One dish cook

My blogging friends keep posting about soup. I wrote this on Saturday, but they beat me to the actual posting process.

Cooking the Christmas dinner this year, alone, without a mom or grandma or mother-in-law to help, reminded me that I do not have the female trait of multitasking. Planning and preparing a multi-dish meal makes me unhappy. Two or three of the dishes always fail to meet my hopes. I like to focus on one dish, then cut up some fruit, add a salad and wa-la--dinner. Of course, this one dish method doesn't work well for holiday meals.


My favorite part, from a cooking perspective, of holiday meals is the soup. I love making soup--from scratch. I love taking the ham bone or turkey bone and boiling in the flavor to make a stock. I love experimenting with different bouquet garni. I love that I have learned what a bouquet garni is. I love the dirty pages of my trusty Joy of Cooking where I've learned the difference between a stock and a broth. Mostly though I love serving and eating the soup and knowing about every ingredient. I cooked the turkey, made the stock, sliced the veggies, dried the herbs, and added the salt and pepper. I've never made the noodles yet. And I've never grown all the vegetables. But still, I love the soup process. The tasting and adding and adjusting. And while I can't brag about my cooking with any accuracy, my turkey noodle soup is the ultimate comfort food.

So, what's your favorite soup recipe. I understand that with soups, recipes are a guideline and you can change things around. But what kind do you like to make?

Garden soup

I feel like pretending to be a food blogger again. I took the picture of the soup the last time I made it. Never mind that real food bloggers create their own recipes, I am pretending. I found this recipe in Diabetic Living magazine. It's full of garden veggies and to my delight, the girls and and Tom all ate this soup without a frown. It's easy to make gluten-free, just use Trinkyada shell noodles and a gluten-free brand of chicken broth, like Imagine. Also there are many subsititutes so you can avoid the vegetables your family refuses to even try. I was pleased with how my fam didn't even notice the spinach and K didn't recognize the green onions as real onions. I plan to go to the farmer's market next week and then make a double batch to freeze for later. I hope it freezes well.

Green Garden Minestrone, makes 8 1 cup servings

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 cup sliced celery

2/3 cup finely chopped leek

6 green onions

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

4 cups reduced sodium chicken broth or stock (does anyone know what the difference is?)

2 cups water

1 1/2 cups sliced fresh green beans and or fresh or frozen green peas

1/2 cup dried tiny shell pasta

1/4 tsp ground black pepper

1 pound asparagus spears, trimmed and thinly sliced or 8 ounces baby zucchini, sliced

6 cups fresh baby spinach or 1 1/2 cups finely shredded green cabbage

1/4 cup fresh basil

2 ounces thinly shaved Parmesan cheese (optional--we used the powdery stuff in a can since a block of Parmesan is not in our budget)

1. In a 4-quart Dutch oven, heat oil over medium heat. Add celery, leek, green onions, and garlic. Cook until crisp-tender, stirring occasionally.

2. Add broth, water, green beans, pasta, and pepper. Heat to boiling; reduce heat. Stir in the asparagus and spinach; simmer for 2 to 3 minutes more or until pasta and vegetables are tender. Stir in basil.

3. To serve, if desired, top individual servings with Parmesan cheese

Per serving: 85 cal, 2 g total fat, o chol, 321 mg sodium, 13 g carb, 3 g fiber.

Smoosh

K and I had tomato soup for lunch yesterday. It's been a long time since we've had it since I just discovered Imagine makes a line of creamy soups that don't have dairy in them. Yea! Always wary of new foods, K had a lot of questions, namely, what's in there (Translation: I won't eat it if you say onion or celery). I gave the vaguest answer: tomatoes. After one bite she says,"Is this called tomato smoosh?"
"What?"
"Did you smoosh all the tomatos?"
"Well, I didn't make the soup. I just poured it of the box, but I guess they did smoosh the tomatoes."
"I don't like it."
"Why not?"
"Too many spices." (tanslation: I think I taste onion.)
I spoon feed her four bites, then she liked it--until next time.
Tomato smoosh just might be one of those endearing childhood phrases that we keep around, just for the memory.
Oh and yesterday we got all signed up for pre-school...the one where all the students' make matching art projects. We will just do free form art at home. I like the teacher and the space a lot.