This week our toddler Madeline added the word 'brrr' (accompanied by exaggerated shivers) to her vocabulary. What frigid chill inspired this? When we got up yesterday morning in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, it was 69 °F (21 °C)...serious cold in her Caribbean world. In the spirit of enjoying this cooler weather, Rebecca requested a hearty lentil stew with the local sausage we had on hand. This Rustic Sausage Lentil Stew is straightforward to make and easy to adapt. This stew avoids the thick heaviness of many traditional lentil stews by using green French lentils that remain whole and al dente during cooking. While hearty, the stew is surprisingly light and bright. 

Henan Citrus Chicken Broth is Paul's non-traditional adaptation of the famous aromatic Daokou chicken from Henan province, China, near the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Already a deft broth maker, Paul has honed his technique and varied his flavor profiles during my pregnancy, in empathic response to my near-daily nausea. I love this broth's bold citrus aroma and flavor, subtle honey sweetness, and rich background spices. Its a great broth on its own (Paul's favorite), or with fresh steamed veggies and rice (the way I like it best). This recipe is adapted from Carolyn Phillips' wonderful new Chinese cookbook All Under Heaven.

Dieujuste Saint-Surain stands in his field in Senk-Pòt, Haiti, holding up two freshly harvested joumou (Haitian Creole for calabaza squash).  “To me, joumou means life, it means independence and it means the dignity of feeding my family with the food I grow,” says Saint-Surain. 

Following a long-fought independence from colonialism and slavery, Haitians developed a unique tradition of hospitality, celebration, and generosity centered around a simple meal: soup joumou. This well-loved Haitian dish is a hearty squash soup with meat and local vegetables. Soup joumou is shared widely with friends and neighbors on Haitian Independence Day, for Sunday breakfast, and at community celebrations. 

As Haitians take stock of the devastation of Hurricane Mathew, the spicy complexity and heritage of Soup Joumou is a reminder of a strong people, and a proud history of incredible resilience and independence in the face of daunting odds. 

Thanks for following along with our new adventures! We recently moved from Pittsburgh to Haiti where we are starting a 5 year volunteer assignment with a non-profit relief and development organization. We will be in transition for the next few months as we complete our in-country orientation, language study, spend time living with host families in both the countryside and capital... and lest we forget, have our first baby somewhere in there as well! Please bear with us as we will not have ready access to internet or a kitchen throughout this time. We will continue to share new recipes that we've prepared in advance, and updates on our new life in Haiti as often as we are able.

This Rustic French Greens & Buttermilk Soup is a simple, green, and earthy foil to the button-busting days of Christmas feasting. This recipe is inspired by a watercress soup Paul came across when we were on a French cooking binge, and we find that it adapts well to any hardy green you have on hand. A surprising hit with guests, this soup has a lovely mellow and subtle sweetness that is truly delicious.

Yesterday was our last day of work, a bittersweet time in many ways. We left after saying reluctant goodbyes to many wonderful co-workers. It was an unusually silent car as we drove away, each of us lost in our own thoughts, until a loud rumble and clanking sound broke our melancholic lull. Our pensive quiet was replaced with a resigned amusement and a jolt back to practicality; we had managed to get a flat tire before we even left the parking lot. A tire change, careful drive home, and a trip to our local garage later, we were famished by the time we finally made it home. We heated up some Roasted Garlic and Butternut Squash Soup we'd made earlier in the week and dunked some of Paul's sourdough bread into the sweet goodness while we talked through our next life step. This soup is a master at capturing the nuanced sweetness of natural caramelization and the subtle nuttiness of roasted onion, garlic and butternut squash. While Roasted Garlic and Butternut Squash Soup tastes rich and complex, it is in reality just a very simple roasted vegetable puree turned into a velvety fall soup. We have adapted this recipe from James Peterson. For more information on his soup cookbook and others, check out our bookshelf.

In these dog days of summer, a crisp and refreshing chilled soup is a wonderful thing. Gazpacho, for those unfamiliar, is a type of cold tomato soup that originates in Spain, with many variations in texture and flavor. We love the pure, cool, sweet flavors that develop as garden-fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and onions release their juices and meld together. Chilled Tomato & Vegetable Soup, Gazpacho, is quick and easy to make, especially with a food processor to aid in chopping. Enjoy the fresh bounty of summer and homespun food shared with the ones you love. 

