Italian Wedding Soup

No, Italians don't eat this soup at weddings. Also known as "minestra maritata ", or "married soup", this soup is thus named because of the wonderful way that heavy meats blend and "marry" with greens and tomatoes. This soup is my brag soup. I've tweaked it and combined different varieties of minestra maritata that I've tried to make what I make, and I love it.

The challenges I faced with this pot included:

PORTION CONTROL. I've said it a hundred times. I can cook for 50 with ease but I struggle with feeding five. I ordinarily make this soup in a giant stockpot - the kind that old Mexican ladies steam tamales in and that witches can boil small children in. Its a huge, huge pot and my wonderful soup is frequently wasted or pawned off on friends and extended family in tupperwares because there is simply too much soup.

DIFFERENT INGREDIENTS. I make this soup in the heat of the summer with the freshest ingredients. Fresh homemade stock, perfect homegrown tomatoes, fresh corn scraped off of the cob, onions that still have dirt on them, and fresh, beautiful, tender greens that wilt into tasty oblivion in the soup. Alas, the bug hit me to make my wedding soup in early March, when the fresh tomatoes are orange-yellow at best, the corn is a little moldy and $1.50 an ear, the onions are tough and large from being stored, and the greens are frozen. I know some people scoff at the idea of not using the freshest, most in-season veggies. I must admit - this version of my soup is not for you, but its tasty and when handled well, less desireable vegetation can be delicious.

In a few months, I'll make this soup again. No, I won't consider it a repeat that goes against my challenge of unique pots of soup. Why? Using fresh ingredients will change the soup dramatically and requires different prep. Simple enough.

What You'll Need
1.5 pounds ground beef
two 24 ounce cans whole peeled tomatoes
one 16 ounce bag frozen sweet corn
one package frozen spinach, chopped
one half medium onion OR
three green grilling onions
6 oz package of orzo or small pasta
one egg
1/3 cup bread crumbs
garlic paste
garlic powder
white pepper
paprika
Italian seasoning mix (oregano, basil, thyme, rosemary)
salt
butter or extra virgin olive oil


I prefer 85% lean/15% fat meat for this soup, but you can go as far as 90% lean. Any leaner, and the meatballs will lack flavor and won't stick together as well.

Buy the best canned tomatoes you can afford. The one can of brand-name organic tomatoes I had was of much, much greater quality than the can of local-store generic.

By "grilling onions", I mean small, inch-wide onions with green stalks. Here in Texas, we grill them with BBQ. Do you call them something different..?

The orzo/small pasta may be substituted for cooked barley or rice. Its especially tasty with barley.

The How-To

Begin with your meat. Sprinkle with salt and spices to taste. 1/4 teaspoon of each will do if you like plain meatballs; I usually add much more. At least a teaspoon of each.

Garlic paste is my favorite thing in the world. I buy it at a local arabic grocery. Its quite cheap, lasts forever in the fridge (if you don't eat it right away..) and its very convenient. I still love fresh garlic and use it to my heart's content, but garlic paste has earned a special place in my kitchen. I added about one tablespoon to my meatball mix.


The mix before mixing: the egg is nestled in the meat, with 1/2 cup of bread crumbs, at least a teaspoon of white pepper (hold your nose and prepare to sneeze..), a half teaspoon of paprika and the other spices.

Mash thuroughly. Consider adding another egg if your mix is dry or if you use leaner meat.



Prepare your pot: add a splash of oil or enough butter to coat the bottom and throw in halved green onions (or diced regular onion). Some minced fresh garlic or a bit of garlic paste also go nicely.


Form the meat into small, 3/4-inch-wide balls and brown. Its just occured to me that I could bake the meatballs instead..so feel free to try that as well (be sure to deglaze and retrieve the juices for the soup!).

Pardon the steam clouding the image! When the meat is good and brown, use a half shotglass of water to deglaze the bottom of the pot. Better yet..use liquor!

Just cover the meatballs with beef stock. You do not need very much stock yet.

Add one can of tomatoes. Mash the whole tomatoes before dropping them in (and watch out for squirts of tomato juice! They're like balloons!). Increase the heat to medium-high, and let the small amount of stock, meatballs, and tomatoes simmer for 5-10 minutes to let the flavors "marry".

