Potato and Barley Stew in Turkey Broth

Don't throw away that turkey carcass from Thanksgiving!  Instead, use it to make a rich and satisfying broth.  I had a lot of potatoes and barley, so I decided to use my home-made turkey stock to make a thick stew.  This recipe does take a lot of time but minimal effort is required (other than if you were the one who cooked the Thanksgiving turkey).

To make the stock, I simply put the carcass in a pot large enough to hold it, covered it with water, added two bay leaves, quartered an unpeeled onion and tossed that in too.  I covered the pot and brought the whole mix to a simmer over very low heat for hours on end.  I was at home all day, so the total time simmering probably ended up being around four or five hours.  If you don't want to wait that long, keep in mind that the longer you can keep the bird in the water, the more flavorful your stock will be (although seriously, I think my five hours was a bit overkill).  I'd say no less than two hours simmering.

Remove all solid detritus from the broth.  This is easier said than done- even after spending five or ten minutes with a slotted spoon, a couple of small bones escaped my efforts.  If you don't mind making a larger mess, strain the broth through a fine sieve into another bowl or pot.  This should nearly eliminate all unwanted debris from your broth. 

From here, you have some options.  You could freeze the broth for future use in soups or gravy, or you could go right ahead and use it immediately.  This is what I did.  I decided not to salvage the bits of meat from the carcass, as I sampled some of it and found the texture wanting.  In any case, I had all the turkey flavor I could want in my broth.  I chopped about six potatoes into bite-sized pieces and added them to the broth, followed by roughly a cup and a half of pearl barley and a cup of frozen corn. 

For seasoning, I used black pepper, a bit of cayenne pepper, and cumin.  I stirred everything together and allowed it to continue simmering for about an hour and a half.  Both the potatoes and the barley thicken the soup tremendously, and they make for a filling meal.  The corn adds notes of sweetness to the palate.  I'll admit, I was dubious about how exactly this recipe would turn out, fearing a bland and mushy end result.   I was pleasantly surprised at the first mouthful.  The simpleness of the recipe brings out how lovely the texture and delicate flavor of barley really is.  The potatoes were a nice complement, adding substance and a contrasting mouth-feel.  My turkey broth lent richness and a holiday flavor over it all; cumin and cayenne added a touch of excitement.  Easy and flavorful, this one was a winner.

Smoked Ham and Lentil Stew

What's one to do with the bone from a perfectly good roast smoked ham?  I had plenty of the latter left after mine and Andrew's private Thanksgiving feast this past Sunday, as Andrew had rather zealously brought home a twelve pound ham for the two of us.  A good deal of it went into two separate pot pies and several ham sandwiches, but still- I had the bone.  And of course, being the soup lover that I am, I knew exactly what to do with it.
     This is an extremely simple and satisfying recipe.  It consists of simply combining all of the ingredients into a large pot for about two and a half hours and results into a filling, hearty meal.  As a bonus, not only did I have all the meat on the bone, but I had roughly a pound or two left from the fatty end of the ham itself.  This significantly bolstered the recipe in terms of volume, flavor, and filling ability.



Ingredients

1 lb lentils, rinsed
1 leftover ham bone
1-2 lbs ham, cubed into bite-sized pieces (and trimmed of most of its fat)
3 medium potatoes, cubed into bite-sized pieces 
2 large onions, coarsely chopped
1/2 lb baby carrots, chopped into bite-sized pieces
6 cloves fresh crushed garlic
12 cups water
black ground pepper, to taste
cumin, to taste

Reserving the cubed ham pieces, combine all of the above ingredients and stir well into a large pot.  Bring to a simmer, and simmer over low heat for about two hours and thirty minutes, occasionally stirring.  This allows the ham bone to turn the water into a delicious ham stock, and for the cook to be able to strip the bone of any stubborn pieces of meat.  Remove the bone and allow it to cool after this time has passed, and add your reserved ham pieces.  Once the ham bone has cooled, salvage what meat you can and put it into the soup, discarding the rest.

