Sunday, February 27, 2011
Week 18: Chicken Soup for the Sick Doctor Friend’s Soul and Health
pasta rings. I hadn't cooked the pasta because I thought I remembered M telling me back in Week 2 (seven years ago), that pasta can cook in the stock. (I didn't take time to look that up, and it turns out I should have, because when I looked it up just now, I discovered it was rice she had said that about. Oops.)
I hadn't left time for the soup to cool down before I put it in a container to take to my friend's house, and I couldn't find my soup storage containers I'd bought 5 or so years ago anyway (I think I must have donated/temporarily loaned them to the kitchen at work when we moved into our new building a couple of years ago). I had made a double batch so I'd have some for myself, so I poured half of it into a slow cooker pot to transport it and put the other half in my fridge (in the pot I'd cooked it in). I grabbed the loaf of bread and the dillweed and drove over to Doc's place. She and her mom met me outside, and we put the soup in her trunk and figured it would be ok for a couple of hours while we were at the movie since the temperature outside was in the mid-thirties. On my way home from the movie, I realized I'd forgotten to give her the bread and dillweed, so I swung by her house and dropped those off. Then I swung by K-mart and bought a new set of soup storage containers so I'll have those for future.
I fixed a bowl for myself for dinner (with dillweed sprinkled on top), and I was disappointed in the soup--the flavor was good, but the consistency of the stock was too thick because of the pasta which was all mushy, much like my Souper Bowl soup a few weeks ago. (I don't think that's what Doc had meant when she originally said she'd "take anything She sent me a message saying she and her mom enjoyed the soup and bread very much, and it was very yummy! I thanked her for saying so, but told her I was disappointed in the way the stock and pasta had turned out. She said the flavor was great, and that they ate some and wanted to stretch it out so they added some Rachael Rays chicken broth, so the consistency is a little thinner now and it tastes really good.
I Googled how to keep pasta from getting mushy in soup, and found a tip that said to "store the soup separately from the (rice or) pasta. If you mix them together, the rice or pasta will drink up the broth. Chicken soup freezes great!"
The bread was delish. The soup, though nutritious, wasn't delicious. I'll work on getting the pasta to cook right and try again sometime.
When I went to fix dinner tonight, I remembered I have some chicken-flavored boullion cubes in my cabinet, so I boiled two cups of water, added two cubes, and poured it into the chicken soup to help thin it out. It worked! It's delicious!! I forgot to have a piece of bread though, so I'm gonna go fix another bowl of soup and warm up a slice of Asiago Batard to have with it.
"Scientists say they have confirmed what grandmothers have known for centuries -- that chicken soup is good for colds....Some researchers have suggested...perhaps the steam from the soup, or the chicken fat, may play a role in soothing inflamed airways. (Dr. Stephen) Rennard said this was possible. He also said there could be a 'TLC'...factor. 'If you know somebody prepared soup for you by hand, that might have an effect.'"
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Week 17: Super Bowl Sunday Souper Bowl Alphabet Soup
We had a blizzard last week and the University was closed Tuesday and Wednesday, so it seemed like a good opportunity to fix some soup; but, between shoveling and doing some work I'd brought home that I had to get done, and the fact that I don't keep any food/ingredients in my fridge or pantry to speak of, soup didn't happen. Besides, I knew I was going to be fixing some for a Super Bowl party I was going to at some friends' house on Sunday, so I needed that full week to recuperate between soup adventures. I was going to look through my Soup and Italian soup cookbooks on Saturday to see if I needed to go grocery shopping and start working on it that evening, but I worked all day Saturday and didn't get home till about 7:30 p.m. and was too exhausted to care. Sunday morning I picked one out that looked simply (yeah, right--I should know better by now) delicious and nutritious: "Alphabet Soup," (called for alphabetto or other small soup pasta) which is a vegetable soup with pancetta or proscioutto. It said it serves 4, so I decided to triple the recipe since there would be about a dozen friends at the party, though I knew there would be other main courses and lots of good food, so I'd have plenty left over to have later in the week.
