National Soup Month?

As my Dishtastic Peeps know, I make a lot of soup. I take pictures of my soup and I sometimes (although infrequently) blog about it.

While looking for inspiration to blog more regularly, I thought about the "Days of the Month" food options. It seems there's not a lot of science behind said "national (insert food) day" selections. If you google chocolate cake, it could be tomorrow and also four other times in the year. That said, it's chocolate cake people! I'm almost positive there could be a justified movement for making that an every day of the year sort of thing - but maybe that's just me. In any case, I've discovered a few different sites that list a special food day for every day of the year. Some of them are a bit far-reaching (like Groundhog Day on, well, on Groundhog Day) - BUT a few of them said that January is National Soup Month.

Now, I know that January is coming to a close but it is starting to look like the cold weather never will. Cold weather screams, "Make Soup!" to me. Even though I typically make two different soups a day at the cafe, I find that lately, I've been feeling like I could run a Soup Only business.

The Original Soup Only Guy

At the cafe, I make almost everything from scratch - and with the advent of the Polar Vortex and all of the other (less SFW) names people are giving the weather phenomenons, there has been a bit of an influx in people braving the cold because they know there are hot pots of soup waiting for them.


With that in mind, today's blog isn't so much a recipe but rather some of my non-recipe comments about making soup. For the sake of photos, we'll go with the Tomato Soup I made yesterday.

Tomato Soup!

• Caramelize onions! Almost everything in the universe tastes better when you add caramelized onions to it (except maybe, chocolate cake). I get that we're busy and that we are looking to save steps but I'm telling you that taking a little bit longer to bring out the flavour in simple and inexpensive ingredients will make you glad you took the time. 

The beginning of caramelzation magic

• It does not have to be complicated! Use ingredients you already have on hand. Don't stress out about finding a rare kind of saffron or panicking because your paprika is not Hungarian.
• Having the right tools makes your life easy. See the onions and garlic in the pic above? They're HUGE! They will cook down and get brown and delicious and when I add the other ingredients and they simmer I will use my immersion blender to puree them and make everything smooth and ready for dipping that grilled cheese sandwich you ordered to go alongside it.

Imersion blender - blending

Tomato Soup is the most popular soup at the cafe - and I make it several different ways. The tomatoes can be roasted; they can be green ones that didn't ripen in the fall. Perhaps you have some grape tomatoes you think have seen fresher days in the fridge - add them in with a couple of your favourite cans. You can use fresh from your garden, crushed, diced, whole, even tomato juice - but make sure they taste good because there aren't a lot of other ingredients being added to hide potentially un-delicious flavours. Like cream in your soup? Okay. Watching your dairy intake? Don't use it. See? Uncomplicated! The photo below shows what went into the Tomato Soup offering I gave to peeps yesterday. I also added some salt, pepper, thyme and water.

There you have it. Tomato Soup for a Polar Vortex Cold kind of day. Serve it with Grilled Cheese and people from all around will think you're fantastic.

Maple Curried Pasta

Although my husband and I are not necessarily on the Gluten-Free bandwagon, we have taken a lot of bread and pasta out of our diet. However, eastern Ontario has just gone through what I can only describe as the coldest cold snap in the history of my existence. (I tend to embrace hyperbole with alarming frequency but this is just true.) The cold weather screamed for comfort food. I was in a pasta mood.

Those of you who follow my blog and/or have come to my cooking classes know that I'm more of a "use what you have" type of person more than a recipe follower. We've made various versions of this dish over the years but this is how we did it the other night.

Maple-Curried Chicken, Mushrooms, Pears and Asparagus with Fettucini

1/2 lb fettucini, cooked to al dente in a large pot of salted water

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon butter

2 shallots, diced

handful assorted mushrooms, sliced (we had cremini and button)

yellow pepper, chopped

1 pear, peeled and diced

2 chicken breasts*

1/2 cup white wine or chicken stock

bunch asparagus, snapped in half

2 tablespoons maple syrup

1-2 teaspoons curry powder

1 cup cream

salt and pepper to taste

Add extra virgin olive oil and butter to pan. Add shallots, peppers and mushrooms and saute about 5 minutes. (*If you are using raw chicken, add it here. However, we were using leftover cooked chicken breasts so I didn't add it until later so it would heat through without getting dried out.) Add the pear and saute a few minutes more. Deglaze the pan with wine and/or stock. Add the asparagus, syrup and curry.

 Add the cream to the pan and let simmer until cream begins to thicken and reduce. Taste and season.

Meanwhile, drain your pasta and add it to to the pan. Toss and serve immediately.

