More soup? Sure, why not.

Lately, all I want to make/eat is soup, so here comes another one. I know, my kids are just as thrilled as you are.

This recipe is one of those last minute meals that ended up working out really well. I was kind of slack on doing proper planning last week, and our meat stash had been whittled down to a few steaks and a package of sausage. Sausage is much more forgiving of the microwave defrost cycle so I started there. A rummage around the pantry, and I came up with;

Slow Cooker Black Bean & Sausage Soup

1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 package of italian sausage, crumbled and browned
2-3 stalks celery, chopped
1 lg onion, chopped
2-3 carrots, peeled and chopped
1T chopped garlic
1T Italian seasoning - or - 1/4c fresh chopped herbs such as rosemary, oregano, thyme
8 c chicken or vegetable stock
1 bay leaf
1 28oz can of chopped tomatoes (in juice or puree, your choice)
a couple handfuls of leafy greens - such as spinach, kale, or chard - chopped

Throw everything except for the greens in your slow cooker and set for appropriate amount of time. Something like this, it doesn't matter if you set it high or low or how long you let it simmer. Right before serving, stir in the greens. If you add them at the end they won't get all manky. No one likes manky greens.

I served with a drizzle of basil oil and a sprinkle of parmesan cheese. On the side we had warm crusty bread, and strawberries and goat cheese.

Sorry for the lack of photos, I've been spacing on it until we're already eating and I'm like, "Oh hey I should post this recipe but I'm so hungry NAM NAM NAM"

Squash Soup & Pizza Stones

I'm going to be honest with you; I like snow when it's falling and for like, a day after that. Then it becomes an immovable mass that makes getting around rather annoying. I cleared a path from the front door to the driveway, but our driveway is so narrow that one ends up knee-deep in snow before getting into the car anyway. As I get older and my upper back gets more jacked-up, I am starting to be envious of all the old people on my street with snowblowers. When we buy a house, we are getting a snow blower. End of story.

It is soup weather, bitches*! That is just fine with me. I think it may be some kind of law around New England that 60% of non-ethnic restaurants must serve Butternut Squash Soup. The best that I've had is at Apollo Grill and since I used to work there in a former life I remember the recipe. Mwah-ha-ha.

BUT since I don't think Casey would appreciate me broadcasting the recipe for one of his key menu items on the internet, I'm going to give you a different version that I think is just as tasty. It is also super easy and CHEAP. In season, butternut squash runs about 39 cents per pound. If you have a farm share, you probably have a ton of it lying around anyway.

I cooked the squash in my crockpot. Slice the squash lengthwise, and scoop out the seeds. I quartered it to fit, and cooked with 1/4 c water - high for four hours.

You don't have to puree' the final result, but I like a silky textured soup. This will serve four if it's your main course.

Butternut Squash Soup

1 medium butternut squash, roasted, skin removed

3 c broth (I used chicken, or strong veg stock)

1 onion, diced

1 T chopped garlic

1 stalk celery, diced

1/2 tsp nutmeg

2T butter

2T olive oil

1 c heavy cream or half & half (or milk, it will just be thinner and not as creamy)

s/p to taste

Sautee' onions, garlic and celery in the oil and butter. Add squash, nutmeg, and chicken broth. Lower heat and simmer for 15 - 20 minutes. Remove from heat. Puree using immersion blender, stir in cream, season to taste.

We like to have it like Apollo serves it, with crumbles of blue cheese and shredded pear (or apple).

I also made pizza, using my shiny new KitchenAid mixer (best boyfriend, best Christmas gift) for the dough. So good! I like a big, bready, chewy pizza crust. I always use Red Star yeast and Hecklers' unbleached flour when I bake bread, and I recommend both. I started using a pizza stone years ago, and I'll never go back to pans. I have one round stone that I've probably had for ten years now, and then my friend Gary showed up with a stack of quarry tiles from Home Depot and I was all whaaaaaaaaat and he was all "duh". Quarry tiles are unglazed terra cotta tiles used for flooring. You can also use them as pizza/bread stones because guess what - it's the same material.

Here's the thing: Pizza stones are expensive. Quarry tile is cheap. A pizza stone comes in a size. If you want to make more than one pizza at a time, you have to buy more pizza stones. Quarry tiles are generally 6x6 squares and a box of ten or so is like, three bucks. I can line both of my oven racks end to end with quarry tiles and bake four small pizzas at once for less than ten dollars.

Like with a pizza stone, quarry tiles should be seasoned to prevent the dough from sticking. Just rub them with a little vegetable oil before popping them in the oven, the first few times you use them.

*Bitches like, "my bitches" - a term of endearment. You are all my bitches, and I love you.

Pee Poop (I'm five)

While searching for this image I was subjected to Anne Geddes' photos of Celine Dion, dressed as a flower, holding her baby. YOU'RE WELCOME.