That's really all there is to it- low heat and patience yields one of the few recipes that I have ever made that doesn't require seconds to make me feel full.
 

The Soup Review: Yook Gae Jang (Korean Beef and Scallion Soup)

This is one of my favorite dishes of all time and is the inspiration for my own spicy noodle soups.  Enoki mushrooms, scallions, egg, clear noodles (dak myun), and long ropes of chewy yet tender pulled beef come together in a wonderfully spicy-savory broth.  Today's rendition was courtesy of the Wooram Korean restaurant found in the Edison H-Mart.  Red pepper figures heavily into this hot soup in both dried and paste form, so it is not for the faint of heart, nor those prone to heartburn.  In doing a little research online, there are variations in what goes in(of course), but I think that I prefer this type.  Bean sprouts, mushrooms and fern bracken are possible ingredients, and the egg can be cooked separately.  If you ever have the chance to eat and/or cook this soup... do it!

Homemade Vegetable Stock and Soup

 Inspired by some celery and carrots laying about in the fridge that I knew weren't going to be eaten otherwise, I decided to have a go at making homemade vegetable stock.  And then from stock, to soup.  I first brushed with vegetable oil and then roasted the vegetables (onion, garlic, celery, carrot) in the oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit.  It took just over half an hour for the skin on the carrots and celery to start bubbling; a bit of charring is fine too.  I used a whole garlic bulb; slice the top of it off to facilitate the later creation of garlic paste.  Roasting the vegetables really boosts their flavor in preparation for some long, slow simmering.  Once the vegetables are finished roasting, put all of them into a large enough pot (or in this case, saucepan).  Keep the skins on, as this will also enhance the broth's flavor.  Cover the vegetables with water and add a bundle of fresh herbs tied together with cooking twine.  I used thyme, basil, and sage, which grow in my little container garden.  Add one bay leaf, bring to a boil, and simmer for a nice long time. 

I decided to keep it all covered, instead of letting the water boil off, since I was planning on using it shortly thereafter and saw no sense in just having to add more water to the soup.  Two or three hours later, I removed all solids from the broth with a slotted spoon into a colander positioned over a large bowl.  The garlic I reserved on the side in a smaller bowl.  All other vegetables were pressed with a wooden spoon to extract the last of their juices into the large bowl, to be reunified with the broth in the saucepan.  These vegetables were then discarded.  The garlic was squeezed out of its skin (the skin discarded) and mashed into a paste with a fork.  This paste then went back into the broth.  I stored the broth in a tupperware container until I was ready to make vegetable soup.

Soup Ingredients

1 lb carrots, tops discarded and sliced
8 oz baby portabella mushrooms, sliced
1 cup frozen corn
1 lb canned diced tomatoes
8 oz kale greens
4 cups homemade vegetable broth*
3/4 cup low sodium chicken broth (optional: if omitted, this soup becomes vegan)
2 tbsp black ground pepper
1 tsp dried oregano flakes
1 squirt Sriracha sauce (optional)
water, to cover vegetables

*There are very good vegetable bouillon cubes available at the grocery store; I had some of my mother's excellent vegetable soup this past weekend and she had used bouillon.  I cannot speak for its sodium content, however.

To make the soup, place all of the above ingredients except for the kale into your pot, stir, and bring to a boil.  Once boiling, reduce to a simmer, cover, and cook for 1 hour or until carrots are soft, stirring occasionally.  Add kale and stir in, cooking for an additional 10 minutes.  Serve hot.

I was extremely pleased with the results of this soup, and I think you will be too, if you try to use this recipe!

 

Hearty Beef Stew

I must say that this is truly one of the tastiest recipes that I have worked with.  Beef stew is best made with chuck steak, a flavorful cut that is perfect for long and slow simmering.  Its connective tissue and high amount of marbling helps to thicken the stew.  Grocery stores often do sell it pre-cut in chunks for stew, but it is better to buy a whole steak if you can and do your own cutting to ensure more evenly sized pieces (about one and a half inch cubes).  I unfortunately had no choice in the matter when I went to the grocery store- there was only the pre-cut option.  Most of the pieces were smaller than I would have liked, and there was little consistency in the actual size.  At least it was the correct cut of meat, and it is convenient to not have to do your own chopping.

