Eggdrop Soup

And then I got sick...

I didn't feel that great when I got up in the morning, eventually I realized that I was completely useless so I came home from work early and laid on the couch for the rest of the day, got up a little bit later and went to bed. The next morning I did the unthinkable... I called in to sick. I know it doesn't sound like much but in the past 6 years I have called in sick... well when my appendix burst and one other time but it was kind of a graphic situation and doesn't belong on a food blog.

So I spent most of a day lying on the couch again... I just realized... I am just a butt load of fun lately. I hadn't eaten since the morning before so I knew that I had to eat something. I made a batch of "feelin like crap soup", now there are some rules to any "feelin like crap food"

• It has to be easy to make
• It has to taste good (not too spicy but I can't do bland)
• It has to be relatively healthy (not a good day for bacon wrapped anything)
• Most important it has to be made from stuff that is already in the house... I am not going out.

Today's choice for "feel like crap lunch" was my take on egg drop soup, face it chicken based soup feels good when you don't. Plus I had a good bunch of the things I need in order to make it, here is how it went today.

Ingredients
Some (about 1/4 cup) cut up or shredded chicken
2 1/2 cups chicken broth divided
3/4 cup sliced mushroom (I used baby Bella's)
2 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp grated ginger*
1 egg
2 tsp corn starch
A little bit of chopped parsley to garnish

Sauté the chicken in a 2 quart saucepan until it is done (or reheated) to your liking, add your mushrooms and continue to cook for a few minutes. Add 2 cups of chicken broth then soy sauce and *ginger. Bring all of this to a boil then turn heat to a simmer. Beat your egg in a separate dish, then stir your soup and add the egg a teaspoon full at a time to your moving broth. It should cook in ribbons as you go. Mix your cornstarch with the last of the chicken broth to make a slurry and slowly add to your soup to thicken just a little. Garnish with chopped parsley.

*I keep a frozen hunk of frozen ginger in the freezer so I can grate off a little.bit at a time and still have the "fresh" ginger flavor.

Ok folks this one rocked it out! The chicken soup had that comforting flavor with the addition of the soy sauce and ginger that just warmed me up in time for my nap.

French Onion Soup

Today is kind of a special day in my life... Five years ago today,  the coldest day of the year in 2006 by the way, Kris and I were both dressed and getting ready to go.  She looked beautiful, me well I looked like me.  All of our kids were there, dressed in their finest.  We loaded them into Kris' van on the way out the door I kind of sheepishly I asked if I could drive.  She smiled at handed me her keys, she was wearing her wedding dress after all and it just seemed right for me to drive.

Yes folks today my beautiful wife and I celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary!  We had a very small wedding if you include the bride and groom I think we were about 18 in total.  After the ceremony we came to our house for a reception catered mostly by me and my friend (and best man) Scott.  We didn't have a honeymoon either we just fell into our lives together.  After Kris and I were together for really only a few days I (I think we both) knew that we were going to be together and like my adopting Miss Lu really the ceremony was just a formality. 

So you ask, What are Bryan and his beautiful wife doing to celibate their special night?  See if you can guess...

1. Get a sitter and make reservations at a great Chicago area restaurant where we will be pampered and have a wonderful romantic meal.
2. Get a sitter and have a romantic dinner at home followed by... well you know... before we pick the kids up.
3. Get a sitter for one of the kids and spend the evening at our church attending first communion class with Miss Lu then eating Domino's pizza with a bunch of people that we don't really know.

Bet you guessed ;-)

Well maybe we will get a chance for that night out sometime soon.

This recipe is completely unrelated to the rest of this post but I know that I have been slacking in the blog world lately, I'll talk about that in the next few days.  I have been working on one of Kris' favorites for a while, French Onion soup, this week I think I got it!

1 Large onion
3 Medium yellow onions
3 or 4 Shallots
1/2 Stick Butter
2 Bay leaves
1 TBS Flour
Some chopped fresh thyme (I had some and it sounded good)
2 TBS white wine
1 Quart Beef Broth
8-10 slices of Ciabatta sliced and toasted
several slices of Swiss cheese

The choice of onions may or may not be the ideal flavor combination but they are what I had in the house.  Start by melting the butter in a medium sauce pan over medium heat, peel the onions and cut them in half and slice them thin.  Put the sliced onions, shallots and bay leaves in the pan and saute until translucent and very soft, about 40 minutes (yes really 40 minutes).  Add the flour thyme and wine, cook until the liquid is mostly gone (3-4 minutes) then add the beef broth.

