Papa Ray's Moroccan Tofu/Chicken Soup

Here is the recipe for my soup.  It is a favorite in my community and I get many  requests for it.  It can be made as either a nice thick hearty vegan or chicken soup.  When cooking for a Harvest Fair or Church Supper I make both versions.

Papa Ray’s Moroccan Tofu/Chicken Soup

Ingredients

1-2 tablespoons of olive oil
¾ lbs chicken breast (cut into strips or small chunks)
or
1 package of extra firm tofu if vegetarian
1 large onion
2 tablespoons minced garlic
1½ tablespoon of flour
2 –3 tablespoons of “Ras El Hanout” (spice mix below)
2 cans of vegetable broth
or
2 cans chicken broth
3 tablespoons honey
1 inch ginger root (chopped)
2 tablespoons tomato paste
6 or 7 strands saffron
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can chickpeas (drained and rinsed)
6 ounces dried apricots (diced)


Ras El Hanout

1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground coriander
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground allspice
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon black pepper

This soup recipe is not supposed to be spicy hot. It is meant to be fruity and fragrant, therefore I have not included the ½ teaspoon of cayenne pepper in the ras el hanout. It has been my experience that most American palettes can not handle all the heat.

Preparation

Heat olive oil in a heavy based pot (i.e. Dutch Oven). Add the tofu/chicken until starting to brown. Remove tofu/chicken from the pot and set aside. Add the onion and garlic and cook for 4-5 minutes until soft. Stir in the flour and cook for 3-4 minutes stirring continuously, until starting to brown. Stir in the ras el hanout and cook for a further minute. Gradually stir in the broth. Add the honey, tomato paste, chopped ginger, and saffron. Cook for another 2-3 minutes to blend the flavors. Return the tofu/chicken to the soup and add the tomatoes, chickpeas, and apricots. When soup returns to a boil. Cover and cook on a low heat for another 20-25 minutes. Serve hot.

Goes well with a small salad, lemon wedges, and a good warm flat bread i.e. panini or pita

Old poems 1966-70

 A rainy day
 
A rainy day.
A quiet sea.
A woman and a man,
Walk and meet,
Talk and sleep.
And then go away.
All on a rainy day
By the sea


 Counting tears

The moon, beautiful moon
Time of the great red cycle
     (when it is full).
Sigh when the wind blows cold.
Cry when the wind blows hot.
When it freezes, such a beautiful death.
But is it worth it to cry?
Tears freeze in the cold.
You can save them
And count them over and over again.
For what?
People have spent a lifetime counting them.

Istanbul
 
There is a girl
Very pretty and quite sincere.

Every week
We ride together
Her and I
Side by Side

When she sees me
She waves and smiles
And I do the same

On the last ride
She cried
As she and I left the boat
Each into our own worlds
Both speaking a different language

Leaves and Garlic

Monday is sometimes considered the first day of the week.  This is especially true for those of us that have lived a life as a blue collar worker.  It sort of sets the mood for the rest of the week, allowing us to set our schedule of planned accomplishments.

Today my day started fairly nice.  It started with the usual routine, checked the plumbing, started the laptop, fed all the animals, turned on the tv, filled and started the espresso machine and posted today's Morning Meditation ("The honor of the people lies in the moccasin tracks of the woman").  By this time my wife was stirring, inducing me to switch the television channel to the news and to sit so my wife and I could drink our morning espresso together.  This is our fairly typical morning routine.

I figured this was a good day to finally cover our garlic with leaves to protect them for the winter.  I get up and put on socks and a vest to go outside to work.  When I was younger, it was not cool to wear socks with sandals.  It still isn't cool but I pretty much wear sandals year round and suffer the socks in the winter when it is cold, unless there is snow.  When there is snow, I do wear boots.  Anyway, back to the leaves and garlic.

I get the truck, garden rake and snow shovel (great for picking up leaves) out to the front yard at the end of the driveway and start picking up the leaves and putting them in the bed of the truck.  Probably because I am wearing a sweatshirt underneath the vest, I quickly build up a sweat.  When this happens my eyeglasses slide all over the face and I usually end up taking them off and hooking them with an earpiece over my shirt collar.  A little later on I have the bed about three quarter full of leaves and nature calls.  It looks like I have enough leaves so for the job so I get  into the truck and drive to the house, about two hundred feet.  I pass my chair on the way to the little room and pick up my kindle in passing to do some reading at the same time.  As I sit down and begin reading, I can't.  Everything is blurry!  It was then that I discovered my glasses were missing!

I walked back out to the end of the driveway and canvased the area carefully for about twenty minutes with no luck.  Okay, maybe it is in the bed of the truck with the leaves.  I go back to the truck and drive it to the garden and garlic bed, another 300 feet.  I empty the leaves by hand making sure that the eyeglasses are not included.  They were not.  Then while retracing my steps and triple checking every place that I had meandered through that morning, I find myself in the garage and have a brilliant idea.  I pick up my prescription safety eyeglasses, wipe off the old sawdust and go back out to the end of the driveway for a another look.  It was amazing!  Apparently it helps to wear eyeglasses when searching for eyeglasses!  I hope the rest of the week goes as well.