When the meatballs and first tomatoes are finished "marrying", lower the heat, add the second can of tomatoes, and the package of defrosted spinach. I split the two cans into separate cook times, as I do with fresh tomatoes in this recipe - the first can of tomatoes "marries" into the soup and kind of disintegrates during cooking, but the second can of tomatoes remains fleshy and juicy to be eaten as a chunky vegetable in the soup.


Add more stock - approximately the same amount you added to the meatballs. Note the chunks of tomatoes, just added to the mix, and the reddish color of the broth because of the first tomatoes added. Add more paprika to taste - I like this soup to be spicy and add at least a tablespoon of the stuff at this step.


Finally..add the corn! Bring the soup to a simmer once again, and add the orzo or pasta. The orzo will cook within 5 minutes (it is very small). Remove from heat immediately - you do not want the orzo to turn to mush!

If you have it handy, add a few handfuls of fresh spinach before serving. When reheating leftovers, do not allow the pot to boil. Preferably, reheat only what you plan to eat, since multiple reheats will make the pasta or grain turn mushy.

Enjoy!

Roasted Beef Stock

I guess you can tell that I like to make stock. Since I've already gone into it, I suppose I don't need to go into more detail about stock lore and the wonders of boiled bones. I was recently in the mood for a nice beefy soup, so when I saw beautiful, thick beef knuckles on sale for .79c a pound, I had to give in.

I've been appalled lately at the sight of soup bones on sale for upwards of $5 a pound. Nope, not organic beef bones. Not veal bones or buffalo. I'm talking about plain beef knuckles and oxtails. Folks - don't throw your money away. What you're being sold is practically offal. You could buy yourself some nice steak for the price of these bones, so don't be fooled by supermarkets trying to make a buck. Go to places that have actual butchers on site, and you'll find bones at a better cost. I never pay more than $2-3 a pound for soup bones - and that is only if they're especially fresh and meaty.

As I've said before - beef knuckles are some of my favorite soup bones. Cows are big, heavy animals - and their knees require plenty of cartilage to support their weight. This cartilage is gold when it comes to stock. As you'll see, with plenty of slow simmering, that cartilage will give way to wonderful, super gelatinous stock. I also enjoy using oxtails. Oxtails are exactly what the sound like - beef tails. The small vertebrae in this cut of meat is full of marrow, and the more delicate nature of those bones makes them more easily broken down and dissolved into their mineral constituents. They also have plenty of cartilage, and the meat tends to be less fatty than the knuckles.

Leftover bones can also be used, but I personally don't have much experience with this. Most beef made in my home is boneless, and I think if I tried to store away more bones in my family's freezer, my mother would store MY bones in the freezer (hopefully next to the ice cream..). I digress.

What You'll Need
5-8 pounds of beef soup bones
1 large onion, sliced
1 carrot
2 leek tops
celery stalk
1 garlic clove
1 shot glass of sherry, wine, or liquor

The How-To

Preheat oven to 375-400F

Place the bones on a lightly greased baking pan. In order to make the stock brown and rich, the bones need to be roasted. Arrange the bones and meat in a single layer for even browning. Sprinkle with sea salt. Even if you don't plan to salt your stock later, add a little salt now. I wish I knew why, but the salt seems to make the bones and meat brown better and makes the stock taste less bland. I find no difference in the saltiness of the finished product, if no more salt is added later - I've just noticed that the salted bones stock has a deeper taste.

Arrange the sliced onions over the meat and bones. While I was still learning the ropes of making beef stock, I learned quickly that roasted onions taste MUCH better in the finished product. They also lend flavor to the meat.

Don't trim the meat! Roasting will melt off a good deal of the fat. You don't want to risk losing precious connective tissue - like the tendon I'm holding here - which adds so much texture to the stock.

Pop the pan in the oven, and allow the meat to brown on one side for about 25 minutes.

After about 25 minutes, flip the bones and meat over. Note that some parts of the bones are still bloody - this is OK! The bloody parts will continue to cook even when flipped over.

This is what the bones should look like when finished: dark tan with dark brown parts, with dark brown juicy meat.

The onions, which will go into the stockpot with the meat and bones, should be soft and just a little brown on the edges.


After draining the fat into a gravy separator, use a shotglass full of liquor, wine, or sherry to deglaze the drippings from the pan.

What I like to do is to add the liquor, pop the pan back into the oven for two or three minutes to heat it up, and then to use a brush to scrape up all of the parts stuck to the pan. These drippings are really, really flavorful and its awful to let it go down the drain with the dishsoap when it could be in the stock pot!

