the New Recipe Challenge: Chipotle Pumpkin Soup with Chorizo & Apples

Wow, it's been a while! So hectic, much time, blah blah blah. 
Ok, now on to the good stuff; I've been pushing myself to try one new recipe a week. 
Last week I made a large batch of this Chipotle Pumpkin Soup. The recipe can be found here.

Verdict: A solid recipe, that definitely got me thinking about other directions to take this, should I attempt again. 
I usually find smoked paprika a bit heavy handed, and that was no different here. I doubled the coconut milk. The chorizo (as much as I detest cooking it, the oil, ugh) was absolutely necessary to the texture of the soup,  that fatty grease was perfect drizzled over the top! The apples were also an awesome addition- I wanted much more than what the recipe called for. The acorn squash halves functioning as bowls? Completely superfluous, but I had to. 

Next time: Double the coconut milk and omit the cheese. Change out the spices to perhaps some star anise, coriander seed, cardamom, or a chili blend a little more sophisticated. Rethink the protein addition? Halve the recipe as well. 

Repeat Factor: Yes, but doubtful in this exact form again. 

Mexican Gazpacho

Oooh boy, summer in a bowl. I made this last year, and as soon as it FINALLY started to warm up here, I jumped at the chance to make it again. I go heavier on the poblano chiles, add an extra piece of bread to the crumbs mixture and usually fry up more bread cubes to sprinkle on top as croutons. My favorite part is the mango chunks and crispy bits of radish. I brought this to a potluck party once and my friend who claimed to never really get into chilled soups said it was delicious. But to be fair, it's not really even like a soup, more like an excuse to pile a bunch of fresh stuff into an amazing salsa.

Recipe from The Spiced Life, found here.

The Wonders of Paris' Garden (part 1)

I'm holding down the home steady for Paris, which means aside from feeding his carnivorous kitties, and plants , I also am caring for his community garden lot, which is full of goodies! I picked some of the swiss chard, which is getting a bit too big. I have a couple ideas for cooking it, but I started with a simple little soup.

swiss chard
Potatoes
carrots
mushrooms
rice noodles
chicken broth
usual yum yum spices
lots o garlic
fresh thyme!( I love having Paris' herbs available)


It turned out super yummy, but even though I added the swiss chard last, it was still a bit over cooked. The next day I heated the rest of it up(mostly potatoes and broth left). I put it in this cute little bowl, found through the vigorous cleaning of Paris' apartment, and then I put the rest of the chard in, closed the lid, and let it just sit for a bit.

It was just right! but I wish I had more rice noodles to add.

stay tuned for the Wonders of Paris' Garden part 2!!

Soup fit for summertime

Natalie wasn’t feeling well recently, and normally what makes her feel better is my chicken soup. However, with the temperature in the 80s, how can I made a hot chicken soup that doesn’t feel out of place in the summer?

Normally I like my soups with potatoes, rice, pastas, and other hearty ingredients. I decided to go lighter for the summer. I made a standard chicken broth, shredded some of the chicken breast in it.

Then in the bowls I was serving it in, I sliced up some fresh chard, spinach, and thinly sliced broccoli. Then I poured the hot broth and chicken over it, topped it with some cilantro, some slices of avocado and a few slices of tomato. When I gave it to Natalie, the green veggies under the broth were just barely cooked, and when a bit of lime was squeezed over it, it tasted really fresh!

I don’t normally think of soup in the summertime, but this was pretty damn good!

the curse and the ramen: a story of noodles and the consequences thereof

 

cucumber gimlet : lemonade : mint cucumber fizz

 

spicy beef udon

 

tokyo ramen (pork, bamboo) : miso ramem (chicken, corn)

 

okonomiyaki (japanese pancake)

 

We all went to Boom Noodle today (I’m up seeing Paris and Nat Nat) and the curse hit again. Every time I eat out with ONLY Paris and Tara, I inevitably order the least yummy thing out of the three of us. Apparently, the curse has grown now, and it affecting me when just with Paris and any other person. Although my tokyo ramen was good, it was no where as awesome as the other two noodle bowls.

Major highlight though: the japanese pancake. I used to have a little ghost place in my neighborhood that served these things. So delicious! They are sprouty egg cakes, griddled, with fish flakes, japanese mayo, a brown sauce and lots of other goodies on top. Kind of difficult to find, but this Boom Noodle did a wonderful job.

Cream of Potato soup.

I love a good creamy potato soup. Papa used to take us to Elmer’s every Wednesday night, and the soup of the day for Wednesday would be cream of potato. But since we would go at the end of the day, it would have been cooking all day, and when I got my bowl, it was closer to delicious mashed potatoes than a soup. I loved it.

Anyway, I had some potatoes at home that were going to go bad soon, so I decided to make a hearty cream of potato soup with leeks. Sort of to usher in the cold weather.

First thing I did was peel some potatoes and cover them with water to cook them. I had some chicken broth in my freezer that I used to boil them, but water itself would be fine I am sure. I added some salt and a bay leaf to these boiling potatoes.

Then I washed and chopped the white part of 3 leeks, an onion, and some garlic and placed it in a different pot with some butter.

I cooked this in some butter on a decent heat until everything softened and looked tasty. By this time my potatoes were pretty much cooked as I had sliced them very thin. I added the potatoes and the liquid I cooked them in to the cooked leek/onion/garlic mixture.

I added cream, some dill (I have been trying to find out when to use this herb), salt and pepper, and a small amount of thyme. I let it simmer until it thickened up slightly.

I put it a bowl , topped it with chopped chives, Italian parsley, and some bacon that I fried up. Man it was good. Probably not so healthy, but worth every bite.

If I had to change something, maybe I would have left the skins on the potatoes, just to create an interesting texture contrast. But it was still great.

Is there pee in my soup?!

Not PEE soup! it's Pea Soup! Split Pea Soup to be specific!

Soooooo, I made my first attempt at split pea soup since it's cold and peter wanted something with ham... so I put some split peas, carrots, potatoes, dill, parsley, garlic, onions, salt salt salt, and pepper pepper pepper.

so all was going well.. at the beginning as seen here...
And here you can see how pretty the peas look when wet... ooooohhh... ahhhh.....

and here is the finished product (pictured with ham)... I prefer my portion without ham...

I did have a problem with my potatoes, however. They sort of kind of dissolved and turned my soup into a starchy mass. Not unlike mashed potatoes. It was only much later that Paris told me I was supposed to add the potatoes at the very end, so that they don't dissolved and turn your soup into starch. THANKS PARIS! (and in case you couldn't tell I was being sarcastic!)