A Light Leek Soup

First, lets start with a pretty picture of ingredients so that no one loses faith in me as a cook:

Rosemary, thyme and garlic

I'm not going to lie. Soup night was BIT of an adventure last night.

Mary is in Guatemala this week with some college friends (jealous!) so I decided to meet up with my partner from Amigos in 2000 (that's right, a DECADE ago) for a drink before soup night. But I also had some dried chickpeas and homemade chicken broth, so first a ran home and threw them into the dutch oven on low so they would be ready when I got home.

When I got back, I was greeted with this:

my apartment

Oh yeah, that's a smoke filled apartment.... and some really burned chickpeas.

The mystery is that I really DID leave the stove on very low. Dutch ovens don't need much heat, that's the whole beauty of them! So I'm blaming the cat. Although I probably shouldn't have left the apartment with the stove on. Safety first!

LUCKILY, I was still able to make a delicious soup.... just not as chickpea-y as I expected. And yes, I am that girl who rescued as many chickpeas as she good and likes the taste of lightly burned (or, in my mind, toasted!) things. You may want to stick to canned though.

separating the weak from strong

And yes, my apartment DOES still smell like burned chickpeas. So does my hair. And my hands. I had to scrub my dutch oven for about 45 minutes to get all the burnt parts off after soaking it overnight. Don't drink and dutch kids. Or don't dutch and then just step out for one drink because you might end up smelling like a Mediterranean market and not in a good way.

On the plus side, my mom always told me eating burned things would make my hair curly.... cheap perm, here I come!

Without further ado....

A Light Leek Soup

• saute 6-8 roughly chopped cloves of garlic in olive oil with a few sprigs of fresh rosemary and thyme

• add the roughly chopped white and light green parts of 3-4 leeks and cook until they're getting a little floppy

• add one bunch of broccoli (include the thin parts of the stem too, and if you want to blend, the whole stalk)chopped into small pieces/florets

• add one large zucchini, sliced and quartered, and about 3 tablespoons of butter, sliced around the pot and stirred in

• cook, stirring occasionally, until broccoli is bright green and zucchini is mostly soft

• add chicken (or veggie) broth, barely covering veggies and about 1.5 cups of cooked "toasted" chickpeas.... or just an unburned can of chickpeas

  • note: I used a broth that I'd already infused with lemon, which was GREAT, but you can also just squeeze the juice of 1-2 lemons in at this point

• simmer a little while until veggies are done all the way through and serve!

  
  

  
  

Green Machine

As promised, our top five BEST soups of all soupie time.... (Uhm, Alayna is insisting instead of "Best" I say "some of our favorites" as if our other precious soups like Roasted Root Soup and Fennel is Fantastic will have their feelings hurt. Alayna is very attached to these little bowls of miracles.)

This is based on nothing but Alayna and my personal opinions and casual soup banter. Honestly, none of the soups we make are that tricky to pull off. Well, slaughtering that pumpkin was sort of intense... but that soup didn't even make the cut (even though it was delicious). So new soupies, don't be intimated that these are SOME OF OUR FAVORITE soups, just be inspired to make them. And enjoy them. And share them.

In no particular order:

More Than Tomato Soup

West African Peanut Soup

Cucumber Heaven

"It Was Really Good" Mushroom Soup

Lime Soup

P.S. Our top five happens to also be really cheap soups to make. Only the West African has meat. We're talking less than $10 soups here (well, for non-Manhattan residents at least, put us in the $15 range-- but still-- remember, these are BIG portions)

Tonight's soup? Not on the top five list of best time soups, but probably on the top five list of healthiest soups. This was sort of one of those, lets just toss in what we have in the fridge in a pot with broth and then put it in the blender soups. Those soups never fail. Well, depending on your fridge.

Either way, it's a nice during the week meal, especially as the weekends seem to be increasingly filled with holiday sugar madness. So it's nice to level out the playing field. Okay, soup out buddies.

The Green Machine!

• roughly chop 6 cloves of garlic and saute with red pepper flakes and herbs de provence
• add one large roughly chopped yellow onion, 3 small-medium red potatoes, a large carrot, a head of broccoli (with the top part of the stalks), 2-3 large zucchini and two tomatoes and cook covered
  
• when potatos and carrot are starting to get soft, add your veggie broth, 1/2 a bag of spinach (or more, whatevs), bring to a simmer
• blend and serve!

Carrot Coconut

The texture revolution.

This is what I mean, these are the things I've started to do differently. I buy the New York Sunday Times at the store on 25th and 3rd even though I can read it for free online. I drink coffee in a mug which I refill and refill and refill on the long part of my couch and pick apart the paper. I bought a hard covered book (Sherman Alexie, War Dances) at the store. It was new and cost $23. I just re-read all the underlined parts of "For Whom the Bell Tolls," my copy is taped up the spine. I read it in Galicia. I lent it to a boy to read in Galicia. I lent it to a boy to read in Barcelona. I re-read it in Barcelona. I mailed it home on a box that took a ship across the Atlantic.