The bones I got were not very fatty at all. This creamer contains all of the fat from the entire pan. Someone should really make a miniature shotglass-sized gravy separator! After letting the layers settle, I drained the fat very slowly and put the dark brown drippings on the bottom into the stock pot.

As seen in my Roasted Chicken Stock tutorial, I save the tough, barely-edible green stems from my leeks to use in stock. Leeks are huge, and only a third at most of them is tender and tasty to eat as a side dish - put the rest to good use!

Ugh, celery. I dislike celery in chicken stock because I feel that it easily overpowers the chicken flavor, but I must admit that it's necessary in beef stock. I usually only use a single stock; in this case, I used a half-eaten core of celery from the bottom of the fridge. It was old, no longer perfectly crisp and good for eating alone - but the flavor was fine for stock.

Like with the celery, I use past-prime carrots in stock. This carrot was long forgotton in the crisper, was especially bendy with cracked skin..but its still a carrot, and its still useful for stock. I slice them vertically and throw them in.

Cover the meat with a few inches of water; its all right if the veggies poke out, especially if you're lazy like me and do not chop your veggies when making stock. Set the stove on medium-low, start to simmer, and leave it alone. Skim scum as needed.

Unfortunately..this is the only progress picture I have. I let this stock simmer for 36 hours -a habit I'll have to keep, since this stock turned out wonderfully. I didn't mean to do this, but I happened to be right in the middle of the school week from Hell, peppered with all-nighters, science papers, and crying over chemical calculations gone wrong. I admit it: I forgot about my stock, and its probably the best thing I've ever unintentionally done in the kitchen.

At the end of Hell Week, I put the pot (bones, veggies, fat and all) into the fridge before falling asleep for 15 hours. I woke up to this: completely solid, gelatinous, deep brown stock. Not too much fat. Plenty of flavor.

If you let the stock gel in the fridge, heat it slightly to make it liquid again. Remove the largest bones first...

...and pour the rest through a corander into a new pot.

The rough product will probably look like this - dark brown, a little cloudy, with tiny globules of fat and cooked cartilage floating.

The vegetable matter strained out of the stock is compostible if you give it a quick rinse to get rid of any excess beefy-ness that may attract pests.

Run the stock through a large-mesh strainer. The mush you'll catch will mostly contain vegetable mush with a little meat and grit (from the cooked, softened bones). This is why you should never give your pet cooked bones - just taste the mush. It'll taste sandy from all of the grit that your pet could choke on.

Follow with a run through a finer strainer. This strainer will catch finer grit and bits of fat. Allow the stock to cool at room temperature.

The bones, after being well-simmered for stock, will feel almost spongy. The cartilage - once firm and rubbery - should mush and mold under a fingernail with the consistency of silly putty.

I like to separate the meat from the bones, cooked connective tissue (now quite soft and edible), and cartilage. Its soft, tender meat - well put to use in a beef barley soup or in a pot pie.

After cooling the stock, use the fine strainer to scoop out the layer of fat that will form on top of the stock. Beef stock tends to be much fattier than chicken stock; take care to remove as much as possible.

Store in the fridge for up to five days, or place in airtight freezer containers and store in the freezer.

Enjoy!

Cream of Mushroom Soup For Two (or three..)

LOOK AT THIS WASTE:

One week later, come new-soup-making time, I was crushed to realize that at least a third of my precious split pea sweet potato soup was still in the fridge. My family is officially sick of soup, and my dear boyfriend C was (un)kind enough to remind me that I was not working very hard at one of my original goals: to make less soup. Less quantity, that is. Its true: I can very easily cook for a dozen or more, but I have troubles when my number of servings dwindle below 5 or 6. This was also a very busy week for me (I work and attend school full time - I'm a few semesters shy of degrees in biochemistry and multidisciplinary sciences. Let's just say that 15 hours of upper division science classes is tough.) So, I decided to see what I had on hand see what small quantity of high-quality soup I could make.

Our fridge was unfortunately lacking, though. I had plenty of cooked chicken but very little stock. Heads of cauliflower, broccoli, and cabbage. Radish greens. Radishes. Condiments. 6 boxes of tofu. Six large button mushrooms. Olive salad from New Orlean's historic central market (my favorite thing ever, and I savor it whenever someone I know passes through New Orleans and buys me a few jars).

