Day 23: My Vespa, The Naked Chef, and too much celery

Step one: buy a Vespa scooter
Step two: zip down to the farmer’s market and back in enough time to make eggs for the girls
Step three: make really good coffee
Step four: realize that with too many vegetables the need to make a broth has become urgent
Step five: pull down your favorite cooking references and start creating!

Before I even cracked Escoffier, Beard or Pepin I knew I was headed towards a Jamie Oliver influenced creation and sure enough on page 86 of his second book I was inspired by “Mary’s Saturday soup and dumplings”, minus the dumplings and a couple other items – so I added my own.

Vespa Soup (chicken, coconut milk, sweet potatoes and chili peppers)

Leftover baked chicken thigh from earlier this week (2 large thighs, 2 small carrots), chopped into cubes
Leche de coco (coconut milk from my Mission District shopping trip) 13.5oz
Three types of dried chili peppers from Bev and Jeff’s garden, seeds & core removed (6 total)
¼ teaspoon each of ground cardamom, coriander, thyme and a little white pepper
1 ½ quarts vegetable stock (celery, carrots, parsley, white & red onion, teaspoon chicken bouillon)
Three sweet potatoes (all different), baked for 30 min on 350, skin, then chopped up into cubes
Add 2 bay leaves just for fun

Heat cast iron pot on high and toss chicken and stir around for about 3 minutes to brown slightly (note that this is pre-cooked chicken), then pour in EVERYTHING else including the sweet potatoes (makes a neat hissing sound) and turn the heat down to simmer for 30 minutes.

Just before serving, squeeze in the juice of a single lime, and garnish with sprig of parsley and slices of avocado yum. I also saved the seeds from the peppers and placed in a small ramekin to sprinkle onto my bowl as Krysten and Yvie like their portions less spicy. ALSO you can take the skins from the sweet potatoes and toast them to they are crunchy and serve as an additional garnish. I was going that way but burned them by mistake so if you try that, let me know how it turns out. It’s ALL good!