Soup is Good Food

Now that fall is really here it is time to start thinking about hearty warm meals. Soup is perfect for the chilly weather. It warms you up, is nutritious, filling and very easy to make. It can be cooked quickly or made in a crock pot and simmered all day. You can use fresh vegetables or frozen meat or noodles, or rice. You can make cream soups and clear soups and rich meaty vegetable soups. By making it yourself you can control the fat, the carbs and calories. There are as many soups as there are people; you have endless opportunities to experiment with soups.


I like soup because I am picky about vegetables. Like my toddlers I do not like to eat whole cooked veggies but am perfectly willing to eat pureed vegetables. My husband views soup as something to dunk bread into. We eat a lot of cream of assorted vegetable soup in our house. Cream of veggie soup is very easy. Fresh or frozen broccoli, some frozen spinach, a carrot (chopped or grated), a small chopped onion or a couple cloves of garlic (or both) and a can/box of chicken broth. (one small potato is optional) Simmer until everything is tender and then puree. Replace the broccoli with peas, or cauliflower or carrots for variety.

I also like it because it is a good use of the leftover chicken or ground beef from dinner the night before. Bake an extra breast when you make chicken for dinner one night. The next day you can shred it up and add it, some grated carrot and spaghetti broken into small pieces to some chicken broth and you have homemade chicken noodle soup. Use precooked ground beef (Brown extra when making tacos or chop up a leftover hamburger), a bag of mixed frozen veggies and beef stock and you have beef vegetable soup.


One of my favorite soups comes entirely out of cans. A can of black beans, a can of crushed tomatoes and a can of chicken broth (I like roasted garlic flavor because then I don’t have to worry about having garlic or onions in the house to add flavor), also a can of water or additional can of chicken broth. Pour it all in a pot and let simmer for about 30 minutes. You can eat it as is, puree some of it for a nice mix of smooth and chunky or puree the whole thing. Just buy a couple cans of each ingredient and you are always ready to make a hot, fast, nutritious meal at the last minute. You can also make this with 2 cups of dried black beans instead of canned and let it simmer all day in a crock pot or on the back of the stove.


Soup alone is a filling meal. It also pairs well with a salad and bread. Soup and sandwiches are an excellent dinner. Try some soup this week!



Black Bean Soup #1 – serves 4-6 people

15oz can black beans

28oz can crushed tomatoes

2 - 12oz cans chicken broth (or half water)

2 cloves garlic smashed

and/or one small onion chopped fine

Drain & rinse the beans. Add everything to the pot, bring to a boil, reduce the heat so it simmers, cover and let simmer for 30 minutes. Puree all or part of the soup as desired. Optionally, if pureeing all the soup add some yogurt or sour cream as you are pureeing to add creaminess and additional flavor.



Black Bean Soup #2 – serves 4-6 people

2 cups dried black beans

28oz can crushed tomatoes

2 - 12oz cans chicken broth (or half water)

2 cloves garlic smashed

and/or one small onion chopped fine

2 small potatoes cut into small pieces

Soak dried beans in cold water to cover for an hour & drain them. Add them and the other ingredients to the pot. Cover the pot, bring to boil, reduce heat to low and simmer for at least 5 hours. Alternatively put it all in a crock pot and let simmer for 7-8 hour (low) or 5-6 hours (high). . Puree all or part of the soup as desired. Optionally, if pureeing all the soup add some yogurt or sour cream as you are pureeing to add creaminess and additional flavor.



This is a base vegetable soup recipe using broccoli. It can be varied for cauliflower, peas, frozen spinach or any root vegetable

Creamy Broccoli Soup – serves 4-6 people

1 head of broccoli – chopped small (a couple of cups approx) fresh or frozen

2 cups water

2 cups chicken

1 small onion and/or 1-2 cloves garlic crushed

1 medium potato cut in small pieces


Add all to pot, bring to a boil and then cover and simmer for one hour. Puree, salt & pepper to taste and serve.


