Nourishing an Occupation 4: Eggplant Pasta (with SNOW!)

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It was snowing when I left home to deliver my latest concoction to the hardy souls at Occupy Poughkeepsie. On a very cold night like last night, it's essential to have good, hot food to keep the body warm and fueled.

I was in the park on Wed night for a meeting of Occupy Poughkeepsie Moms and Dads and while I was there, I discovered among the donated food: 6 large eggplants, 3 cans of garbanzo beans, a can of black olives, and many boxes of dried pasta. I can make something with that!

If you've read any of my other blog posts, you won't be surprised to learn that I started cooking by chopping up garlic and onions and sauteing them in oil in the bottom of a soup pot. In this case, I used a whole head of garlic. While that was cooking, I washed and cubed 4 of the eggplants.

I added 2 large cans of crushed tomatoes along with the eggplant, a pound of sliced mushrooms, some water and about 1 cup of tomato juice that I had in the 'fridge. I couldn't actually fit all the eggplant into the pot, so I let it simmer for a while and after it had cooked down a bit I added the rest of it.

I seasoned the sauce with dried Italian herb blend, dried oregano, dried basil, black pepper, soy sauce, a squirt of Sriracha sauce and just a touch of sugar. This simmered for most of the afternoon. At some point, I chopped up 2 sweet red peppers, and the can of olives and added them and 3 drained cans of garbanzo beans to the pot.

I cooked 3 lbs of pasta in boiling water in my largest soup pot. 3 boxes, 3 shapes: rotini, rotelle, & rigatoni. When it was al dente, I drained it and poured it into a large aluminum serving tray. I poured the eggplant sauce over the pasta and mixed it all together. As I was getting ready to load it and 2 cans of sterno into my car, I looked out the window and saw the first snow of the season!

Here's what the camp looked like when I arrived.

By the time I got to Poughkeepsie, it was a wet snow, mixed with rain. Let me tell you, it was cold down there! I was glad I was able to keep the food warm with the sterno because as people arrived they really needed something warm in their bellies.


It's a great feeling to give a hungry, cold person a steaming hot plate of food.

Nourishing an Occupation 3: Vegetable Soup

Are you cooking for an Occupation? I'm looking for guest bloggers to write about their experiences of the Occupy movement and their food. Please contact me here (note: this link will take you to another website)


This episode of 'Nourishing an Occupation' is about using the ingredients on hand to make something delicious and nutritious. One night when I was visiting Occupy Poughkeepsie, I noticed that someone had donated a bunch of fresh vegetables - potatoes, carrots, celery, zucchini, peppers, and cabbage. These are wonderful, vitamin-rich foods, but the encampment isn't really set up to cook and I couldn't picture anyone munching on a raw cabbage or potato. I know it can be done, I just didn't see it happening. So I offered to take them home and turn them into soup. I say take them 'home' but I actually didn't make this soup at home. I was staying with Friends Val & Bob Suter for a couple of days so it was their kitchen I messed up with my chopping and concocting and their spice stash I raided for flavors.

As usual, I started by chopping several large cloves of garlic and 2 large onions and sauteing them in olive oil in my largest soup pot. When it was translucent, I added 8 carrots with their skin on and 4 stalks of celery. After they had cooked a bit, I added a large can of whole tomatoes and a large can of diced tomatoes. I broke up the whole tomatoes with my paddle. I added a fews cans full of water to the pot. While it was heating up, I kept chopping vegetables and throwing them in:

6 potatoes, skin on
1 large rutabaga, peeled
1 large green pepper
3 zucchini squash
1 medium head of cabbage.

There were so many vegetables, I had to add more water to the pot.

While this simmered, I seasoned the broth with 2 cubes of 'Not-Chick'n Bouillon', soy sauce, red pepper flakes, black pepper, and a seasoning blend from Adam's Market that the Suter's had in their cupboard that seemed to be a cross between Abodo and Old Bay.

This was so much soup that even after taking it down to Occupy Poughkeepsie and feeding everyone on site, I still had half of it left. On the next day, Saturday, a big rally and march were planned and a lot of extra people were expected. I decided to take the leftover soup home, add to it, and bring it back for lunch.

The next morning, I put the soup back on the stove and added more carrots and celery. These are the veggies I had left. I added more water and more seasoning.

