Counter Culture Cuisine

So, those of you acquainted with us in person know that Z and I are among the most subterranean sub-culture people out there. As a testament to this, we have started cooking all kinds of hot soups right when the weather is heating up. Take that you 'normal' cuisinies.

So yeah, Z cooked us another new soup tonight! For those of you thinking, 'gee whiz mwr, Z does an awful lot of cooking for you,' I will say this: thanks for paying attention to my posts.

Anyway, Z and I went through a bunch of soup recipes and picked out ones that sounded interesting, were quick to make, and that pleased the ever credulous internet message boards, and we came up with a list of things to try. This one made the list because it was a black bean soup with feta (though the feta ended up playing a smallish part in the overall soup experience).



As far as evaluation goes, this soup is ALL about the garnish. I started mine cautiously with minimal raw jalapeno and inadequate ciantro. It was okay. The blending gave it a texture thick enough to feel while you ate it without feeling like you're eating hot bean-dip. The carrots and onions, whenever they crept up, added as nice bit of variety to the taste without 'showing off.' I was happy with it.

However, when I added more raw fresh green things and it improved vastly! The jalapeno quickly spread throughout and gave a very mild kick that didn't mask any of the other flavors. The real treat, though, was the cilantro. Now, I am not one of these people born with the alleged cilantro tastes like fetid chum gene, but I do think that it's a bit of a prima donna in most dishes--either demanding to be the star of the dish or fading away into the untastable. I generally try to stay away from it. In this case, though, it remained subtle while still retaining its presence in the dish. This increase in garnish moved this from a sort of standard black bean soup that I wouldn't want to call a standby due to it's lack of corn to a noteworthy and above average treat.

This brings me to another thing worth mentioning: the soup had only one dry spice in it: cumin. Now, sure, some of you read this and think "okay mwr. I get what's going on and don't trust anything you have to say about this soup anymore." You're probably not entirely mistaken in your dismissivness as since the cumin is an obvious presence that I think adds a lot. Still, just one dry spice. That is impressive! I think I am going to try to reduce the number of spices I use while cooking and up the fresh herbs, garnishes, and other things. This should be extra fun since I just tried reducing the sauces I used for in order to focus on dry spices. That turned out to be a blast and helped me make better sauces.

One last note: it didn't make an awful low, so if you're going to make it for guests be sure to increase the quantity or have a hearty side.

Soupy summer

Yum guys.


Z made this delicious soup just now (she subbed in chicken stock & olive oil).

I will now list some of the virtues of this soup:
1. It was beautiful to look at; the picture doesn't do it justice. Once K and I made this 'yellow' themed soup to celebrate Lance Armstrong that should have looked like this (which was much more vibrantly yellow). The bits of green and red added a lot of nice color, and the rice & chickpeas gave it a lovely visual texture (even if chick-peas kind of look like butts half the time you're eating them).

1a. Hell, it was sensational on all accounts, the smell, the texture, the sight. I even think I heard the little chick-peas singing a beautiful melody as I ate them.

2. It's a creamy soup, but it's not diary cream. This is particularly rewarding for the less tolerant among us.

3. The taste was the closest to awesome thai's tom kha I've had outside of awesome thai. DO YOU HEAR THAT KENDALL? Seriously, it had so much of that flavor to it. It wasn't 100% there, but it shouldn't have been. Also, the jalapeno added a good kick.

4. It was new. Hooray!

5. It was fast and cheap.

spicy tortilla soup

a while ago, i decided that it would be fun/beneficial to try being vegan for a month. i needed to wait until the holidays were over so that i didn't have to forego such treats as greek salads from greek isle, delicious sandwiches from wildflower cafe, and p's mom's homemade white cheddar mac & cheese. well, we just got back last night and i had my first vegan meal: spicy tortilla soup. i took it pretty much directly from this recipe, except my grocery store did not have vegetable broth so i had to use a broth/water mix. i also omitted the toppings, but i can totally imagine the soup being a little better with them.

here are some pictures:



the first time i've ever had the opportunity to use my immersion blender!



all done!

Baby take a ride in my soup

We all get sick. Or at least hungover enough to lay on the couch all day complaining about being sick in our best lazyvoice. Whatever. The important thing is to not let said situation inhibit our sweet potato friendships.

So let's make some chicken soup!

We thought we had some turkey bones left over from thanksgiving to use for the stock, but apparently roommates throw things like that away after a while. Therefore, we cooked a chicken.

Let's see; we chopped up some celery, carrots, onions, thyme, plus those shallots we found in fridge (thanks K!) and stuffed 'em in the chicken along with some smashed potatoes (sweet only with love), which we cooked in a big pot, natch.

After the chicken-cooking portion, the bones, carcass, and other assorted grosseties can go into the pot in which the chicken was braised, brought to a simmer and held for a long time so that the mmmarrow gets released into the broth. Add the rest of the mirepoix along with some potato chunks and seasoning. SALT.

We let it chill out on the stove for long time, watched some football because I was too exhausted to force the Gilmore Girls option, spooned out the bones, and ate some delicious chicken soup! I still have a bunch leftover in the fridge at work!


Props to jc, who is the other and primary part of this "we," seeing as I pretty much slept through most of the process.