What to do?! I was near giving up when I remembered my goal: Less Soup! I figured I could easily stretch my six button mushrooms into a dainty cream of mushroom soup for two.

I was disappointed to read that the common table button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus, is really just an immature Portobello mushroom! I've never been much of a mycologist beyond knowing a few local edible mushrooms, but the idea that petite, cute little buttons could become huge, meaty mushrooms led me to check out several library books, of which the fruits you shall see in a few weeks when I make a more elaborate mushroom -something- post. For today, however, all I have to offer is this: delicious, delicate, creamy mushroom soup for two (or three...I'm trying, I'm trying!!)

What You'll Need
1.5 cups sliced button mushrooms
1/3 cup diced white onion
1 garlic clove, mashed
2 tablespoons butter AND/OR
Extra virgin olive oil
1.5 cups chicken broth *v
2 cups heavy cream *v
1 tablespoon corn starch, dissolved in 1/3 cup cold water
1 bay leaf
salt


Portobello mushrooms will do fine in place of button mushrooms. The soup will be "meatier" but the taste is similar. Use fresh mushrooms - dried mushrooms have a funny texture when reconstituted, and canned/jarred always taste pickle-y to me, even if the mushrooms are not pickled or marinated in vinegar.

If veganizing, use a mild vegetable broth that does not taste heavily of celery. Instead of heavy cream, I'd try unsweetened soymilk mixed with roux.

The How-To

With the bottom of your chef's knife, smash the garlic out of its skin with the heel of your palm (be careful not to cut yourself!). After removing the skin, smash the garlic a little more and chop it so that its not just one large piece of garlic mush.

In a nutshell: dice your onions and slice your mushrooms. I prefer chunky mushroom soup, with plenty of bite-sized mushroom pieces, but feel free to dice the mushrooms or run them through a food processor. If you decide to go with smaller mushroom pieces, reduce the time that you saute them.


Lightly brown the onions in olive oil or butter over medium heat. When the onions are just browned and turning translucent:

..add the mushrooms! I suggested using butter because I personally prefer the way mushrooms taste when they soak in butter while cooking. I cooked my onions in olive oil, then added a pat of butter before adding the mushrooms. Adding olive oil will afford you a little burn-resistance against burning your butter, but still keep an eye on the butter for over-heating and browning.

Add your bay leaf right now!

When the mushrooms are soft, add the chicken stock. I let the small amount of stock and mushrooms simmer for a few minutes, to let the flavors mix. I also added a small amount of salt at this time.

Add the cream! Lower the heat to "low" - the cream can and will burn.

Prepare the corn starch in cold water (the water MUST be cold in order for the corn starch to dissolve; DO NOT try to add corn starch straight to your soup! You WILL end up with lumps of mushy, pasty corn starch in your soup). When mixed, add to the pot.

Mix well, heat thuroughly, salt to taste. The soup is done!

I served my soup for two (or three) with chicken, cauliflower casserole, and radish greens with mineral water (San Pellegrino? Psh. I can out-burp you with Topo Chico Agua Mineral any day of the week!). It went with the meal deliciously.

It could have gone well on its own, as my father ate it (his serving was that blasted third serving - two cups of soup beyond my goal of mushroom soup for two). Oh well. The more soup, the merrier and at the end of the day, my family was wishing I'd made gallons for everyone to share and enjoy. You can never win >:(

Enjoy!

Vegan Yellow Split Pea and Sweet Potato Soup

Peas. Who likes them? They taste "green", pop in your mouth when eaten fresh, look like baby food (and poop..) when cooked and mashed, and they comprise a large part of high school biology thanks to the father of modern genetics, Gregor Mendel, with his 29,000 pea plants. Peas seem to be a food with no happy medium - you love them in any form, or you hate even the sight of them.

I personally don't understand all of the hate. I love everything Pea. Their color, their smells, the flavor. They're cute - perfectly round and soft in their cozy pods. They're pretty, with vibrant, viney plants that produce petite, unique little flowers. They're good for you, too - a mere 100g of fresh steamed peas has over 5 grams of fiber, plenty of vitamin A and B vitamins and vitamin C, and a healthy serving of many important bio-available minerals such as Phosphorus, Zinc, Magnesium, and Iron (a local restaurant with outstanding split-pea soup recommends their soup for anemics!)

