Can Soup be Sexy?

Is there such a thing as sexy soup?  What would be the sexiest ingredients you could imagine adding to soup?  Is coconut sexy?  How about plantains or mangoes? Raisins, maybe?  Is sweetness a necessary component of sexiness?

And while, at first glance, you might not think so, I would argue that garlic is very, very sexy. Flavor, in general, is incredibly sensual. Which do you think is the sexier herb--cilantro or basil?  How about the earthier members of your spice rack like turmeric or fennel?

Would a sexy soup have to have heat, too?  I'm guessing most people would share my "yes," but what kind of heat?  Should it be cayenne pepper kind of spicy or have the kick of jalapenos? And how hot do you like it? Spicy until sweat drips down your cleavage or just until you get a warm flush on your cheeks?

How about color? Do you imagine that a sexy soup is a bright color or a muddy mixture of ingredients? What about texture? Should a sexy soup be thick or thin? Smooth or chunky?

And, what's your idea of sexy music to listen to while you cook or eat (or even feed someone) your succulent creation? Sade or Norah Jones? Counting Crows or Kings of Leon? Maybe you prefer Madonna or George Michael? Marvin Gaye or Ray Charles?  Usher or R. Kelly? How about Marcia Ball or Susan Tedeschi?  Ben Harper or John Mayer?  Or maybe some Sue Jorge or Los Fabulocos?

Farm Fresh Veggie Bean Gazpacho

As mentioned in an earlier post, my first attempt at gazpacho was not a huge success. It tasted OK for a veggie soup but it didn't have the crisp, cold, fresh, and spicy flavor I associate with gazpacho. So, when my friend Valerie went on vacation and generously offered me her farm share again, I jumped at the chance to redeem myself.

Here's what I did...more or less:

• Coated the bottom of the stock pot  with EVO and added the following:
•  8 Tomatillos (husks removed and cut into fourths)
• A dozen various fresh tomatoes from the farm share and my landlord's neighbor
• Diced fresh red and yellow peppers
• One hot pepper (seeds removed and diced)
• 1/2 lb., I think, of fresh green beans (ends cut off and diced)
• One yellow onion (peeled and diced)
• A few shakes of dried turmeric
• About 10-12 fresh basil leaves from the deck (chopped up, natch)
• 1/2 bunch of chopped up cilantro leaves
• A few shakes of dried cumin
• 1/8 cup minced garlic
• I brought it to a boil, reduced the heat and simmered for about 30 minutes.
• Then I put the whole kit and caboodle into the blender one batch at a time and put it back into the stockpot.
• After it was blended, I brought it to a boil again, reduced the heat, and let it simmer for about 30 minutes.
• While it was simmering, I drained and adding the following into the blender or about a minute on medium blend:
• a can of black beans
• a can of white cannelloni beans
• a can of dark red kidney beans
• About four ladles of the blended soup
• After the bean mix was blended, I added it back into the stockpot, brought it to a boil again, reduced the heat and simmered it for a final 30 minutes.
• Then, I moved it to a plastic pitcher and put it in the fridge to chill.

Yum, yum, yummy, yummy, yum. I brought some to the beach today in a Thermos with Italian bread for dipping and it was perfect.

Healthy Creation Take on Potato Salad

I woke at the crack of dawn on Friday and got to cooking.  The half full bags of new potatoes in the drawer spoke to me and said they wanted to become potato salad. Hey! The Reluctant Chef's Healthy Creations are not just soups!

Here's what I did...more or less:

• Boiled water.

• Washed and cut unpeeled new potatoes into eighths.  I used about 10 white new potatoes and about 10 red and I left the skins on.

• While the potatoes were boiling, I diced up the following and put in a separate bowl:
• Big bunch of cilantro
• 1/2 16oz bag of baby carrots (uuuuuhhhh--that would be about 8 oz)
• A bunch of celery
• One red onion
• One little, fresh, peeled cucumber from  friend's farm share (Thanks again, Valerie!

