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.

Asparagus Squash Soup

aPoor sad and wonderful Harold Brodkey the dead author I discovered in the smallest used bookstore with the most books in Camden, Maine, concludes arguably his most famous story First Love and Other Sorrows with the love of soup.

I was reminded of this while I was re-reading this story on a walk to a friend's apartment in the East Village. I mastered the art of walking and reading long ago. Even after I arrived at the apartment's walk-up I stayed outside in the crisp early evening Saturday leaning on the railing to finish the story as couples and crazies passed me by.

The story is set in the late '50's. A daughter is about to get married to rich man she probably doesn't love. The father is long dead. And there is the pre-teen son observing it all.

"I'm hungry, too," she said. "I don't know why." She drifted over to the table, and bent over the chicken. "I guess emotion makes people hungry."

The mother pushed open the swinging door, from the dining-room side. "There you are," she said. She looked flustered. "Are you eating at this time of night?"

My sister said she was hungry, too.

"There's some soup," my mother said. "Why don't I heat it up." And suddenly her eyes filled with tears, and all at once we fell to kissing one another- to embracing and smiling and making cheerful predictions about one another- there in the white, brightly lighted kitchen. We had known each other for so long, and there were so many things we all three remembered... Our smiles, our approving glances, wandered from face to face. There was a feeling of politeness in the air. We were behaving the way we would in railway stations, at my sister's wedding, at the birth of her first child, at my graduation from college.

This was the first of our reunions.

Perhaps This Was Their Soup

In soup bowl saute

1/2 an onion chopped

2 leeks chopped

1 yellow squash chopped

1 bunch of asparagus cut into inch pieces or smaller

Add in olive oil and 1/2 a stick of butter

with a few sprigs of fresh thyme and rosemary

At the same time boil a handful and a half of red potatoes (with skins) in separate pot

When the veggies are crispy but mostly cooked through add the potatoes into the soup pot

Add a squeeze of one lemon

And add enough chicken broth to cover the veggies

Take off heat, puree in a blender.

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."

Hail to Kale Soup

If the first thing you do at work is go to The New York Times' online Health Section too, then you and I both know that kale is the new "It" vegetable. Shari Hern writes: "And yes, a vegetable can be amazing. Particularly when it's loaded with substances that can help protect one from cancer, cataracts, emphysema, and rheumatoid arthritis."

Hey Austin Brey, can your Trader Joe's frozen pizza do that? No. For more on the superiority of soup over Trader Joe's frozen pizza, please check back next week.

Anyway. If you love something you are going to fight for it and that's exactly what Alayna and I did.

First Soup Fight

Alayna: when are you posting it???

ML: soon I just got back from Jackson Heights.

Alayna: you're doing kale first, right?

ML: nah, I'm doing last night's

Alayna: but the kale is so wintery!

ML: nope, next week

Alayna: please?

Alayna: please, please, please

ML: nope. unless you want to write the blog

Alayna's First Blog Post

As you may have noticed, I have a mild obsession with soup. Actually, I wouldn't even say obsession with soup (although this blog makes it appear otherwise)... mostly I have an obsession with being secretly lazy.

Secret laziness means this: having home-cooked meals, but not having to cook (okay, really do the dishes) every night. Having nutritious food but only having to use one dish to eat it. Either way, I make so much soup because it's easy to make a huge quantity at once, it stores well, and you can put all kinds of good-for-you stuff into it.

Which brings us to kale. Mary and I only recently discovered kale because she read some article about how essentially it's mega-powered spinach. Fiber, iron, vitamins, whatever. It's all there. We like spinach, so kale seems like a good idea.

So far our relationship with kale has gone well. It's tougher than spinach, which means it holds up to cooking without becoming mushy if you walk away for a minute. It's also really good sauteed with fresh ginger, garlic and rock salt. And delicious in this soup. Other things delicious in this soup? Barley (fiber!), potatoes (vitamin C!) and mushrooms (the porcinis give that great earthy taste and the baby bella's keep the texture interesting.)

Wow Alayna, what an educational blog post.

And Now, Please Help Us Welcome Our New Friend, Kale

And welcome KZimm's first appearance on Monday's Soups.

Before you head to work put 3/4 cups of dried barley into cold water to soak for the day

When you get home, microwave 2 cups of water for 3 minutes

Then poor onto 1/2 ounce of dried porcini mushrooms

Let them sit for 30 minutes and put on sweatpants

Chop up about a handful and a half of baby red potatoes into bite sized pieces and boil in a separate pot.