Variations – add some half and half when pureeing for extra creaminess. Leave out the potato to reduce the carbs (if you do this you may need to pour off some broth before pureeing to increase the thickness of the soup).


Baked Potato Soup – serves 4-6

3 tablespoons butter

1 small onion (or large leek, white part only)

4 large potatoes peeled & diced

5 cups of water

2 cups of milk

1/2 cup grated Cheddar cheese

Melt butter in soup pot, add onions & sauté until soft, stir occationally over low heat (about 2 minutes). Add potatoes and continue stirring for another minute until lightly browned. Add water and simmer covered for 30 minutes or until potatoes are soft. Add milk & cheese and bring soup to a boil. Turn off heat and let sit covered for 10 minutes. Mash as you would for mashed potatoes or serve as is. Salt & pepper to taste

In Praise of Pizza

(I wrote this for our Mom's Group newsletter)

We love pizza at our house & we eat it several times a month. We get Papa John’s take out occasionally and sometimes I’ll buy a frozen cheese one and top it myself, but most of the pizza we eat in my house is homemade. Pizza is EASY. Really easy. I wouldn’t make it otherwise. It will take you about 15 minutes work to make the dough the first time you do it, but once you get used to the process it will take less than 10. Most of the time involved is spent waiting for it to rise & while you are waiting you can read a book, play with the kids, whatever you want.

Pizza is a great use for leftovers, especially chicken and steak. It is incredibly versatile. You can use the leftover seasoned beef from tacos and mexi cheese mix to top the dough and have taco pizza. You can spread the dough with BBQ sauce, top with cheddar and leftover shredded baked chicken for BBQ pizza, you can layer fresh sliced peaches on it, sprinkle with some cinnamon & sugar and have dessert pizza, and you can use tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese and pepperoni for traditional pizza. Our house favorite uses pesto sauce (mixed with a little alfredo sauce & chopped cooked frozen spinach ), baked chopped chicken, diced pepperoni, chopped artichokes (canned) and mozzarella cheese. Only your pantry limits you.

I know you are thinking “I could have Papa John’s here in less time than it takes for the dough to finish rising.” Yes you can. But you have far more control and freedom with homemade pizza. You can determine the fat & calories by controlling the amount & variety of cheese. You can add additional fiber & protein to the crust by varying the type of flour; you can add herbs and spices. You can make several individual pizzas instead of one 15 inch one and let everyone top their own, no more wondering, “Which half has the onions?” Homemade pizza is cheaper too.

The dough can also be sprinkled with a little garlic & rosemary, drizzled with a little olive oil and baked for 15 minutes for focaccia. It can be formed into small balls, baked for 10-12 minutes for dinner rolls. You can roll it out really thin, sprinkle it with kosher salt, bake it for 10 minutes and have homemade crackers. The possibilities of a ball of pizza dough are nearly endless!


Standard Pizza Dough

1 packet of yeast or 2 ¼ teaspoons
¾ cup warm water – a little warmer than body temperature
2 to 2 ¼ cups of white flour – you can substitute ¼ cup with wheat germ or up to ½ cup with whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar.
Large greased bowl
Non-insulated baking pan or pizza stone

1. Stir water, yeast & sugar together & let sit for a few minutes until it looks a bit bubbly
2. Stir this mixture slowly into 2 cups of flour. It will get sticky fast & you’ll end up using your hands. A mixer with a dough hook makes this easier. You may not need the extra ¼ cup of flour unless the mix seems very sticky. Turn it out on a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth (fold the dough in half, push it forward and flat with the base of your hand, turn it 90 degrees and repeat). This will take 5-7 minutes. If you have a mixer with a dough hook, let it to the kneading for about 5 minutes, then dump the dough out and knead it about 10 times yourself.
3. Place the dough in the greased bowl and let rise until it appears about 25% larger & if you poke it the indentation remains.
4. Preheat the oven to 500, place baking stone in the oven to preheat if using.
5. Using your hands or a rolling pin, flatten the dough out, on a floured surface, into a circle or square about 12 inches wide. Place on baking sheet or on the preheated baking stone (I find using 2 spatulas, or another edgeless baking pan helps if you don’t own a pizza peel)
6. Bake the crust for 8 minutes.
7. Remove from oven and add your sauce & favorite toppings. Return to oven and bake for another 8 minutes.