I pulled the recipe almost directly from Cook's Illustrated, with only a few minor changes.  A bit more garlic, for instance, and I used a cabernet sauvignon as opposed to a drier red wine.  They also recommended waiting to put the vegetables in halfway through the cooking time, but the first time I tried this, I ended up having to cook the whole thing an extra hour because the potatoes and carrots were still quite crunchy after only one hour.  This is very likely due to my oven being very old and inefficient, so if you have a more modern appliance, you may want to follow Cook's Illustrated's lead unless you like very mushy vegetables.

Ingredients

3 lbs chuck steak, chopped into 1 1/2 inch cubes
1 lb red potatoes, cut into bite sized pieces
1 lb baby carrots
2 medium onions, coarsely chopped
1 cup thawed frozen peas
1 cup dry (and/or) full-bodied red wine 
2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
3 tbsp vegetable oil
3 tbsp flour
5 cloves garlic, minced or crushed
2 bay leaves
fresh or dried thyme, to taste
ground black pepper

If you are feeling up to the task, pearl onions are a wonderful addition to this stew.  I meant to try to add portabella mushrooms this time, but I forgot that I had them in the refrigerator.  I'm sure that they would be delicious, too.  A dutch oven would be perfect for this; alas I do not yet have one.

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.  Liberally season the beef with black pepper.  Heat 1 tbsp of vegetable oil over medium high heat until it has a lovely shimmer to it.  Working in batches, brown the meat on at least two sides.  Tongs are very helpful for this.  The reason you should work in batches is that if each cube of meat doesn't have a bit of breathing room around it, they will not brown.  Instead, they will steam, turn gray, and become tough.  It takes about 4 minutes for smaller cubes to brown, and I only flip them once (regardless of size).  Keep an eye on them; don't entirely rely on the timer.  About halfway through browning the beef, you will need to add another tbsp of oil to the pot.  Put the browned cubes in a bowl to the side once finished.

Now, turn the heat down to medium low, add the last tbsp of oil, and add your onions, scraping the bottom of the pot with a wooden spoon to dislodge all of the browned bits left over from the meat.  Once the onions have softened (about 4 to 5 minutes), add the garlic and stir for about 30 seconds.  In goes the flour.  Keep stirring and mixing everything together for another minute or two, at which point the flour should become a light brown.  Add the wine, stirring everything together and again scraping the bottom of the pot, until the wine begins to thicken.  At this point, gradually stir in the chicken broth.  Once all the liquid is in the pan, put your thyme and bay leaves in, and bring to a simmer.  Add the beef, carrots, and potatoes; stir and bring to a simmer once more.  Cover and put in the oven for two hours.

At the end of the two hours, take the pot out of the oven and stir in the frozen peas.  After about five minutes, the stew will be ready to serve.  Enjoy!

PS- This recipe works very well for venison stew meat as well.  I treated the venison in almost the same manner; browning time was decreased by a couple of minutes, and I allowed the stew to cook for three instead of two hours.  All other steps were identical, and the results were fantastically delicious!

Hearty Chicken Soup

It's a chilly October morning, and Andrew, my significant other, is suffering from one of the many autumn viruses going around.  As it happens, I know the perfect cure- chicken soup (and decongestant).  I was also looking for an excuse to make a soup that isn't usually on my menu.  I looked at a few recipes for ideas, including in my Cook's Illustrated: The New Best Recipe cookbook.  I really do love my Cook's Illustrated cookbook, but sometimes they get a little too scientific for me.  I also didn't feel up to the task of making my own chicken stock- as much as I enjoy cooking (and eating the results), I didn't want to be in the kitchen all day.  I finally went with one of the Pioneer Woman's recipes as a base, although I did change it up a bit.

