Friday, November 16, 2012

Fall is the Perfect Time for Soup!

Whenever anyone says "fall" I immediately think of beautiful colorful leaves.  Such as this tree in my sister Kim's yard In Dover, TN... isn't it stunning?  So glad I got to be there this year to see it!


Then comes the thought of soup!  Yesterday I decided to go out and see if there was anythng left in my poor garden to make some soup with.  I found a few last veg standing, beets, celery and chives.  Just last week Dave was plowing his garden under  and unearthed these beauties...




so I figured that was a good start.  But let's back up...

Everyone knows good soup starts with good soup stock.  Here's my version...

I made this last week.  I've described before how I save all my trimmed veg ends, onions, celery, bell pepper bits along with the bones of eaten chickens in a plastic bag in the freezer.  :)  I know... sounds freaky and obsessive!  But the outcome is so delicious!  I didn't start making my own stock until we moved out here to the sticks.  When I was working from my home office it was easy to pop down and make sure the big vat of stuff most people throw away was not boiling over.  And now that I'm not working at all... well :) It really is sort of a two day process.  First day... boil the bones and veg bits, cool and pick through, scavenging the good chicken bits to be used in a casserole or soup. 

(Side tangent here... I never feel closer to my dear sweet mother in law - who has "moved to heaven" than when I'm making chicken stock.  She was the ultimate in thriftiness and using what was on hand and available.  I remember once at a family dinner at Lorie's (Dave's sis) house, probably Christmas Eve dinner, when Lorie was tossing out some left over peas, that she (Grandma Olsen) was appauled that she would waste them and actually dug them out of the garbage can - only to be thrown out again later by her horrified daughter.  Can you say run on sentence?  Haha!  Anyway... when I'm digging through those bones I can just feel her over my shoulder pointing out that one good bit that I missed.  She had more influence over me than she or I ever imagined.  :)  Good stuff!) 

Ok... Im back...Then strain liquid from the other stuff.  Let cool overnight then Day 2... skim off all the fat and fill the jars.  It freezes really well and can just be thawed in the microwave.

So knowing I had a good supply of stock on hand and some tasty chicken in the fridge I commenced the soup.  Usually I just start and whatever comes out is typically pretty good.  Now that I'm doing the weight watchers thing I sort of need to know what the points value is so I know how much I can eat.  I decided to actually build a recipe.  Weight Watchers e tools has a cool gadget for that.  That recipe is below but first just one more detail to share.  On my way in from the sad garden I was kind of dissatisfied because I didn't really find that much.  I was hoping to unearth a few more of the beautiful golden beets I enjoyed all summer but no... just a few red beets.  Bummer!  And then my eyes fell upon one small pumpkin sitting at the bottom of my front stairs.  Hmm... maybe... Upon closer examination I could tell that it had been frozen and was beginning to go bad so I was about to toss it over to the chickens when the image of that same dear little old white haired lady (Grandma Olsen) popped into my mind and whispered that I probably could use it anyway!  :)  So I lugged it to the sink and cut it open.  Sure enough... it was partially frozen but I figured... so what.  I cleaned, peeled and cubed it up and threw it in.  There was even some left over to stash in the freezer.  It about doubled the volume of the soup.  Score!  And here is what the soup looked like...

And the recipe...

3/4 C uncooked barley, lightly toasted
3/4 C orange (or red/yellow) bell pepper, chopped
1 1/4 C diced sweet onion (such as Walla Walla or Texas Sweets)
1/2 C celery, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
6 cups chicken stock
6 cups water
1/2 C raw beets, small diced
5 C fresh pumpkin, peeled, seeded, bout half inch cubes
4 C red potato, half inch dice
1/2 C dried shitaki mushrooms, torn in small pieces
1/2 C cooked chicken
olive oil in a spray bottle
1/2 t salt
1 t cracked black pepper
1/4 t crushed red pepper
1 t ground cumin
1 t curry powder
1/8 t saffron
4 T minced fresh chives


In a medium sized dutch oven lightly toast the barley in one spray of olive oil. Brings out the nutty flavor of the grain.

Add chicken stock to pan and heat to simmer/cook barley in the stock.

Chop onion, seeded bell pepper and celery. In a large skillet saute/lightly carmelize the veggies. Intensifies and deepens their flavor. Season with 1/4 t salt and few grinds of pepper.

Add the minced garlic and saute one additional minute. Add sauted veggies to pot. (Tip: in order to take advantage of the deep intense caramelized flavor on the bottom of the pan, deglaze the pan with a half cup of the soup stock and then pour that stock back in the soup pot.  Ok... you knew that... moving on!)

As the soup thickens, throughout the cooking time add the water... about two cups at a time and bring back to simmer.

Clean and cube pumpkin to half inch dice, add to pot.

Remove tops and tap root of beets. Peel any rough bumps or spots off then small dice the beets. Add to pot.  (this is when I began to panic!  At first the soup was RED!  Then it mellowed into this beautiful bright orange...)

Cube red potatoes to half inch dice, add to pot.
Add curry powder, cumin, crushed red pepper flake and saffron. Simmer until potatoes are tender.

Add chicken, let simmer until heated through.
Reseason with salt/pepper to taste.  Garnish each bowl with fresh minced chives.
 
By the way... if you happen to be on the weight watchers plan 1 1/2 C soup would be the serving size and that is calculated (by the recipe builder) at 4 PP.   
And this is how it looks served up:
 
We had a left over "everything" bagel in the pantry so I decided to split it into 4 slices and toasted it in the grill pan then melted Tillimook cheese on top.  I had one slice... Dave had three.  If you wanted to add the 1/4 bagle with half an ounce of cheddar cheese (really... that's all you need) that would bring the points to 7.  But a tasty and satisfying lunch.

There have been so many other tasty things I have whipped up either from a WW recipe in one of my vast collection of cookbooks...or online.  Usually just the product of my wild imagination.  Sometimes they come out ok :)  I'll just throw out a few of them just so you can have an idea of what I do all day long...

Stir-fried veg on shirataki noodles


Just using up the left over salmon that our neighbor Jeremy brought us from Alaska.

This was Dave's latest catch of the day.  A beautiful rainbow trout from Lake Roosevelt...
he likes garlic :)


Oh yeah... I almost forgot about this one... this is left over BBQ pork as a salad topper.  Add a little extra BBQ sauce and scatter it on top of your favorite salad fixins.  This time of year I go crazy over the little satsuma oranges... I threw some of those little segments too along with some avocado and pine nuts... this was maybe a little out of control for a salad on the weight watchers plan but... he who has never overindulged go ahead and cast the first stone.  :)  Yeah baby... this was good! 


Ok... I'm hungry so gotta go...

Caio!

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