Here's the thing about pea soup: it looks like poopy. Baby poopy, really. I'm not even going to post a photo of the soup I made last night, because it is not a beautiful thing. It is a delicious thing, and you should not think about the poop factor.

Pea soup is easy, especially in a slow cooker. If you can't get a ham hock, get a bone-in ham steak and drop it on top of the other ingredients., then carefully remove it before you puree'.

Slow Cooker Pea Soup

1 bag dried spilt peas

6 c chicken broth

1 onion, diced

3 stalks celery, diced

3 carrots, diced

2 cloves garlic, crushed

2 sprigs thyme - or - 1 tsp dried

1 bay leaf

1 smoked ham hock

2 c (or so) chopped ham

Drop all ingredients except for the chopped ham into the crock pot, and cook on high for 4 hours or low for 8. Don't worry, there is no such thing as overcooking this soup.

Remove the ham hock, bay leaves, and the thyme sprigs. Pick any meat off the hock, discard everything else. Puree' soup with an immersion blender. You could also use a regular blender, but for goodness' sake be careful with the boiling soup! Stir in the ham bits, and enjoy!

I served this with warm crusty bread, goat cheese, and sliced Honeycrisp apples.

I went out for our weekly Stitch & Bitch after dinner and drank a wonderful beer - Berkshire Brewing Company's Nitro Coffee Porter. It was the perfect beer for the weather (cold cold cold), but also would have gone so well with our meal. That's not something I would say about many dark beers, as I tend to like then on their own and not as an accompaniment.

Creative leftovers

Remember the Crispy Kale & Tofu Salad that I mentioned last post? It's very tasty! Easy to make, filling, and good for you. Even my kids liked it.

I took the leftovers, poured miso soup base over it, and ate 2 bowls for lunch yesterday. I will probably do the same today. Do you even know how easy miso soup base is? I am ashamed to say that I never really looked into making miso soup until recently. Now I feel like a fool for not having this in my repertoire all along.
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Easy Miso Soup Base

3 cups water
1 tsp dashi
2 T miso

Bring water to a boil. Reduce heat to low, stir in dashi. Simmer one minute. Stir in miso. Remove from heat.
Important; do not boil the soup after miso has been added.

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Seriously. That's it. Then you're free to add whatever you want; tofu, kombu, veggies, egg, rice, noodles, chicken, the possibilities are near endless. Japanese Food Report has a fantastic post about miso soup here.

It's nice to know that which will not make a good burrito* could possibly make a tasty soup.



*Holly's Leftover Rule #1; Everything solid (and non-pasta) is a potential burrito filling.

TomAYto Soup, TomAHto Soup

I don't want to brag, but I totally scored this Christmas. I got an iPod Touch, and almost immediately installed the Epicurious app. I was excited to find out that there is an Epicurious app, since I spend a good amount of time searching that site. My cookbooks gather dust. I also found a fun mixology app - one of the features is that you make a list of all the hootch and mixers that you have in the house, and it generates a list of recipes for you. I have a mishmash of leftovers right now, all those weird things that you buy to go into something else (in my case, truffles) and I got the most insane list of drinks. Mix tequila with Chambord? No thank you. (However, I did try the tequila/Kahlua drink and it's not half bad.) Mixology is another thing I (being the dilettante that I am) want to learn more about. I can cook intuitively, but I don't have the same feel for mixing drinks. A few of our friends are super into infusions and tinctures and carbonating things that are not normally carbonated and it is fascinating to witness. Plus I like to drink so, hey! Win/win.

Jeffrey also gave me an immersion blender and a nice mandolin, ensuring that I will be fingerless by my birthday. I'm kidding, I worked in enough kitchens to have a healthy fear of both of those instruments. It's like people who keep pit bulls - you love them and they are useful, but you know not to poke them in the eye - or in this case, really sharp blade. I have not had a chance to use the mandolin yet, but I have a gratin planned for later this week. I did get to use the blender, and I loooove it. It's short - so it's easy to manipulate with one hand, if you need to hold the pot/bowl/cup with your other hand. It's got a lot of power, for a compact non-commercial blender. I christened it in a batch of delicious tomato soup.

Campbell's Tomato Soup was a staple of my childhood. I think I probably ate it once a week until I moved out of my parents' house. We always ate it with grilled cheese sandwiches, and we always floated either goldfish crackers or Smartfood in the soup. Heaven, especially in the winter.

As I got older and ate less processed foods, I lost my taste for Campbell's. It's too sweet (there's a lot of high fructose corn syrup) and it tastes tinny to me. I don't know if that's from the can or from the preservatives. I've tried a bunch of different organic/natural brands, and they are all So Bland. It's like warm, low-salt tomato juice. So, I started making my own. It doesn't taste like my memories, but it will do.