I chose chicken thighs over a whole chicken for several reasons.  Working with a whole chicken is unwieldy, whereas smaller bits are easier to deal with.  Dark meat (to me, anyway) is more tender, more flavorful, and far more juicy.  I knew I was going to get a very rich broth from all of those thighs.  If you choose to follow my lead, you do want the skin-on and bone-in thighs, as both skin (high in fat) and bone (delicious marrow flavor) contribute a lot to the end product.  Another bonus: chicken thighs are much cheaper to buy than a whole chicken.  I must give credit to Andrew for pointing all of these things out even through a congested haze, because I was originally going to just buy what all of the other recipes had suggested.  I used roughly three or four pounds of chicken thighs and saved two for Andrew to make his famous chicken sandwiches.

I'm sure you would like to know what the rest of the ingredients are:

-10 ounces Swanson's unsalted chicken broth
-1 large turnip, peeled and chopped into bite-size pieces
-4 whole carrots, sliced
-4 celery ribs, chopped
-2 small onions or 1 large onion, diced
-1 cup uncooked barley
-1 tbsp cumin
-dash of oregano
-bundle of fresh herbs (in this case thyme, sage, and basil) tied together with cooking twine
-4 cloves fresh garlic, crushed
-1 bay leaf
-enough water to cover all ingredients if broth does not prove to be enough liquid to do so

One ingredient that I would have liked to add is ground black pepper, and there is a quite simple explanation for why there is not any present: I forgot to pick up more whilst out shopping.  It is always a terrible feeling as one drives away from the store and remembers that they forgot something rather crucial.  However, this soup proves that one does not need black pepper to create an amazingly comforting and delicious soup.  I would also like to point out that there is NO added salt- none whatsoever, and it was not missed.

I briefly toyed with the idea of roasting the vegetables to bring out more flavor, but was feeling so lazy as to not even saute them in the stockpot first.  I simply put everything except the barley into the pot, covered it all with a combination of chicken broth and water, and gave it a stir.  After the soup came to a boil, I turned the heat down to a simmer, and let the simmering liquid do its magic for two hours.  At this point, I removed the chicken thighs with a slotted spoon, as well as the bundle of fresh herbs, which was disintegrating.  If the chicken is not yet tender enough where the skin is falling off of the meat and the meat is falling off of the bone, it needs more time.  I set the chicken aside to cool down to the point where I could remove the meat from the bone by hand, and added my cup of barley to the still simmering vegetables and broth.  It takes 45 minutes for the barley to be ready, and that is plenty of time for the chicken to cool down and for me to separate the meat from the skin and bones.  I shredded the chicken meat into nice bite-sized chunks and put it back into the soup.  Once the barley was ready (it expands to several times its original size, and ought to be only slightly chewy), the soup was done.  Despite my avoidance of doing anything extra fancy with the ingredients, it turned out to be one of the tastiest soups that I have ever made.

Spicy Bok Choi and Beef Noodle Soup

This is one of several versions of spicy Asian-style noodle soup that I enjoy making, and last night's batch was especially good.  I was a little generous with the Korean red pepper, resulting in something a bit more fiery than usual- but that's perfect for these damp and chilly fall days!  I do caution the reader that "to taste" is most important here: what is "fiery" for myself and Andrew often is impossibly spicy for our friends, for instance.

To begin, one must collect the ingredients.  We took a trip to our local H-Mart, a huge and exciting Asian grocery store.  It is understandable that not everywhere has easy access to such places, but one might get lucky at their local food market, or make use of the internet to order supplies online.

