vegetable soup, cheddar apple scones

I haven't been cooking, really, lately because of my trip to Athens last weekend. The week leading up to the trip, I made my Italian host mom's vegetable soup for my Monday night dinner and then cleared out my fridge and pantry so nothing would go back while I was out of town (only for 3 days, but I don't really stock up on much). We got back plenty early on Monday for me to go to the grocery store, but I decided to be lazy and lounge around the house instead. I made Pia's tomato sauce, always simple and delicious, and SK's pizza dough with the alteration of 1/2 cup of wheat flour instead of the 1/2 cup of white flour. I then spent the rest of the week eating peanut butter on rice cakes for breakfast, lunch in the cafeteria, and my roommate's meals for dinner. Thus, it wasn't until Saturday that I made it to the HIT and got groceries (after a delicious stop at the bagel place for bagel sandwiches, oh America, and 12 dozen frozen bagels to go!). I picked out a recipe to cook for dinner tomorrow, which I will post about once it's done, and the cheddar apple scone recipe. It was fun to sort through SK's recent recipes and pick out which ones I want to make. Autumn is a wonderful time to cook.

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Briefly, Pia's vegetable soup. It is so simple, healthy, and delicious; I love having it as an anytime option. Essentially, you chop up whatever vegetables you want to use, throw them in a pot, pour in a can of diced tomatoes or paste, cover with water (an inch over the top, ignore the floaters), add a couple tablespoons of olive oil and boil. Once the vegetables are all soft, use an immersion blender to puree everything into a smooth soup. Season to taste - I found that it makes a lot of soup and I need a lot of salt to get the flavors to be evident, but I just kept sprinkling and adding until I got there. Add a handful (about 1/4-1/2 cup) of small pasta per person and bring back to a boil for as long as it takes to cook the pasta in the soup. When the pasta is cooked, serve! I like it because it uses potatoes and tomato paste as a base and then you can add in whatever vegetables are around and that you like. It tastes really healthy but still yummy, and was a hit with my roommates. It also made quite a bit of soup, so even after seconds, I had it for lunch for the next four days.

recipe, as I made it on Monday - I starred the items that I added to her basic recipe

2 cups peas
2 medium onions
3 potatoes
3 carrots
1 stick of celery (I didn't include this)
*1 lb chunks of pumpkin
*1 head broccoli, cut into florets
3 tbsp olive oil
salt
water (enough to cover and a little above vegetables)
½ cup tomato paste (I used canned diced tomatoes because it was available)

Pia's instructions (translated):

if water goes down, add hot water while cooking
cook/boil for 30 minutes (until soft)
mix with electric mixer
when its mixed and boiling again, add handful of small-type pasta for each person,
cook until ready

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Now, onto the cheddar apple scones from SK. 

I followed her recipe except that I used whole milk instead of heavy cream, because I have yet to find heavy cream here (or maybe I just don't know where to look and how to translate it) and I just used some regular cheddar instead of sharp cheddar because our non-cyrene/kashkaval options are pretty limited. I also was terribly disappointed in myself for my first batch - I don't know what all the symbols on our oven mean, and I must have been on the wrong one because it burned the outsides of the first scones (not terribly but enough to be brown and make me sad) even though they hadn't even cooked the full 30 minutes. I kept a close eye on the second batch and they turned out fine, so that was a relief. And they were quite delicious. 

2 firm tart apples (1 pound or 2 454 grams)

1 1/2 cups (6.75 ounces or 195 grams) all-purpose flour

1/4 cup sugar plus 1 1/2 tablespoons for sprinkling (total of 2.2 ounces or 63 grams)

1/2 tablespoon (7 grams) baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt (3 grams) plus additional for egg wash

6 tablespoons (3 ounces or 85 grams)unsalted butter, chilled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes plus additional for baking sheet if not lining it with parchment

1/2 cup (2.25 ounces or 65 grams) sharp cheddar, shredded (white is recommended, I assume for aesthetics)

1/4 cup (2 ounces) heavy cream

2 large eggs

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Peel and core apples, and then cut each into 16ths. Line a baking sheet with parchment, place the apples on, and bake them for 20 minutes. SK says until dry, but mine were pretty juicy - I am not sure if I should have let them go longer or if it was because I used a different type of apple, but they were fine anyway. Set aside to cool.

Sift and whisk flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together. 

In a separate bowl, mix cubed butter, 1 egg, grated cheddar, heavy cream, and apple chunks. I couldn't tell from her instructions exactly the order for all of this, so I put them all in a bowl and mixed them together with a wooden spoon. Then I poured in half the dry ingredients, mixed it a bit, poured in the rest of the dry mix, and mixed it until it came together. It started out really dry, but after some patient mixing, ended up being a sticky wet dough. In my experience, that is pretty standard for scones.

Roll the dough out into a thick circle and cut into 6 (I made 8) triangles. Mix second egg with some salt and brush on top of scones. Sprinkle with sugar. 

Bake on either a parchment lined or buttered baking sheet for about 30 minutes. Keep an eye on them, you don't want yours to burn like mine did. Enjoy!