Oma's Birthdays

Today is a new day that might start a little earlier thanks to adding a new hour in the morning.  This might get us going in time to see a partial solar eclipse in the morning and also gives us a strong possibility of making it to church on time for Sunday services.  We have not been as diligent as we should have been regarding services.

Jacqui is my wife and is called Oma.  Her birthday is on Halloween.  She was born on top of Woodford Mountain here in Vermont.  Born on Halloween, born on top of an old New England mountain, and her 9th Great Aunt was one of the witches hung at the Salem witch trials.  A heavy heritage to grow up with and as a result she suffered and looked forward to being an adult so she did not have to have a Halloween themed birthday cake.  Then, she had children of her own and once again had to suffer through the surprise Halloween themed birthday cakes, that is, until her children were of an appropriate age.  But then.....she had Grandchildren!

 In the afternoon, we are having a surprise birthday dinner for my wife that she is planning for herself.  It is planned to have a gluten free chocolate birthday cake (for the Grand kids), and a meatloaf dinner with mashed potatoes and fresh carrots from the garden.

My four year old grandson helped me plant the carrots in the spring and he just helped me harvest them.  After we cleaned, trimmed, and sliced them like golden coins about a quarter of an inch thick, we had five pounds ready for freezing.  To the chagrin of his vegetarian aunt he has never knowingly eaten a vegetable other than potatoes, probably just french fries, in his life.  Today he did!  Well sort of.  He took a raw golden coin and bit off a little bit and said that it tasted really good!  He then proceeded to take the small morsel out of his mouth and put it on the table.  He did this about eight or nine times consuming the whole coin but still saying that it tasted good.  Maybe today after the carrots are cooked he might even chew one!

Waking up

I am sitting here waiting for the family to wake up and greet the day.  I have already fed the dogs and cats, posted today's mediation, started the fire, and moved some laundry along.  Once the grand kids get up we can have our cereal and honey and start the day.

Right now the dogs are whining outside the three doors - Oma's, Aunt Eddy's, and the grand kids, - running between, whining and scratching on all the doors, hoping to wake up any of them so they can play, or at least join them in their bed cuddling and sometime almost licking them to death.

As far as I know there is not much planned for this weekend.  The granddaughter is here to earn some time on her cell phone by working with her Aunt Eddy and the grandson is her to play.  I think that I might  play too and then freeze some carrots this weekend.

CHURCH SUPPERS!

Ya know, I posted a soup recipe the other day on my blog and said it was a local favorite that I cooked.  It is and was, but I am unable to do the church suppers anymore.  It seems that my body was rebelling and my karma was somehow turning around on me.   I could not move with out aching for at least three days after and the last two that I cooked at I needed 5 stitches in my finger, and the last one that I helped at I cut my finger again!  I am done.

The church suppers at my Church in Pittsford are fantastic, taste good and are healthy.  We tried to have at least one every month and they were always profitable.  No price was ever set for them that I remember.  They had what was called a free will offer where you paid what you thought was a fair price.  If you didn't have money it was okay and you were still welcome.  We have had roast pork, chicken, turkey, meatloaf, ham, soup, pasta and even vegetarian dinners.  Desserts were usually made by the parishioners.  All of the meals were made from "scratch"!

The woman who has sort of taken over is fantastic and has a lot of family help along with some special others, but I know she is an extremely busy farmer's wife, a nurse, a grandmother and the superintendent of the church Sunday school and a true christian in the good sense.  Somehow she is also blessed with excellent time management skills!  Unfortunately a lot of the kitchen help is made up of older people like me that just can't seem to do as much any more and I feel that the church will begin to "fade with age".

The church needs help.  I worry but at the same time I have faith.  We need to get younger people involved to pick up the slack.  The way I socialize (I am really into solitude these days), I wouldn't know if we have enough younger people in the church or area that would carry on the tradition.  I know years ago, I would have been embarrassed to volunteer to do this and hope my friends didn't see me.  I guess that is one of the advantages of getting older.  I don't really give a "gosh darn" what people think of me now.

Travel Day

Thanks to the short game last night I managed to go to bed a little early and get my usual sleep.  I am currently up a bit early to greet the day, post the morning meditation on my Facebook page, and take the two dogs to the vets.  The dogs and cats have been fed and I am looking foreword to my cup of espresso before we leave. 

I am extremely grateful that today is a travel day for the Red Sox and the Cardinals.  This allows me to have piece of mind over the possible conflict of choosing between the Red Sox or NCIS.  It is amazing that we can find satisfaction in such a small coincidence, or that it even would have such significance!

Do you realize that when the Red Sox win the series Wednesday that it will be the first time that the final game of the series will be played in front of the home team fans in Boston since September 11th 1918!