I cleaned out the freezer this weekend — in preparation for the Thailand trip — and found a huge Honeybaked ham bone (with meat!) that I need to use up, so we’re having Senate Bean Soup.
I started cooking it last night after dinner. It’s currently sitting in the fridge, melding flavors for tonight’s dinner.
We made Mexican Turkey Soup tonight with our stock and carcass meat.
I liked this soup, but I didn’t love it. There was too much broth for the amount of ‘stuff’ in it — we had to scoop the turkey and veggies into the bowls with a slotted spoon to get the balance right.
Before portioning out the leftovers, I ladled off 2 cups of turkey/tomato/chipotle broth (out of the original half-gallon of stock, plus the tomato liquid) and froze it separately for later use. The remaining bowls seemed closer to the mark. It also needed a lot more salt than the recipe called for. It’s a nice, easy weeknight recipe, and a nice way to use up turkey. It was reminiscent of tortilla soup, but not as good.
We made turkey stock today, here at my mom’s house. It was a 22-pound bird, so we ended up with a lot of very rich stock.
I’ve set aside a half-gallon in the freezer that I’ll bring home with me on the plane on Monday, along with some of the meat we pulled off the carcass. So, even if we don’t get a chance to make soup while we’re here, we’ll probably squeak a soup in right at the end of the fortnight once we get home.
Last night we — and by “we” I actually mean Cameron — made potato soup: Potato, Bacon and Gruyere Soup.
It was a pretty odd preparation, and the end result needed a fair bit of salt (perhaps due to the use of homemade stock rather than prepared broth). Once it was properly seasoned, you could taste the bacon and the cheese, but before that it was all texture and very little taste.
Next time, I would mash or blend some of the potatoes to get a creamier texture, too.
Tonight we made Crab & Crimini Bisque — What a disappointment! Expensive, time-consuming, and ultimately blah. There were too many mushrooms and way too much crab for the amount of soup… the garnish was overwhelming.
Also, they didn’t have you season as you went — only asked for salt & pepper at the very end — so the whole thing was flat and bleh. Too fishy and stringy from the crab, too.
Last year, we used Italian-style prune-plums, as they’re abundant (to say the least) in our old Seattle neighborhood; we used to get giant bowls full from neighbors who begged and pleaded with us to take more. This year, we used more typical round plums — both red and black varieties — that came in our CSA produce box.
They’re good right away, but better after a couple of weeks. Honestly, the plums are fine — they make a great substitute for cherries in clafoutis — but the real draw is the plum-infused brandy cordial.
Leftover infused brandy is great in soda water or champagne, or over ice cream.
Madison Valley Brandied Plums
3 pounds plums
1-inch-long stick of cinnamon
2 cups sugar
1 cup water
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups brandy
Boil a stockpot of water as deep as the shoulder of your canning jar. (I use a 2-quart hinged-lidded jar for a full recipe — you can always portion into smaller jars for giving away once they’re done.)
Wash and stem plums. Prick several holes around stem ends. Pack plums into the canning jar. Quarter and pit remaining plums and re-pack, placing quartered/halved pieces in gaps that form between whole plums. Add cinnamon stick.
In a 2-quart saucepan, bring sugar, salt, and 1 cup water to a boil, then turn to low and simmer 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Let cool for 10 minutes, then stir in brandy. Immediately pour liquid into jar up to 1/2 inch from the rim.
Partly close jar, leaving room for steam to escape, and place in boiling water for 5 minutes. Carefully remove jar with a jar-lifter or 2 sets of tongs, and close the lid. Cool to room temperature, then refrigerate.
Oaxacan Black Bean: it was delicious. Cam just finished the last of it for lunch today. (Well, not quite… there’s another 2 servings in the freezer for one of those “I dunno, what do you feel like eating” nights.)
Next time I would probably add a bit more chorizo, or perhaps sautee another 1/4 pound of it for garnish… most of the long-cooked stuff simmered down and/or got pureed so smoothly that you didn’t know it was there. Garnished with some mexican cheese, crisp tortillas, and a little bit of avocado. Mmm….
There’s a really dumbed-down version of the recipe I used here. The real version calls for avocado leaf instead of fennel, and pasilla oaxaquena instead of chipotles; the shrimp (which I didn’t use) are optional.
We made the broth for our beef soup yesterday. It’s chillin’ (along with half of the beef used to make it) in the downstairs fridge now, ready to have its fat layer peeled away. I think it’s destined for Beef Barley later in the week, unless I change my mind again.
Update: We finished making our beef-barley soup last night. The photo was kinda dodgy, so I don’t think it will add much to the story.
We tried Pam Anderson‘s recipe, since we’d always wondered if it was good, using the “2 pounds marrow bones plus 4 pounds chuck meat” option — there were no beef shanks to be found in the area without ordering them. The rest of the ingredients couldn’t be simpler: carrot, onion, 1/2 cup chopped canned tomatoes, a bit of barley, and some fresh thyme.
The broth was good and beefy, though I don’t know if it was worth using 6 pounds of meat and bones to get it! Unlike Anderson’s chicken broth, you do end up with usable meat at the end of the process. And since the recipe itself only calls for half of the meat, I used some of the rest for the picadillo project, and expect to make some sort of italian stew with the remainder. But all in all, I don’t think it was much better than what I’ve made in the past with beef stock, and it was a lot more trouble. And it also made a LOT more than then 6 servings she said it would, so we’ve got about 4 servings in the freezer, even after setting aside 3 lunches.
I made a pot of Pam Anderson’s chicken soup from The Perfect Recipe. I don’t think my batch came out as good as Cameron’s usually does — he is the designated chicken souper of our clan — but I compensated by adding my own homemade farfalle pasta.
I love this soup because it doesn’t deplete my stock stash: you use a whole chicken, cutting all but the breast into tiny bits to make broth, then add breast meat poached in the broth, and veggies sauteed in the chicken fat. It turns out really chicken-y, even more than you’d expect from such a reasonably quick preparation.