A time saving tip is to make a double or triple batch of dough and freeze the extra in individual freezer bags after the rise period. It will keep for a month. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator & let come to room temperature (about a half hour) and then proceed with baking.

Add a little additional flavor to the dough by kneading in up to 2 tablespoons of dried rosemary, basil or Parmesan cheese.

dinner score

menu - 2
laziness - 4

We went out 3 times. Wednesday we had scotch eggs. Thursday was date night. DH & I went to Bavarian Chef,the boys had PB&J. Friday the boys had fishsticks & spinich salad. I had spinich salad (still full from the previous night). Saturday we went to Waffle House and tonight we had KFC because my allergies gave me a screaming headache. This is not good. Tomorrow night DH won't be home for dinner, so I'm going to do the squash mac & cheese (DH is not a mac & cheese fan). Tuesday I will make the turkey roll ups I was going to make today before the allergies made me cry. The rest of the week is open but we have gove over & above the dining out budget so we MUST stick to the menu.

Why are the cookies flat again?

My husband makes chocolate chip cookies every Thursday night. He takes half the batch into his office on Friday so he doesn't end up eating them all (at least he doesn't eat them all at home. I have no idea if he then eats them all at the office). He's been making a batch of chocolate chip cookies every Thursday night for about 3 years now. There was a time when he also made them on Mondays. So he has had lots of practice. He's tweeked the flour weight, the softness of the butter, the amount of time spent creaming, the time & speed of the mixing, the timing of the baking, the right sized scoop. The past few months he has made excellent cookies - soft, yet crisp, with a decent rise & nice consistancy. But the last 3 batches have all been flat - spread out puddles of dough, with chips sticking up at random. Why? The flour is no more or less humid than it usually is and he weighs it. Its the same local organic butter we always use, same sugar, same brand of eggs. What could be making the cookies flatten out all of the sudden?

I cooked! I cooked!

Pasta
Soup
Pizza
Meatloaf
Roast chicken from Food Lion
Broiled salmon

I've actually made something from this list every night. Monday DH was able to get a chicken. We had it with hummas, olives, marinated artichokes, and salad. Tuesday I made meatloaf with sesame ginger broccoli. Wednesday we had chicken & asparagus tortellini with pesto alfredo. Thursday we had take out. Tonight we had pizza with chicken, spinach & artichokes with pesto alfredo. I'm going to try the salmon on Sunday

The boys ate some leaves of salad on Monday & one bite each of chicken. They ate the meatloaf & refused the broccoli (DH liked it. I'm so so about cooked broccoli). They ate the tortellini. They had taquitos on Thursday beacuse it was Thai take out & they don't like anything there. They eat ate a slice & a half of pizza. There was drama Monday, drama Tuesday, and some drama tonight (Havoc decided he cannot stand toppings on pizza, despite having topped his own with his own choice of stuff). I suppose 2 drama free meals is something.

Menu the week of Sept 24

Pasta
Soup
Pizza
Meatloaf
Roast chicken from Food Lion
Broiled salmon

There's a menu for you. So inventive & clever. Lots of great meals going on at our house. I'm currently in full on surrender mode. The boys will only eat about 5 things and I'm tired of stressing about it, so they get them. Pasta is usually a Buitoni ravioli or torellini, chosen by the boys, in a spinach pesto. Sometimes I add chicken to it. Occasionally I get clever & make a gorganzola alfredo sauce & add steak. The boys will eat the pasta, but are not too keen on the add ons. Pizza is usually a chicken-spinach variation. Sometimes pesto, sometimes pesto alfredo, occasionally BBQ sauce with bacon & mushrooms added. Sometimes I add zucchini or broccoli. Sometimes I get pick up from Papa John's. The seem to eat meatloaf 95% of the time, so it is fairly safe & I stick spinach or eggplant in it, so if they refuse the veg & salad they at least get some vitamins.

