Usual routine again

It's nice to be back home again. After almost a week and half on the East Coast, I am happy to be sleeping in my bed, using my bathroom, and eating and cooking as I usually do again. When I got home Monday, I defrosted some butternut and carrot soup I made in October and had that with wheat toast for dinner. For Tuesday's lunch, I packed a green salad with garbanzo beans, sardines, and red onions. For dinner, I made a saffron, tomato seafood stew, which may sound fancy but is actually pretty simple.

I started by sauteing some garlic, shallots, bay leaves, thyme, red pepper flakes, and fennel seeds in a little bit of oil. Then, I added two leeks, thinly sliced, and a touch of water, and cooked that for a few more minutes. After, I poured in a can of diced tomatoes, a slice of zest from an orange, three cups of clam juice, the saffron with its soaking liquid, some water, and two cups of dry white wine. (I got a fantastic bottle of Hiedler Loess Kamptal Gruner Veltliner from 2007, which, according to the lady selling me the wine at Arlequin Wine Merchants, was a great year for Austrian vineyards. The woman's eyes lit up when I told her I was making a seafood stew. She described the wine as perfect for my soup and worked well with a range of flavors, from grapefruit to fennel. And, it was quite lovely and refreshing and very dry.)

I let the liquid simmer for about 25 minutes with the lid off so that it could reduce a bit. I tasted it for salt and pepper. Then, I added the chunks of cod. After about five minutes, the bay scallops and shrimp went in. And, after about four more minutes, I turned off the heat, poured in a couple of tablespoons of cream and threw in some chopped cilantro. I toasted some slices of baguette rubbed with olive oil in my cast iron skillet, and I was done. Easy, yet still impressive.