 

Variations: As I mentioned above, this is a really versatile recipe. You could easily omit the chicken for a vegetarian meal. I've used apples instead of pears, thrown in fresh herbs like parsley when I had them, used red peppers (or no peppers)... 

We had no maple syrup once (I blame my children) and I used honey. It was still delicious.

For those of you who don't eat wheat, you could use the gluten-free pasta of your choice. This is also pretty darn yummy on rice - or if you are averse to all things starchy, omit the mushrooms from the mixture, roast or grill some portobellos and then top the mushrooms with the yumminess in the pan.

National Daiquiri Day!

I am not entirely sure how I have gone through my entire adult life without knowing about this day - but now that I do, you can be sure I'm going to do my best to make up for it!

It is sort of the perfect time of year for this. The local strawberries are in their last few days of availability and we're not quite sure what to do with the baskets we probably still have in our fridge. If you're like I am, you buy TONS of them because you're so exited they've finally arrived - and then eat them until you're pretty sure they are all you've consumed fruit-wise in a month. Freezing them is a great way to make sure you have fresh and delicious additions to smoothies or (ahem) adult beverages!

Fun Daiquiri Facts:
It was Ernest Hemingway's favourite drink.
The original daiquiri was pretty "meh" as far as exciting summer-tastic drinks are concerned. It was ice, lime juice and rum.
Miners (that's the dudes who work in the mines - not under-aged drinkers), were rumoured to have invented the drink in the late 1890s.



Fun Daiquiri Recipes:

Strawberry Daiquiri

1/2 cup ice
5-10 large strawberries (fresh or frozen)
1 1/2 oz rum
1/2 oz triple sec
2 tsp sugar
1 oz lime juice

Combine all ingredients in blender until ice is all crushed. Pour into a sugar rimmed glass. Garnish with a lime wedge.

Banana Daiquiri

1/2 cup ice
2 oz rum
1/2 banana (or a whole one if you prefer)
1 1/2 oz lime juice
sugar is optional here because the banana is usually really sweet

Combine all ingredients in blender until ice is all crushed. Pour into a sugar rimmed glass. Garnish with a slice of your banana.

 (Yum.)

In semi-related funny news, Kids In The Hall like fruity drinks too:

Black Bean Soup

The weather is still not cooperating with me for the Gazpacho I wanted to blog about this week - but chilly weather means I can still justify writing about cold weather soups. (I'm looking for the silver lining here peeps - don't mistake my positive spin as actual happiness about the weather.)

Black Bean Soup is one of those things that is now a staple in my go-to soup repertoire because it is delicious, easy and adaptable.

I used to avoid making soup with dried beans because I wasn't organized enough to pre-soak the beans for 24 hours before I needed them. Even the "quick soak" methods weren't really my thing - BUT one day I decided to try to make the soup without pre-soaking just to see if it would work... And... success! This might not work for some applications but it works fine for a soup that you're expecting to be thick. (If you're a stickler for the rules, by all means soak the beans first. I'm not here to judge your excellent organizational skills.) If you were in a serious hurry, you could also just used canned black beans. You'll definitely need to rinse them until the water runs clear - but I use them for lots of recipes and they're great in a pinch for soup too.

Today's soup is vegetarian and seasoned with cumin, chilies and lime - but I've made it with Chorizo, chicken stock, with tomatoes and without. There are tons of options.

Black Bean Soup

Here's what I did today:

1 onion, diced
1 carrot, diced
1 celery stalk, diced
16 oz bag dried black beans, rinsed
about 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
Vegetable stock and/or water (I used about 16 cups)
about 1 tablespoon cumin
about 2 teaspoons chili powder
juice of 1 lime
salt and pepper to taste

Heat oil in soup pot and add onions, carrots and celery. Saute about 5 minutes. Add the cumin and chili powder and rinsed black beans. After about one minute, add about 8 cups water. Keep checking water levels. You want the beans to cook and they'll absorb a LOT of water. You can gauge the amount of water you want to add based on the thickness you like your soup.

Let simmer on medium-high for about 3 hours, adding water as necessary. Add lime juice (and, if you're feeling citrus-y you could zest the lime as well) and season to taste.

There was some soup leftover at the end of the day and I decided to switch it up and turn it into a Southwestern Tomato, Corn and Black Bean Soup. I added frozen corn, canned diced tomatoes, some more vegetable stock and garnished with cilantro and shredded cheddar cheese. Had I left out the vegetable stock, it could have easily been Black Bean Chili.

Southwest Black Bean, Tomato and Corn Soup