I took the soup back down a little before noon and started serving it up. It was a beautiful day and lots of people showed up to take part in the rally. Most of them were surprised to be offered a hot bowl of soup - but radical hospitality is as big a part of the message of the movement as any slogan on a sign. The only picture I got of the camp that morning is before people started showing up; after they arrived, I was busy playing improvised music with my friend Noah.

While I was talking to others who attended the march and the later General Assembly, I found other people who had been bringing food or who wanted to start bringing food. We decided to get together and coordinate our efforts so that we all wouldn't bring food on the same night and that every night the full-time occupiers would have a hot, nutritious home-cooked meal.

We call ourselves 'Occupy Poughkeepsie Moms & Dads' even though most of us are not parents of the full-time occupiers. We care about the goals of the movement and would rather support it by providing food and comfort than by sleeping in the park. Since we took this photo, the group has grown to 14 people and we've provided hot meals every night for 2 weeks. We've also taken on providing blankets and insulation, having a list of nurses on-call for medical questions, and are working on getting flu shots for any occupier who wants one.

Nourishing an Occupation 2: Sesame Noodles

Are you cooking for an Occupation? I'm looking for guest bloggers to write about their experiences of the Occupy movement and their food. Please contact me here (note: this link will take you to another website)

In this episode of Nourishing an Occupation, I show you how to feed 34 people a delicious, nutritious vegan meal for about $14. The occupiers at Occupy Poughkeepsie, along with visitors and hungry kids from the neighborhood all dug in and enjoyed these Sesame noodles.

With this dish, I started by making a sauce. In a large sauce pan, I heated a bit of oil and added several tablespoons each minced garlic and ginger. After about a minute, I added about 1.5 cup of smooth peanut butter, 1/2 cup of water, 1/3 cups of soy sauce, 1/4 cup vinegar and an extremely generous squirt of Sriracha sauce and sesame oil and stirred it well so it would melt. I tasted this and adjusted the ingredients, adding a bit more of this or that until I had a sauce that was nutty, a bit tart, a bit salty, and with a bite of heat. I let it warm and simmer on the stove.

I filled my largest soup pot 2/3 full with water to boil and cooked 3 lbs of linguini. Cooking that much pasta at once is tricky because if your pot isn't big enough it will stick together. If you don't have a giant pot, cook in 2 or 3 batches. As soon as the pasta was al dente, I drained it and immediately rinsed it well with cold water.

While the sauce was simmering and the pasta cooking, I chopped up a large napa cabbage, 3 sweet red peppers, and a bunch of arugula and put them raw, into a large foil serving dish. I chopped a bunch of green onions and put half of them in with the other veggies. I chopped up a bunch of cilantro and set that aside with the remaining green onions for a topping.

I cut up 2 lbs of firm tofu into small cubes and stirred them into the peanut sauce, then let the sauce cool a bit.

I put the pasta into the big foil dish with the vegetables, and using my clean hands, mixed everything together. Then I poured the cooled sauce over everything and mixed it through thoroughly. I topped the dish with chopped green onions, cilantro and a sprinkling of black sesame seeds.

This was a big hit with the occupiers and the neighborhood kids who stopped by the park couldn't get enough.

Nourishing an Occupation 1: Red Lentil and Brown Rice

Author's note: After several months of hiatus, I've been inspired to return to the Ministry of Soup, by a leading to help nurture and nourish the full-time occupiers of Occupy Poughkeepsie.

Are you cooking for an Occupation? I'm looking for guest bloggers to write about their experiences of the Occupy movement and their food. Please contact me here (note: this link will take you to another website)

Ever since the Occupy Wall Street movement took Zuccotti Park on Sept 17, I had been watching and reading and trying to understand the movement. As a life-long activist, I have been discouraged by apathy for a long time. To find a group of people so inspired by the justness of their cause as to be willing to sleep outside and risk arrest and police brutality captured my imagination. As October rolled around, the movement began to spread and I learned of a small group trying to get started in Poughkeepsie, near where I live. I made connection with the group through email, but something held me back from attending the first march on October 15. I think I was uneasy and needed to meet the people involved and get a feel for their commitment to non-violence before taking to the streets.