Take off heat once they are mostly soft.

Saute about 5 cloves of garlic and 1 medium yellow onion in olive oil until translucent

Add 3/4 of a packet of sliced baby portabella mushrooms

(which are the same as cremini!)

and a handful of sliced shitake mushrooms to the mix and cook, stirring occasionally, until the mushrooms are getting soft and everything is fragrant

Add in soaked barley, reconstituted mushrooms (with the soaking liquid!),

chicken broth,

a handful of parsley, rosemary and thyme

and let it simmer for about 20-30 minutes.

Add salt and pepper to taste

Clean and de-stem a bunch of kale and add it into the pot with the potatoes for the last 10-15 minutes of cooking time.

Enjoy!

P.S. This soup was strongly inspired by a New York Times recipe. Thank you New York Times.

Sausage Sweet Potato Soup

Zizi likes food high in iron and fiber, like spinach.

Not to pat our own backs, but there is a lot of goodness in this soup blog besides the soup recipes alone. Lets note what Martha Rose Shulman (not related to that other set of Shulmans some of you might know...) said on March 16th in the New York Times.

"I'm convinced that one of the reasons the French diet is such a healthy one, despite the butter and cheese, is that dinner in France is often a simple vegetable soup made with whatever ingredients are fresh. Soups fill you up, they're comforting, and they offer a lot of concentrated nutrition in a bowl at a reasonable cost, both caloric and monetary. They're simple to make and forgiving."

Amen sister. Take that "This Is Why You're Fat."

Moving on. This week's soup is a marriage of two good things. Sweet potatoes and sausage. What a lovely union brought together in our soup pot. I was excited about the idea of the soup when Alayna and I were discussing it this past week and I was even more excited about the final product. Which was lighter than you'd imagine because we didn't puree the soup, so it was broth based. A good light broth which mixed well with the sweet potato and sausage, which, er, are heavier creatures. But lovely nonetheless.


I was SO excited about the final product that even as I sensed a numbing sensation in my cheeks that was slowly spreading towards my ears, I still decided on a second bowl. Alayna and I finished up and I went to do the dishes while neurotically poking my face. "I still don't feel my face," I thought quietly becoming more and more frantic. (I'm a slightly neurotic person, p.s.).
A short while later when my tongue started to itch and I was in my bedroom googling how much time I had before my throat closed I decided I should tell Alayna my situation so she would be ready to call 911 when airways were blocked. Which at this point I deemed inevitable.
Alayna, ever calm, told me I have eaten everything in the soup a million times so it probably wasn't a food allergy. She gave me a Benadryl and told me maybe I should make tea.
I thought for a moment.
"Why would tea help open my air passages?"
"Well, it probably won't. But I would really like a cup."


I survived the night. Surprise, surprise. And I don't blame the soup. I'm not sure what I blame but as Martha Rose Shulman says, soup is forgiving. And so am I.

(Update: After talking to a nurse I have concluded that my reaction was due to sushi I ate a while before, and NOT the soup. Do not fear, soup fans.)

Everything You Have Been Waiting For:

The Recipe

Sausages always look jokey.

In a big pot saute six cloves of garlic and one medium onion (chopped)

Add in about six small white potatoes and two medium sized yams (or one big one) and simmer covered until they start getting soft.

Once they are getting soft, cover, add chicken broth and bring up the heat to a low boil

In a separate pan, saute seven spicy Italian sausages, cut into bite sized pieces until cooked through.

When potatoes are almost cooked through (check by stabbing with a fork), add the sausages.

For extra wonderful taste add their delicious, delicious juices (aka scrap the grease off the pan into the soup.)

Tear up about three big handfuls of spinach and put directly into the soup, cooking for about another five minutes.

Let it be known Alayna is wearing sweatpants under her dress.

And I make soup after I come home from the gym. I'm training for a 1/2 marathon! April 26th! Who-hoo.

Souper Cheap:

All ingredients were purchased at the Essex Street Market, total cost was $10.58

Lime Soup

I first had lime soup when Alayna made it in France for a dinner party. Because we used to live in France and have dinner parties where I would shove white candles in old Champagne bottles and the guests would do all the dishes. Insert sigh here.

Either way, if you happen to have a cold, or feel a cold coming on, Lime Soup is the thing to do. Because by your third spoonful you'll notice your nose is running. And by the end of the bowl you're all cleared up.

