Gave beef soup another shot last night, using a simple recipe I found on cooks.com. Stew beef, soup bones, barley, carrots, onions, tomatoes. I enhanced it with a leek, mushrooms, and some broccoli which was getting well past its prime. Very full beef flavor in the broth, though a lot of fat rose to the top that I had to skim off. A gravy separator helped a lot with this.
I feel confident now with cooking a beef vegetable. Next project--black bean.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Monday, February 7, 2011
Cooking--Posole
My wife and I have cooked a version of the Mexican stew posole for a while now, but I wouldn't call it anything close to authentic. It's a vegetarian version that involves little more than mixing together the contents of several cans: hominy, tomatoes, beans, along with a few spices. It's a quick tasty meal, and goes nicely in a tortilla.
Last night we made the genuine article: a pork shoulder simmered until tender in broth, hominy, cumin and garlic. We pureed some dried ancho chilis in the broth and added them for the last half hour of cooking. This gave us a mild, rich stew that tasted wonderful topped with sour cream and wrapped in a tortilla. Normally if we make burritos I stop at two. I had to go for three last night, as did my wife. We had enough left over for one more meal this week. I suspect this will enter the regular rotation in our household. I don't recall where my wife got the recipe or I'd post it here.
I've never seen posole offered in a Mexican restaurant, even in the small places that cater to the local Latino community. This in spite of it being one of the most popular Mexican dishes. Nearly every Mexican restaurant I've seen, chain or local, serves the same fifteen or so dishes that amount to variations on tacos or burritos. Why so little variety there, when there is so much in Mexican cuisine? Something similar holds true in Chinese restaurants, by my observation.
All the more reason to cook at home.
Last night we made the genuine article: a pork shoulder simmered until tender in broth, hominy, cumin and garlic. We pureed some dried ancho chilis in the broth and added them for the last half hour of cooking. This gave us a mild, rich stew that tasted wonderful topped with sour cream and wrapped in a tortilla. Normally if we make burritos I stop at two. I had to go for three last night, as did my wife. We had enough left over for one more meal this week. I suspect this will enter the regular rotation in our household. I don't recall where my wife got the recipe or I'd post it here.
I've never seen posole offered in a Mexican restaurant, even in the small places that cater to the local Latino community. This in spite of it being one of the most popular Mexican dishes. Nearly every Mexican restaurant I've seen, chain or local, serves the same fifteen or so dishes that amount to variations on tacos or burritos. Why so little variety there, when there is so much in Mexican cuisine? Something similar holds true in Chinese restaurants, by my observation.
All the more reason to cook at home.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Cooking--Finnish Beef Soup
A nordic beef-vegetable soup---all root vegetables (recipe). I don't have that much experience with meat soups and want to get more proficient with those. Something from the cold countries sounded right for the end of the coldest, snowiest week this year. (And for me, BTW, winter is something to celebrate, not run from. This year has provided a pleasant departure from our usual anemic winters in southern Michigan).
My rendition was a bit thin . The meat and first round of veggies should have cooked at least twice as long as the suggested time, and a soup bone would have strengthened the broth. The potatoes put in at the end don't need the full twenty minutes, at least if you've cut them small enough to comfortably occupy a soup spoon. I did like the generous topping of fresh parsely--it added a piquant tingle to the subdued root veggie flavors.
I'll attempt this again. I suspect I'll be making a lot of meat soups in the next few weeks, since that's the weak spot in my resume. Shopping for this effort, I discovered a good butcher shop--Knight's Market, an Ann Arbor landmark apparently, but one I'd never heard of until yesterday. By spring, they ought to know me by sight.
My rendition was a bit thin . The meat and first round of veggies should have cooked at least twice as long as the suggested time, and a soup bone would have strengthened the broth. The potatoes put in at the end don't need the full twenty minutes, at least if you've cut them small enough to comfortably occupy a soup spoon. I did like the generous topping of fresh parsely--it added a piquant tingle to the subdued root veggie flavors.
I'll attempt this again. I suspect I'll be making a lot of meat soups in the next few weeks, since that's the weak spot in my resume. Shopping for this effort, I discovered a good butcher shop--Knight's Market, an Ann Arbor landmark apparently, but one I'd never heard of until yesterday. By spring, they ought to know me by sight.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Tasting Notes--Italian Wedding Soup, Whole Foods
I rarely buy prepared foods from Whole Foods because they're expensive and often disappointing. Exceptions to this are the pizza, a couple of soups, and, on good days at least, the salad bar.