• After the potatoes were cooked somewhere al dente, I rinsed and drained them and added them into the bowl of other veggies. Then I seasoned to taste with a few shakes of dried basil, salt, and pepper and put in the fridge.

I purposely chose NOT to add mayonnaise or any other dressing to my finished potato salad. Instead, I decided to leave it as is and add it in as I eat/serve each portion so I can try some different things. So far, I've tried some with mayo (for a more traditional potato salad), as is with no dressing (which I actually preferred), and for my solo dinner, I scrambled some in a frying pan with egg whites (delicioso!). I was thinking of trying it with some vinaigrette dressing next time I eat it.

Any other suggestions?

Rainy Day Chicken Soup

It's been raining for the last few days. The plants are happy and I'm liking not having to blast the air conditioning in order to heat up the kitchen. However, the temps have dropped from the 80s to the 60s and I've been craving some warming, comfort soup. This recipe is a twist on my friend Gina's chicken soup.

Here's what I did...more or less: 

• Removed the innards from a whole chicken and put it in the stockpot with a gallon of water.
• Threw in the stuff that you would usually put in the compost bin:  leafy ends and middle of a bunch of celery, ends of carrots, a whole onion cut in half (skins, ends and all), and 5 garlic cloves.
• Seasoned to taste with salt, pepper, oregano, basil, and bay leaves.
• Brought to a boil, reduced heat, and simmered for about 5 hours. While it was cooking, I stirred it every now and then and, as the chicken fell off the bone, I removed the bones and the skin from the broth with a strainer spoon.  
• Then, I used a small wire mesh colander thingy to scoop out the onion peels, the rest of the fatty skin, and the carrot and celery ends. 
• Finally, I poured the whole contents of the stockpot into a bigger colander with a big bowl underneath. I left the colander full of cooked chicken on the counter to cool. When it was cool enough, I washed my hands well and picked through the chicken to remove all the bones and cartilage.
• I put the deboned, cooked chicken and the broth back into the stockpot and added in a bunch of diced carrots, a couple cups of sliced mushrooms, a bunch of diced celery, a couple tablespoons of minced garlic, more of the aforementioned seasonings, brought it to a boil again, reduced heat, and simmered for about 30 minutes.
• I skimmed the fat off the top of the broth, added in two boxes of orzo, another 2 quarts of water, brought it to a boil again, reduced heat, and cooked for 12 minutes (per the instructions on the box of orzo).

Voila!  Chicken Soup for a rainy day dinner. I received the highest praise possible from my picky children who usually only taste my soups. They each ate two bowls for dinner and told me it was the "bestest" soup I ever made.

Blushing Tomato Basil Soup

Here's my Facebook status update from early Sunday morning:

As a later-in-life morning person, I am SHOCKED AND APPALLED that someone rang my doorbell before 8am. If it was several years ago, I probably would have done bodily harm (even though the offender was my landlord's dad giving me tomatoes from his neighbor's garden.) News at 11: Woman Says Lack of Sleep Prompted Violent Elder Attack With Tomatoes.

 

In real life, I simply said "thank you" to Mr. Kelly, brought the bag full of tomatoes inside, and started cooking. (You may want to read on after the recipe portion of this post for a story that explains the blushing factor of this Healthy Soup Creation title.)

 

So, here's what I did...more or less:

 

• Washed and cut up a plastic grocery bag full of big, fat, juicy, homegrown tomatoes. 
• Put them in the stock pot with about 3 cups of water.
• Added a few tablespoons of minced garlic (the kind in the jar with olive oil).
• Liberally sprinkled in dried oregano.
• Even more liberally sprinkled in dried basil. (It was raining outside and I was too lazy to go out on the deck for fresh basil.) I layered in the seasonings so I'm not absolutely sure how much basil I put in but I'm guessing, when all was said and done, that there were at least 3 or 4 tablespoons.
• Seasoned to taste with salt and pepper. (I've read that phrase in recipes before so I know it's a culinary but it always SOUNDS funny to me...but I digress.) Again, it was a layering thing.
• Added in one carton of organic vegetable broth and brought to a boil. Reduced heat and simmered for about 30 minutes
• I put the soup into the blender one batch at a time until the whole stockpot was blended. Then, I brought it to a boil again, reduced the heat, and simmered it for about 30 minutes. 
• It was thinner than I wanted it to be (the blender will do that...duh!) so added in about a cup up quinoa (whole grain high in protein), brought it to a boil again, reduced the heat, and simmered for another 30 minutes or so.