The key here is to use really good tomatoes. Ambitious people (not me, hopefully this year it will be me) can their own tomatoes and can crack open that summer flavor in January. To the rest of us, I recommend Muir Glen Organics. I can find this brand pretty much everywhere, even in my weird little mom & pop down the street. The fire-roasted tomatoes are delicious, and I've used them in everything you would throw regular tomatoes in for a little extra flavor. They make really nice salsa, too. You can use any of their tomatoes for this soup.

Basic Tomato Soup

Two 28 oz cans of tomatoes
1 onion, chopped
chopped garlic to taste (I use a whole head, but I love garlic)
3 stalks celery, chopped -OR- 1 T celery seed
1T sugar
about 1/4 - 1/2 cup white wine (red works too, but I prefer white for soup)
2 cups chicken or vegetable broth
salt and pepper

Saute' the onion, garlic, and celery in a couple tablespoons of olive oil over med/high heat until translucent. Deglaze the pan with wine. Let the wine reduce by half (this will only take a minute if your pan is nice and hot), then add the rest of the ingredients. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium. Let simmer for 20-30 minutes. Remove from heat, and blend. This is where the immersion blender come in handy, failing that a regular blender works just fine. Adjust the seasonings and you're ready to go.

Now, this is just a basic tomato soup. There are so many directions that you could take this in! When we had this for dinner the other night, I swirled in some pesto and served it with baked mac & cheese, and seared kale with garlic and balsamic vinegar.

Here are a few suggestions;

*A little spoonful of curry paste or powder, some chopped fresh cilantro and a dollop of yogurt

* grilled cheese croutons - grilled cheese sandwiches cut into little cubes, floating in the soup

* Chili powder or taco seasoning, add some corn and black beans after you blend the base. Serve with a garnish of shredded lettuce, tortilla chips, and a dollop of sour cream and/or guacamole

*fresh herbs - mix them in after you blend the soup, then return to heat on a low simmer for 5 minutes to blend flavors. I like a crumble of goat cheese and some spinach in this version.

Experiment! That's part of the fun. Sometimes it works, sometimes you're trying to give away leftovers to whoever (Whomever? Can never get that straight) is wandering by.

Curry In A Hurry

(That was the name of the restaurant where I first had Indian food. It was on Thayer St. in Providence. We may have gone the same day I got my nose pierced in a sketchy loft with a skate ramp built up one wall....I can't remember and that is a story for another day, anyway.)

Keely was invited for dinner last night, and as of 11 o'clock yesterday morning I had no idea what I was going to cook. Years ago we used to have weekly dinner parties, where we would drink a bunch of wine and spend four hours trying out Jamie Oliver recipes and stuffing our own raviolis before finally eating at 9 or 10 at night. Good times. I was thinking about that, which made me remember this amazing rice pudding with cardamom and pistachios, which made me want Indian food. I poked around in the cabinets and came up with Curried Tomato Soup and Roasted Squash with Cardamom. (I also made rice pudding, but it was from a hippie mix I had sitting around.) I put too much olive oil on the squash, which was sad. I've made it a few times before and it's usually very good.

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Curried Tomato Soup

2 28oz cans of crushed tomatoes - Tuttorosso brand "New World Style w/ Basil" is good for soups, because it's more of a puree'.
1 small red onion, finely minced
1/4 c. minced garlic
1/4 c. grated fresh ginger
2T curry powder
1 tsp. ground coriander
1 c chopped cilantro leaves
1 can coconut milk
2 c. broth (chicken or veg)
1/2 bag of frozen peas
1 tsp lime zest
2 tsp sugar
salt to taste

How I did it;

Saute' the onion, garlic and ginger in a large pot until onions are translucent, about 2 minutes. Add broth and peas, come to a boil. Turn the heat down to medium and stir in the tomatoes, bring to a simmer. Stir in curry powder, coriander, and sugar. Simmer, covered and stirring occasionally, for about 20 minutes to blend all flavors.
Gently stir in the coconut milk and heat through. Remove from heat, add cilantro and lime zest and salt to taste.

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Everyone liked this! Even Eliza, who normally does not care for curry. This makes a good amount of soup - five of us each had a bowl, I froze a quart for later, and Liza and I are both taking it for lunch today. The recipe can easily be halved.

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Roasted Squash w/ Cardamom

1 large butternut squash, peeled & cubed
1 small red onion, halved and sliced
1 T ground cardamom (I would go for coarse ground over powder)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1T sugar
seeds of 1 pomegranate
salt/pepper to taste
1-2 T olive oil

How I did it;

Toss all ingredients together in a bowl, transfer to roasting pan. Roast at 375F for about 20-30 minutes, depending on the size of your squash cubes and how your oven runs. Stir halfway through, so that nothing sticks to the pan and you get a more even roast.

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Cardamom smells GORGEOUS. It's one of my absolute favorite scents. If you want to get crazy you can also add a tiny pinch of ground cloves to the mix. This is a nice side dish for roast meats, like lamb or chicken or pork, as well. Feel free to sub dried currants or cranberries for the pomegranate seeds, or to leave out the onion. The squash is really the star here.