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Post by htmb on Jan 10, 2015 13:19:31 GMT
Our weather has been quite cold. Freezing temperatures for the last three nights or so. Good soup weather. Since I'm going to be cleaning out the refrigerator, and have a lot of vegetables that need to be used up, I plan to make a vegetable stock. Later I'll use the stock to make a vegetable soup and add some ham I've had in the freezer since Thanksgiving.
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Post by htmb on Jan 10, 2015 18:20:36 GMT
I'm really not all that good at cutting up vegetables so, since I wanted uniformity, I got out my food processor and used the slicing blade. Something I rarely do. Once I'd made a good stock I cleared out the overlooked vegetables and then added sliced up onion, carrots, celery, potatoes, corn and canned garbanzo beans. I also added a can of tomatoes and the ham. Here's the result as it's just beginning to simmer: I'm also thrilled I now have a clean refrigerator. Now, all I have to do it clear the sink drain I managed to clog.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 13, 2015 11:54:17 GMT
I love cleaning out the refrigerator that way. My only problem now is that since my last session, the vegetable drawer is completely devoid of vegetables. (Well, it gave me a chance to scrub it out, so that was good.)
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Post by Don Cuevas on Jan 29, 2015 13:41:45 GMT
Yesterday, I threw together a simple Consomé de Pollo con Verduras. That's chicken soup, but without chicken meat. Although I have a substantial supply of homemade chicken soup, made by a neighbor lady, it was easier to open two boxes of Kirkland brand Organic Chicken Stock.
I got out a few vegetables, such as sliced carrots, zucchini and chard and added them in two stages to the pressure cooker. It was done in less than 15 minutes, and was very "clean" and good. We already had some plain rice which I put in each bowl. I also prepared the typical Mexican chicken soup garnishes of chopped onion, cilantro, chile Jalapeño, lime halves and scooped out spoonfuls from an avocado. If you think you've seen this picture before, you have. It was in yesterday's "What's for lunch". Consomé de Pollo
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Post by Deleted on May 2, 2016 6:33:52 GMT
Potlikker is sort of a secret of the Deep South of the United States, so I was pleased to actually encounter an official recipe. I have never made it myself, basically because I would not have know which ingredients to use. My own concept of the dish as a child was that after cooking fatback, you just put greens in the same pot full of fat to cook them. Having a French mother, I never actually saw this ever happen at home. Potlikker
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Post by bixaorellana on May 2, 2016 16:42:51 GMT
Of course I've heard of pot likker (pot liquor) and have enjoyed it at every chance throughout my life. I'd say that even though the classic is the brothy part of greens cooked with bacon or fatback, it's really the broth from any cooked greens, even if only adorned with olive oil.
I never heard of potlikker soup and maintain some skepticism about it's being a real traditional thing, but hey -- I don't know everything. Whether or not it's 200 years old or a modern magazine twist on traditional food, the soup would be delicious.
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Post by htmb on May 2, 2016 20:25:35 GMT
What she said.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 8, 2016 16:51:56 GMT
This week I mated gazpacho with Greek salad and I was extremely pleased with its spawn. I just bought gazpacho from the supermarket and threw in chopped cucumber, tomato, green onion, feta and cilantro with a little extra salt and pepper. I will do it again when the weather is hot.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 14, 2016 23:51:52 GMT
Throwing in the feta cheese was an inspired touch.
I made chicken soup with cabbage and carrots and tiny potatoes this week. Even as I type, the remains (minus the chicken) are being turned into bubble and squeak.
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Post by chexbres on Aug 17, 2016 7:03:45 GMT
I also buy gazpacho in a carton and jazz it up like kerouac does. Yesterday, I added cucumbers, avocado and a few left-over very spicy cooked shrimp. It's too hot to eat anything other than that or watermelon.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 8, 2017 12:44:16 GMT
Yesterday I made a charred sweet pepper potato chowder. Perfect fare for the chilly weather.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 8, 2017 17:01:19 GMT
Potato and leek soup is a classic, but I wonder if anybody really makes it with just potatoes and leeks (and of course salt and pepper). Even my very orthodox-in-the-recipe-department grandmother would always use a couple of carrots, too. I myself am open to just about anything I might find in the vegetable drawer -- turnips, celery, lettuce on the verge of wilting... Lately I have even been known to throw in some chilis, but I don't think I would dare if I had guests.