Paul is in the homestretch of his masters program, and is once again home in the evenings. He has been cooking, smoking and grilling up mountains of food in celebration. I sometimes have trouble focusing on the meal he’s made, because it’s such a novelty to have our evenings together again. To warm us up on this cold spring week, Paul made a extraordinary Cream of Asparagus Soup and fresh sourdough bread. The secret, I discovered, was in the short cook time on the asparagus, and the addition of peas for color and sweetness at the end of cooking. Paul finished the soup with savory flavor boosts of parmesan and vinegar to add depth to this quick spring soup.

Sometimes, we get a little absorbed in enjoying food, and forget the broader context of our speech. We had our good friends Beth and Justin over for dinner this weekend. Our spoons stopped mid-slurp, and we all did a double take when Rebecca enthusiastically proclaimed: "I love this soup, the pea-ness really shines through!"

Allow me to say it another way, this is great, quick sweet pea soup. The gentle cooking lets the subtle and sweet pea flavor star. Sweet Pea Soup is a dish I request often (usually with Rebecca's awesome Buttermilk Biscuits). There’s nothing as satisfying as a vibrant green soup to fight the rainy grays of March.

Think of this Sweet Potato, Chili and Lime Soup as a sweeter tortilla soup, a spicier butternut bisque, or a limey chowder. This silky textured soup eats like a hearty cream soup gone funky with chili and lime. Given the natural richness of the sweet potatoes, we found that sour cream, lime, cilantro and tortilla strips are a must for both flavor and textural contrast. Our soon-to-be brother-in-law had the inspired idea of adding a dollop of Chimichurri Sauce to the soup, he was right, it’s a winner! Serve with some homemade bread and a bright beet salad, and you have yourself a colorful and light winter meal. This recipe is adapted from James Peterson.

Blustering snow and icy rains found us craving a hearty soup this week.   Gazing down the steep cobblestone hills winding down from our house, we opted for caution, and a pantry raid, in favor of driving.  For our winter-storm-fare, we dunked homemade sourdough bread in aromatic bowls of French Cabbage Soup, and dreamed of beaches!   Our recipe for French Cabbage Soup, Garbure Gasconne, is a modified version of this delicious cabbage soup from the French region of Gascony.  This soup smartly employs steaming and simmering techniques to gently extract the delicate flavors from winter root vegetables.  French Cabbage Soup is a warming vegetable soup with a depth of flavor that far exceeds its humble ingredients.

The origins of this chilled cherry soup are Hungarian. But I came to know this dish by way of a memorable Christmas breakfast with Paul’s family. Between courses of oyster stew and cardamom bread, there was a mysterious ruby-hued soup. Combining the warmth of cardamom with the sweet tartness of cherries, this Chilled Cherry Soup is tangy, vivid, and refreshing: a lovely foil to the richness of holiday feasting.

Jet lag brings out the worst in me, and after 36 hours of travel to reach Paul in Cambodia, I was tipsy with sleep deprivation and drooping with hunger. Ignoring my desperate mutterings about going to sleep, Paul grabbed a moto driver and whisked us across town to Friends, a non-profit restaurant and job training center for at risk youth. I ordered half the menu in my hunger, and recall finding it all delicious with one exception...the pumpkin soup was outstanding! The flavor was deep with a warming blend of spices set off by a rich coconut and pumpkin base. I begged the cooks for the recipe, and they rattled off a long list of spices. I have been obsessively trying to recreate that soup for many years. This Cambodian Spiced Pumpkin Soup is a Westernized version that brings me back.

Carrot Coconut Soup is made in under 30 minutes and uses a genius recipe from James Peterson. We love Peterson's cookbooks so much that we originally named our rescue greyhound ‘James Peterson’ in his honor. To our chagrin, we quickly discovered two names and multiple syllables to be far too overwhelming for a greyhound with limited life skills. Now, he just answers to Leo. Carrot Coconut Soup builds flavor from a sauté of carrots in butter, with an unusual thickener of rice, finished with coconut milk and curry  to round out this delicious soup . Easy pantry ingredients, foolproof technique, and lovely bold flavors!