Before the 1600's, when eating fresh, immature green peas was "both a fashion and a madness", peas were grown for their dried seeds across Europe and the Mediterranean region. With the modern abundance of canned, frozen, and fresh peas, the humble, cheap, dried pea is often overlooked as too fickle and difficult to deal with. Nowadays you'll most commonly see dried peas sold split to decrease cooking time, and most often you'll find split peas made into various soups.

Every European and North American culture has its own idea of what split pea soup should be. Most uniquely (in my opinion): Australian split pea soup is traditionally served as a "Pie Floater" - with a whole, small meat pie floating in the soup. One of the first processed, ready-to-prepare foods was instant pea soup in a tube/sausage, created in 1867:

Almost universally, pea soup involves ham, salt pork, or sausage. I have not had pea soup in years - since I stopped eating pork. When I set myself up to make split pea soup as part of my 52-Pots-of-Soup challenge, I figured since I was forgoing the pork, I'd go ahead and make the soup vegan as well.

I found beautiful organic yellow split peas at a local market, and was completely enchanted with their color and how fresh they looked compared to the crumbly old green split peas. Incorrectly, I assumed that the yellow peas might be a little sweeter, too- an attribute I was after, since I needed a little something special to make up for the lack of pork (yellow peas, in fact, are not sweeter than green peas; the change seems purely cosmetic). When I thought of throwing in a sweet potato (left over from the unholy amount I bought and stored at Thanksgiving, months ago..), I was a bit disappointed to see that it'd already been done but I was delighted to see how delicious it looked. I was hooked.

What You'll Need

2 cups yellow split peas
1 large sweet potato (preferably an orange variety)
one-half large onion, diced
ground cumin
fresh ginger, grated (1 tablespoon)
nutmeg
cinnamon
salt
white pepper
water or vegetable stock (about 2 quarts)
olive oil
smart balance/earth balance margarine

Yellow split peas are common in health food stores. Green peas may be substituted, but the color of the end product may not be very appetizing (green + orange = ??yuck??). I chose a common Beuregarde orange sweet potato because I think they're sweeter than the random-variety yellow-fleshed varieties I find where I live, but I gander that a light sweet potato could go well with green peas to avoid nasty-looking soup.

I couldn't remember which version - smart or earth - was vegan and since I used the last of it in the house, I also can't remember which version we had when I cooked this a few days ago!

The How-To

Start by peeling the sweet potato. Trim off any eyes or dents, and slice into half-inch-wide slices. Then chop each slice into halves or thirds.

Rinse and sort the peas. Remove any brown peas or floating peas or pea-plant-parts. Drain, and place in the pot with the sweet potatoes.

Before covering with water, add about a quarter teaspoon of cumin, a quarter teaspoon of salt, and a quarter teaspoon of white pepper. I also chose to add a tablespoon of sugar.


Cover the peas with about one inch of water (the potatoes will float).

Set the oven to moderate heat, cover the pot, and allow the peas and potatoes to simmer. This picture was taken after about 30 minutes - the potatoes are edibly tender, and the peas have the texture of raw, mature beans (in other words: they're still pretty darn hard). They've absorbed water, though, and have expanded. Those green bits are a few wayward green split peas that fell in..

Stir the concoction occasionally to avoid burning. Add water as needed to keep the potatoes just covered.

After one hour. The potatos are soft, and the peas are the texture of cooked pinto beans. Turn off the heat, and allow it all to cool and absorb more water.

Add more water if necessary - with these, the peas were remarkably thick, with the consistency of refried beans. There is no way I could have called this "soup"!

Carmelize the onions: dice the onions, heat olive oil on medium-low heat, and cook the onions slowly. Toss the onions frequently enough to avoid excessive browning. Add a teaspoon of sugar if you used a white onion or a particularly strong onion. Good carmelized onions should be transparent-brown, savory, and should not have any burned or stiff bits. It should take about 30 minutes to carmelize a half onion.

I chose to make the onions separately because 1.) I thought adding carmelized onions to the soft peas and potatoes would impart more flavor than cooking the peas and potatos in water poured over already-carmelized onions and 2.) I forgot. It ended up working well!


Add the carmelized onions to the soup and blend. If using a conventional blender: ONLY fill the pitcher half-full to avoid splattering and burns.

The finished product should be smooth, creamy, and thick. "Thick as pea soup" doens't even begin to describe how thick this soup ended up being. I enjoyed it, but if you prefer a lighter soup, feel free to add a bit of water, stock, or (soy) milk to thin it out.

