This weekend I was introduced to two great recipes, both of which owe their greatness to garlic.  The first is “pure de verduras,” or pureed vegetable soup.

My friend Stacy, who had the good fortune to live (almost 30 years ago) with a family in Spain for one year of high school, came home with enough recipes and inspiration to last a lifetime.  Yesterday she told me how her host mother would make pure de verduras with whatever vegetables were left at the end of the week and how, for this reason, it was never exactly the same twice.  Stacy sighed when she reminisced about the times that the recipe included red or golden beets.

Here’s what her host mother did:  She chopped up the combination of (washed, peeled) vegetables coarsely, and put them into a pan with a bit of hot olive oil.  After a few minutes of frying, she would add just enough water to barely reach the surface of the vegetables.  She covered the pan, and let the vegetables cook for maybe 10 minutes until they were just cooked through.  The cooking time differed depending on the types of vegetables.  Then she would put the contents of the pan into a blender and blend until the vegetables were pureed.

In the meantime, she would heat a bit more oil in the frying pan, and then add slices of fresh garlic.  These would cook for just a minute or so, so that they still retained their bite, but mellowed somewhat. To serve, she poured individual bowls and then spooned some garlic and oil onto the surface of each bowl of soup.  All these years later, memories of the taste of this simple dish brought such joy to my friend’s face.

Not two hours later, I was sitting in the kitchen of another friend’s home.  She brought out bowls of fresh vegetables, crackers, and a delicious red dip made of dried tomatoes.  This is great, I said, how do you make it?  Oh, it’s easy.  And she meant it.  

A couple of cups of dried tomatoes and 1 clove of garlic.  Put them into a food process or blender and pulse just a few times until it’s chunky.  Be careful though, she said.  If you turn on the machine and walk away, you’ll end up with tomato paste.