
1) Cold black beans
2) Chopped spinach
3) Chopped red onion, green bell pepper, cherry tomato, avocado
4) Lime juice, hot sauce, salt, pepper
5) Vigorous shake
This was a great whatever you have in the fridge cold salad, the above veggies are all optional/swappable depending on what’s available to you. We took this container to the park and snacked on it for lunch/dinner over a few hours. Highly recommend:)
Mon. Mar 11
Today was a day for taking Cat to some of my favorite food spots in Madrid— if you’ve visited you might recall some of these treats and obviously as my Madrileñas know they’re in the regular rotation.
Breakfast
Since making black beans, this has very quickly become a hyperfixation meal— it will likely stay that way until I run out of beans.
Melted cheese on tortilla, black beans, fried egg, avocado. Perfection.
Post-Run snack
This would’ve been a really good breakfast were I not obsessed with beans atm. It made a great snack instead— greek yogurt, strawberries, frozen blueberries, and some crunchy cereal (in spanish, couldn’t tell you the name.)
These may not look like much, but they are in fact the best form of potato in the world. Not your average patatas bravas, you can see they’re made up of layers and layers of thinly sliced potatoes. I wish I could tell you how to make them, but alas Tapas Tirso de Molina has not yet decided to share their recipe. If you’re ever in Madrid I highly recommend making a stop at this spot, us Lavapies gals are here at least once a week.
Dinner
My plan was to mix things up and take a photo of each tapa, but once we ordered our wine I promptly forgot. Sorry! Pictured here is a fried green tomato. We also got a noodle dish and a shrimp-in-brioche-with-sauce situation, split between three. La Musa is one of our favorite tapas bars here, and I recently discovered there is one in La Latina much closer to my current apartment! So food was a win, wine was a win, location was a super win, and I have a few more days with Cat here in which we’ll be eating out more than usual before I’m back to recipes next week.
LOVE!
Sat. March 9
I’ve been doing a poor job of photographing food this week as my friend Cat and I have been busy exploring Madrid! But we’ve been eating lots of good things- about 50/50 at home vs meals out. Here’s what our Saturday looked like:
I didn’t take a photo of breakfast, but we had strawberry oatmeal. I used roughyl 1:2 oats to water ratio, and cooked until oatmeal was soft. I put butter, honey, salt, and fresh strawberries in this, although you could do any fruit you like and brown sugar is a great alternative to honey depending on what you have.
One thing I learned from this dinner was how long it takes to cook black beans. I had a very vague idea of how to make them, and would do some things differently but these were still super good and have been the base of our meals/snacks since.
As I did last week, I made lots of different bowl toppings that I have since been combining into dinners when we eat at home.
Components:
Sweet Corn— I just cooked this up in a pan with some olive oil, salt, paprika, and latin cheese that is delightfully chewy when cooked. When the corn starts to brown and tastes great, it’s done.
Guacamole— One avocado made enough for two people. One avocado, diced red onion, diced green bell, diced tomato, juice of 1/2 lime, salt, pepper. Smash everything together until desired consistency, add more salt/pepper/lime juice to taste.
Black Beans— There’s the way one should make black beans, and then the way I made black beans, which took about 8 hours. In the future, I will be soaking my beans overnight, before cooking them the next day. Today, I soaked the beans for about 45 minutes in the morning before getting impatient and starting to cook them. I kept them completely covered with water, simmering on low heat, but I am not exaggerating when I say this took all day before the beans were soft enough to enjoy. That being said, they taste great. I seasoned them with salt, pepper, cumin, and paprika. In the future, I might also add some onions, peppers, or tomatoes to the pot to give even more flavor. I think cooking them in veggie stock could also work great if you don’t want to deal with specific seasoning. I seasoned my pot a few times throughout the day, and now have a massive container of beans in the fridge that we’ve been enjoying in quesadillas, bowls, and breakfast burritos.
Other bowl ingredients:
Chopped green bell
Chopped red onion
Salsa
Lime juice, salt, pepper, paprika
Mon. Mar. 5th
I spent all weekend eating pizza and pasta in Italy, grazi a Maria for living in Florence and letting me come visit:) But when I got home, I was ready as always to get back to my regular food routine and cut back on the bread and cheese. Here’s what we made:
Breakfast:
Ok I know I said cut back on bread and cheese, but this is what I had in my fridge so this was breakfast- slightly over crisped tortilla/egg/cheese combo we all know and love. And coffee.
Dinner, however, used everything left in my fridge, made leftovers, was delicious, and required pretty minimal effort. Sheet pan dinners were a big part of my year last year, but without an oven last semester I mostly forgot about them. Now that I have an oven, we’re bringing them back.
Instructions/Ingredients for this one:
Chop potato, bell pepper, cherry tomato, and red and white onions into bite ish sized pieces.
Heat your oven to 350 ish f (mine’s in celsius, it’s always a guesstimate)
Put potatoes, chickpeas, tomatoes, and onions on sheet pan
Season generously with olive oil, salt, black pepper, paprika, and cumin, roast in oven until potatoes are mostly soft stirring occasionally (10-15 min)
In the meantime, chop your kale and massage with olive oil, salt, lemon juice.
Add kale and bell peppers to sheet pan and cook for another 10 min or so, until peppers are soft and kale starts to crisp.
I added a fried egg and some kraut to this bowl, but I have lots of leftovers in the fridge that I plan to mix with different things or just eat plain through the next few days.
variations on Last week
As promised, I ate the bowl components I made last week all week in a couple different ways. Here are a few:
This one has the tofu and quinoa from the other day, with fresh spinach, avocado, cherry tomatoes, kraut, and soy sauce. Took about five minutes to put together because there was no new cooking involved and I used plain soy sauce instead of making a new dressing.
This is what one might call the deluxe version (minus the egg shell, don’t worry I got that out).
I used allllll the ingredients from the first bowl (tofu, eggplant, quinoa, cucumber, kraut, avocado, fresh batch of dressing) and added a hard boiled egg. Super filling, took a little longer than the above version as cooking the egg and the kale and doing dishes took some time.
Breakfast:
I had basically the same thing for breakfast every day last week, some variation on egg and tortilla. Will be having the same this week!