I returned Thursday from a trip to Grammy's that turned into a junk food tour of Texas- not that I am complaining, I just wish I had tried the chicken fried bacon.

But my system definitely needed a reset and thank goodness for Facebook! My high school friend Mat Schuster posted a clip of himself on the San Francisco local news and the soup looked like just the thing. I have a weird relationship with lentils where they always seem like a good idea, and then while I am cooking them I think, "Yuck, lentils," and then when I actually eat them I remember that I love lentils.  This soup was no exception, and with escarole and watercress it was absolutely phenomenal. Delicious AND with a little bit of pork fat in it, so my body didn't go into complete grease withdrawal.

I used to not love tomato soup so much but now I am kind of obsessed with it. The very best tomato soup recipe I know is from Sally Schneider's The Improvisational Cook and involves her versatile slow roasted tomatoes.  But the version above, from Vegetable Soups From Deborah Madison's Kitchen, is a pretty good bet when you only have canned tomatoes handy and the souffleed cheese toast is to die for. 

Adapted slightly to serve 2 with leftovers:

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 very small onion, chopped
• 1 tsp dried basil or herb of your choice (I used herbs de provence since that's what I had handy)
• 1 tbsp flour
• 1 15 oz can diced tomatoes
• pinch of baking soda
• 1 1/4 cup stock (vegetable or chicken) or water
• 3/4 cup milk
• salt and pepper
• 1 egg, separated
• 1/2 tsp dijon
• pinch of cayenne
• 1/2 c grated cheddar
• 1/2 tsp minced scallion
• toasted bread

Melt butter in your soup pot. Add onion and herbs, cook til onion is good and translucent. Stir in flour and cook for a second. Then add tomatoes, baking soda, and stock or water. Bring to a boil, then simmer, partially covered, for 20 min. Off heat, puree with your immersion blender or cool slightly and puree in a regular blender.

Preheat oven to 400. (I did this part while the soup was cooking.) Combine egg yolk w/mustard and cayenne, then stir into the cheese.  Whisk the egg white until it holds soft peaks and fold into cheese. Spread on toasted bread and bake til puffed and golden, 5-10 minutes depending on your oven.   

While the toast is baking, stir in the milk and season to taste. Bring soup back to piping hot and serve w/a cheese toast half. Or two.

If you have this ridiculously awesome immersion blender, this recipe is super easy because you can use the blender attachment to puree the soup and then the whisk attachment to whisk the egg white. My mother gave me mine, and I never would have thought I needed it until I actually whisked an egg white with the whisk attachment. The motor on that thing makes a hand mixer look like a manual whisk.  And if you make soup at all, the immersion blender is so much easier than a regular blender. If I had my kitchen to stock all over again, I'd have started with this and considered the hand mixer and blender optional.

A few things about Mark Bittman:

He Twitters way too much.  I may have to stop following him, as half of his twitters are replies to people I don't even follow.   

I still love him, even though I have not read his newest book and am kind of grossed out by the idea of Wild Rice and Quinoa Breakfast Stuffing (it sounds great, I am just not eating it for breakfast).  Which is why I am not reading his newest book because I am sure he'd convince me it was a good idea.

His chocolate souffle is awesome and the individual servings fit perfectly in the Le Creuset heart shaped ramekins. I may not even wait til next Valentine's Day to pull them out again.

I have a whole bunch of things to say about my recent America's Test Kitchen run and will, someday, get around to it, I swear.

In the meantime, please check out my more local blog.

Current Sandwich Obsession, Toddler Version: Mozzarella and turkey, toasted open face, on brown bread from House of Bread. (Which always makes me think of House of Pain, which always makes me sing "I came to get bread, I came to get bread, so get out of your carseat and get bread! get bread! get, get, get, get bread!" to my perplexed son.)

Current Sandwich Obsession, Mother Version: Mozzarella and goat cheese and pickled onions grilled on the same brown bread.

I know I've made my own ricotta before, and was reminded by last week's NYT how easy it is. So I made some, and then made this pasta. I did it for my husband, because I am not a huge pasta fan, and I usually only like pasta smothered in bechamel. I certainly do not like pasta with tomato based sauces, and I especially do not like pasta with light brothy sauces. I do not know if it was the fresh ricotta or what, but I LOVED this pasta. I ate my whole serving and then some. I am going to make it again this summer- again with the broth using a base of carrots and onions and basil and fresh tomatoes all from the garden and homemade ricotta, and then I will die of smug domesticity.

I recently had an Amazon gift card and was torn between two books I've long coveted- Italian Easy and Spice. I had made a ricotta and tomato thing from Italian Easy way back when it was run in the NYT and loved it. I had also made crispy persian fried chicken and beet tzatziki and a red pepper goat cheese spread from Spice about a trillion times and was curious to see if the book had her Casablanca scallops recipe. I wound up getting some stuff from the Body Shop with the gift card and both books from the library.

Italian Easy was, well, easy. I already have the sformata di ricotta recipe and do not really need a whole book of ideas on things to put on bruschetta and things to throw on the grill with some olive oil and lemon. If I had never ever cooked before and needed a first cookbook of things that were simple and delicious, this would be great. But I don't need to buy it now.

Spice, though? This book, I need. I made the vanilla-scented carrots about five times. (Alongside just about everything, but with the tamarind braised beef short ribs they were indeed the best.) The scallop recipe was not identical to those I remember from Casablanca, but with orange-saffron butter and crispy rice cakes who is complaining? (And her method of cooking scallops- searing on one side only til cooked through- is brilliant and makes for a tender, seared, but not overcooked scallop.) Crispy roast chicken with za'atar and lemon confit. Phenomenal onion tarts. I hated to return this book and definitely will be buying it.

Lastly, do yourself a favor and make this chicken chili. Have plenty of sour cream and lime on hand.

Things Jeff loves:

-Beacon Restaurant
-Asian-ish chicken wings

We haven't been to Beacon together in well over a year, and when the LA Times ran this recipe I maybe pouted about that a bit. "I didn't even know they HAD chicken wings!"

Chicken wings are not sophisticated or snazzy, and I'd been put off frying my own chicken wings after my one attempt at Buffalo Wings. (I don't know why, frying chicken is not hard. I have two books called simply Fried Chicken both of which have gotten a ton of use. But something about Buffalo Wings was a major pain. Anyway.) But these wings were super easy to fry (I am coating all my chicken wings in cornstarch from now on) and the sauce. Oh, man, the sauce. I didn't have sake handy, so I added a little rice vinegar, and it coated the wings and they were just perfection. I could have made a triple batch just for the two of us. They were so good, I don't even need to go to Beacon and try theirs. Which is good because I always need room for the ahi tuna pizza.