I was there today to lay in some provisions before the predicted snowstorm hits tonight. I'd been out a good part of the morning and was getting hungry, so naturally I gravitated to the soup bar. $3.50 for a 12 oz. bowl isn't bad, so I took a chance on the Italian wedding soup. I have a hard time steering away from anything with sausage in it.
People have raved about IWS to me, but I'd never tried it. I'd wager that I still haven't. WF's version consisted of a salty commercial-grade chicken broth, small bits of onion, carrot, and parsely, and chicken sausage. No herb flavors were discernible except for in the sausage. The overwhelming impression was of a canned chicken vegetable soup.
Like I said, I don't know much about this variety of soup. I want to look up some recipes and commentaries to see what I was missing. I like WF's vegetarian chili and some of their seafood soups, but I won't get this again.
I was there today to lay in some provisions before the predicted snowstorm hits tonight. I'd been out a good part of the morning and was getting hungry, so naturally I gravitated to the soup bar. $3.50 for a 12 oz. bowl isn't bad, so I took a chance on the Italian wedding soup. I have a hard time steering away from anything with sausage in it.
People have raved about IWS to me, but I'd never tried it. I'd wager that I still haven't. WF's version consisted of a salty commercial-grade chicken broth, small bits of onion, carrot, and parsely, and chicken sausage. No herb flavors were discernible except for in the sausage. The overwhelming impression was of a canned chicken vegetable soup.
Like I said, I don't know much about this variety of soup. I want to look up some recipes and commentaries to see what I was missing. I like WF's vegetarian chili and some of their seafood soups, but I won't get this again.
A Virtual Soup Dream
Every blog needs a blogroll. I'll start mine with the obvious: what's the soup.net. Looks like someone else had a soup dream but decided to take it virtual. Should be a good source of recipes.
(5 minutes later)...and another: http://seriouslysoupy.blogspot.com/
(5 minutes later)...and another: http://seriouslysoupy.blogspot.com/
Monday, January 31, 2011
Cooking--Bess Feigenbaum's Cabbage Soup
Gave this a try last night. A very rich tomato concoction--if it were a wine it would be described as a "fruit bomb." Cabbage adds as much textures as it does taste. Or slightly more. I did like it a lot, but next time I'd add less lemon juice and less sugar. I added three cups of water to the final stage of cooking, but adding the full six probably wouldn't be overkill, and would stretch the soup further.
And So It Begins
Haven't had a dream in a long time
See the life I've had could make a good man bad.
Why yet another blog? Sure, there are things I'd like to work out in print, but why take this public (especially when I've got another blog I haven't updated in year)?
Maybe taking things public will make me put my dream under greater scrutiny than I might if I left it in my head or confined it to a private notebook. In dreams begin responsibilities, the poet says. To write about it, to place it up for scrutiny, I assume more responsibility for it than a private aspiration would require. By giving it a name I give it form and power. And I can't afford for this dream to be feeble and shapeless.
Here it is in short: I want to open a restaurant that specializes in soup, preferably in some small-medium size college town. I'd have salads, sandwiches, etc., but the focus would be on soup. Because I make really, really good soup.
I'm thinking a small place with a dozen or so tables, doing at least as much take out as sit down business. Primarily a lunch trade. About half a dozen varieties of soup up at a given time, rotating through standards and trying something new occasionally. Typically I'd have one chicken soup, one or two other meat soups, one or two vegetarian soups, one cream soup, and one chili. Probably a stew in the cooler months. I want to make as much from scratch as I feasibly can. I want to use locally produced ingredients where possible.
There are other ideas, of course, but those can wait for posts ahead.
The next logical question of course is, why soup?
My ambition arose recently, about a week ago, actually, but the raw material for it has been tucked away for a long time.
About twenty years ago I had a job that required lots traveling around Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana. My expense account was modest, so I became familiar with a lot of middlebrow diners and casual restaurants along my routes. Back then, the selection of these wasn't what it would be today. I don't really miss the job, but sometimes I envy the people doing it now on account of their dining choices.