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Post by chexbres on Jan 9, 2017 8:47:40 GMT
I just use potatoes and leeks, but might throw in a beef or chicken bouillon cube to make it richer. I don't use milk or cream.
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Post by bjd on Jan 9, 2017 9:24:17 GMT
I always use stock, or more usually a bouillon cube, to make soup. Otherwise it's just vegetables boiled in water.
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Post by rikita on Jan 9, 2017 12:49:22 GMT
just had some of the lentil soup mr. r. made for dinner last night, though i added some vinegar and some cumin and some savory, just because ...
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 14, 2017 3:46:16 GMT
I had a lovely, lovely soup made from toasted chick pea flour, with steamed green beans on the side. I made a nice little salsa of yogurt, hot green chile, garlic, & olive oil which was meant for the soup. However I wound up using it on the green beans instead, as the spicy stuff I'd put in the soup (curry powder, a little chili powder, green chile) developed & bloomed and the soup wound up positively fiery. No blocked sinuses here!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2017 6:19:19 GMT
Today I am going to make cabbage soup with potatoes and carrots and some nice fat Montbéliard smoked sausages. But I never know if this should be called a soup or a stew.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 15, 2017 6:24:27 GMT
I consider anything floating around in a brothy base to be soup. If it's surrounded by a thicker, more gravy-like texture it is stew.
In one of her early cookbooks, Diana Kennedy neatly addresses this by referring to certain more robust soups as soup-stews.
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 6, 2017 17:33:25 GMT
I had a flash of inspiration when deciding what to do with the ubiquitous bag of cut-up vegetables I'd gotten at the market. It was heavy on chayote and carrots, but also contained some zucchini and broccoli. I also had some tiny organic beets and a bag of toasted chickpea flour, so proceeded to create a "besan borscht".
It started with onion, garlic, & habanero sauteed in olive oil. I sprinkled and stirred in some of the besan, then added hot water, more besan & more stirring, continuing in this tedious manner until all the besan was incorporated and free of lumps. I then added more hot water, plus the chayote and baby beets. After they softened somewhat, I threw in the zucchini, broccoli, carrots, the beet greens, and some arugula, then cooked it until the solid vegetables were al dente. It was seasoned with a couple of Mexican bay leaves (less assertive than the regular kind), some Tony Chachere's Original Creole Seasoning, and a mutton bouillon cube.
The amounts were probably close to @3 cups of vegetables and a cup + of chickpea flour, with enough water to give it a bisque consistency when it was all cooked.
You could serve it with just plain yogurt on top, but I made a salsa of minced red onion & habanero, plus salt and chopped cilantro all whipped into yogurt & thinned with a little water.
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Post by lagatta on Apr 6, 2017 22:52:06 GMT
That sounds great. What I made this week could be describes as a soup-stew, or a "soupe repas" (meal-soup). Heavy on shredded cooked chicken, quinoa and vegetables (root vegetables and greens, no tomato), with onion, garlic, ginger, no thickener. Strong chicken stock base. It made far too much. Freezing at least half.
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 6, 2017 23:05:58 GMT
That must be delicious! I've never cooked quinoa, nor had it to my knowledge. Supposedly it's every bit as miraculously nutritious as claimed.
I imagine your soupe repas would also be lovely with barley.
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Post by lagatta on Apr 7, 2017 1:50:21 GMT
I'm leery of anything being called a superfood or miraculously nutritious, but it was a staple of the diets of many peoples in the Andean regions, and is high in complete protein.
Of course market forces mean that most of the quinoa I see in shops is still from Andean regions (putting it out of reach for the local peoples who grow it) when it does very well in the harsh climates of the Canadian Prairies (and doubtless the northern Great Plains of the US).
I find that it is essential to re-rinse even quinoa that claims to be clean as it contains a saponin that protects it from insects and can thus have a soapy flavour that disgusts consumers (it is said that the peoples who grew it and consumed it used the saponin as soap). When I cook a batch I rince it (like any grain) let it soak in a bowl and rince it again.
Yes, barley would work well, especially groats.
Yes, it was a success. I grated in some fresh ginger.
It is still really chilly here, not many degrees above freezing (although our winter was not harsh overall). Supposed to go up to 16°c next week. I'm so sick of being cold. (Yes, of course I know people in Syria and many other places are going through far worse).