On Sunday, the 16th, I learned that Occupy Poughkeepsie did not intend to be just a simple march through downtown, but was set up as a full-time encampment. As I left my Quaker meeting after our monthly potluck, the weather was turning grey, damp and chilly. A message came through on my Blackberry. We're in the park, we need food and water. I knew immediately that it was time for the Ministry of Soup to spring into action.

Fortunately, I had just been shopping at Krishna Indian Grocery so I had a good supply of dried lentils, which cook faster than other legumes. I decided to make a modified red lentil dal to warm and nourish the folks in the park.

I started by chopping 2 large onions and 3 cloves of garlic. I heated some oil in my biggest soup pot and then sauted the onions and garlic. When they were translucent, I added 1 large can of whole tomatoes, which I broke up roughly with my cooking paddle, and a large can of diced tomatoes. I threw in about 1 lbs of red lentils and 2 cups of brown rice and added enough water to cover it all by a couple of inches. I cooked it over medium heat.

As the soup cooked, it thickened and I added more water to keep it at a nice consistency for a hearty soup. I seasoned it with garam masala, black pepper, salt, tumeric, and uwe plum vinegar.

While it was piping hot, I took the whole pot out to my car and drove it to Hulme park in Poughkeepsie. Since I didn't know what kind of supplies they had, I stopped at the store for bowls, spoons and supplemented the whole mess with a large bag of day old bagels and a giant jar of peanut better.

When I arrived at the park, I discovered that the occupiers had been subsisting on pizza for 2 days - not very nutritious or financially sustainable. Some were a little reluctant to try the strange soup at first, but after a couple of guys tried it and exclaimed that it was delicious, so even the 'picky eaters' were diving in.

I was received with graciousness and gratitude and stayed for the General Assembly where I found tremendous caring and earnestness. I came down to the park to fill and warm stomachs. I left with a warm heart.

Golden Cauliflower with Green Garlic

The growing season has returned to the mid-Hudson Valley! Here in Hyde Park, both my local farmers market and Hearty Roots CSA are back in business as of this week. That means that my soups will start to include these lovely fresh, organic ingredients straight from the farm. If you also receive a weekly farm share and aren't always sure what to do with your produce, this might be a good place to follow along as I cook with my farm share too.This week's soup features a puree of cauliflower and potato along with some of the early season crops from my farm share, Japanese turnips and green garlic.

I began by chopping a large onion and sauteing it in olive oil in the bottom of the soup pot until it was translucent. While it was cooking, I washed and cut into chunks a whole cauliflower, 5 white potatoes and the roots of 6 turnips. I saved the green tops for later.

I added the potatoes, cauliflower and turnip roots to the onions and covered them with water, bring the pot to a boil to cook until tender. I season the mixture with Adobo seasoning, black pepper, a couple teaspoons of garam masala and a couple teaspoons of turmeric.

One of the more unusual vegetables in my farm share this week was green garlic. The immature bulb of the garlic is milder than a mature bulb. The green leaves remind me of leeks. In the center is the flowering stalk called the scape, which is full of garlic flavor with bright green overtones and a snappy texture on the teeth.


I cleaned the garlic, trimmed the end of the leaves, removed the fibrous center stalk and chopped the rest. Then I sauteed it in a bit of olive oil until it was tender and set it aside.


When the cauliflower, potatoes, and turnip roots were tender, I turned off the stove and let them cool a bit. I borrowed my landlady's immersion blender and I've learned my lesson in past soups about splattering molten vegetable purees around the kitchen. As soon as it was down to a safe, but still warm, temperature, I pureed the contents of my pot until it was smooth.


With the soup rich and smooth, I returned it too the heat and washed and chopped the tops of the turnip greens.


I finished the soup by stirring the turnip greens and sauteed green garlic into the pot. The greens cooked in just a couple of minutes. The garlic and Indian spices are so fragrant - this soup smells as good as it tastes.

"Creamy" Potato Soup

I just spent the last 3 weeks visiting family and friends in Florida and on my way home I stopped to visit friends in Gainesville. Scott Jones sent me home with a 10 lb bag of lovely potatoes. Jan & Alan Zak sent me home with a couple of giant Vidalia onions & 3 sweet watermelons. I decided to only use the potatoes & onions for soup.

This week's soup is a 'creamy' potato soup with homemade dumplings. I put creamy in quotations because I made a condensed version of the soup that is dairy-free and thickened with mashed potatoes instead of cream. I sent it home with Friends from Bulls Head Meeting with the instructions to thin the soup with milk, soy or rice milk, or some kind of broth.

