I always get amazed with him: how clear he is, how his words reach my soul and make everything sound perfect. I listen to his words, from time to time, to remind me of some basic points in life.
And that brings me to the second subject of this post: at some moment Eckhart says that, whenever we feel overwhelmed by something we are doing, is because we are doing it with our thoughts on the purpose and on the end product. Instead of stop doing what we are doing, we simply change our point of view: instead of bringing our attention to the final result, we bring our attention to the PROCESS itself. On this post, I used his philosophy to make an asparagus soup.
Those white roots are what Holland has of most precious on the month of May. And I must warn you: only on May. Don't forget: MAY you come to Holland on May, eat asparagus!!!
Now we can buy them very cheap and they are simply great: a soft taste, with a slight butter flavor. Wonderful.
And I decided to make a soup. My own recipe because I couldn't find any other recipe that had the ingredients I wanted.
And that brings me to the THIRD subject of this post: Live View. Canon has introduced Live View on its SLR cameras. So you can look what you are going to photograph through the LCD screen. But something you have on the point-and-shoot cameras since 1990 is not so easy to control on a SLR.
It was a DISASTER. The focus is not something you just leave to the camera: you need to take control of it yourself. You will notice, on the last pictures, that I played the lazy and did not watch for the focus. Errr.. it is very bad.
But as Eckhart said, important is the process of doing it and not the final product.
So, there we go. First, open a good wine. I refuse to cook on a Friday night without a wonderful wine to make me company.
Grab all the ingredients. On the picture below I did not add the eggs. Forgot. Three of them. And remove the small bottle of white wine. I also had it on the picture but I don't really used it.
Unpeel the asparagus. Use a proper knife to do it. I always buy the ones from Maggi but I have a good asparagus knife. This year Maggi has one on "delft blauw". Lovely!
Ok. At this point I have asked Mr. M. to help me. Curiously on the past 10 years, we always wear the same colors on the same days, even when we don't see each other in the morning. The color of this Friday evening was light pink as you can notice.
ATTENTION: Collect all peels into a pan.
While you unpeel the asparagus, put them into water.
Cut 3 to 4 cm from the bottom of each of the asparagus and put those edges into the pan. Put the pan to cook with some broth, the peels and the bottom of the asparagus for about 15 minutes:
In the meantime, cook the eggs hard (12 minutes).
Cut the ham on small pieces and reserve:
Remove the thyme leaves and reserve:
Cut the asparagus on pieces of about 3 to 4 cm:
Put the asparagus pieces into a basket:
And put the basket into the same pan where you were cooking the peels & ends:
Leave it to cook for 10 to 12 minutes.
In the meantime, peel the eggs, slice them and smash them with a fork:
When the asparagus is cooked, remove it from the pan and let it drain:
Sieve the cooking water on another pan:
And here I stared to have trouble with the focus...
Add the asparagus:
The ham:
The thyme:
Part of the eggs:
The creme fraiche:
And mix it for a while. Add some "Maizena" if you want the soup to get a bit firm. When you serve it, pour some of the eggs above it. This soup is a meal on itself: not a first course.
And I swear: although the last pictures do not allow you to see it, it was WONDERFUL!
I have just laughed! Nothing in this life can be taken seriously. Stay happy and healthy!
Simone
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