Alayna and Mary Lorraine met in art school in the south of France. They have eaten together in Corsica, Morocco, Croatia and now (and often) Manhattan's lower east side.
Sometimes Alayna and I surprise ourselves. I feel like here, bathing in soup bowl #64, we are still making some pretty awesome soups with unique and rich flavors. The thing that's particularly wild about that is that they are all so simple. We were discussing how we've never incorporated tools beyond a blender, oven and stove. This attests to both our zen and lazy personalities.
Further, with each passing soup bowl ladled and served I feel more like ... I'm feeling heady so excuse me ... but soup as a way of life. (WWYSBD = What Would Your Soup Bowl Do? ... well, probably just sit there.) I have been making a point to utilize local farmer markets more and more and make and use our own broth-- the idea of knowing exactly what I'm putting in my bowl (the bowl that Alayna made in pottery) and that it's good and simple is quite the rarity in these fast, strange New York City times.
So as I sit back at my desk at work, sipping a Diet Coke, a product I have no clue what it actually is, where it came from, or how long it can last, though I have a feeling an awfully long time-- the fact that I am totally aware of the stuff in my soup bowl is a delight.
To think Alayna never saw a purple potato before!
cut up about a handful and a half of baby potatoes into bite-sized pieces (we used multicolor ones) and put into a separate pot to boil
fill a medium sized bowl with water and about two ounces of dried porcini mushrooms and microwave for five minutes, letting the mushroom steep until needed
saute 6 cloves of chopped garlic in olive oil with one sprig of fresh rosemary and a few sprigs of fresh thyme, adding half a yellow onion when they begin to be fragrant
when the onion is translucent, add six chopped carrots (the skinny kind or two of the fat kind) to the pot and cook covered
wipe off 3 portobella mushrooms and chop into bite-sized pieces, adding to the pot and stirring
cook until the portabella mushrooms are done all the way through, then add the porcini juice (straining out the mushrooms) and potatoes (strained), topping off with bouillon cubes and water
when broth is heated, add a bunch of chopped chard and cook five more minutes until done
So, we're having a warm snap in New York right now and I LOVE it. Windows open, sandals on and air drying my hair instead of bundling up on the way to work (and having SUNSHINE when you leave for work instead of freezing cold darkness and/or snow and rain) is pretty amazing.
We're a day late because Mary had to catch up on work after her vacation, but don't worry, this soup is worth it. It's vegan, but surprisingly filling. Sounds complex, but is really simple to make. And it straddles that line between a hot day and a cooler night quite well. It's also delicious and I made up the recipe, so I'm feeling super proud. SO:
Almost Summer Soup (Porcini and zucchini soup with walnut basil pesto)
THE SET-UP (things to do while you're doing other things)
Chop up 3 red potatoes and bring to a boil in a separate pot until you can stick a fork in them easily, but they aren't too soft
Throw about half a cup to a cup of walnuts onto a cookie tray and put in the oven at 250 for 5-10 minutes until toasted, then set aside to cool
microwave about 4 cups of water for about 5 minutes and put in an ounce of dried porcini mushrooms to soak, re-heating as necessary
Add half a white onion and the white and light green parts of three leeks, chopped and cook covered to reserve liquid
Once fragrant, add two zucchinis, chopped and cook covered
When the zucchinis are starting to cook, add 4 portabella mushroom caps, chopped and cook covered, stirring occasionally
PESTO BREAK! Now you have time to make the pesto! Take a big bunch of basil, take out any bad leaves, and rinse thoroughly. In a food processor, layer in the basil first, then add some walnuts, then parmesan cheese and 2 cloves of garlic with a generous amount of olive oil. You may have to do in batches as things get copped up and move down. Adjust flavoring to your taste (I love garlic) and put in the fridge for later.
By now your veggies should be cooked through, so add your potatoes (drained) and your porcini juice (with the mushrooms strained out and squeezed for juicy flavor)
Blend (taking out your rosemary and thyme stems) and serve with a dollop of pesto in the middle.
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!
Poor little baby Zizi cat hated this soup night. But our new buddy Tater-tot loved it! Especially because he got to lick the bowl. The bowl of rich garlic goodness. This soup is a nod to our vampire friends Edward and what's-her-face from Twilight. Or New Moon. Whatever. You know. I should probably know. I can probably take a swing through What Would Justin Bobby Do and figure it out.
Nods Bella and Beau.
