A Snowed In Soup Nazi

Oh January, you most unholy beast of frigidity! You cruel month of nostril icicles and forced baby steps on frozen sidewalks! I smite thee! You Siberian slut of icebox misery! Ahem….right. So, let’s get on with it. As this most ungracious month nears its end, this girl right here has been forced to stay in all weekend due to the cold outside, and the cold I’ve contracted from my cohorts at my 9-5 (thanks for nothing, jerks). While I sound as though I’m a chain smoking lass in Ireland with the consumption during a potato famine, I feel quite fine. Nevertheless, I decided I would remedy myself with a weekend away from civilization, aside from a little grocery shopping.

When I started getting sick a few days ago, all I knew is that I needed a spicy soup and to keep it coming. With inspiration from one of my favorites, a little hole in the wall Cambodian/Thai place in Columbus, ironically named “Siem Reap” (typically found in Cambodia on a map, not Columbus), I decided to get busy on a Curry Soup this weekend. So I googled a glut of curry soup recipes, and then I was like, “where the #%^&* am I going to find these ingredients?”. Lemon grass, lime leaves? After some additional googling and a tip from a co-worker/foodie, I found not only a great Asian grocery at Westgate Imports Market (in the ‘hood), but a great little hidden take out place for Thai food.

Let me tell you, as a 30-year-Ohioan with zero experience in a foreign country, shopping at an Asian grocery was as close as it comes to the real thing. I caught myself whispering “this is so hard” on more than one occasion. First, it wasn’t my typical marathon sprint around the store in 10 minutes flat.  I was in there for 35 minutes! PS: It only had four aisles! Do you know how many types of fish sauces exist? There were so many things I never knew existed. So much choy, so little time! I also needed curry paste. Do you know how many kinds of curry paste there are? Thank god they listed ingredients in English. I finally settled on the only one that didn’t have monosodium glutamate (it’s found in most processed American foods too. It’s not a flavor, it’s a chemical. steer clear!). Anyway, how about pork blood? Get yer pork blood here! Only $3.39/lb for the holy blood of swine! I don’t even want to know what those solid masses are in the pork blood. Just walk away, and no one gets hurt….except for porky here, he’s a goner.

So I gathered my ingredients, grabbed some phenomenal takeout to hold me over, and made my way home in arctic temperatures. Happy as a clam, I got to work on my curry soup. I forgot the chicken, but to hell with it, it’s 15 degrees outside. Ain’t nobody got time fo dat. That said, I very loosely followed a recipe by a blogger named Chef Michael Smith (link below).  I didn’t use chicken, but I did roast some sweet potatoes and tossed those in for some flavor. So here is the spread to the right. I added the bok choy since there were so many choys at the grocery, then lime, dried lemon grass (they were out of fresh), dried galanga, cumin, lime leaves, green onion, bean sprouts, rice noodles, fish sauce, coconut milk, chicken broth, ginger, garlic, chili paste, onion, and boom. It took about an hour to prep and cook. You have to consider the little things like peeling and grating ginger, chopping garlic, onions, grating lime rind, grating carrots, yadda yadda, you get the idea. It gets to be pretty time consuming. The only thing I’d suggest contrary to the recipe link below, is that I would steep the rice noodles in a separate pot. When you add them directly to your soup, they soak up all the soup, and it becomes a rice noodle reservoir, rather than a steamy, cold curing soup.

Nonetheless, it was delicious, spicy, and did the trick. Take out might be faster and cheaper in the long run, but now I fully appreciate the labor that goes into my “$7.95 pint of amazing-sauce” from that little hole in the wall across from the casino. As much as cooking equates to therapy for me, with this dish, I think I may opt for take out next time. Despite the time and effort involved, the end result hit the spot. However, with the rice noodles absorbing all liquid left in the pot, all I could hear in the end was “No soup for you!”.

Credits: http://chefmichaelsmith.com/recipe/thai-coconut-curry-soup/#.UuXC_WQo6CQ

Peace and Bacon Grease

Since the half marathon, I’ve taken a couple weeks to laze about and bask in sloth-like behavior. Having spent more than 11,000 days with myself, I well know that if I do not have a fitness goal looming over my head, I’m going to relax and indulge just about every night possible. Knowing this love affair can’t last forever, I’ve been making the most of my health conscious hiatus. Now, with the cool weather blowing my way, I have morphed from a gourmet salad lover to an ever-slurping soup fanatic. So what has been on the menu lately? There was a little bit of chicken and bacon chili going on, but the bacon saturated glory award goes to the holy grail spilling over with potato soup. Now, hold onto something while I lay it on you.

