When good things turn really bad

All the reds soup

Friday couldn't have started out better. A friend and I got ourselves all dressed up and headed for lunch at a popular restaurant here in Paris. We oohed, and we aahed, we ate like queens and soaked up the constant attention from the (as usual) all male serving staff. We got tipsy on some fine wine and three and a half hours later, finally giggled our way out of the restaurant, bellies full and entirely content.

And then there was the misery of saturday night, when my friend and I both found ourselves firmly implanted in our bathrooms, with no reprieve for about 8 or 9 hours. Oh the horror.
There are better ways to spend a weekend then suffering the effects of what I can only guess was food poisoning.

By mid-Sunday my body was so weary from the toll of the night before, every bone in my body ached and it was all I could do to stand up for more than 10 minutes at a time. Any thought of food made me cringe, but by this time, part of my stomach pains were mixed with hunger. Half a banana and a half cup of rice was about all I could manage all day.



And now, it's day three. I'm weary but on the road to recovery. All I can think about now is fresh fruit and vegetables, whole grains and legumes. I have a strong urge to get back to basics, to say no to heavy sauces and strange foods whose descriptions you have to ask 3 times just to understand what you are eating. I need a break from restaurants and bakeries, and any foods that are not prepared by me, with extreme caution, in my own home.

I found myself revisiting an old friend today at lunch-- a soup that I used to make regularly in my vegetarian days. I hadn't made it in about 5 years but there it was, dutifully copied onto my computer, just waiting to be rediscovered. And now that my body is ready to be fed again, I felt myself craving it. It's healthy and simple and right now, that's about all I need.

All the Reds Soup
(adapted from a book called the Ultimate Vegetarian which I can't find listed on Amazon, except for one by the same name which isn't the same book that I've got tucked away in storage.)

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small red onion, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 14oz can chopped tomatoes
2 tablespoons basmati rice
1 14oz can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
4 cups chicken or vegetable stock
1 tsp dried oregano
salt and pepper to taste
(optional toppings: chopped italian parsley, a bit of grated cheddar)

Put the oil in a pot over medium heat. Cook the onion and pepper until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook about 1 minute more. Add the rest of the ingredients and bring to a boil, then let simmer for about 15 minutes. Top with chopped parsley or a bit of grated cheddar if you wish.

Notes:
-A bad or bland stock will make or break any soup, so be sure to use a good one.
-The original recipe calls for a shot or two of Worcestershire sauce which I don't have, but it does add a nice touch if you should choose to use it.
-the grated cheddar is so not a European touch but it sure tastes good.



Vegetarian Soup
Kidney Bean Soup

Soup Recipes
Healthy Soup

Me and my Mulligatawny

Mulligatawny Soup

It seems as though I have television on the brain lately. But there is a valid reason. My boyfriend has just bought a big, shiny new one. Yes, you know where this is going.

My childhood is peppered with strange television memories. Saturday mornings started the same way each time: fighting with my brother over what cartoons to watch. His favourites inevitably involved superheroes saving the planet yet again, while he munched away on a bowl of honeycomb cereal. While I, with my much more girly honey nut cornflakes, insisted on the Muppet Babies. Somehow it seemed that my brother always won, and I would protest by standing in front of the television twirling my baton and practicing my marching band moves. Ok, maybe I only did that once. Usually I just sulked on the couch in defeat and watched whatever stupid cartoon he was watching.

So then I grew up. A little. It was an episode of Gimme a Break that first taught me that sometimes a girl can wear too much lip gloss. ("You look like you just ate a pork chop without using your hands"). When I was finally old enough to wear lip gloss it was clear that that episode had sealed my fate as the girl who always wears just the right amount of lip gloss.
Years later it was Frasier that first introduced me to the concept of a crème brulée torch, and I thought it was something so absurd that there was no way I would ever own one. (ok, I still don't but it's not because I don't want one).
And yes, it was Seinfeld and his soup nazi that put the word Mulligatawny into my vocabulary.

Though I'd never made it or even eaten it, Mulligatawny became the butt of jokes for years to come. The standard question of "What do you feel like eating?" still offers a comedic moment when answered with an overly enthusiastic "MULLIGATAWNY!"
Ok, maybe I'm the only who finds that funny, but I have always been easily amused.

I have no idea what possessed me after all these years to finally make Mulligatawny soup. Yes, perhaps it was the new TV. But now that I have made it, I feel as though I've just reclaimed my youth in some way; as though those Seinfeld episodes really weren't so long ago, and no, I'm not all that old. If ever I felt like snuggling up with my tv and telling it how much it means to me, that time is definitely now.