Sunday morning, I went to breakfast and grocery shopping with my friend CS, and I'd forgotten to make a copy of the recipe, so I grabbed the whole Soup cookbook on my way out the door. Didn't have much trouble finding most of the ingredients, except I wasn't sure which of the different kinds of onions or potatoes I should use, and CS said the yellow onions and the potato I held up would be good, so I went with those. The recipe called for "4 oz. smoked pancetta or prosciutto cut into cubes," so I asked the woman at the deli for 12 oz. of either pancetta or prosciutto cut into cubes. She looked at me funny and said she had prosciutto and could slice it thick, but I'd have to cut it into cubes myself. OK, fine. No problem. (I didn't realize till I got home I'd forgotten to ask for smoked, but that would have to be OK, 'cause I wasn't going to smoke it myself!) After much internal debate in the pasta aisle, I picked out small rings; and, after more internal debate in the canned food aisle trying to decide which of the suggested beans to get--cannelini, red kidney or chickpeas--I went with the chickpeas. I was taking so long that my friend was ready to check out, so she left and I started to panic in case I needed help figuring anything else out. But, we had run into a couple of other friends, B&DO, and I knew they were still there, so I felt better knowing I could ask them if I needed any soup 911 (which, thankfully, I didn't).
Got home just in time to unload and put away the groceries, change my clothes and get to church, after which I came home, ate lunch, and did some laundry and started picking up the house to get ready to be gone for a few days to a conference. Suddenly, I remembered that our local kitchen store used to have football shaped pasta, so I jumped in the car and dashed up there, hoping first of all that they would be open, and then praying they'd have football pasta for my SouperBowl Soup. I was relieved to find they were open, but disheartened to find they didn't have any football pasta. (The woman said they had some a year ago, but they didn't get any this year.) Disappointed, back home I dashed just in time for the Bowl game I'd been excitedly awaiting which I thought was on from 2-3: Animal Planet's Puppy Bowl VII! I knew I needed to care about washing, peeling and chopping vegetables, and cubing meat; but I thought that could wait till 3:00 and I'd have plenty of time to prepare and cook the soup before leaving for the Super Bowl party at 5:15. Turned out the Puppy Bowl was on till 4:00, and I wasn't able to tear myself away from it (and the fun Kitty Halftime Show), until I got an e-mail about 3:30 from my friend asking how the Soup making was going. Oops, time to get busy!
I got out all the ingredients, cookware, and utensils, and started cutting, chopping, cubing, slicing, seeding, coring, and measuring vegetables and meat. The proscuitto was to be heated gently and sautéed in a large saucepan, then the onion added and cooked gently, then "Add the potato, carrot, celery, zucchini, tomatoes, salt, and pepper. Add the stock and heat until simmering." OK, wait a minute. My one large saucepan was full after only the meat, onion, and potatoes were put in, so I got out another saucepan and put the carrots and celery in it, but it got full, so I found a third saucepan and put the zucchini, and tomatoes in it. Then I decided I should have some of everything in each saucepan, so I divided everything into thirds and had three saucepans of veggies and meat simmering.
Then the recipe said to add the stock and heat until simmering. At no time did it say to put anything in a large pot, but while I was still cutting and chopping veggies, I got out my 8-qt. soup pot I'd bought last week and poured the three boxes of Chicken Stock in and heated it. I looked at the clock and it was 4:45, and I suddenly panicked that I was supposed to be at the party at 5:00. I looked up the email invitation, and it said the game starts at 5:00, so I called one of my friends who said she was on her way to the party and our pre-game betting and parlay card games were to start at 5:00. I told her I'd be there as close to 5:15 as I could, but if I wasn't there by the time they needed to do the little games, go ahead without me. I suddenly realized I hadn't cut up the large head of cabbage, or washed and cut the green beans. It seemed to take an eternity to cut the little ends off the green beans, so I only did half the bag, and I only did half the cabbage (and sloppily, at that), threw them in the pot, dumped all three skillets of veggies and prosciutto into the big pot, added the pasta and beans, brought it to a boil and cooked it for 5 minutes, then added the peas and chickpeas (after draining them) and cooked it for another 2-3 minutes till the veggies and pasta were tender. Added sea salt and black pepper (which wasn't freshly ground, but that's OK). Then it said to serve sprinkled with parsley (which, I realized, I'd forgotten to get), crusty Italian bread (which, I realized, I'd forgotten to bake), and freshly grated Cheddar cheese (which I didn't have time to grate).
