learn to cook delicious soup

This is a simple but time-consuming soup. First you have to bake the squash, then you have to wait for it cool so you can scoop the flesh out, then you have to puree the ingredients together, then you have to heat it up again. I used the recipe in the Moosewood Daily Special cookbook. It called for three cups of liquid and said you could use apple juice, vegetable stock, or a combo of apple juice and stock or water. It said that using all juice would result in a thicker, sweeter soup and that sounded good to me, but it’s almost TOO sweet and appley. I actually added some more water and adjusted the seasoning to compensate. I think next time I will do half water and half stock. Still tastes good and it’s nice to have a thick, hearty soup that doesn’t involve fattening cream. Might have to investigate other squashy soups.

Yesterday I made a variation of French Onion soup. It took a long time but was very easy, except for all the onion tears. Boo hoo.

Instead of a piece of bread or crutons on top, I included some slices of portabella mushroom. And I don’t have a broiler at work (where I usually eat my soup during lunch) so I just sprinkled some shredded cheese on top. Not quite the same as French Onion soup, but it sure tastes good.

Last night I created my first made-up soup-no recipe. Impressive! I went to the store and bought some veggies and some black beans, thinking I would make some kind of sauted veggie/bean thingy for my lunch for the week. When I got home I noticed I had a whole big carton of chicken broth, so I decided I’d make a veggie black bean soup instead! I sauteed some garlic, onions, zucchini and mushrooms in olive oil and then dumped it in a pot with the beans, broth, vinegar and some seasonings and let the thing simmer until it was heated through. During the simmering process I noticed I had some almost-too-old celery in the fridge so I added that too. Today when I reheated a bowl for lunch I added some avacado and crumbled feta on top. It is actually really good! This opens up a whole new world of soup possibilities-all I need is some chicken broth and I can make ANYTHING into soup. Woah.

I call my soup FESTIVAL of VEGETABLES.

Soup number one was the potato leek soup for which Daniel provided the recipe. It was pretty good, and I served it with salad and baked apples. The only thing I would change, I think, is to add a little more seasoning. I also wonder what the leeks would do if I cooked them with olive oil instead—I don’t usually cook with butter.

Next I want to try this wonton soup recipe I have but it seems really hard—you make your own wontons!

But I only have one good recipe that I make often. Time to expand my soup repertoire .

I have a few favorites.

I’ll try Rochene’s recipe next.

Leeks. What a great veggie. The preparation of the leeks was my favorite part of this recipe—the actual cooking of the soup took no more than 30 minutes. Once again I relied on The New Best Recipe to guide me on my soup expedition and I was impressed with the precise and insightful directions.

Cleaning a leek was a new one for me (they have a lot of dirty grit in their layers) and they are simply a fun vegetable to handle, clean and dice. The picture is of a leek being spun like a drive-through car wash brush in cold water to remove the dirt hidden inside.

This is a rustic potato leek soup. Next time ‘round I’ll try the more classic French cream-based potato leek soup for comparison.

It took about 2.5 hours total with an additional hour of shopping for ingredients. And the great part about this basic soup was that I did it all from scratch—learning to make the chicken stock from the bird up. The majority of the cooking time (90 minutes) was making the stock. I got the stock and soup recipes from Cook’s Illustrated’s The New Best Recipe. I highly recommend this cookbook as the editors take the time to try out the best recipes for any given dish and deliver what they believe to be the best recipe along with some supporting rationale and insight into what “makes” that dish.

I made chicken noodle soup.

This was easier, more rewarding and tastier than I had imagined. I recommend the chicken tortilla soup recipe. I kind of paused at one point during the shopping process when I learned I had to cook chicken breast—but it was as simple as the recipe succinctly describes. Two things I learned that I wish I would have known going into the process:

1) a dutch oven, as it was described to me, is simply a pan (or in this case soup pot) with an extra thick base that allows for more robust cooking. The pot I had happened to have a thick bottom, but I think the recipe would have worked fine with a normal pot.

2) simmer involves low heat just barely boiling at the lowest rate possible. Simmering often follows after first bringing a soup to full boil. I kept the lid on the pot most of the time it was simmering with just a little crack to let some heat escape.

I had a bowl tonight and it was wonderful. I have family and guests coming over tomorrow for soup.