"There is no such thing as safety. There are so many seeking safety here now that they make a great danger. In seeking safety now you lose all."

I underlined that. But I didn't add any stars on the margin next to it. Which means those sentence were my lowest priority of underlining. I have a structure. Two stars is as high as a sentence can be. I won't tell you what those are though.

I meant to write about something else for this post but then I started looking through books because I was looking for Something. A line or something. And instead I remembered how much I miss the feeling of books. I remember pretty much almost exactly what I was thinking when I underlined everything I have ever underlined. It's a gift. I paged through a Mary Oliver book of poems, and then a Frances Driscoll book of poems, which I don't think is a big name but I found her in a used bookstore in Maine-- which place in Maine, Brunswick? and I cried sitting in the corner reading it because it was sad. And then I probably pitched a tent somewhere.

Alayna and I haven't discussed the texture revolution that thoroughly yet but I know she's part of it, too. She forgot what it felt like to receive mix tapes and then she did in the mail and remembered. She builds pots in her hands. That's a good one.

What do you do to keep texture in your life? Making soup counts, too.

Carrot Coconut Cah-Cah-Cah

• 4-5 garlic cloves chopped in olive oil, saute
• Add 2 shallots, 5 stalks of celery chopped, 1 head of broccoli chopped
• a few generous shakes of garam masala, chili powder and coriander
  
• Add 2-3 large leeks, a "decent" amount of ginger chopped
• 4 small red potatoes, skin on, add a bag of regular carrots chopped
• Pour in a can of coconut milk

Add enough chicken broth to cover the veggies

Bring to boil and then let simmer for about 25 minutes until veggies are soft

Blend!

Alayna and the soup. I cannot smile while spooning soup. We tried. We took 8 pictures. I can't do it.

Veggie Detox Soup

This is the "Vitamin Water" of soups. After a heavy weekend this is a wonderful thing to make you to feel better about your life in general.

Alayna and I made this little bowl of heaven Memorial Day Monday night. It was great because after one too many meat center BBQs a bowl of light broth and veggies felt perfect to detox and recharge for Tuesday.

We used a chicken stock but if you use a veggie stock this soup could be Vegan. I think. Right? It's also good as one of those, I-have-a-lot-of-random-vegetables-in-my-kitchen soups.

Anyway, so here it is!

Cut up 2 yams/sweet potatoes into spoon sized slices and boil in a saucepan on the side
Chop 6 cloves of garlic, half a white onion

And a decent sized chunk of peeled fresh ginger (I like a lot... but I also love ginger) s

Saute in olive oil
Add in 2 slicked yellow squashes (med-small)

Once they are getting translucent, add in chopped carrots (two normal sized carrots or small carrots)

And 2 chopped broccoli heads...

Continue cooking until the broccoli turns bright green
Add 2 small cans of cannellini beans, drained and cook covered on low heat
Add the sweet potatoes once you can stick a fork through them relatively easily,

Cover the whole concoction with vegetable or chicken broth and bring to a boil
Let the soup simmer for about 10 minutes, adding two big handfuls of spinach for the last 5 minutes

There you have it! So easy! So healthy! So great.

Chickens Soup

I know. It doesn't have to do with Chicken and Rice soup but it is a good photo series.

Okay. First thing is first and that is the WINNER OF THE FIRST MONDAY SOUP HAIKU CONTEST.

This person is someone who is no stranger to poetry. From his first published poems in Folio to beautiful free style raps in car rides, I can't think of anyone who deserves it more.

Ladies and gentlemen, lets give a big hand to Mr. Ziggeh Karp for this quietly powerful master piece:

There comes a time when

everyone must choose, chicken

noodle or chowder?

Sadly, Alayna and I didn't snap any shots of this soup but Alayna did do an incredible job of sending me so many chicken soup cartoons in a row that I began to wonder if she has a chicken soup cartoon fetish thing.

Anyhoot, here she is: Chicken and Rice Soup. It was good. A nice mix of light but filling. This is a soup everyone likes and everyone should master. So get your chicken friends out of the coop and start ringing some necks.

To-Do!

In a side pot, cook 1 cup of rice (white or brown... or even fancy wild rice!) according to instructions

In your soup pot, dice about 6 cloves of garlic and an onion

and sautee in olive oil

(add a few shakes of hot pepper if you are cold and stuffy and feel the need to be revived)

Add chopped carrots (either 3 real carrots or a handful and a half of baby)

and a head or two of broccoli, also chopped

Add a small box of baby bella/cremini mushrooms and/or shitake

(and, if you still have those dried porcinis laying around, you could soak some of those and put in the broth and I think it would be delicious)

Once things are almost all the way soft, add two whole tomatoes, chopped,

and lower the temperature to simmer covered

In a separate covered pan, cook 2-3 boneless/skinless chicken thigh (or breast) cut into bite-sized pieces in olive oil with salt and pepper

When the rice is done cooking add it to the soup pot,

cover everything with chicken broth and bring up the heat

Once the chicken is cooked through, add it to the soup pot

and put in more broth if needed.

