Soup #46

#46 Rural bean and vegetable soup. A rather nice soup with a couple of different types of beans (should have been kidney beans, pinto beans and black eyed peas but I could not find pinto beans in any of the multitude of stores that I went to yesterday so I skipped them and increased the amount of kidney beans instead), some mushrooms (should have been dried porchino and button mushrooms, but I thought I would swap the dried porchino for fresh ones from the forest, so I took Tage on a stroll today and could of course not find any of the ones that I had seen on our last jogg. But I did find plenty of chanterells so I used them instead. At the same time I learned what Tage hates more than accompanying me on photography strolls...) The soup also contained some chopped shallots and some mini pasta. So, friend of order asks, where the heck did the vegetables go? I have no idea. Anyhow - I liked it.

(By the way, do not worry, I have not forgotten soups #39 to #45. You will hear about them soon, I promise.)

Soup #36, #37 & #38

I am lacking the energy for normal posts and the last quiz question (it will come soon, I promise), but I do feel that I must relate the last couple of soups that has been on the menu.

#36 was an ok dish, but it was more of a starter than a complete meal. Cucumber, mint and green peas. Basically it is what it sounds like, soup based on cucumber, green peas and mint. It also contained a couple of tatoes, butter, chicken broth and a good splash of rich cream. A comment we wrote was that it would have been better to use less water and more cream than the recipe prescribed.

#37 I did on my own when K had left me to see an Opera in the city of our dreams. Cheese soup with bacon and potatoes. It sounds quite good and I really had great hopes for it, but it did not live up the expectations. Bacon (too little), onion, broth and potatoes were cooked in a pot and then thickened by some flour. Then some Emmenthaler, sherry and Worcestershire sauce were added. Maybe it would have been better if I had served it in a hot bowl as it said in the book.

#38 This one we did last night, and I just had the rest for lunch. Prawn and lemon-grass soup. As you might think it is an asian soup, and as such it is a bit hard to make since I am not so sure on how it should taste and how the ingredients should be treated. A good thing was the raw prawns, they turned out great since they were only cooked once (they did not become chewy at all), the bad things were the amount of lime, three of them might have been two to many, and then the lemon-grass. Now I do not know if it is supposed to be like that but since they are so 'woody' they are not all that pleasant to get in your mouth and since you should cut them in 2.5 cm long pieces according to the book, they are not that easy to pick out of the soup either.. A strange thing was the straw mushrooms. A canned mushroom that were, hmm, strange you might say. And then we have the coriander, but that is a story of its own.

Soup #35

It is back! Once again it is back, your favourite segment on this blog - The soups. (For those of you that can't remember what it was all about: I make all the soups in a book with 85 different soups in it and write about the experience here on the blog. I went into the project with gusto but have kind of slowed down a bit lately (only two new soups were made last year). I do however mean to finish the project.)

Wonton soup was on the menu today. A mixture of fish, crab, ginger, garlic and spring onions were put on a square of wonton dough which then was folded and glued together with a little water. The dumplings were then cooked in a chicken broth together with shallots, ginger and a little sugar. The soup was finished of with rise vinegar, soy, spring onions, parsley and sesame oil.

I must say that it was great. It took some time to make the dumplings, but considering that it was the first time it was not too bad. It was rather easy to make and the result was a well balanced soup with lots of great dumplings.

soup #34

French onion soup. If you consider the ingredients, which are basically yellow onion, butter, flour, broth and Dijon mustard, it is amazing that it turns out so good. The soup is made pretty much the way you make soup, but then it is gratinated in the oven with some roasted white bread with cheese on top.
Great! But it was maybe not the best idea ever to do it on the hottest day so far this year..

Soup #33

If you are blind you will like this one. Green lentil and bacon soup. It was easy enough to make but it took some time on the stove. And the taste was rather good, reminded a lot of pea soup (and in fact I tried it with some mustard, which was good). But it did not look tasty at all, a green brown mush. Ingredients? Green lentils, a carrot, a yellow onion, a couple of cloves of garlic, bacon, a stem of celery, parsley, a bay leaf, chicken broth, that was about it I think.

(oh, by the way, I had made a mistake with the numbers once again, maybe it is correct now. And I know how much you all have missed the early soups so I will see if I can find them somewhere.)

Soup #32

It is back, the part of this blog that you have all been waiting for, the Soups!!! Found a pumpkin in the store, and thought 'why not', so today we did a Pumpkin and apple soup. Our expectations were not all that high, but it turned out that we were wrong. It was a really nice winter soup, one that will be done again.

Soup #31

Mmmmmmm
Jams soup. The main ingredient is, hmm, Jams. And then there are onion, potatoes, celery, carrots, white vine, chicken broth, salt, white pepper and nutmeg. Served with crunchy bacon on top. And it was very good, really good.