But, if you're like me, you like thick soup. Truly amazing pea soup can hold a spoon upright! (OK, I cheated - the soup pictured is chilled, but its still an amazing feat!)

I have no final picture of my pea soup, because my nephew and little helper ended up proving to be a distraction. I was tickled with disbelief when I read an old book that said "Children seldom disagree with pea soup, and it seldom disagrees with them" - but indeed, that line held true, as my nephew thoroughly enjoyed six whole spoonfuls before deciding that playing with pea soup is more fun than eating it.

I liked this soup a lot. Its certainly different from the thicker, fattier pea soups I grew up on - rich with salt pork and bacon grease - but it made for a good replacement and a healthy meal.

Hearty Zuppa Toscana

Before I started this project, my boyfriend had been begging me for a potato soup. He made me promise to make a potato soup in the first few months of Rock the Stock, and when I balked at the idea of making plain old potato cheez, he challenged me to make him a "gourmet" potato soup.

Here is the problem: it has taken me nearly SEVEN years of blood, sweat, and tears to get him to touch vegetables. When we met, my boyfriend (let's call him C) subsisted on turkey hot pockets, omelets, fast food, and canned tomato soup. Thank Goodness for tomato soup - its the only vegetable he saw from age 9 to 18 and I firmly believe that its what saved him from croaking of malnutrition.

I started with potatoes - something he enjoyed, but rarely ate, and even more rarely ate fresh (potato flakes, anyone?) . Through our teen years and his first few years of living on his own, I managed to sneak in carrots and corn. I learned how to cook soul-food so that I could make delicious collard greens and sweet potato pie the way his Grandmommy did - just to coax him into taking a bite. My hard work payed off, I guess - around our fifth anniversary, C calmly and rationally took a bite of an arugula spring mix salad that came with a fancy meal we'd ordered (to be honest, I was a little ticked. I was used to having double portions of salad when we ate out!).

I digress, but you get the idea. Its taken a very long time for C to unlearn all of the bad habits he was raised in, and his health has taken a complete turnaround - but he's still picky. Anything too "green" tasting was out. Anything with more than a few veggies was out. I knew he'd like a cream soup to disguise any off texture or powerful vegetable taste.

My search brought me to Zuppa Toscana, made popular as one of Olive Garden's signature soups. It was perfect - soft, small potatoes, cream and onions, sausage, and just a hint of green. It fit perfectly, especially since my C has recently started a new job requiring strenuous physical labor. He's a very thin, fit individual and has a racing metabolism, so I thought that this soup would perfectly fit his needs for carbohydrates, protein, fat, and vitamins. Unfortunately for me, this is the sort of recipe that would affirm my need for pants with elastic waists - but as a treat, its wonderful, and with the turkey sausage, the fat is cut in half.

What You'll Need

1 pound spicy Italian-style turkey sausage
3 large russet potatoes, sliced 1/4 inch thick
one half medium yellow onion, diced.
2-3 quarts chicken stock *v
1/2-2/3 cup potato flakes or instant mashed potatoes
3 cups fresh baby spinach
3 cloves garlic
butter/olive oil
Italian seasoning (rosemary, basil, oregano, parsley, thyme)

Recipes I've checked out use conventional pork sausage and bacon, but I do not eat pork. I found a delicious Italian turkey sausage at Whole Foods, and have seen Italian turkey sausages by Jennie-O at the supermarket. If you cannot find anything, just flavor ground turkey with italian seasonings, paprika, and a little chili.

I did not bother with turkey bacon in lieu of pig bacon because in my experience, turkey bacon is not good in recipes. Its a great substitute with eggs and biscuits and on BLTs, but when boiled and overcooked its gets a bland, flat, rubbery texture. Since its so lean it does not leave any flavorful grease - so in my opinion, it was just not worth the effort.

I did not peel the potatoes before using them - I just scrubbed them well.

I used baby spinach because spinach is what Olive Garden uses and because I knew already that C enjoys soft baby spinach. Bunched spinach, kale or swiss chard, pulled from the tough stems and chopped, will also do. I also think that mustard or turnip greens would go well with the spicy sausage as well.

Nearly any vegetable stock will substitute well with chicken stock. I've seen many meatless Italian "sausages", but have not tried any. If you try one, please leave me feedback in a comment!