Stir together and simmer for about another 20-25 minutes.  While that is cooking I painted a little olive oil on my sliced ciabatta and toasted those.  When it is time to serve, dish the soup into oven safe bowls then float the toast and top with Swiss cheese and put under the broiler for a few minutes until you have what you want.  This really is a great comfort food on those cold winter evenings.  Kris and I were both surprised by how sweet this was when we finished.

Gazpacho

Like many others, I found myself in a state of tomato overload this week, after my garden raiding adventures, gifts from my tomato overloaded neighbors plus a couple of trips to the farmer's market. I use them as much as I can, tomato sandwiches, garnishes on everything and salsa can only go so far, I am almost to the point where I need to start cooking and/or freezing but don't want to do that just yet. I decided to make a batch of Gazpacho!



Gazpacho is a lot of fun, but it does get you some odd looks, "Excuse me waiter... do you know this soup is ice cold?" Really it is quite good; this particular recipe is my favorite. To serve I scraped the inside out of a couple of large tomatoes and froze the empty shells (how cool is that!?) then filled them with the ice cold soup.

Ingredients
2 1/2 Cups of diced up tomatoes (I used several kinds)
1/2 cucumber peeled, seeded and diced
1 red bell pepper diced
2 cloves garlic minced
2 TBS sesame oil *
2 TBS parsley leaves
1 or 2 chili peppers**
1 cup of vegetable juice (you know... V-8)
Juice from one lime
salt and pepper to taste


* I love the flavor of sesame oil it adds a nice smoky depth, if you don’t like it use olive oil in instead


** These are the unnamed chili peppers from my garden, I have no idea what they are, they are smaller than the one jalapeño that I grew and have a pretty good kick to them. Here is what they look like if you know please tell me.

Put all of the ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth add the vegetable juice until you get the consistency that you want. Put it into a pitcher and chill until ice cold (3-4 hours). When it is time to serve pour into the frozen tomato cups and garnish.

Pumpkin Soup

When I bought the beets that I wrote about in my last post I had kids in tow they wanted something from the farmer's market too. I offered them Beets, Parsnips, Rutabagas, Squash, Brussels Sprouts, home made Pickles... Oddly they weren't interested in any of those, go figure, what they did want was small Pumpkins and some Mums for their mom, who would need a gift because she would miss them so much while we were out with me for an hour. The pumpkins were too small and purchased too early to be Jack o Lanterns. So I told the kids that I would buy them but I was going to cook them in a week or so. Nobody minded, right after they showed them to their mom the pumpkins sat on the kitchen table ignored until I got to them yesterday. It is hard to describe the size of the Pumpkin that I used, about 1/2 the size of a basket ball, it was from the "Small Pumpkin" bin at the market.

I make pumpkin soup out of one of them the ingredients are:

2 Carrots peeled and coarsely chopped

2 Celery ribs coarsely chopped

1 medium onion chopped
1/2 stick butter

1 small Pumpkin trimmed, peeled and cut into 1 inch cubes

5 cups of Chicken Broth

6 whole Cloves

1/4 tsp Nutmeg

3/4 cup Half and Half

Start by melting the butter in a 2 quart saucepan then softening the Carrots, Celery and Onions. I takes about 10 minutes then add the rest of the ingredients except for the Half and Half. Cook this covered until all of the ingredients are soft about 45 minutes in this case. You should stir fairly often to check it and get an idea how long it will take. When the pumpkin is soft dig around a little bit and try to pull the cloves out, if you miss any they will end up being a little stick in someones soup. Then put the mixture to the blender about 1/3 at a time then poor back into the saucepan. Once it is blended smooth add the 3/4 cup of half and half and mix, you may want to add a little bit of honey to sweeten it up here taste it and decide for yourself.

This bowl is garnished with a little Roasted Red Pepper Cream to add color, I will talk about roasting peppers later but this is one Red Bell Pepper roasted and peeled then mixed with enough half and half to puree, very simple. I carefully added it with a teaspoon just before I served.

The soup is a great start to a fall meal simple, really beautiful and so creamy. Really it is like eating liquid silk it is so smooth.