I'm going to try your soup, SN, but I'm substituting the beans for lentils. And I'll be adding the bones from the Serrano ham my sister brought around Christmas. They've finally been picked clean Also some pork belly and smoked sausages I can get here.
I'm going to try your soup, SN, but I'm substituting the beans for lentils. And I'll be adding the bones from the Serrano ham my sister brought around Christmas. They've finally been picked clean Also some pork belly and smoked sausages I can get here.
My next soup will happen after the weekend. I think I still have one package of Michigan whites left, but if not, there are plenty of other beans available...
last night, Maffoo cooked a delicious soup with brussels sprouts, potatoes, onions and lardons (streaky bacon bits for bixa )
He heated a tiny bit of oil in the deep pan before adding the really lean streaky bacon bits, quickly joined by the chopped onion, the lot was left to soften for a while before the brussels sprouts were added, then a few minutes afterwards the potatoes, and warm stock. The soup was left to simmer for about 30 minutes, then served as is as he likes his soups chunky.
Thank you for taking my delicate sensibilities into account, AuntieA!
As soon as I read this yummy-sounding recipe, I thought, "Caldo Verde!" What a good idea -- a variation on a theme that is a perfect marriage of flavors. I can't wait to try this.
Next thursday, for soup & swap, I will prepare a few soups: - Ital red pea soup (caribbean rastafarian red kidney bean soup) - celeriac soup - and another one or two to be improvised on the spot.
I made soup this evening. I had some nice pork loin along with some of the rib meat on the side, some tiny garbanzos, lots of cabbage, carrots, a little tomato and onions of course, and I seasoned it with fresh thyme and a teeny sprig of rosemary. I also used some of that red Yucatecan seasoning. It tasted good, but the cabbage seemed to have lost most of its flavor in the soup, even though it was not overcooked. I'm going to blenderize some of it & report back.
Bixa, except for the cabbage , your soup sounds lovely!
I made soup today too because it was cold and rainy. Inspired by k2's navy bean soup, I made a soup of Great Northern beans. I sautéed a LOT of garlic, 2 sliced carrots and a diced onion, then added the beans, a tiny ham bone, vegetable broth and some wine. Seasoned with celery seed (because I was out of actual celery), dry mustard and a bay leaf. After puréeing part of the soup, I added cooked diced ham.
I also made homemade buttermilk rolls as an accompaniment. They were pretty good too.
I put all of the soup through the blender, adding each batch to a big stock pot in order to stir and meld all the batches. I realized that I'd not put any black pepper into the original soup, so remedied that and also added some Bufalo sauce for heat, color, and depth. Finally, I put in the ingredient that turned it into something really good -- curry powder. I didn't use a lot, the curry flavor just teases with its presence, but gives the soup a lovely character and some added color. The color was quite pretty anyway, always important in a pureed soup, right? One thing I really liked was that pureeing it brought out the flavor and even the texture of the garbanzos, which had been eclipsed in the original version.
I could write this as a proper recipe if anyone wishes, but I think all the cooks here would have no trouble with the description in my two posts on this soup.
Cristina -- all brassicas, or just cabbage? Would you be willing to substitute cauliflower in this soup?
swap & soup is a fund raising event I organise for the charity I volunteer for. we swap clothes/jewellery/books/anything you would give to a charity shop pay GBP 2.00 and get a bowl of soup ... and a fun evening making new friends!
Butternut Squash with Carrot, Apple and Sweet Potato
Saute in 2 T butter: chopped onion
Add, stir and cook for a few minutes: Butternut squash, peeled and chopped Carrots, ditto, maybe a couple
Add: Tart apples, peeled and chopped. A couple of them for a big squash works well Sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped Vegetable broth to cover Pinches of nutmeg and cinnamon Salt and pepper
Simmer until tender. If my immersion blender still worked, I'd use that. Otherwise, potato masher leaves it pleasantly chunky.
That is right up my alley. I'm going to get the stuff for it Tuesday so I can make it, although I won't be able to get butternut. There's another gourd, chilacayota, that's in season right now that should work nicely.
Lola (or anyone) ~~ do you have a recipe for vegetable stock? I'd like to make a bunch to freeze.
I'm afraid I cheat and use Penzey's Vegetable Soup Base glopped from a jar, then add water. There's a Penzey's shop just up the street, so easy for me, and good.
Thanks. I will go on a hunt for a recipe for something similar.
Okay -- I have to write this down quickly so I don't forget what I did. I am enjoying it even as I type.