 

Mmmmmmmmm. Way better than Au Bo Pain Tomato Basil Soup.

 

Ok. Now the blushing part.  

 

So, when Mr. Kelly knocked on my door with the tomatoes, I was still in my jammies. Well, jammies of sorts.  I was wearing the  light pink T-shirt I wore at the beach the afternoon prior. Yup, that's right. When we got home, I simply took off my bathing suit top (ala Flashdance, bra straps through the arm pits), took off my bottoms and the skirt I wore on top of my suit, put on jammy pants and went about my business as if I was not covered in sand and sweat. I fully INTENDED to take a shower and change into proper, clean jammies after I fed and bathed the kids and got them to bed but, alas, I never got around to it before I fell into bed myself.

 

So, that was what I was wearing when I made the soup. I'm not the neatest chef in the world, particularly when I cream a soup in the blender and it splashes back on me when I pour it back into the stockpot. By the time the soup was finished,  my pink T-shirt was splattered with tomato red splotches. 

 

After the soup, I made pancakes for the kids for breakfast. The first batch was just plain so, before too long, I had cream-colored splotches alongside the red ones on my pink, already-dirty-from-the-beach T-shirt. Then, I found the frozen blueberries and decided to make a batch with those. They were yummy and both the blueberry pancakes and the new splotches on my shirt were a lovely shade of purple.

 

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the state of my hair. At the beach on Saturday, I wore a hat all afternoon which gave me some serious hat head. But then I took it to a whole new level by sleeping on it all night. 

 

So, when my doorbell rang again at noontime, you would THINK I would have ducked down out of sight and pretended not to be home. I was braless, wearing a stained, dirty T-shirt that resembled a Jackson Pollock painting, and unflattering, horizontal-striped, drawstring jammy pants that were literally falling down. My hair was flattened to my head and I'm guessing I smelled pretty bad. But I didn't duck down. I didn't even look out the window or say, "Who is it?" before opening the front door. I figured it was Mr. Kelly again. 

 

It wasn't. It was an acquaintance from church who is running for public office. He was there to drop off a yard sign to promote his campaign. As he stood on my front porch, he looked like he was moonlighting as Land's End model. I'm not sure who was  more horrified--him or me. The thought bubble over my head said: "Are you fricken kidding me?"  His seemed to say: "Uh-oh. She must be mortified because she looks like CRAP!"

 

The moral of the story:  Always put on clean clothes within a hour of waking up. You never know when tomatoes or a politician may show up at your door. Or wear black.

Sweet and Spicy Pineapple Plantain Soup

This soup began by putting the following into my trusty stockpot:

• EVO (enough to coat the bottom of the stockpot)
• rough-chopped celery
• frozen diced onions - maybe a cup
• frozen red, yellow, and green bell peppers strips - maybe a cup
• 2 diced hot peppers from the farm share with the seeds removed (In 20/20 hindsight, I would have only used one and I would have made DARN sure that every single seed was gone)
• basil - not sure how much but I'm guessing 1 Tbsp.
• oregano - about 1 Tbsp.
• cilantro - about 1 Tbsp. 
• salt and pepper which I kept adding in as I put more ingredients in the stock pot. I saw SOME chef I don't remember on the Cooking Channel talk about layering seasoning and I tried it.
• About 1/4 cup of minced garlic from the jar

After all of that was stirred up well and starting to soften, I added the following to the mix:

• 4 sliced, ripe plantains
• 2 cans of pineapple chunks (if I had had crushed pineapples in the cupboard, I would have rather added those but that was only in that darn retrospect)
• Lime juice (from the green plastic lime - I'm guessing I added about 1/2 the plastic lime by the time all was said and done.