Okay soupies, time to start seriously thinking about the great soup pot day coming up, that's right, A Year of Monday's Soup Anniversary Gala. The date should be sometime in January, details will follow, but these are a couple things that should be on your radar in the meantime:
Review this blog: Take a stroll back to your favorite soggy recipe; was it Veggie Detox (it actually was, I have analytics and that is our most popular soup-- you alcholoholics, you), or African peanut soup (that was MY favorite soup), or Lime Soup (Alayna?). Either way, check out our past hits and remember all the good times we had together. Remember when the blender broke? Classic soup memory.
Make your request early! If you have a soup you really want to make (you will bring this soup to our party in a soup pot... that's another thing, you might have to buy a soup pot)... email one of us and we'll cross that one off the list. All the soups must be different!
Start singing and tapping your toes: We are currently looking for songwriters, poets and dancers to help us write and choreograph the group "We Aren't Afraid of Soup" song that we will videotape and then repost on our blog and it will quickly go viral.
So let us know who could help us out. I'm not joking about any of this. At first Alayna thought I was and then she saw the soup ladle sparkling in my eye and knew. Knew I was serious. Souperious. And when you're souperious nothing can stop you.
Bad Breath Soup
Roughly chop 3-4 onions and two heads (that's right, HEADS, not cloves) of garlic and saute in a sprinkling of olive oil and about 3 tablespoons of butter on low
Add chopped fresh parsley, rosemary and thyme (we cheated and used dry thyme) and cover, stirring occasionally, letting it cook for about 30 minutes
Add chicken stock or vegetable broth and bring to a boil
Cube half a loaf of french or otherwise delicious bread and add it to the pot until soft (add more broth if it's too chunky)\
Poor Alayna was home with a fever and couldn't make it to soup night. Which is a shame because I'm pretty sure the soup we made can cure any disease as it has about 10 cloves of garlic. Daniel and Zach came over and stood in for Alayna. They helped me cook and drank my left over wine and roasted eggplant dip. (Seriously, if anyone wants roasted egg plant dip, let me know...)
Anyway, the inspiration behind this soup was that I didn't feel like buying anything for it. This is a great poor man's soup. Especially if you have an herb garden then it's pretty much just water. I don't have an herb garden. Maybe next week.
Alright, there is a new New Yorker with my name with it. Go peal some garlic my little vampires.
In a soup pot add 2 or 3 cups of vegetable broth (optional... well, isn't everything optional)
Add 4-6 cloves of garlic into the broth with a bay leaf, sage, parsley and a few sprigs of thyme.
Reduce heat to a simmer and let sit covered for 20 + minutes
Meanwhile...
In a small bowl pour in some olive oil, salt, parsley, thyme leaves and pressed garlic and use a brush to paint it on both sides of a thinly sliced baguette
Place on a oven tray and pop in the oven at 350 F for 10 minutes... or something... just flip when browned and let sit a little longer... you know.
And go back to the soup...
Add a bag of spinach, stir it around until it wilts
Mix olive oil and 3 eggs in a bowl
Add a ladle full of soup into this bowl to temper the eggs (thanks for the fancey lingo, Daniel)
Pour this mixture into the soup pot.
Now drop a piece of miracle toast into your bowl and then ladle the soup over the bread.
It's delish!
Ummm, I can't stop making videos. I don't see this going anywhere good.
I spent the end of summer in Vermont at my parents house in Stowe. And it was lovely. I finished the book I had been reading for the last month, I read the Sunday New York Times in actual paper form and drank coffee from a good mug and remembered how much I like textures and realized how much they have been missing in my computer-life. (My next thing is forming the "Texture Revolution," it's going to be huge...) I took a 30 mile bike ride on dirt roads and mountains and grass and it took me over 5 hours. While wondering where I was and where the trail had gone I looked ahead and saw this hanging frame. And I stopped and considered it and ate my apple. And it was a very good apple. That and it was my only piece of food. I ate it slowly.
But back to soup. I made a whole thing of this week's soup. My parents had friends in town, friends I have known my whole life, and on Sunday morning we met at the Farmer's Market to get supplies. The soup was a group effort. It should be noted that Judy Edling, no stranger to the kitchen, helped a lot, all the while giving me helpful advice on future dinner parties and recipes. Thank you, Judy.
The Farmer's Market, Stowe, VT
This soup is especially good right now when sweet corn is wonderful. I added about half 2% milk and half chicken stock but this can played around with if you want a less creamy soup. I don't see why you couldn't also just make it in a broth if you don't want to include the milk- vegan friends. Do I even have any vegan friends?
Either way, enjoy!