The How-To

Begin by browning your sausages until they are no longer pink inside. Instead of slice the sausage, I squeezed the meat out of the casing to form bite sized balls. Add splashes of water or stock (or liquor!) once in a while to deglaze the spicy-sweet drippings.

When finished, set the sausages and the juices aside. Wash your pot if its especially glazy and brown (I don't recall this being a problem with pork sausage while I still ate pork, but my pot was very sticky after using the turkey sausage)


Next, sautee your diced onions and mashed garlic cloves until transparent in butter or olive oil. If using bacon, fry the bacon first, then cook the onions in the bacon grease.


Once the onions are ready, add your stock! I used too much. 2 quarts should suffice. Bring the stock and onion mixture to a boil...

and add your potatoes! Cook the potatoes until fork-tender.

Once the potatoes are ready, add the sausage and reduce the heat to a low simmer to reheat the sausage and to mix the flavors.

C greatly enjoys very thick, creamy soups. I wasn't about to dump an entire quart of cream into the soup just for him, so I thickened it with potato flakes. Sprinkle in the flakes slowly while stirring to avoid clumps.


After mixing in the potato flakes, slowly add one cup of cream. Add less cream if you notice your soup looking too thin or too white. Turn off the heat.

After the soup stops simmering, add a few handfuls of greens.

Stir gently and be patient - the greens will wilt themselves into the soup. If making a large pot, consider leaving the soup "naked" to avoid mushy greens on Day 2 or 3 of leftover Zuppa Toscana. When serving individual bowls, place the desired amount of greens at the bottom of the bowl, serve the soup on top, and stir right before eating.

Serve in small bowls with cheese on top and fresh spinach as a garnish.

C thuroughly enjoyed this soup - something surprising, since I thought I may have gone overboard by combining onions with greens. Alas, he loved it and licked the bowl and asked for more even though he was filled by the first thick, hearty bowl.

Enjoy!

I'm bad at this already. Technical difficulties and soup failures have thwarted me this time - but expect a real update tomorrow with a new recipe with a non-failure soup and plenty of pictures!

Roasted butternut squash soup with leeks and ginger

I prefer to make squash and pumpkin soups with sweet chicken stock, made with plenty of carrots, apple peels, squash butts, and warmer, sweeter spices like nutmeg and cinnamon. I'd planned to make such a stock and soup in a few weeks, but while shopping I spotted beautiful, nearly overripe butternut squash on sale for .75c a pound. I was planning on a different soup to go with the oniony, aromatic stock I made a few days ago - but I figured I'd give a savory butternut squash soup a try. After all, part of the reason I started this endeavor and blog was to shake things up and not get too comfortable using my old recipes over and over.

Butternut squash, or butternut pumpkin to our Australian friends, is a sweet, nutty winter squash with beige-yellow skin and orange flesh that becomes softer and deeper orange when ripened completely. Its a really neat little squash - not as sweet as pumpkin, but lacking the stringy texture of other squash. Its a good source of vitamin C, magnesium, potassium, and fiber. Like most orange veggies, it is rich in vitamin A due to beta-carotene. Beta-carotene is the reason Mom always told you to eat your carrots "so you can see in the dark!": while carrots and orange squash and sweet potatoes won't afford you the ability to see in the dark, they ARE important for eye health. In fact - a symptom of vitamin A deficiency is reduced night vision. A mere ounce of Butternut squash packs in 62% of your recommended daily allowance of vitamin A.

Most squash and pumpkin soups you'll find are pretty darn sweet, calling for sweet onions, boiled squash, and maple syrup or honey. This would not go with the stock I had on hand, but I had a few tricks up my sleeve.

What You Need:

one 3-4 pound butternut squash
2-3 quarts chicken stock *v
one leek
one small yellow onion (about 2/3 cup)
one half cup sour cream *v
extra virgin olive oil
one tablespoon Agave nectar OR
one tablespoon sugar
one teaspoon fresh ginger, grated OR
one half teaspoon powdered ginger
cinnamon
nutmeg
cloves

When picking a butternut squash, pick one that feels heavy for its size. It should be very firm - firmer than a Jack-o-Lantern pumpkin, and much firmer than summer squashes such as zucchini and yellow squash. Pick one with unblemished, creamy manilla-folder-colored skin.

Use a regular, cheap yellow onion; there is no need to buy the sweetest available.