Ingredients :
-Korean coarse red pepper powder, to taste
-chipotle chili powder, to taste
-reduced sodium soy sauce, about 1/4 cup
-1 tbsp mirin
-1 tbsp vegetable oil
-1 tbsp bulgogi marinade
-four cloves of garlic, crushed
-three bunches of baby bok choi
-3/4 lb thinly sliced beef rib-eye steak
-two bunches of "MasterChef whole grain Asian noodle" (or any amount of any type of Asian noodle that you desire)
  
*Serves two

 To begin making the soup, marinate thinly sliced rib-eye steak in soy sauce; if you want to, add some Korean bulgogi marinade (which I just happened to have on hand last night).  Let the meat sit in the marinade for one hour unrefrigerated.  Meanwhile, rinse your bok choi.  I recommend baby bok choi, since I prefer a higher leaf to stem ratio.  Chop the stalks up to the base of the leaf; reserve the leaves for the end of the cooking process.  Heat one tablespoon of vegetable oil in your soup pot on medium-high until there is a nice sheen to the oil.  Add your chopped bok choi stalks to the oil, stirring with a wooden spoon to evenly coat them with the hot oil.  Add (Korean) red pepper powder and chipotle chili powder to taste.  Cook, stirring with medium frequency, until the spice begins to stick to the bottom of the pot.  Deglaze with mirin (a type of sweet Japanese cooking wine) and turn off the heat.  Crush fresh garlic and stir it into the pot at this time.

When your beef is ready, heat a non-stick skillet on high heat.  Working in batches, quickly sear the beef until it is browned, adding each batch to the soup pot.  Tongs are extremely helpful for this.  If you have any marinade left after cooking the beef, add that to the soup pot as well.  Add enough water to the pot to cover all of the ingredients, keeping in consideration that you have yet to add your noodles and bok choi leaves.  Stir, cover, and bring to a boil.

Once the water is boiling, add your noodles.  Most Asian-type noodles do not need very much time to cook at all.  I usually use a generic type of Asian noodle, but have used rice and glass noodles to good effect.  I suspect udon and ramen noodles would work very well too.  Most noodles recommend being cooked separately and then being added to the recipe.  I do not do this for two reasons: to reduce clean up time, and also because I have a very small kitchen.  Feel free to follow this recommendation if you like, but I've always found my soup to be quite satisfactory with the noodles cooked in the broth.  After about five minutes boiling my noodles, I added the bok choi leaves and boiled for one more minute.  Cool slightly and serve.  Enjoy this spicy-savory soup!

Lobster Stock

At the conclusion of my stay in Cape May, my dad brought down five live and lovely Maine lobsters, which were summarily eaten with great gustatory joy.  They were cooked whole, as is tradition, and we saved all parts of the shell except for the thorax, which is full of lobster viscera (one of mine was undoubtedly female and filled with roe).  The claws, legs, and tail were reserved for some lobster stock, a rare and fancy opportunity for my dad and I, who do so like to cook (and eat).  We were also able to save some meat for the ensuing chowder.

Boone, one of my charges of the week, checks out these strange critters.

Lobster has a fine sweet taste that transfers well into stock for recipes such as bisque and chowder.  It puts me in mind of liquid light on a perfect autumn day- almost a crisp flavor.  But I digress.  Of course you want to know how to make said lobster stock on your rare (or not) occasions when you have lobsters to play with.

My dad took the helm with this one.  As with most and if not all stocks, you will need aromatic vegetables- onion, carrots, and celery.  These should be chopped up and sauteed in your choice of vegetable oil, butter, or both (I think we did both).  Toss in your pieces of lobster and cover with water.  Add salt and pepper to taste (you can always add more later).  This was a very pepper heavy broth, lending a pleasant spice to its inherent sweetness.  Dad also added what he calls a "garnier fresca"- pardon my French.  This is a bundle of fresh herbs tied together with cooking twine; here it was predominantly parsley from his garden.  A bay leaf wouldn't hurt, if he didn't include it.

Allow it all to simmer for quite some time, at least two hours.  I would go for three.  Remove all the solid bits, but strain what juices you can from them by placing them into a colander over the stock and squeezing them with a wooden spoon.  Use immediately, store in the fridge for a couple of days, or freeze- you've got the makings for some tasty soup!

Lentil Soup

Lentils are a wonderful food.  They require no soaking, thereby eliminating prep work required with other dry beans; they are hearty, wholesome, and filling.  Also, a pound of them costs about $1.30 and can easily make a meal for a whole family.  In my younger days, my mom would often pick up a package that included a spice mix and lentils.  It told you how to cook quite a delicious soup, even down to what and how much regarding other ingredients.  If you buy a bag of lentils, it usually will have a recipe on the back on how to make lentil soup.  I prefer to consider these recipes as suggestions.