I put the extra veggies back in the fridge, wiped the counters, turned off the stove, grabbed the bread and cheese, my new (from last week) cheese grater, my soup ladle, the pot of soup (which looked YUMMY!), my soup bowls, my coat and quarters for the betting board, threw everything in the car, and rushed across town, arriving at 5:17, just in time to put my name on the boards and fill out the game sheets. Soup's on!
As the football game started, I grated my cheese and asked one of the hosts if I could use her oven to bake the bread, which she graciously said I could, and preheated the oven. I didn't want to miss any commercials, so when the commercials were over, I went up and put the bread in the oven, and then after the next set of commercials went up and got the bread out, sliced it, and served it hot and fresh out of the oven. It was delicious. When I finally got a bowl of soup, which looked delicious, I was crushed to discover that the pasta was mushy. It had been almost the last thing to go in, and I didn't over-cook it, so I will have to try to figure out why that happened and how not to let it happen next time. No one said anything about the mushy pasta, but I felt bad that it had almost ruined an otherwise scrumptious soup.
By the end of the night, more than half the pot of soup was left, and I knew I was going to be out of town for several days so I didn't know if it would keep till the end of the week. My friend asked if I was going to freeze it. I didn't know you could freeze soup, and she said sure--put it in a bunch of little Ziploc freezer containers and I'll have soup for the rest of the winter! So, that's just what I did when I got home, and I'm looking forward to having some later this week. I'd share it with friends and neighbors if I weren't so embarrassed about the mushy pasta. Next year, I'll plan ahead and buy (special order if I have to) football pasta, and I won't have mushy footballs!
"Food is not about impressing people. It's about making them feel comfortable."
~Ina Garten, 'The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook'
Sunday morning, I went to breakfast and grocery shopping with my friend CS, and I'd forgotten to make a copy of the recipe, so I grabbed the whole Soup cookbook on my way out the door. Didn't have much trouble finding most of the ingredients, except I wasn't sure which of the different kinds of onions or potatoes I should use, and CS said the yellow onions and the potato I held up would be good, so I went with those. The recipe called for "4 oz. smoked pancetta or prosciutto cut into cubes," so I asked the woman at the deli for 12 oz. of either pancetta or prosciutto cut into cubes. She looked at me funny and said she had prosciutto and could slice it thick, but I'd have to cut it into cubes myself. OK, fine. No problem. (I didn't realize till I got home I'd forgotten to ask for smoked, but that would have to be OK, 'cause I wasn't going to smoke it myself!) After much internal debate in the pasta aisle, I picked out small rings; and, after more internal debate in the canned food aisle trying to decide which of the suggested beans to get--cannelini, red kidney or chickpeas--I went with the chickpeas. I was taking so long that my friend was ready to check out, so she left and I started to panic in case I needed help figuring anything else out. But, we had run into a couple of other friends, B&DO, and I knew they were still there, so I felt better knowing I could ask them if I needed any soup 911 (which, thankfully, I didn't).
Got home just in time to unload and put away the groceries, change my clothes and get to church, after which I came home, ate lunch, and did some laundry and started picking up the house to get ready to be gone for a few days to a conference. Suddenly, I remembered that our local kitchen store used to have football shaped pasta, so I jumped in the car and dashed up there, hoping first of all that they would be open, and then praying they'd have football pasta for my SouperBowl Soup. I was relieved to find they were open, but disheartened to find they didn't have any football pasta. (The woman said they had some a year ago, but they didn't get any this year.) Disappointed, back home I dashed just in time for the Bowl game I'd been excitedly awaiting which I thought was on from 2-3: Animal Planet's Puppy Bowl VII! I knew I needed to care about washing, peeling and chopping vegetables, and cubing meat; but I thought that could wait till 3:00 and I'd have plenty of time to prepare and cook the soup before leaving for the Super Bowl party at 5:15. Turned out the Puppy Bowl was on till 4:00, and I wasn't able to tear myself away from it (and the fun Kitty Halftime Show), until I got an e-mail about 3:30 from my friend asking how the Soup making was going. Oops, time to get busy!