*v - If you would like to make this soup vegetarian, pick a vegetable stock that does NOT have heavy celery or tomato notes. If your vegetable stock even remotely tastes like V8, don't use it! I tried mashing some of my squash into the veggie stock I had on hand and it did NOT mix with the V8 taste well at ALL.

If you are avoiding dairy, try using plain, unsweetened soy/rice yogurt or soured/fermented soy milk. I used sour cream on a whim to add a little thickness, creaminess, and tang to the soup, so anything creamy and probiotic will do. If you use this option, I'd use less stock to avoid making the soup too watery. Feel free to email me any feedback about this at rock.the.stock@gmail.com!

The How-To

Preheat your oven to 375F

Start by peeling your Butternut squash. Don't worry about the butt and the top - they're going to be chopped off and not used (put them in a freezer bag for a future stock!Cut your squash in half just over the bulb on the bottom. Be careful, especially if you've picked yourself a fat squash! I'm not responsable for any lost fingers.

Also: if you have very sensitive skin, are allergic to raw pumpkin, or are prone to contact dermatitis, use gloves to handle your raw squash. The juice is a potential irritant and is known to cause dermatitis flares.

Cut the top half into thirds, and then into 1-inch-wide strips (not pictured). Cut the bulb in half lengthwise, and scoop out the seeds and pulp. The seeds are too small to effectively roast and eat, and the pulp isn't good for stock, so just compost it.

Cut the scooped-out-squash bulb into chunks, and lay on top of foil on a cookie sheet. Lightly salt the squash, and top with a little bit of nutmeg. Be sure to use foil or parchment! These babies like to ooze sticky, sugary squash juice when roasted, and that stuff is impossible to scrub off. Bake them in an oven preheated to 375F for 45-60 minutes, or until soft and a deep orange-gold

Leeks are dirty little veggies - as leeks grow, sand is trapped in the layers of leaves. Prepare them by slicing the leek down the middle, white root to tender light green midsection -

-and rise under cool water. Spread the leaves gently with your fingers. Feel free to soak after chopping, too, if you happen to have gotten an especially dirty leek.


Slice the leek into pieces 1/4 of an inch thick or thinner. Chop the onion. Heat a 4-6 quart pot with plenty of olive oil. Butter may be substituted, but I used oil to cut on the cholesterol and for the flavor - butter would tip this soup towards "sweet", which I was not going for.

Cook the leeks and onions on medium heat for about two minutes. Add a ladle full of stock, and allow the onions and leeks to cook in the liquid for 5-10 minutes over medium-low heat.

Think you can't afford nice extra-virgin olive oil? Hit up your nearest Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, or Arabic grocery. Olive oil is a staple in these regions; I've found that even lower-mid-priced olive oil from these groceries taste as good as lower-high-priced dipping olive oils from gourmet groceries.

Once the leeks and onions are soft enough to mash with a fork, add your roasted squash. Try to resist eating the squash as is, OK?

Just barely cover the squash with stock. Truth be told - I used too much in this picture, and had to remove some while I was pureeing the soup. Add less than is pictured! Let the squash peek out of the stock. You can always add more later.

Simmer with the stock for 10 minutes.


After simmering, blend. Preferably with a hand blender, as pictured. Hand blenders are a great, small investment - they're easy to clean, powerful, and are super-portable. If you must use a conventional blender, blend in small batches (fill the pitcher no more than half way), and allow the steam to vent to avoid dangerous steam build up.

At this point, add the sour cream, agave nectar/sugar, and spices to taste. I used approximately 1/8 teaspoon of each spice listed. I added the ginger on a whim because something was missing (and ginger was it!). I used a few dashes of ginger powder and a few slices of leftover pickled sushi ginger. Next time, I'll plan on using fresh only. The ginger really serves well to connect the sweet squash with the aromatic onions and leeks and the savory chicken broth.

Your finished product should be gold, thick, and creamy. Mix your ingredients with the blender - the more you blend, the creamier the soup. My soup was so creamy that my texture-terrified boyfriend enjoyed it.

I ate this soup with a side of tabbouleh on the first night, and next to steak the next. Its a heavy, warming soup and can be eaten alone, but is a wonderful side and I think it'd go well on top of a nice bowl of homemade mashed potatoes. I consider my mission to make a savory, not-too-sweet Butternut squash soup accomplished!

Enjoy!