Alayna would like to insert a tip here: "I hate doing dishes [she does, it's true], so I like to chop all the fruits/veggies/herbs first then the chicken. That way I don't have to switch knives, meaning I use my favorite knife the whole time and only one chopping board!"

Nice tip. For those of you who don't get why that's a tip it's because you don't chop raw chicken with the same knife you are going to use for the other stuff. Duh.

Okay, aprons on! Here we go:

Start by taking 3 to 4 tortillas and cutting them into strips, set aside.

Dice 6 to 8 cloves of garlic and sauttee in olive oil in your soup pot with 3 to 4 whole dried chili peppers

Chop 1 large yellow onion and add to garlic

When onion is getting translucent, dump in 1 large can of plain diced tomatoes with juice

Add 2 more cans of water and chicken bullion (or chicken broth)

Put on medium heat and allow to slowly come to a boil.

Chop a generous handful of cilantro and set aside until soup broth is hot, then add

Slice 2 small limes into wedges and set aside

Cut open another 4 limes (that's 6 limes you'll need total) for squeezing into the broth and do so immediately

Slice up 1 avocado and set it aside.

Chop 3 chicken thighs into bite size pieces and sauttee in a separate pan in olive oil until cooked through, adding a few shakes of salt and some black pepper.

Since this is all kind of happening at the same time, watch your pot! Once the broth is getting hot, add your cilantro, and then once it's really hot and the chicken is cooked through, add the chicken to the broth (Make sure you've left enough space!)

Let it all cook together on med-high for five minutes

Bring the temp down to med-low and throw in the lime slices for the last five minutes

Top: Frying the tortilla strips / Bottom: Adding fresh limes to soup

Don't wash your chicken pan! Instead, put in some more olive oil and fry up your tortilla strips (rotating once) until golden and crispy

Lay them on a paper towel to soak up extra oil, this will probably take a few batches to get enough done (and they are delicious).

Once you have all the elements of your soup, put the soup in bowls, shred pepper jack cheese in the soup, some sliced avocados on top of the cheese and the tortilla strips on top of that (so they don't get soggy fast!)

It all sounds complicated, but it isn't! I promise!

Important Note: If you're storing the soup to eat through the week, take out the extra lime rinds they can make the broth bitter when they're re-heated.

Alayna in a work outfit she was proud of, with soup, in living room.

Note: Mary Lorraine chose not to be featured in this week's soup post because she realized she wears the same orange sweatshirt every Monday night.

This Is How You Figure Out How to Make Soup / Asparagus Soup

That is what Zizi looks like when she is really excited about the soup.

Email message sent at 9:21 AM, Monday.

Alayna: I think it is essential that we incorporate the pate from book club into soup night. Also, we have very little room in the refrigerator. SO, I suggest we make an asparagus soup and pate/cheese sandwiches to dip into it.

Email message sent at 10:04 AM

Mary Lorraine: I think that sounds wonderful. What should I buy? So last night... (Author's note: I am cutting out said boy drama because it is not relevant to soup)

Email message sent at 12:01 PM

Alayna: We need baguettes. That's right, plural. I think two. That way we have our pate sandwiches both today and for lunch tomorrow. Uhm. Not that I like planning ahead. Other than that, if you can buy leeks, asparagus and some half and half, we should be good! Get from Key Foods, cheaper. 

Um, that sounds awkward did you... (removed).

Email message sent at 12:23PM

Mary Lorraine: On it.. Um, yeah. We had a little disagreement about... (more message removed.)

See you tonight!

Here's What You Do:

Sauttee a medium sized yellow onion and three leeks (only the white parts) in olive oil until translucent

Add in thyme at some point (fresh or dry)

Chop up 2 bunches of asparagus into small pieces, toss 'em in and mix

Add half a stick of butter and squeeze 1 lemon

Also throw in a few handfuls of spinach to add more iron!

When they turn bright green and are no longer super crunchy add enough chicken broth (or water with a chicken broth packet) to cover (not too watery!)

Add salt and pepper to taste

Let cook until soft all the way through

Now it should look like this:

Throw it into a blender in parts and blend to whatever consistency suits your taste.

Add half and half to taste. 

Adding pate sandwiches with different sorts of nice cheeses is a good addition. 

Or make little tea sandwiches where you cut off the crusts because that is classy and this is a classy soup.

Finished product!

 

Enjoy!