Growing up, it was not uncommon to find a small glass bowl near the stove with a mysterious gelatinous textured substance inside. As a teenager, I came to understand this as grease that was left over after the bacon was removed from the breakfast skillet. Adhering to a common Southern Ohio cooking style, my mom would keep the grease around to give the next meal or two a roundhouse kick of bacon flavored heaven. It seems to have taken me a good 30 years to come to grips with my culinary roots, and include just a dab of delicious cholesterol to my cooking on occasion. In fact, using the grease immediately after the bacon is removed from the skillet to simmer eggs or veggies is even better. That said, on with the potato soup recipe…

Just as any fine meal begins, we start the potato soup recipe with simmering bacon. As you can see, I’ve chopped it up first so it cooks quickly. Why cook the bacon first if it is just a topping before consumption? Well, if you would have been paying attention, you’d figure out that we are going to use this sweet bacon nectar to cook EVERYTHING ELSE!!! Ahem, moving along.

Can you smell the sin?

As the bacon is making the kitchen, and ultimately the entire place smell wonderful, I get to chopping. Onions, carrots, and celery make up the aromatic trifecta dubbed by the French as “mirepoix” (meer-uh-pwah, for you ‘Mericans). As is the occasion in soups and stews, bacon or ham commonly makes this threesome a quartet. Along with the mirepoix, I chop my red potatoes (no need to peel these), parsley, and gather the rest of my ingredients.

Missing from photo: white wine, butter, rosemary, cajun seasoning, and simmering bacon

Then, I remove the crispy bacon pieces from the pan and set aside for later. Meanwhile, I leave the grease in the pan and add the mirepoix into the sizzling swimming pool of bliss. I let it simmer for about five minutes on its own before I add the diced potatoes.

 While the mirepoix and potatoes are simmering, I add a decent amount of salt, because it makes potatoes happy.  I then add about six cups of chicken broth. After about ten or so minutes on medium-high heat, the potatoes soften (you can test with a fork) and I give it an unexpected KERPOW with a splash of wine. So first comes love (bacon) then comes marriage (mirepoix+potatoes+chicken broth) then comes the baby in the baby carriage? I’m just trying to say that it’s important to thicken the soup next – forget that stupid nursery rhyme. It’s outdated anyway.

Thickening culprits (milk and flour)

In a bowl, I whisk together a cup of milk, and a few tablespoons of flour. Pour the mixture into the pot with everything else and stir it in. Everything is getting happy on medium heat at this point, and when you think it can’t get any better, it does! How is this even possible? We bring in the big guns with a quarter cup of cream and a couple pats of butter (this is a calorie-free meal, in case you were wondering). I continue to season with fresh rosemary, chopped parsley, cajun sesasoning, salt, and pepper to my liking. But wait, there’s more! At the very end, I add a half cup of shredded monterrey jack cheese and a half cup of shredded sharp cheddar. Let it get melty (that’s a technical term) and happy (that’s a pre-school emotion) for 5-10 more minutes on low or until I can’t wait any longer. Now it’s time to top with fresh cracked pepper, chopped green onions, bacon pieces from earlier, and more parsley. I love parsley, thanks to my dear Grandma Bert.

Voila! Dinner is served (for four nights in a row)

There it is, folks. Bask in the glory that bacon made. Now, if you want the ingredients, check ’em out below:

• 6 slices bacon, cut into pieces
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 10-15 baby carrots, diced
• 3 stalks celery, diced
• 3 green onions, chopped (for garnish)
• 13-15 redskin potatoes, diced
• 6 cups organic chicken or vegetable broth
• 1/4 cup white wine (I used Sauv Blanc, but any dry would work)
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 1 cup milk
• 1/4 cup half and half
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1/2 tablespoon pepper
• 1/2 tablespoon cajun seasoning
• 3 tablespoons minced fresh parsley (for seasoning and garnish)
• 1/2 cup shredded monterrey jack
• 1/2 cup shredded sharp cheddar

Kudos to one of my fave food bloggers, The Pioneer Woman, for the basis of this recipe.

One bushel of tomatoes and a side of acrylics

Weeks and months have dropped like lead balloons from the calendar of life since I last blogged about my 21-day vegan food adventure. So much has happened to make me appreciate the fragility of life and the importance of taking care of this body in which I exist. Eating vegan is a sure-fire way to stay healthy, but when life’s stresses seem overwhelming, nothing seems to calm my nerves better than a spicy pepperoni from Mikey’s Late Night Slice or a bacon covered piece of…deep fried bacon.

That said, a healthy life balance is the key when those indulgent tendencies are far too overpowering for normal human weakness. To counteract said tendencies, I made a point to incorporate a vegetable garden into my summer. It began with an impulsive Monday evening of sod shredding in June, and has resulted in tomatoes out the yin-yang in September. This Farmer Brown made one batch of homemade tomato sauce and pesto and realized she could spend no more time on tomatoes. You’re welcome, tomato loving co-workers.

In addition to my figurative green thumb, my hands have also been blue, black, orange, purple, many other colors this summer. Slowly but surely, I’ve moved from kitchen to easel in my one bedroom apartment. I’ve had the opportunity to paint some cute pups, record albums, and street scenes. With two art shows coming up in NW Ohio within the next month, I’m going to be a painting fool, and that’s exactly the kind of therapy that goes amazingly well with a tanqueray and tonic.