The soup is for me. I get one meal a week that is what *I* want to eat and the heck with difficult demons. They can eat the salad & bread or sandwich that goes with it. The salmon was Dh's request. I'm doing it with garlic lentils. Maybe the demons will eat it, maybe not

Food Lion is running a special on roast chicken, buy 6 & get the 7th free. But unlike Safeway, which keeps track of your purchases for you (You've bought 3 of your 6 sandwiches to get a free one), Food Lion gives you a printed ticket & expects you to keep track of it. Naturally that means they end up giving away far fewer chickens than Safeway would. But that is just so cheesy. I have an MVP card. Its not like they don't have a record of the chickens I have bought. Making me keep the damn coupons is so cheap of them.

not doing so good

My plan was

Soup - curried carrot
Pasta - TBD by the demons
Roasted chicken from Food Lion
Pizza - probably chicken
Beef kabobs with pita & assorted salads

I've had 4 opportunities to make those meals. I've made the pasta & that was only because Safeway is right next to the gym & was able to run in & grab some ravioli after my Kickboxing class. Monday I had intended chicken, but when DH went to get it, they were out, so the males had fish sticks & Lipton pasta sides and I had a cheese sandwich. Tuesday I intended to make soup, but had no broth, so we had grilled cheese and salad. Wednesday we had the pasta. Tonight DH called & said "How about Chinese take out?" and since I had failed to cut up the beef to marinate or buy the assorted salads, I said "hell yes!" The kabobs will be tomorrow. Definitely. and I am going to make my own flat bread.

On the upside the boys have eaten dinner every night without protest.

Menu the week of Sept 17

Soup - curried carrot
Pasta - TBD by the demons
Roasted chicken from Food Lion
Pizza - probably chicken
Beef kabobs with pita & assorted salads

There is a catfish fry that DH's company sponsors on Sunday and he'll probably make pancakes for dinner Saturday.

Can you tell I'm not really in the mood to cook? Apart from topping the Boboli & chopping the carrots for soup I'm not doing much this week. I'm just not hungry & when I am not in the mood to eat, I am not in the mood to cook. I'm sort of interested in the soup, but I can take or leave the rest of it.

This will probably come back to bite me in the butt, but right now I am looking forward to the boys being old enough to have some real input in the meal plan. Right now their only suggestions are "pizza!" and "pasta!". I make those, but I'm hoping someday they will say "how about that mustard chicken with artichokes you made a couple weeks ago?" or even "How about if I make some stew Mom?"

Grilling is Good

(an article I wrote for our Mom's Group newsletter)

One of my favorite parts of summer is dinner on the grill. The kids seem more willing to eat food, especially veggies, if they come of the grill. Maybe it’s being able to see the fire actually cooking the food. We grill out every weekend and sometimes on weekdays as well. We make hamburgers, BBQ and chicken & beef kabobs. We grill corn, asparagus, sliced zucchini, yellow squash & beets.

I rely a great deal on marinades when we grill, leaving meat & veggies to soak in them all day sometimes. We slice everything up thin before marinating it to get the most coverage & then thread them onto wood skewers or cook them in a foil basket with holes. Thinly sliced meat & veggies cook much faster than whole steaks or chicken breasts. A skewer of steak can be done after cooking 2 minutes each side, chicken takes about 5 minutes a side. Slide the meat in long strips about a quarter inch thick, marinate and then thread onto a metal or wet wooden skewer. Depending on length, 3-4 slices will fit, folded accordion style on one skewer. Cuts of beef at least an inch thick are best for slicing – flank steak & London broil work well, a rib eye is also good. Veggies should be sliced about a half inch thick or so & flipped frequently if skewered or stirred often if using a foil basket.