Mulligatawny Soup from Bon Appetit, September 2005
The soup was delicious. Me and my mulligatawny are going to be friends for years to come.

1/4 cup vegetable oil
3 cups chopped onion
5 garlic cloves, chopped
1.5 tablespoons garam masala
1.5 teaspoons ground coriander
1 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 bay leaves
2 cups dried red lentils
8 cups low-salt chicken broth (my note: or your salty broth if you prefer)
2 cups diced cooked chicken
1 cup canned unsweetened coconut milk
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 cups cooked basmati rice
lemon wedges

Heat vegetable oil in heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Add onions and cook until golden brown, stirring frequently, about 15 minutes. Add garlic and sauté 2 minutes. Add garam masala and next 4 ingredients; stir 1 minute. Add lentils; stir until coated. Add chicken broth. Bring soup to boil; reduce heat to medium and simmer until lentils are very tender, about 20 minutes. Discard bay leaves. Working in batches, puree soup in blender until smooth. Return to pot. Stir in chicken, coconut milk, and lemon juice. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Divide rice among bowls. Pour soup over. Garnish with lemon wedges; serve.


To my vegetarian friends, (Amylou? are you reading this?) let it be noted that even though I thought I was fully prepared, I was in fact out of chicken stock so I used vegetable stock and it tasted great even before adding the chicken. So you could easily make a chicken-free mulligatawny, which would really be more like a curried lentil soup, but with a more exciting and exotic and Seinfeldy name.

And the excitement doesn't stop there..
The soup itself is served in bowls over some cooked rice. If you are in the mood for more of a curry than a soup, use more rice. If you are in the mood for soupy, then add just a bit of rice. Each person can customize their own--and you know, on-the-spot soup customization options are hard to come by.

Curing a cold with wild mushroom soup

Wild Mushroom Soup

A couple of weeks ago I caught a rather nasty cold. With my boyfriend away on business, there I was, in our apartment, sick and alone. And well, just a little bit grumpy.

There are certain things that I crave when I'm sick. First and foremost, I crave dry toast and flat gingerale, a combination that my mother used to feed my brother and I when we were sick as children. No, it wasn't particularly tasty but it was much better than that cough syrup that sent us running to hide under the bed.

Of course, having our mother serve the dry toast and gingerale to us in bed was part of the cure. But with my mother an ocean away in Canada, the idea of it had lost much of its appeal.

My fallback feel-good-food, since I first left home at the age of 18, has always been a can of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup. I'm a woman of refined tastes, clearly. And I will even go so far as to admit that I usually just made it with water, instead of milk, as was instructed on the label.
Here's where I pause for you to say "EW" and then wonder why I would do such a thing.
Well, let's just say its another one of my strange quirks. I like to pretend that it's charming. But let's move on.

I'm sure there is a can of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup somewhere in Paris, but with my head and chest congested and the rest of me wanting to remain firmly planted in bed, I certainly did not want to have to go looking for it. So the days passed, my health improved, but I still had mushroom soup on the brain.



Trips to the market did nothing to curb my craving, as mushrooms of all kinds spilled from the vendors stalls. I'd never made my own mushroom soup before, and there was a little devil on my shoulder telling me to just give it a go. Nowadays, I have 2 names for this little devil that urges me to be more adventurous with my cooking, and to step out of my well-established box. Sometimes, this little devil that whispers in my ear goes by the name of Tara, and at other times, Melissa.

I found a recipe from my old standby, Williams-Sonoma, that seemed relatively easy. I came home with more mushrooms that day than I had ever bought at one time in my whole entire life. It was a little bit frightening, I admit. But the soup turned out wonderfully and I think that my Campbell's cravings may just be a thing of the past.

The base of this recipe is made with button mushrooms, so don't be fooled by the picture above. It's really nothing more than a gratuitous mushroom shot. These ones, which are called Girolles, a type of Chanterelle, were sauteed and added in afterwards, but they could just as easily be replaced with your own favourite wild mushroom or left out altogether. (at which point you would have to, in good conscience, rename it simply "Mushroom Soup")

Click here to see the recipe for:
Williams-Sonoma Wild Mushroom Soup

Overcoming my fear of soup...

tuscan chickpea soup

It took me many years of living on my own before I finally realized that making soups is not all that hard. For some reason I had avoided it. I would see soup recipes and completely bypass them in any cookbook, without even a second thought. It wasn't until my 3^rd year of university, that I finally saw the light. One of my new roommates was an avid soup maker, and she was shocked that I had never made soup before. As equally shocked as I was that she actually HAD made her own soups before. She had been excited to move in with me, as I had by then already amassed a significant collection of cookbooks. And the first thing she made from one of my books? Soup. One of the recipes that I of course had avoided. To this day, that first soup that she chose to make still remains one of my favourites.