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Oct 1, 2017 15:42:35 GMT
Lentil soup jst before I blitzed it and added chunks of lean ham... and here's the recipe...from a Weight Watchers recipe book (note stains...sign of a much used recipe) I chop and change the tomato content...this one had a whole tub of pasata instead of the tomato ingredients (because it was all that I had)
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 2, 2017 10:16:53 GMT
I just made a soup with a grated courgette and onion, two beef cubes, two big spoons of fromage frais and a lot of pepper. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was really good. The fact that the courgette and the onion were grated rather than creamed at the end gave it an interesting consistency.
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 7, 2017 18:15:13 GMT
I made my first soup of the season last week using the food processor to cream it -- leeks, potatoes, beef cubes, fennel, a few cloves of garlic, half of a tomato that needed to go and leftover cilantro. I also used two beef cubes and lots of pepper and Cayenne pepper and also so cumin. You can never go wrong with soup. This lasted me for 3 days for various meals (sometimes breakfast), and I poured the hot soup over a dollop of mascarpone since that is that I had instead of crème fraîche. It was unequivocally delicious, besides being good for me.
After finishing it, I had other items in stock, so I made a new soup with leeks, potatoes, carrots, flat parsley, basil and the usual salt, pepper, Cayenne pepper, beef cube items. Just as good as the previous soup. I would have to do a blind taste test to figure out any dominating flavours -- it all tastes the same to me: wonderful.
I just have to assume that the potatoes and leeks dominate everything, which is why all of these soups are called "potato and leek soup."
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Post by lagatta on Nov 8, 2017 1:28:47 GMT
I made lovely "bones" for a minestrone some time back and froze most of it. Good thing, as I fell dreadfully ill with a UTI and complications and threw out the bit that I'd left in the fridge as well as many other (nutritious and usually tasty) things I'd cooked. I made concentrated turkey stock yesterday, and there was a lot of meat on the bones and a couple of turkey wings. Hope I have enough appetite to get through a reconstituted minestrone. The base was the beans (canellini or lingots), some poutry stock, a brunoise of onions, carrots, celery, perhaps othe stuff and fresh herbs of the season (which is no more). Alas I have no more fresh basil to add with other vegetables and some of the turkey meat, shredded by hand.
We are really heading into the time of year when we need soup.
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Post by mickthecactus on Nov 9, 2017 8:52:50 GMT
I had a lovely, lovely soup made from toasted chick pea flour, with steamed green beans on the side. I made a nice little salsa of yogurt, hot green chile, garlic, & olive oil which was meant for the soup. However I wound up using it on the green beans instead, as the spicy stuff I'd put in the soup (curry powder, a little chili powder, green chile) developed & bloomed and the soup wound up positively fiery. No blocked sinuses here! When I need to clear the sinuses I go to our little Thai restaurant in the town and have Tom Yum soup. Works a treat every time.
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Post by lagatta on Nov 10, 2017 23:56:12 GMT
I had some of my minestrone - added spinach, frozen actually, which was fine, and little chunks of roast potimarron. No basil (no local basil left) but some finely-chopped fresh parsley. Just that, a bit of organic baguette, some goat cheese... (not a fromage frais; a hard cheese).
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 11, 2017 4:57:26 GMT
Tom Yum soup will clear sinuses every time. It is also better than eye drops for clearing out your tear ducts.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 10, 2018 1:29:58 GMT
Today I made a roasted cauliflower soup with the cauliflower I bought this a.m. at the farmer's market. One of the few vegetable offerings available because of the inclement weather last week.
I roasted a head of garlic that was brushed with olive oil and then placed in foil. I separated the cauliflower florettes and also brushed them with olive oil and placed them with the garlic on a lightly oiled baking sheet, sprinkling a tiny bit of sea salt on and let it roast its heart out.
After it was sufficiently tender I placed it in a stovetop Dutch oven that I had sauteed some onion in and added 3 cups of vegetable stock, a couple of sprigs of thyme and bay leaf. I let it come to near boiling and then proceeded to keep it on a low flame for an hour or so, adjusting the seasonings a tad. I then placed said contents into an immersion blender and pulverized it. Lastly I added a cup of heavy cream and a flourish of freshly squeezed lemon juice.
It will be superb tomorrow, it always is.
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