I began the soup-making by heating some water and soaking a handful of dried shitake mushrooms. Both the mushrooms and the soaking liquid, which becomes a wonderful mushroom-flavored 'tea' will find their way into the soup.

I washed, but did not peel, about 5 Yukon Gold potatoes. These will later be mashed for the 'creamy' part of the soup. They went onto the stove in a pan of water to cook until soft.

I chopped the Vidalia onion, 4 carrots and 4 stalks of celery and softened them in olive oil in the bottom of my soup pot. This is what culinary professionals call, mirepoix, and it forms a flavorful aromatic base for building the soup.

I chopped up more potatoes - an assortment of red, blue, and white-skinned, these into smaller bite-sized pieces because they will stay as chunks in the soup, added them to the mirepoix and covered the whole mess with a couple quarts of tepid water. I used tepid water instead of hot water because it helps the potato pieces maintain their shape and structure if you bring them up to cooking temperature gradually rather than all at once.

The soaked softened dried shitake mushrooms were already sliced so all I had to do was throw them into the pot. I added the soaking liquid when the soup looked like it could use some more water. For protein, I cut up 2 cakes of dried, spiced tofu into small pieces and stirred them into the soup. This is a product that I picked up at my local Asian grocery store. It's very versatile and lasts a long time in the refrigerator, perfect to pull out whenever you want to add a bit of protein to a dish.

To make the soup extra hearty, I made some hand-formed egg noodles and dropped them into the simmering broth. I've always made these and didn't really remember where I learned them until spending time with my 98 year old grandmother, Dot Cesky last week. She pulled out a recipe for spatzle from her Czech mother-in-law that includes a bit of nutmeg in the dough. My noodles very much resemble this spatzle, so this time I tried adding nutmeg and it was a nice note. I beat 2 eggs with pepper, Adobo seasoning and nutmeg. Then a little at a time, I add all-purpose wheat flour until it forms a stiff dough. When it's stiff enough to handle, I powder my hands with flour, pick up the ball of dough and pinch off morsels and drop them into the simmering broth. I'm quite sloppy with this process on purpose, because little bits of flour that fall into the broth help thicken it and I'm going for a thick, condensed soup.

When all the vegetables and the noodles were cooked - just a couple of minutes, I poured the water off of my first pan of potatoes (if I needed more liquid for the soup, I would have poured it in, but my pot was in danger of overflowing). I mashed the potatoes with an old fashioned hand potato masher and gently stirred it into the soup. As the heat worked on the mashed potatoes, the soup became a true 'condensed' soup, very think and ready for garnish and thinning. In the photo at the top of this post, I have thinned the soup with 1% milk and garnished it with pecarino romano cheese and black pepper.

Split Pea Soup

Delicious, nutritious, easy, and cheap. If you are trying to feed a family on a low budget, you can't do better than split pea soup. My vegan version of split pea soup includes chunky root vegetables and plenty of seasoning.

I start by chopping up a large onion and 3 large carrots and mincing up 3 cloves of garlic. I heat a little olive oil in the bottom of my pot and throw in the vegetables and stir them around.




While the vegetables are cooking, I scrub and cube 4 large potatoes with the skins still on. When the onions are translucent, I throw the potatoes into the pot.


I put 2 lbs of dried split peas into a colander and rinse them well - looking for any small bits of debris to discard. Green is my favorite color and these look really beautiful when they are wet.


I add the peas and 2.5 quarts of water to the pot. I season the soup with a large cube of Knorr vegetable bouillon, about .5 tsp of Wright's Liquid Smoke, black pepper and Adobo seasoning. You could use salt instead of Adobo, but the Adobo adds a nice flavor. The liquid smoke gives the soup a surprising smoky flavor without ham or bacon.

Another thing that is nice about split peas is that they don't take very long to cook. After adding all these ingredients, I brought the soup to a boil, then reduced the heat to simmer. Because the peas are split, they will disintegrate into a thick puree-like consistency when they are done. It's important to stir them now and then while they are cooking to keep them dispersed through the liquid. Add more water if they get too thick. I'm making this batch extra thick for Friends at Bulls Head Meeting tomorrow to take home, so they can add more water when they reheat it.