Tropical Gazpacho
2 cucumbers, peeled & cut up 1 clove garlic, chopped (or less if you prefer) @1/3 poblano or bell pepper, cut up a few sprigs of parsley, stripped of tough stems a little fresh basil (I used @5 of the tips of the plant) 9 ounces of water a small amount of french bread salt & pepper + hot sauce if you wish (don't use red!) @ 3 short dashes of worchestershire sauce (use the white kind if you can get it) 1/8 tsp. sugar lime juice (@ 1/4 large lime) -------------------------------------------------- 1 avocado, peeled & seeded 1 hefty tablespoon of mayonnaise @ 2 teaspoons of olive oil.
Put everything down to the dotted line into the blender and run it until the ingredients are liquified. Add the avocado, whirl a couple of times, the add the mayo & oil and whirl again. Taste and adjust seasonings to your preference.
I think you could substitute sour cream for the mayonnaise. It might be interesting with a little vodka in it, too.
I dunno, HW. You should try it. Be sure to leave the top off the blender so you can see what's happening.
You could put in a few ice cubes and less water, if you wanted to cool it and have it immediately.
As for the cutting machine -- you could make that particular gazpacho (or any gazpacho) but without blenderizing it. Soak the bread first, then add the other other ingredients, chopped or minced as you prefer. I'd leave out the mayonnaise, though, which I put into my version to get fluffier results.
In the cold weather, which we seem to be having a lot of lately, I make my grandmother's famous (or infamous depending which relative you talk to hehe!) wash tub soup. It is rather a simple recipe, so I hope you won't mind me sharing.
When winter set in, my grandmother would make a big pot of soup base in the old was tub. Be forewarned, my grandmother rarely used recipes, although she was perfectly capable of using them. She learned to cook from her mother by a method they referred to as "what you can spare" and made bread, cookies, all sorts of things by using feel, appearance, etc to judge how much on the ingredients. One learned the recipes in this method by making it alongside the more experienced cook, and I often have trouble sharing my recipes as a lot of my cooking is done in this way, but I will try to do my best with this one.
She would start by chopping a couple heads of cabbage and at least two pounds each potatoes and carrots, plus at least three large onions and a head of celery chopped, and putting them in the pot with a quart of water and heating over medium high heat. When these began to get tender the water would be low, so two or three quart jars of canned whole tomatoes would be added, along with five or six big turnips chopped...and you get the picture. Grammy made this soup entirely with veggies and stored it in a couple of big plastic buckets in the spare fridge that were probably some carefully washed dill pickle buckets obtained from my cousin's hamburger stand by the pool in summer. Of course not many of us have this capacity and I doubt many of us regularly expect 8-10 people for each meal but I will give you my adapted recipe.
Chop the following, I prefer bite sized pieces:
1/2 head cabbage 1/2 stalk celery 1 lb carrots (we love carrots, you can cut back if you prefer) 1/2 large onion or 6-8 good sized green onions 3/4 pound potato, depending on your taste 2 good sized turnips 1 medium zucchini 1 bell pepper 1 parsnip
crush and chop finely two garlic cloves
1 can stewed tomatoes (think they are 16 oz) 1 can V8 or tomato juice (can us spicy V8 if that is to your taste- think these are about 60 oz)
Bouquet garni of your favorite fresh herbs, or just add a little dry herbs to the pot. Remember you will be using this as a base for different flavors so you don't want to too strongly flavor the soup. I use just a couple good sprigs of thyme and one sprig rosemary tied up insides some celery to keep the rosemary from leaving too many leaves in the soup.
Add everything except the zucchini to a large pot, bring to boil and simmer on low a couple of hours. About an hour or so into the simmer, add the zucchini.
This pot should serve as meal starter for several meals. Variety is endless as you will now be adding things to the bowls to make each meal special. I often make this soup to use up leftovers, but have also been known to plan a selection and let people choose what they like for a party. Here are some suggestions for the additions to put in each bowl.
leftover rotisserie chicken, or take a can of chicken and heat in the microwave (if canned, add some thyme, salt, pepper, whatever herbs you like), then warm some leftover brown rice and place a generous spoon full of each in the bowls before adding the hot vegetable soup on top.
Take a pound of ground meat (I prefer turkey) and add to it 1/4 large yellow onion and 1 garlic clove, finely chopped, plus 1/2 cup bread crumbs, salt, pepper, and fresh chopped basil and thyme and one egg, plus a little splash of boiling water to make it stick together. Roll into balls and brown in a skillet, then bake at 400 F for 40 minutes, turning once. Put a few in each bowl and serve or if you would like, boil some pasta al dente and add in the bowl with the soup and meat balls. If you are using up the last of the soup in this way, brown the meatballs nice and brown in a skillet, then add to the soup and simmer about 40 minutes.