Though my father had often made soups when I was younger, we were more focused on how great they tasted, and less interested in the process of making the soup. If there were cartoons to be watched, who cared how dad made the soup. Of course, I wish I had been a little smarter back then, but such is life.

And if you know me at all by now, the one thing that attracts me most to a recipe is whether or not it is relatively easy to make. There are times when I venture to the more complex, but I have to be in a very zen like state before hand and well relaxed in advance with a good glass of wine before delving into something with difficult techniques or instructions.

Several years ago I came across a recipe in an issue of Cooking Light magazine for Tuscan Chickpea Soup. When I first left Canada, this recipe was immediately transferred to a word document on my computer. It has dutifully followed me through 4 countries.

Each time I make it the recipe is consistent, it always tastes good. And I'm always surprised to find that it actually tastes better the following day. This is one time that I actually like having leftovers.

Now, I am one who always looks for a shortcut on a recipe. But after having made this soup many times, I will say that no shortcuts should be taken with this recipe. The amount of the garlic, the balsamic vinegar and the parmesan are all crucial to the taste of the soup, and make it absolutely delicious. If you omit any one of them your soup will quickly become mediocre. I also love adding freshly chopped Italian parsley to the soup at the end.

Tuscan Chickpea Soup (from Cooking Light)

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups finely chopped onion
8 garlic cloves, minced
4 cups water
1 teaspoon minced fresh or 1/4 teaspoon dried rosemary
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
3 (15 1/2-ounce) cans chickpeas (garbanzo beans), rinsed and drained
1 (14 1/2-ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained
1 to 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
6 tablespoons (1 1/2 ounces) grated fresh Parmesan cheese

Heat the olive oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Add onion and garlic, and cook for 10 minutes, stirring frequently. Stir in the water and the next 5 ingredients (water through tomatoes), and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 20 minutes.

Place 2 cups soup in a blender or food processor, and process until smooth. Pour the pureed soup into a bowl. Repeat procedure with 2 cups soup. Return all pureed soup to pan. Stir in the vinegar, and bring to a boil. Remove from heat. Spoon 1 1/2 cups soup into each of 6 bowls; sprinkle each serving with 1 tablespoon cheese.

Roasted Carrot Soup

roasted carrot soup, photo by Michele, copyright 2005

I'm new to the world of blogging. This is officially my one week anniversary. I will, of course, celebrate the occassion later this evening. This past week I have been shocked to discover the not-so-secret world of the food blogging community. Though my friends may think I'm crazy, I now realize that there are alot of people out there just like me. And suddenly I feel normal again. Ahhh, acceptance is a fine, fine thing. It felt like Christmas when I discovered Is My Blog Burning, which put a call out to interested cooks to make something orange.
So, this recipe has been posted for the Is My Blog Burning project #14, which is being hosted this month at Foodgoat. It's my first time participating, and I couldn't pass up the challenge. And I do like the colour orange.

What do I love more than soup? Easy soup. This one is so ridiculously easy it doesn’t seem like a recipe at all. But when you find a way to make a vegetable stand entirely on it’s own, why mess with it. Roasting the carrots mellows their flavour and brings out their earthy sweetness. They really need very little help after that.

Roasted Carrot Soup

5 large carrots, peeled and washed. Cut into quarters. (as long as the pieces are about the same thickness so they will roast evenly)
1 teaspoon and 1 tablespoon of olive oil
½ of a small to medium onion, chopped
3.5 cups (875ml) vegetable broth (chicken broth would probably work too)

Preheat the oven to 200c (375F). Place the carrots on a baking sheet. Drizzle one teaspoon of olive oil over the carrots and toss to coat. Roast in the oven for about 30 minutes, tossing half way through cooking. The carrots should be slightly browned and very soft when done.

Put 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a pot over medium high heat. Add onion and fry 2-3 minutes until softened. Add carrots and cook for another 2 minutes. Add broth, let simmer for 10-15 minutes.

Transfer the soup to a blender and puree until very smooth. Serve immediately or return to pot and cook a further 5-10 minutes if you wish. Add salt and pepper to taste.