These are some of my current favorite marinades. They all marinate about 2 pounds of meat.

Spiced up BBQ

1cup of your favored premade BBQ sauce
3 tbls brown sugar
1 tbls paprika
½ teas ground cumin
½ teas cayenne pepper
¼ teas salt
¼ cup cider vinegar

Combine all of the above and marinate thinly sliced chicken strips for 1-8 hours before cooking. This is also good on pork roast (grilled or in the crock pot) and makes excellent pulled pork sandwiches.

Tandoori Marinade

¼ c yogurt
¼ c sour cream
1 tbls lemon juice
1 teas kosher salt
½ teas cayenne pepper
2 teas each – brown sugar, cumin, paprika, tumeric, minced garlic (powdered is ok), minced ginger (ground powdered is ok) and garam masala

Combine all ingredients and marinate thinly sliced chicken 1- 24 hours before cooking
Serve with raita for dipping

Raita
1 cucumed, deseeded & sliced
1 cup of yogurt or ½ c yogurt & ½ c sour cream
1 tbls chopped mint
¼ teas cumin

Blend all together in food processor or blender

Chimichurri Rojo

½ c red wine vinegar
¼ c olive oil
3 tbls tomato paste
2 tbls minced garlic
1 tbls sugar
1 teas ground cumin
1 teas ground black pepper
1 teas red pepper flakes

Combine all and marinate thinly sliced beef for 1-24 hours before cooking

Garlic Marinade

2 tbls minced garlic
½ c cider vingar
¼ c olive oil
½ teas salt

Marinate sliced veggies in this for about an hour.

I'm in shock

It has been 10 long long years since I have had hot food arrive at my front door, let alone have someone other than my husband be the bearer of this lukewarm food.

But all that is about to change...
Tannery General Store has begun making and delivering pizza! And subs! And, according to the flyer, they will also deliver GROCERIES!, including wine and beer! Be still my beating heart! Pizza AND beer! Brought to my door! Even subs and a gallon of milk! MILK, delivered! Sure they don't sell produce and meat but they have the general bread, soup, chips, dairy things and they will BRING IT TO MY HOUSE!! Can you feel my glee?! I called when I got the flyer, before I let myself get all gleeful, just to check on the delivery radius and they deliver in a 9 mile radius. We live 7.6 miles away. I know because the very next morning I drove there & measured. (its on the way to my kids school, sorta) Since then I have been far to gleeful to actually call in anything. Ever wanted something for so long that when you finally get it you have no idea what to do with it? That's how I feel. Paralyzed by sheer glee.

Bad, bad baking

I've had a run of bad luck with baking lately. My second to last loaf of sandwich bread did not go over too well with the demons. I have to tread a careful edge on the whole wheat to white flour percentage with them. I thought I had found a good balance but then I tried with this loaf to add some oat bran to it. Apparently it added a barely noticeable density to the bread, which was just too much for them. Their basis for comparison is Wonder bread, which admittedly I love too, so I know I am fighting an uphill battle on the texture front. And I must admit, peanut butter on a slice of dense wheat bread is like eating spackle in my opinion (which i have not voiced to the demons, they arrived a similar conclusion completely on their own). So I decided to make a different loaf of bread, a 'fluffy sandwich loaf' it claimed and it used a similar proportion of wheat to white that had been working ok for me. This loaf had 3 rising periods, which is a pain if you are not around all day to check on it and despite that it turned out like a brick. With DS2 repeatedly begging for 'san-ich, san-ich Mama!' I bought a loaf of Wonder bread.

Then yesterday I decided to make a cake. I had some yogurt that I needed to use in the next day or so and a recipe for yogurt cake I wanted to try out. I baked it the initial 40 minutes but it was underdone so I baked it a bit longer & the toothpick came out clean (I've been having that issue with my oven with everything lately. I need to get a new oven thermometer, the last one got fried when DH ran the the 'cleaning' cycle) It smelled good and looked good. It cooled & I iced it. Dessert time came around & I started to cut it. I have never had to SAW slices off of a cake before but I knew when my steak knife was having issues sliding through it there was a problem. The outer couple inches of the edges of the cake were overbaked & rock hard. The inside was underbaked. I cannot recall the last time I have spit food out, let alone cake, but I couldn't bring myself to finish chewing it. The icing was ok, but it was Duncan Hines.