I got out all the ingredients, cookware, and utensils, and started cutting, chopping, cubing, slicing, seeding, coring, and measuring vegetables and meat. The proscuitto was to be heated gently and sautéed in a large saucepan, then the onion added and cooked gently, then "Add the potato, carrot, celery, zucchini, tomatoes, salt, and pepper. Add the stock and heat until simmering." OK, wait a minute. My one large saucepan was full after only the meat, onion, and potatoes were put in, so I got out another saucepan and put the carrots and celery in it, but it got full, so I found a third saucepan and put the zucchini, and tomatoes in it. Then I decided I should have some of everything in each saucepan, so I divided everything into thirds and had three saucepans of veggies and meat simmering.
Then the recipe said to add the stock and heat until simmering. At no time did it say to put anything in a large pot, but while I was still cutting and chopping veggies, I got out my 8-qt. soup pot I'd bought last week and poured the three boxes of Chicken Stock in and heated it. I looked at the clock and it was 4:45, and I suddenly panicked that I was supposed to be at the party at 5:00. I looked up the email invitation, and it said the game starts at 5:00, so I called one of my friends who said she was on her way to the party and our pre-game betting and parlay card games were to start at 5:00. I told her I'd be there as close to 5:15 as I could, but if I wasn't there by the time they needed to do the little games, go ahead without me. I suddenly realized I hadn't cut up the large head of cabbage, or washed and cut the green beans. It seemed to take an eternity to cut the little ends off the green beans, so I only did half the bag, and I only did half the cabbage (and sloppily, at that), threw them in the pot, dumped all three skillets of veggies and prosciutto into the big pot, added the pasta and beans, brought it to a boil and cooked it for 5 minutes, then added the peas and chickpeas (after draining them) and cooked it for another 2-3 minutes till the veggies and pasta were tender. Added sea salt and black pepper (which wasn't freshly ground, but that's OK). Then it said to serve sprinkled with parsley (which, I realized, I'd forgotten to get), crusty Italian bread (which, I realized, I'd forgotten to bake), and freshly grated Cheddar cheese (which I didn't have time to grate).
I put the extra veggies back in the fridge, wiped the counters, turned off the stove, grabbed the bread and cheese, my new (from last week) cheese grater, my soup ladle, the pot of soup (which looked YUMMY!), my soup bowls, my coat and quarters for the betting board, threw everything in the car, and rushed across town, arriving at 5:17, just in time to put my name on the boards and fill out the game sheets. Soup's on!
As the football game started, I grated my cheese and asked one of the hosts if I could use her oven to bake the bread, which she graciously said I could, and preheated the oven. I didn't want to miss any commercials, so when the commercials were over, I went up and put the bread in the oven, and then after the next set of commercials went up and got the bread out, sliced it, and served it hot and fresh out of the oven. It was delicious. When I finally got a bowl of soup, which looked delicious, I was crushed to discover that the pasta was mushy. It had been almost the last thing to go in, and I didn't over-cook it, so I will have to try to figure out why that happened and how not to let it happen next time. No one said anything about the mushy pasta, but I felt bad that it had almost ruined an otherwise scrumptious soup.
By the end of the night, more than half the pot of soup was left, and I knew I was going to be out of town for several days so I didn't know if it would keep till the end of the week. My friend asked if I was going to freeze it. I didn't know you could freeze soup, and she said sure--put it in a bunch of little Ziploc freezer containers and I'll have soup for the rest of the winter! So, that's just what I did when I got home, and I'm looking forward to having some later this week. I'd share it with friends and neighbors if I weren't so embarrassed about the mushy pasta. Next year, I'll plan ahead and buy (special order if I have to) football pasta, and I won't have mushy footballs!
"Food is not about impressing people. It's about making them feel comfortable."
~Ina Garten, 'The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook'
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