After everything was ooey gooey soft, I added two cartons of organic vegetable broth, brought it to a boil, reduced the heat, and simmered for about a half hour.

Then I tasted it. YOWZA! Way, way too spicy.  And I like spicy. So I added two cups of water and another carton of vegetable broth, more lime juice, the strained juice from an orange and a lemon, then brought it to a boil again, reduced the heat again, and simmered for another half hour or so.

Tasted again. Still too hot. Then I decided to add lemon and orange zest. Since I don't have a lemon zester (on my wish list), I just cut off pieces of both peels into tiny pieces and threw them into the stockpot and added more lime juice. Then I posed the "How to cut spiciness" question to my Facebook riends and someone gave me the brilliant suggestion of adding honey. So I did. I started out with about 1/8 of a cup but kept adding more. After the first addition of honey, I brought to a boil again, reduced the heat again, and simmered again and repeated this process every time I tasted it and added more honey. By the time the soup was done, I'm guessing I added about a cup of honey but with boiling and simmering in between.

Still too hot. So then I added a cup of quinoa, brought it to a boil again, reduced heat again, and simmered for a half hour or so.  Then, I did the removing and blending and adding back in thing to make it creamier. I probably only blended about half the stockpot. I'm thinking with the pineapple chunks and the orange and lemon peels, I probably should have blended the whole thing but that's more about texture than taste.

It was a long time getting there, but I REALLY like this soup. Very, very sweet and very, very spicy. Mmmm.

Creamless Crockpot Chowdah

It was a scorcher today so I was not interested in turning on the stove. I'm pretty pleased with my first attempt to make a soup in the crockpot.

Since I'm lactose intolerant and have been milk/cheese/cream free (for the most part) for at least a decade, I haven't been able to enjoy seafood chowder. Next to cheesecake, it's probably the dairy-containing product I miss the most.  So, I decided to make a creamless seafood chowder. Here's what I did....more or less:

• Rough chopped half a bunch of celery and put in the crockpot. 
• Turned the crockpot on high to get it going.
• Added about 1/4 of a cup of minced garlic from the jar (it has olive oil in it).
• Added half a bag of frozen diced white onions (since I was out of the fresh ones).
• Added liberal shakes of ground, dried basil, cilantro, rosemary, salt, and pepper.
• Added a carton of organic chicken broth and a carton of organic vegetable broth.
• Rinsed about 10 baby white potatoes, about 10 baby red potatoes and what was left in a 16 oz bag of baby carrots and added them into the broth. I didn't dice or even split them before adding them into the crockpot. In retrospect, that was a little lazy. I ended up cutting up the potatoes with a big metal spoon after they cooked for 8 hours which was much harder. I'm glad I left the peels on because I like the rustic texture and extra nutritional value but I wish I had cut up the potatoes and at least split the carrots while they were raw before I added them into the crockpot.
• Set the timer on the crockpot for 8 hours.
• After the timer went off, I added in a can of white clams and a big piece of de-boned cod fish. I sort of buried the cod under all the potatoes. I just added it in whole because I knew it would fall apart in the crockpot.
• I turned the crockpot down to low and set it for 1 hour and 30 minutes. I stirred it every now and then and started cutting up the potatoes with the big metal spoon. Again, not the best method.

Because I made this one in the crockpot vs. the stockpot, I didn't do the whole creaming half of it in the blender thing. but I didn't really miss it. With so many potatoes, it was pretty thick. I ate a big huge bowl for dinner and the kids said they like it and actually finished their tiny tasting bowls that were a side dish for their dinner of homemade BBQ chicken wings, broccoli, and sweet potatoes. In a perfect world, I would have had a loaf of good Italian or French bread to dunk in this soup but I didn't. Mmmm. Maybe I should go get some tomorrow to have with the leftovers for lunch...?