No soup for mattias

Decided to make a Jams soup, but when I got to the store they did not have any Jams. Pork chops, oven fried potatoes and rose pepper cream sauce is what I made instead. Will try to make the soup tomorrow.

Soup?

Since I am alone this weekend, maybe I should make a couple of non-vegetarian soups?? I do feel that the project needs to be awakened again and this is a golden opportunity (there are not lot of veggie soups left...). A report will follow.

Soups

Soups are being made. Today we did a mushroom soup with green curry and coconut cream. It was however not in the book, so no report will follow.

Soup #30

The opinions differ. I liked it. K not so much. Butter simmered onion and endive, a dash of wine, some broth and a lot of milk. A couple of table spoons of maizena flour and then a long simmer. Top it of with some grated parmesan. It was supposed to be served over some toasts, but the track record of bread in the soups are not so good so we had the toast on the side instead.

Soup #29

Gazpacho. Hmm. No, this was not a very good recipe for the cold vegetable soup. It was to much union and to much vinegar. And I think that some broth would have been good. The very bad thing is that I have to eat it again at lunch tomorrow.

Soup #28

Long time no soup, but Now we are on again! Lettuce and pea soup. I had very low expectations on this one, I mean hot lettuce, how good can it be? But I was surprised. It was green, tasty, filling and quite a lot of it!

Soup #27

Leek and potato. Thats all there was. The name says it all. Would have been better if there was some cream in it, but there wasn't. The grade was very simple to set, one and a half star (out of three).

Soup #26

So, ok, I found the missing soup. It was made a bit more than a month ago, but I will just enter it as number 26 instead of renumbering them...
// just got a call about a job interview //
White bean soup with roasted garlic and chili. A nice and creamy soup and the roasted garlic was a nice touch.

Soup #25

Oven roasted vegetable soup. And yes, not only are the vegetables roasted in the oven, but so is the soup as well. And it is was good, the roasted taste was well balanced with some nice honey.

Got a bit confused yesterday. I did a count, and it seems that even if I include the recipe for the broths (there are four of them) the total amount of soups is only 83. (The title of the book is 'hot and cold soups, 85 recipes') So where are the two missing once???
Adding to the confusion I did a count of the soups that we have made and it seems that they are 26. I have missed one. Anyhow, I am now doing an inventory to see which one I have missed, and will make up for that.

Soup #24

Roasted tomatoes and chili soup with olive creme fraishe
After the total fiasco with the last tomato soup (#18) the hopes for this one might not have been that high. And maybe cause of this I did not pay full attention and hence I did not follow the recipe to the last letter, and used less tomatoes than I was supposed to. (I know, this is bad, but who is going to stop me??? OK OK I will not deviate from the recipe ever again I promise!!). Anyhow, the tomatoes (600g of plum tomatoes) was gutted, put in a pan, sprinkled with some olive oil and some sugar, and then with roasted in the oven together with a red chili (and the garlic which was not supposed to be roasted, but I did it anyway) for 45 minutes (the garlic and chili was only in for about half the time).

One onion was sliced in pieces and set to simmer in olive oil. When the onion is soft (make sure that it does not turn dark) the gut of the tomatoes was added, together with the roasted tomatoes, garlic, skinned and de-seeded chili, 5dl of water. It was then set to simmer for 15 minutes during which the olive creme fraishe was prepared.

The soup was mixed and then sent through a strainer (keep the thing that goes through the strainer, throw away the things that get stuck in it!) back into a saucepan and spiced up with 2 table spoons of lime juice, salt and pepper and a knifes edge of cayenne pepper. Oh, and during the whole procedure I also baked some baguettes.

The result?? Oh yea! This was good. Saligt gott, jättegott.

Soup #23

Fennel and lemon.
I must confess that I did not have the greatest of hopes for this one, but it took me by surprise. The taste was complex and well balanced. I must confess that I added a bit less lemon than what the book said, previous experiences has taught me that lemon is an ingredient that they love a bit to much. But yea, this was a really really nice soup!

Soup #22

Artichoke and dill. And it was nice. But since the lemon juice was added at the beginning and not at the end where you could taste and add lemon until it tasted right, the end result was a bit to sour in this case.

By the way, what is the point of mixing the soup and then pour it into a Clean casserole? Why is it supposed to be clean? It is just soup in there.

Soup #21

Vichyssoise! Now a potato and leek soup might not sound all that fashinating, but it really was. It was made creamy by adding... cream... and then eaten both warm and cold. It is supposed to be a could soup, but it worked well warm also. This time is the first that we got enough food to actually feed as many persons as the book said it would wich is a plus!