 Photo by Rebecca Freiday

For instance, I recently purchased a one pound bag of Jack Rabbit Brand lentils.  Their suggested recipe is as follows:

1 lb dry lentils (washed)     1 cup carrot, chopped
8 cups water                     3 onions, chopped coarsely
3 1/2 cups beef broth         2 tablespoons garlic, minced
1 smoked ham bone          1 bay leaf
1 cup celery, chopped

"In a 6-8 quart pot combine all ingredients and simmer soup, lid tilted, stirring occasionally, 1 1/2 hours.  Discard bay leaf and remove meat from ham bone.  Chop meat and stir into soup.  Serves 6 to 8."

It is a beautifully simple recipe, and I'm sure that if you followed it to the letter it would be pretty good.  However, it assumes that you have all of the ingredients exactly.  I didn't care to buy a smoked ham bone, being on the wrong side of wealthy, nor did I want to buy or make beef broth when I knew I had chicken broth at home.  Chicken sausage was on sale and I've used it successfully in lentil soup before, so I thought that it would make a good substitute for some meaty texture.  I didn't have three unspecified onions (there are many types of onions out there; one can safely bet on yellow onions if it isn't otherwise indicated in the recipe), but I did have one extremely large super-sweet onion from the farmer's market.

I had the advantage of being able to utilize my dad's pantry, however (still on my dog-sitting vacation, after all). Canned diced tomatoes were in stock, which I thought would make a nice addition both texturally and in regards to flavor.  His spice cabinet is also very well stocked.  In the end, my ingredient list looked like this:

1 lb lentils                                                             9 medium cloves fresh garlic, minced
3 cups low sodium chicken broth*                          about 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 lb canned diced tomatoes                                   8 cups water
3 medium unpeeled carrots, chopped                     about 1 tablespoon cumin
1 celery heart, chopped                                         1 bay leaf
1/2 large super-sweet onion                                   black ground pepper, to taste
1 package Bilsaski's spinach and garlic sausage

To achieve Becky's lentil soup (bloup?), combine vegetable oil, carrots, onion, celery, and some pepper and heat over medium low heat until soft, stirring occasionally.  Add sausage and allow some juice to get out.  Add the garlic for a minute then add everything else in no particular order (though you should probably start with something liquid on account of the garlic).  Bring to a simmer, then mostly cover the pot and allow to simmer for about an hour and a half.  Serve hot.

I frequently don't bother to measure some ingredients, especially if I like them- note here the carrots and celery.  If you aren't the artistic type, or cooking doesn't come naturally to you, I would refer to guidelines until you get more comfortable with the recipe and how much leeway you have in matters such as these.

One of the problems I had with Jack Rabbit's recipe is that they very simply say to combine and simmer all the ingredients, without realizing the extra flavor that sauteing (eg, frying) vegetables can impart to a dish.  Keep in mind that garlic burns woefully quickly, and throw it on at the last possible minute.  Toasting spices can add dimension to their flavor, and is used in Indian cooking, especially when it comes to dry curries.  It's something worth experimenting with.  The addition of cumin here is a nod to the frequent use of lentils in Indian and Middle Eastern cooking; not to mention that cumin just tastes really good.

A quick note on the chicken broth: I used Wild Harvest brand since that's what was in the fridge, and while I'm not usually the type to promote brands, I have to say that this is a very delicious broth that when opened smells of Thanksgiving.

This is an easily tweaked recipe and can become vegan in a heartbeat with the elimination of the sausage and substitution of vegetable broth for chicken broth.

Photo by Rebecca Freiday

Final thoughts: I ended up adding more pepper to my first bowl of soup (for a late lunch), but when I had a second bowl for dinner later on, I found that the flavors had intensified/married enough where I didn't need additional seasoning.  Next time I might try roasting the vegetables, or at least the garlic, instead of sauteing them; more garlic might be in order as well.  I was quite pleased with the end result of this particular culinary adventure. 