Bring to a light boil, and then take the temperature back down

Add a handful and a half of fresh parsley and voila!

Chicken soup for the soul.

Sausage Soup

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Writing a soup blog when I'm at work is a lot more dodgy than I thought. But it's Thursday and I know the people... i.e. Alayna... is freaking out that there is no new soup to look at. Though there is a new Friday's Dinners! which also doubles as Sunday Brunch.

There is a lot to say here. One: This is a nice Italian-esq. comfort soup. Very similar to Italian Wedding soup, Ryan. Alayna was in the mood for it because she is freaking out- so are most of the Suffolk apartment ladies. As the lease is ending and cha-cha-changes are a-happening. Moving, subletting, weeding out potential craigslist killers. It's stressful. (Hey! Anyone need a room in the Lower East Side in a week? Inquire within!)

So this soup made us all feel a little more relaxed. Thank you, soup.

Now for the contest. Drum roll please.

The First Ever MONDAY'S SOUP HAIKU CONTEST!

I know, how did we not think of this before.

Rules:

1. Write a haiku about soup.

2. Paste it as a "comment" to this blog post

3. Wait anxiously to see if you're the winner

You WANT to be the winner.

The Soup!

Slice about 6 cloves of garlic and saute in olive oil in the soup pot

add in 1 yellow onion, chopped

once the onions are getting opaque,

add about two fistfuls of kale, torn into smaller pieces

when the kale is getting softer, add about 1.5 handfuls of baby carrots, chopped

add the florets from one or two heads of broccoli

once the broccoli and carrots are getting softer, but still firm,

add a large can of crushed tomatoes with the juice

and bring the bot to a low simmer

add in a handful of fresh basil

and a handful of fresh parsley

in a separate pan, saute 4-6 Italian sausages cut into bite size pieces (half sweet, half spicy)

once cooked through, add to to the soup pot and fill with chicken broth to get to the right consistency

Bring everything to a boil and eat!

French Country Soup

In the south of France sleeps a quaint and serene town called Aix-en-Provence. This is the town where Cezanne was inspired by the mountains and light and where Alayna and I were inspired by the soup and bread.

The inspiration of our French Country soup came from a little French restaurant right below the old town on Rue Vanloo with red canopies and outdoor patio tables. It was owned by a sweet Brazilian woman who gave us small shot glasses of carrot ginger soup before our meal. And there was very good bread. AKA soup lover's heaven.

As promised last week, this soup's goal was to dispel one reader's belief, who admitted that although he liked the blog, why would he ever make a soup for forty minutes when he could make a Trader Joe's Frozen Pizza in fifteen?

At first I wanted to lie and say this soup only took 15 minutes also, but Alayna said that would confuse our soup-making followers when they were making the recipe. I realized my competitive side was getting the best of me. The soup takes thirty minutes, unless you cut stuff super fast.

However, in the 'ol Great Recession of '09 making a soup that produces roughly five or so meals for $11 isn't too bad.

And there is, of course, that overall nutrition factor which I feel like I've been intensely harping on recently so I'll just let you decide what the healthier dinner option for yourself and our planet might be...

Okay, my inner-hippie is going away now.

The Soup!

But first, Alayna's inner-hippie and her new pottery creation. The soup pot. Brilliant.

Chop between 6 and 8 cloves of garlic

saute in olive oil with a few shakes of red pepper

1/2 a yellow onion

Add in the following:

a handful of baby carrots (chopped),

half a head of broccoli

Either half of a large eggplant or a small one cut in... and I quote "pinkie sized sticks, unless you have small fingers then pointers,"

Cut in the same manner, 1 zucchini and 1 yellow squash (regular sized or again, half of those weirdly giant ones),

5 vine ripe tomatoes cut in bite sized pieces.

Keep it on medium/low heat as you add everything.

Wait for the squash and egg plant to get cooked most of the way through (fork test).

Add a big handful of fresh basil (chopped) and a couple sprigs of rosemary and thyme (which you should first de-stem).

(If you want to cut down on the price you can use dried "Herb de Provence" from the jar. Though a small bunch of fresh herbs are a dollar. Your call.)

When the squash and eggplant are cooked through add enough water to cover the veggies

Add 2 packets of chicken cubes.

Presto!

Alayna's observation: "This soup is essentially ratatouille with broth. Since ratatouille apparently means random assortment of vegetables put together... As far as I can tell."