Simmer 4 cups of milk, 6 corn cob halves (not kernels), 2 sprigs of rosemary and thyme in soup pot
Melt 1/4 stick butter in large saucepan over medium heat
Add 1 chopped large onion, sprinkle with salt and saute until translucent
Add 3 chopped zucchini, 2 big carrots chopped, 2 stalks of celery chopped
When that is mostly done, add the corn kernels from the cobs
Remove the cobs and herb sprigs from the soup pot
Add the sauteing veggies
Add 4 cups of chicken broth (or whatever you think is enough)
Allow to simmer for 20 minutes to blend flavors
Puree the soup in a blender (we did this for half the soup and then mixed it in with the other half so it's still got bite. Also, helpful tip from Judy let the soup cool before putting it in the blender.)
Maybe it’s because Monday’s Soups is rounding to it’s 6 month anniversary, that is a lot of soup, folks, but I find myself bursting with soup thoughts on a daily basis… So with that in mind, here I go.
Jamie came over to my apartment last night because Alayna is vacationing in Texas. This means that Yes, this was the first soup that was ever made outside of Alayna’s apartment for the blog. And it went well. It was a little less smooth than when Alayna cooks. She has mastered the art of chopping, sauteing and knowing what goes in the pot next while talking. I can’t do that so well. Thus, I would realize I forgot to add the cannellini beans five steps later. Or I added the green beans too early. But because soup forgives, none of this mattered. This soup also brought me back to my never ending question, Why do we blanch vegetables? I was afraid of kale for so long because blanching seemed like such a pain. But I soon realized that kale really doesn’t need to be blanched at all. I don’t taste a difference. Can a foodie help a soupie out?
The New York Times reported yesterday that obesity rates are going up based on a nationwide survey from 2005 to 2009. Nothing is new here. Seven of the 10 states with the highest poverty levels are also among the 10 states with the highest obesity rate. In Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and West Virginia more than 30% of adults are obese. And—this is crazy—in 30 states, 30% or more of children are overweight or obese. That’s insane. It’s insane and it’s stupid. And it probably gets on my nerves more than it should but I can’t help it.
Jamie asked me what I was learning through this blog. I’m learning that cooking brings together people and conversations in a very authentic way. And that heady, karma part of me—that was born in college—believes that these are the real things you put into your food when you cook.
I know I’m getting annoying, and I’m trying not to fall over the line of being too preachy. This means a lot to me, and I feel like I learn more each week.
This is what I know.
A friend who I was very close to when I was a child, who I slipped away from as we grew older and we fell into life and trying to figure out who we were and who we certainly were not and all that, and then, only recently we began to inch back together. And the dialogue that brought us back was food. Was, stuff like, Yes, oh my gosh kale is wonderful and how do you bake a spaghetti squash and all of that. And while we were in the process of coming back to one another a tragedy happened in her family and it was awful and it broke my heart. I did the dance of all those awkward words that don’t feel like your own. I’m So Sorry and Is There Anything I Can Do and All My Sympathy. We put together those words and it felt strange and not right. And then it began to come back. It came back with, ML, I’m going to the market to make your soup.
Really?? Which soup?
Thai! I already have most of the ingredients.
And that is how we started to feed each other back to ourselves.
*
Now, lets eat... Summer Minestrone with Penne (or whatever pasta is in your cabinet
My first kitchen picture!
This is one of those soups where veggies can be swapped in and out. It doesn’t matter. Throw in whatever you have around or is in season.
-Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil and 1 medium yellow onion chopped into a soup pot over medium heat
-Add 4 chopped carrots and 4 chopped stalks of celery, add a pinch of salt, mix around for 10 minutes or until veggies soften.
-Throw in 6 cloves of garlic chopped and a few shakes of thyme (or fresh, obvi!)
-Dump in a big can of chopped tomatoes with juices, fill up half the tomato can with water, dump that in too.
-Chop up some fresh parsleyand add it. Turn the heat to simmer. Throw in a basil leaf or two if you have them.
-Rinse 1 can of cannellini beans and add them to the soup.
-Meanwhile in a separate small pot boil a few cups of water, once boiling add about one pound of fresh greenbeans (with the ends snapped off, cut into bite size pieces.) Leave them boiling for 5 minutes, then rinse with cold water. Put to the side.
-Rinse out the pot and boil more water. Once boiling add a cup of penne pasta. Cook for ten minutes.
-Add the green beans while the pasta is cooking, taste the soup add salt or pepper or whatever you think.
-When pasta is done throw that in and you’re done!
-Sprinkle with parmesan cheese and more parsley just because that looks pretty.
Note: If you are going to make a bunch of this soup and not eat right away might want to add the pasta separate because it will get mushy in the soup after a day or so.