The Soup Review: Trader Joe's Latin Style Black Bean Soup

I'm dog-sitting for my dad this week in lovely Cape May, New Jersey.  After taking dogs Boone and Daisy for a nice long walk at the bay, I was pretty hungry by the time we got back.  Problem: I was in a hurry to meet somebody before they left their house for the day (specifically, to borrow their beach passes just in case Cape May beach isn't free after Labor Day.  Life is pretty good at the moment.)  I examined the contents of my dad's pantry.  There were several varieties of Trader Joe's heat-and-serve soup, so I went with the black bean.  I'm always in the mood for Mexican cuisine anyway.

Overall, the soup tasted pretty good and took about three minutes to heat up in the microwave, so it gets bonus points for convenience.  The ingredients list made me happy too- nothing weird or funky, no high-fructose corn syrup.  It's high in fiber, protein, and a fair source of iron.

However, I thought it was thin, and the texture was a tad off-putting.  It was just liquified beans and spices with nothing solid at all.  This may just be my personal preference, but it would have been much more pleasurable to the palate had there been a bit of crunchy onion and maybe some bean-y bits allowed to escape the food processor.  In the very least, it should be a good deal thicker than chicken broth.  If you had a little bit of time, it could be improved by some sauteed diced onion and red bell pepper, as well as a garnish of chopped chives.  Sour cream goes well with it, and if you're feeling adventurous like I did, a bit of pico de gallo can spice it up.

My other caveat with this soup, as with many processed foods, is the sodium content.  One serving (a cup, and due to my large appetite I had rather more than that) has 22% of the average person's daily requirement of sodium.

To recap: convenient, good flavor, "eh" texture, good nutrient profile, high sodium. 


Photo credit: http://www.themodernista.com

Boup, a History

Welcome to my first blog post ever!  Boup is dedicated to my love of eating and cooking soup.  To me, soup is the perfect food.  It can satisfy nearly any craving and save old things in your refrigerator and pantry from being thrown away (especially important to the recent college grad out on their own).  When reflecting upon my soupy passion, I believe it began back in middle school, or more correctly, when I would get home from school as a starving preteen in the afternoon and our kitchen pantry was filled with this:

Image strangely found on SodaHead.com, with really a terribly too long link to paste here...

At first, I was content to simply add another can's worth of water, mix it together, and bring it to a low boil over medium high heat.  Then I read Brian Jacques' Redwall series, and who doesn't get hungry when reading about fictional woodland feasts?  I was inspired by the otters' favorite, hotroot soup.  I loved those otters and wished I could emulate them somehow.  Alas, my culinary skills were somewhat minimal and I lacked in shrimp and hotroot, whatever that may be.  Instead, I dumped a lot of chili powder into the mix to attain a smoky, spicy effect- and I found my afternoon ritual with Campbell's veggie alphabet soup much improved.  So much so, in fact, that I began experimenting with other spices and sitting down to taste the results with "my" (really, my older brother's) Redwall novels.  Since the canned soup is a tad bland on its own, most additions and combinations were successful.  I learned the hard way that too much turmeric will result in a bitter taste and heartburn.  Too much Dave's Insanity Sauce also had some painful consequences.  Overall, black pepper, chili powder, garlic, cayenne, and oregano tended to suit my fancy in the context of canned soup, no matter what the soup.

Some of the soups that have delighted my palate recently: Vietnamese Pho, "real" Japanese ramen, and my own favorite Asian-inspired spicy noodle and spinach soup, which got its roots from a Korean beef and green onion based soup that I had at our local H-Mart.

My goal here is to write about both soups that I have made and soups that I have eaten.  When making soups, I tend to glance at a recipe, take some bits and pieces, and use intuition more than rigorous recipe-following.  That may change for the sake of this blog and its potential followers, and also to expand my cooking skill set.  I will critique soups in restaurants and soups available commercially (canned or jarred).  All soup shall henceforth be under my critical eye.