Cream of Broccoli Soup

When I was a kid, cream of whatever soup came in a can, contained my monthly sodium intake, and was usually used to flavor chicken and rice.  It was almost always beige, even if the "whatever" in the soup was a green vegetable like broccoli or asparagus.  In other words: yuck.  That said, home made cream of whatever soup is really good! And in the case of cream of broccoli soup, it's actually green! There's a lot of broccoli in it and not a lot of whatever would make the soup beige.

This recipe is from The New Moosewood Cookbook and is vegetarian.  It has relatively few ingredients and is easy to make, especially if you have an immersion blender.  I seasoned mine with a bit of black salt at the end, that's what the flecks are in the picture.  Even though there is no heavy cream in this soup (I used 1% milk), it was still nice and creamy (and healthier).

Super Fast: Piquillo Pepper and Chickpea Soup with Chicken

This soup took about 20 minutes to make, from start to finish.  It would have been even faster if I had used pre-cooked rotisserie chicken as the recipe suggested. I had to cook and shred a chicken breast.  I tossed some rice in my rice cooker while I was doing other stuff and it was ready to go when it was time to make dinner. The hummus is mostly in the soup for the creamy texture, the main flavor is from the piquillo peppers, which are different from normal roasted red peppers. They have a little bit of spice to them, but nothing so hot that this soup is off limits for the spice adverse.  If you like roasted, slightly spicy peppers, this is a fantastic work night soup that is made with relatively little effort.  I served it with a salad that I made while the soup was heating on the stove.

The Dowager Countess would not approve of my silverware placement.

Ginger Carrot Soup

I'm a bit of a computer game addict, and Diablo III came out last Tuesday.  As a result, most of my meals have been either take out sushi or something I can make really fast so I can spend more time sitting in my dimly lit computer room punching demons in the face.  The meals I make when I'm in game addict mode don't make very good blog fodder since most of my fastest recipes are old ones that I've been making forever.  But, I managed to try a few new things, including this ginger carrot soup.  It's healthy, quick, and very tasty! If you make this soup, I definitely recommend an immersion blender, it makes it a lot easier. It's a creamy, slightly sweet soup with a small kick of ginger. It's vegetarian and vegan. It's also a pretty color and tastes like it takes a lot more work to make than it really does.

Definitely break up the orange with something green like a mint sprig and serve with a side salad.

Creamy Soup of Field Mushrooms

I'm still a little obsessed with my immersion blender.  Soup is so easy to make now! I've tried a few recipes for cream of mushroom soup but this one is the best I've made so far.  It showcases the flavor of the mushrooms without a lot of other ingredients to get in the way.  This recipe calls for a ton of portobello mushrooms.  It's relatively easy too.  I think it would freeze well for use in cream cheese chicken. This soup made a nice light meal.  I served it with some bruschetta. A small salad would work too. To use porcini mushrooms as a garnish, soak them in warm water until they're soft, about 20 minutes.

The bruschetta is from Wegman's.  Shhh, don't tell!

Hot and Sour Soup!

A while back, I made some hot and sour soup from Williams Sonoma's Soup.  It was "meh."  Kind of bland.  It seemed like it was trying to capture the flavor of hot and sour soup without authentic ingredients.  The broth was very thin, and the "hot" and "sour" aspects were very, very faint.

Then, I tried Ken Hom's recipe.  This is an entirely different animal.  The broth has the right consistency.  The flavors are punchy, the mushrooms provide a great texture, and the egg is done right.  This soup tastes like what I've eaten at my favorite Chinese restaurants.  It doesn't take very long to make.

I was so happy that this looked like the real thing!

Braised Quail with Polenta and Leek Broccoli Soup

I got an immersion blender for Christmas and now I want to blend EVERYTHING.  But I started small and made a quick, easy leek and broccoli soup.  I also went to Balducci's for the first time in a few years.  They had pheasant, rabbit, wild boar, venison, and quail!  I've had quail several times in restaurants and wanted to cook some, but never saw them at the grocery store. This was my first attempt at cooking quail.  I posted my other quail dish first because I thought the sauce was awesome.

Even though the quail have to sit in the fridge for a bit after they're rubbed with the spice mixture, this dish isn't very labor intensive.  The meal doesn't really take long to put together. I served my quail with some sundried tomato polenta (just heat it up out of the tube!) and I made some leek and broccoli soup with my immersion blender. 

 A few years ago, I watched Kitchen Nightmares (back when they still filmed it in England).  One episode featured a chef who overthought all of his recipes and ended up taking a simple concept, such as broccoli soup, and creating a recipe that called for 25 ingredients.  When I was looking for a broccoli soup to try, I remembered how Gordon Ramsay's soup had about 5 ingredients in it and it looked much better than the other chef's.  The recipe is from the Williams Sonoma Soup book and is pretty simple and straightforward.  If you like broccoli, you would love this soup.  If you only like broccoli when it's disguised to the point of being undetectable, you can probably give this one a pass.

Chicken, Vermicelli, and Lemon Soup

I'm back!  I was away on vacation last week and did absolutely no cooking whatsoever.  :)  This meal is from right before I left for my trip.  After a week in St. Barth, my cooking focus will shift to healthy meals for a few days since I need to make up for all of my gluttony.

This is a Turkish chicken, vermicelli, and lemon soup.  It reminds me a little bit of avgolemono since it has a similar egg and lemon flavor.  So many of my soup recipes admonish me to make my own stock, but I don't have time.  I use Kitchen Basics low sodium chicken stock and it works fine to make this quick dish.  This soup is very hearty because of the egg and noodles, and I sometimes prefer the vermicelli to the rice in avgolemono. Another thing that makes this soup interesting is that it uses grated red onion as part of the base, which I think gives it a complexity that avgolemono doesn't have. 

An Experiment - Meatless Monday

One thing I really miss about having Dave here is that he cleans up after me when I cook. He somehow manages to get my mess into the dishwasher.  When he's not here, the kitchen looks like it was attacked by a pack of rabid weasels covered in tomato sauce and cilantro stems.

Since I was on my own for dinner, I made an experiment.  Part of the reason I started this blog was to inspire myself to create my own recipes instead of always relying on cookbooks and things I find online. I like to make vegetarian meals a few times a week.  I made a "chili" out of the can of red kidney beans I've had in the pantry for a while.  My first instinct was to use ALL the spices!  Chili powder! Paprika (all 3 kinds)! Oregano!  Cardamom! About fashion accessories, Coco Chanel said "before you walk out the door, take one thing off."   I decided to keep it simpler.  I made enough for one very generous serving, and I didn’t measure things.  But, I’m writing this down as a 2 serving recipe for ease of use.

 I expected the result of my experiment to be edible enough that I wouldn't have to toss it and send out for Chinese.  I was shocked that it was actively good!  In addition to kidney beans, I added a chopped jalapeno and a few forkfuls of pimentos from a jar.  The pimentos are a little sweet, which went nicely with the chili powder and paprika.   I think I got the spice blend right, but in the future I would use a little less chili powder.  It was the right amount of spice until I was about 3/4 done with my bowl, and then it started being a little too much for me. It's not "real" chili, but it's a hearty soup that doesn't take very long to make.