So I am on a baking hiatus. The cake problem can possibly be blamed on the high humidity - there was too much flour in the mix. Also I am just hopeless baking sweets. I can bake bread and make a delicious cobbler, but that is it as far as baking goes for me. The bread flour is kept in the fridge at a constant humidity, though I suppose possibly the humidity did something during the risings... or there could be a problem with the overm I won't know about that for awhile. It's too damn hot to be using the oven now anyway.

Baggage - labels

The mental & emotional kind, not the kind that gets x-rayed at airport security.

I have baggage. Everyone I know has baggage of some sort. Among my friends it is religious or cultural mostly, but educational, athletic and economic bags also sit on the luggage cart was well. We all have things that our family made us do, or wouldn't let us do, or were inflicted upon us by our peers. We swear these things will not happen to our children. We will do it differently. We will do it right .

My baggage is food related (with a carry on of organized sports issues). There was little variety in the meals in our house. I was labeled a picky eater at an early age, but never really encouraged to try new things. No one in my family ate new things either, at least not in front of me. I assume when my parents were in Japan and the Philippines my dad, at least, tried new foods. My mom I know existed on Mc D's french fries & milkshakes. It was a case of the pot calling the kettle black. But as a child I could not see that. I now realize that the limited variety of foods in my house was due to my parents own baggage. Dad had issues with things he would not eat from his poor childhood. Mom just lacks a desire to try new foods. So we were left with what what my dad was willing to eat of what my mom was willing to eat. Ground beef, pork chops, ham steak & the occasional grilled steak. Chicken was expensive when I was child, so we had something called 'city chicken', which was breaded pork kabobs. There was also spaghetti, lasagna & tuna noodle casserole. Vegetables were canned green beans, canned corn, canned succotash, frozen broccoli & cauliflower, both smothered in a cheese sauce. There may have been carrots, but I think not. My dad doesn't like peas. There were no other vegetables in my world, apart from iceberg lettuce

So really, looking back it is not surprising I was a reluctant eater. I can't stand canned green beans. Loathe them, always have, but as they were the veg of choice they were on offer 2 or 3 times a week. Limiting my already limited menu caused me to be labeled a picky eater. I never turned my nose up at zucchini or kohlrabi or asparagus. I was never offered them. Maybe I might have liked them. Maybe if I had seen my parents trying new foods from time to time I would have as well. Maybe not. Maybe the list of foods I refused to eat would have gotten longer. But I know now I was not and am not a picky eater. I like different things than my parents do.

Even knowing this on an intellectual level, I still carry this big bag labeled picky eater with me into every kitchen, grocery store, market & restaurant. "What's that thing?" a suspicious child's voice in mind wonders looking at a star fruit. "Eww, that's yuck." the voice says looking at the okra. "Are there onion chunks in that?" it ponders, looking closely at the stir fry on the plate. "You haven't even tried it yet."the adult me asserts. "Give it a chance." I seem to spend as much time trying to convince myself to try things as I do trying to convince my children. I succeed with myself only because the guilt of being a good example tends to overcome the reluctance. I have lived outside my parent's home for 22 years. I have made my own food choices for longer than I had to live with theirs. But the early training is still there. The reluctance to step outside the known, the encouragement to stick with the familiar. "What if is is yucky?" is the question in my mind.

I don't want that for my children. I want them to look at new foods and ask "What if it is wonderful?" So I eat the slimy okra & find other ways of preparing it. I eat the starfruit and the stir fry. I try my best to range outside my own food comfort zone & provide them with variety. And when people say my child is a picky eater I say "He isn't picky. He just doesn't like everything we do and that is ok."