If you have left over pork, say a few left over pork chops, these are lovely added to the last of the soup and simmered until the meat begins to fall off the bones. I like to also cook some noodles in the pot if this is the last of the soup, and serve topped by a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkle of chives.
I have also warmed left over roast beef and added chunks of meat plus some of the meat juices from the pan, served over left over mashed potatoes and topped by veggies retrieved from the soup using a slotted spoon and a dollop of kimchi.
If you allow the pot to cool then keep in the fridge, it will keep for a week with no trouble, often I just set out leftover meatballs, chicken, beef, rice, potatoes, pasta, salsa, kimchi, corn chips, crackers, whatever we have and everyone fills up their own bowl and microwaves it. Great recipe for overworked moms to cook up on Sunday night to help insure family gets their veggies and something warm in their tummies.
MENUDO ESTILO NORTEÑO (adapted from Diana Kennedy’s “The Cuisines of Mexico”)
• 1 Calf’s foot (@1-1 ½ pounds) cut into four pieces • 2 pounds honeycomb tripe, in @one-inch squares • 1 large onion, chopped • 5 cloves garlic, minced • heavy grinding of black pepper, plus T. salt
Cover all above w/water, bring to boil, lower heat & simmer for at least two hours, until meats are tender.
meanwhile: 4-5 chiles ancho (or use 1 ancho, 2 pasillas mexicanas, & 2 guajillos–or whatever you have on hand (I prefer the mixture–gives a smoother taste & better color–Bixa) l large chile poblano, roasted & peeled
Toast the dried chiles well, then slit them open to remove the seeds & veins. Grind them dry to a fine powder. Add the powder to the pot in which the meats are cooking. Remove seeds & veins from the roasted & peeled poblano, chop coarsely, & add to the pot w/the meats.
after the initial @two hours of cooking, ADD: 1 large can of hominy (@1 pound, drained weight) drained about a teaspoon of oregano, ground finely with a pinch of cumin seed. salt & pepper to taste
Continue cooking for another two hours.
Notes: Serves 6–8 people. Serve with tortillas or bread, & small dishes of chopped hot green peppers, finely chopped onion, & wedges of lime for each person to help himself. Also nice to have bottled or homemade hot sauce on table.
I strongly recommend making this in the pressure cooker–each of the two simmering periods is reduced to @20 or 30 minutes if you let the pressure come down naturally afterwards. If using pressure cooker, start with less water–you can always add later.
Lola, you can experiment with using them as described in the menudo recipe. Also, you might toast them lightly, then simmer them until soft, and blenderize. Use the resulting goop by the spoonful in something to see how you like it. Maybe add some to a cream sauce, for instance, or mix the ancho base into creme fraiche, then spoon that into an appropriate soup. For real delicacy, toast & simmer, then scrape the pulp away from the skin. You could season it and serve it on beef, or add it to a tomato-based dish. I'll be interested to know about your experiments!
To toast large chiles such as ancho, place them on a dry hot griddle, being careful not to let them burn. Remove them, then quickly, while they're still pliable, slit them and open them flat, scraping out the seeds. Now toast the inside.
Ha! you made me laugh, but it's oh, so true. It's the traditional Mexican cure for hangovers. Apparently, there's some truth to that belief -- the high vitamin B content does the trick.
"MENUDO ESTILO NORTEÑO" I never have made it, as it's widely available here (except that, this not being El Norte, they don't put in the hominy. That's reserved for pozole.). However, most of the menudo available here is not particularly good, as the tripe is never cooked in the chile flavored broth, but in water. The menudo stand vendors do a kind of "hot rinse" of the cut up tripe to warm it, then pour on the chile broth. At best, the final reslts are just acceptable but not great. Despite that, across from the Plaza San Francisco in Pátzcuaro, there is a cluster of 3 or 4 menudo stands that are always thronged with customers.
Don Cuevas, do try making it. For one thing, when making it at home, you can remove all the excess fat from the tripe before cooking. The ungreasy version is much nicer. I also cut the tripe into bite-sized pieces, as I don't like sawing (& splashing) at them with the side of my spoon when I'm eating. As with chili, one plain recipe can be tweaked to perfection.
New soup recipe alert: onlyMark has posted ~~ with pictures! ~~ how to make his "Egyptian Gazpacho". It's in The Galley and will be in the Soup section of the recipe index.
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, your soup sounds lovely!
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