French Aspargus Cream Soup

One Year Of Soups

We made it. This marks our one year anniversary of Monday's Soup. Things have changed in both my life and Alayna's in that year but when you flip back over the months and months of soups everything feels solid and stable and good. Soup steadies us.

There have been a small handful of Mondays when we had to do a soup solo. When I was in Alaska, when Alayna was sick. That said, we never missed a week of making soup completely.

So what have we learned? A lot, actually. Alayna was ahead of me in the kitchen all along, from when we met in France and had those big dinner parties, I'd just drink the champagne in the corner or buy the last minute groceries we had forgotten at the market. We talked about it last night on her couch, my legs crossed with my soup bowl balanced on a pillow on my lap. Alayna said before she only felt comfortable making a handful of soups. This has obviously changed. We also have made friends with a bunch of different vegetables that before, we weren't totally sure what do with. Kale, parsnips, a giant pumpkin... to name a few.

And what's next? Ethnic soups. We feel we have gone through the round of vegetable soups, French and American, simple broths, gazpachos, chicken and shrimp and sausage... now it's time to move into lentils and spices and richer stews. Lets travel to India and Thailand and China and Bhutan. Yes, Bhutan.

What does a year of soup taste like? It tastes like a nice stable routine that grounds you and roots you in a city that can sometimes spin you off. So it's good. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the truth of the truth? The marrow of Monday's Soups? Is this:

Soup is good.

P.S. I have a cat now. Toaster. Zizi and Toaster are going to be bestfriends. And I just thought ya'll should know.

French Aspargus Cream Soup

• melt about 1/4 stick of butter in your soup pot
• saute a small yellow onion and the white parts of 5 small (3 large) leeks until translucent and fragrant
• add your home-made chicken broth* and bring to a simmer
• add 3-4 thinly sliced (pinky width) red potatoes and four carrots, similarly chopped, and let simmer for about 20 minutes
• when potatoes and carrots are getting softer, add in a bunch of chopped asparagus... simmer all together for about five minutes, then approximately a cup of heavy cream (more or less to taste) and 3-4 handfuls of spinach
• turn off heat, stir in spinach and let sit about five minutes before serving with Parmesan cheese on top

Broth

• de-bone a chicken thoroughly (we used two since both were small)
• stick the bones in a pot with a few cloves of garlic (4-5), some roughly chopped onions, carrots, celery and herbs (we used oregano, thyme and rosemary) with salt and pepper
• simmer on low for 2 hours, adding water if necessary
• strain through a colander or cheese cloth, discarding 'bits' and cool in the refrigerator overnight to let fat congeal
• skim the fat off (it will look yellowy-white not brown) the broth will be kind of gelatinous. that's okay, it'll liquefy when it's warmed up

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!

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.

The Veggies in Your Fridge Soup & Pizza

Well, well, well, wasn't last week an exciting Monday? For reasons unknown Alayna had the Monday after Easter off. Did anyone else in the world have that day off? I haven't heard of a soul except for the Easter bunny... ba-da-bing... but I was still excited because that meant she could start cooking earlier.

Sometimes Alayna and I worry that we aren't going to be fed enough so we make things in addition to soup. Turns out we're always fed enough. But still. So we made soup, and a pizza because she had a vat of left-over pesto she made last week. (That I would sometimes stick various objects in, cover entirely, and eat.) And a sheet of brownies.

We ate all of this within an hour. Granted we had Lindsay's help. And Kate's meager attempts at slicing off the smallest brownie sliver I have ever seen. But still. Everything was eaten. And we were merry. Even after we realized Gossip Girl was a repeat.

Sigh.

Mmmmkay, now that you're getting the hang of soup you should have realized that veggies can be swapped pretty easily. Especially for soups like these which are mostly a hodgepodge based on what we have a lot of in the refrigerator and what we worry is going to go bad.

So ladies and gentlemen, cats and kiddies, here you go...

The Veggies In Your Fridge Soup ... & Pizza!

Start by heating 2 cups of water in the microwave for 3 minutes

and then adding 1 oz of dried porcini mushrooms for 30 minutes

chop up 1 yellow onion and saute in olive oil
add fresh rosemary and thyme, a few shakes of red pepper
add in 3 celery stalks, also chopped
add in a large handful of chopped carrots
add 1 smallish eggplant, cut into pinky sized pieces (Alayna always likes to compare her veggie slices to parts of the human hand.)

Cover the pot to catch the steam
cut up 1 box of baby bella mushrooms,

2 porta bella mushroom caps (optional)

& a handful of shitake mushrooms (with bottom of stems cut off)

& add to the mix once the eggplant is becoming more cooked

let it all hang out together until things are becoming cooked through.

Once they're almost done,

add in the porcini mushrooms WITH THEIR SOAKING JUICE
add chicken broth (or water with cubes) to cover the rest of veggies

bring to a light boil
toss in several handfuls of spinach and cook until wilted (about five minutes)

stirring occasionally
blend (in a blender) chunky and serve!

Adding milk (whole) is optional (but good).

Here is the lovely pizza we had in addition to the soup.

Alayna put on (store bought pizza dough) home-made pesto, andre cheese, tomatoes and broccoli

and it was all DELICIOUS

Look at that. I just learned how to make fuzzy things around the edges so it looks like a postcard from long ago.

While we enjoyed our soup, Zizi enjoyed her shoes.