This French Vegetable Soup, Ratatouille, is as rustic and delicious as it is healthy and easy to make. Its flavor is built subtly from vegetables at the peak of their freshness. The dish involves no meat, no stock, no complex seasonings, and no challenging techniques. Don't be intimidated by its French origins, Ratatouille is foolproof, flexible, and amazingly, even better as a leftover. Our recipe is inspired by Anne Willan's extraordinary The Country Cooking of France. 

Ratatouille is a traditional country stew which takes advantage of the late summer bounty of fresh tomatoes, eggplants, onions, zucchini, garlic, and peppers. This type of seasonally-driven, vegetable-based cooking has increasingly become a luxury of the well-to-do. A lack of access to fresh, healthy, home-cooked food, contributes to the poorer health and shorter life expectancy of low-income Americans.

One organization working to make fresh seasonal produce accessible is Just Harvest. Their Fresh Access program allows food stamp (SNAP) recipients to use their benefits to shop at local farmers markets -- gaining access to the fresh, affordable, and seasonal bounty of local farms. SNAP benefits help 47 million Americans (and 1 in 8 people in the Pittsburgh region) put food on the table for their families. Organizations like Just Harvest, are helping to make healthy food more accessible. Just Harvest's research has shown that 80% of SNAP shoppers increased their consumption of fresh produce when given the opportunity to shop at farmers markets. Fresh Access Coordinator Emily Schmidlapp puts it succinctly: "We believe that access to fresh, healthy, affordable food is a right and not a privilege." At the Hungry Hounds, we couldn't agree more. Bon appétit! 

Food has the power to connect us to people and places around the world. In 2007, Rebecca and I spent three months traveling through South East Asia together. Leaving Cambodia on the back of moto-bikes, we arrived for the night, hot and dusty, in a small village in rural Vietnam. After dropping off our packs, we sat down on the rickety plastic stools of the town's only food stand, famished. Without asking what we wanted, two pungent bowls of Phở Gà, Vietnam's famous chicken noodle soup, were plunked down in front of us. We were hooked! As we made our way north over the next several weeks, we enjoyed many local variations of Phở: from the dark, rich, and beefy to bright and spicy with shrimp. Our favorite Phở, on which our recipe is based, was eaten from steaming bowls one early morning overlooking Hạ Long Bay. This version used chicken that had been marinated and grilled, rather than boiled in the soup, giving it a crispy texture and sweet charred flavor. 

Each sip of flavorful broth reminds us also of the people and culture that created it. Phở is an aromatic and visual dish, one that we like to serve in our  Vietnamese blue petal bowls made in the Kinh family workshop in the famous pottery village of Bat Trang, Vietnam. By partnering with a local non-profit and Ten Thousand Villages, women potters are able to make a living for their families, continue a rich cultural tradition, and gain access to tools, education, training, interest-free loans, and literacy classes. We buy many of our dishes and gifts from Ten Thousand Villages each year, and appreciate their commitment to ethical partnerships with local artisans around the world. 

While my future husband was happily scarfing fry bread tacos in Colorado, I was sweating my 7th grade Home Economics class further north in Canada. To set the scene of my distress, it was the last month of the class and I had just managed to fail my sewing test; a wobbly threaded testament to my poor hand-eye coordination and impatience. My home budgeting project took a financial downturn when my teacher noted that my incorrect math had rendered my fictitious future self seriously overdrawn and facing financial ruin. Next up was the nutrition segment of the class. And it was cook or die. Knowing I had some serious ground to make up, I marshaled my resources and consulted with my Mother. With her menu guidance, I plotted a path to home ec redemption with a meal I hoped would awe my teacher and pass the class. Since my cooking expertise to that point had been largely limited to toast, it was a painful two-day introduction to cooking resulting in an jumbled menu of chilled cucumber soup, shepherd's pie, and dark chocolate mousse.  I don't remember the meal being particularly yummy to my picky teenage palate, but the chilled cucumber soup had my teacher in raptures and won my respite from the shame of failing home ec.  

Chilled cucumber avocado soup is my grown up rendition of that home ec redemption soup. In this summery soup, the avocado and yogurt provide a silky texture to highlight the light vegetal qualities of cucumber.  This soup is a refreshing dish and can be ready in a flash for a starter or a light meal on its own.