One evening in Muskegon, Michigan, I went to a little place near the Day's Inn and ordered a sandwich and a cup of soup--can't remember what kind either was. But I remember that they were good. Not "worth a pilgrimage" good, but very satisfying. And I thought, "If I ever opened a restaurant, it would be one that serves simple food well." It's amazing how many places, even tonier ones, bungle items like soup and sandwiches. The soups are oversalted or too thin or too bland (even if they're spicy--I'll explain that later). I've had too many sandwiches consisting of tasteless cold cuts drowned in mayonnaise and topped with lettuce that hungry rabbits wouldn't touch. And don't get me started on pancakes--I think latex is their main ingredient at many joints. (My wife and I made some fine ones this morning. No exotic secret recipe--they came straight from a box.)
I know that cooking family sized meals at home is much easier than than cooking in large quantities for customers, and I know restaurateurs often need to shave costs where they can. But there is potential even in the most basic ingredients that it seems many cooks either don't know or don't care about.
I can do it better--on the cheap. At least I think.
My current job--teaching at a university--isn't terrible, but I can't survive doing it for another 20 years. And what I want at least as much as anything else is to get out of the metropolitan hive. I live in Ann Arbor, MI, on the fringes of Detroit. Ann Arbor has a lot going for it, especially foodwise, but I want to live somewhere with fewer cars and fewer people, and more open spaces to roam. Not that I'll have a lot of roaming time while trying to start a business, but I'd like to think the possibility is there when the odd day off comes along.
This is what I want to make happen.
Souperpreneur is less the diary of a dream than of a dreamer. I want to open a soup shop. But this ambition is forming among masses of other obligations and interests, inner and outer struggles, and other dreams. This blog going to keep track of a life that is, hopefully, progressing toward opening that shop. It may get messy and distracted along the way, but for the first time in years, I have an idea about where I want the way to lead. My gratitude in advance to any who choose to follow.
So, for once in my life
let me get what I want.
Lord knows it would be the first time.
See the life I've had could make a good man bad.
Why yet another blog? Sure, there are things I'd like to work out in print, but why take this public (especially when I've got another blog I haven't updated in year)?
Maybe taking things public will make me put my dream under greater scrutiny than I might if I left it in my head or confined it to a private notebook. In dreams begin responsibilities, the poet says. To write about it, to place it up for scrutiny, I assume more responsibility for it than a private aspiration would require. By giving it a name I give it form and power. And I can't afford for this dream to be feeble and shapeless.
Here it is in short: I want to open a restaurant that specializes in soup, preferably in some small-medium size college town. I'd have salads, sandwiches, etc., but the focus would be on soup. Because I make really, really good soup.
I'm thinking a small place with a dozen or so tables, doing at least as much take out as sit down business. Primarily a lunch trade. About half a dozen varieties of soup up at a given time, rotating through standards and trying something new occasionally. Typically I'd have one chicken soup, one or two other meat soups, one or two vegetarian soups, one cream soup, and one chili. Probably a stew in the cooler months. I want to make as much from scratch as I feasibly can. I want to use locally produced ingredients where possible.
There are other ideas, of course, but those can wait for posts ahead.
The next logical question of course is, why soup?
My ambition arose recently, about a week ago, actually, but the raw material for it has been tucked away for a long time.
About twenty years ago I had a job that required lots traveling around Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana. My expense account was modest, so I became familiar with a lot of middlebrow diners and casual restaurants along my routes. Back then, the selection of these wasn't what it would be today. I don't really miss the job, but sometimes I envy the people doing it now on account of their dining choices.
One evening in Muskegon, Michigan, I went to a little place near the Day's Inn and ordered a sandwich and a cup of soup--can't remember what kind either was. But I remember that they were good. Not "worth a pilgrimage" good, but very satisfying. And I thought, "If I ever opened a restaurant, it would be one that serves simple food well." It's amazing how many places, even tonier ones, bungle items like soup and sandwiches. The soups are oversalted or too thin or too bland (even if they're spicy--I'll explain that later). I've had too many sandwiches consisting of tasteless cold cuts drowned in mayonnaise and topped with lettuce that hungry rabbits wouldn't touch. And don't get me started on pancakes--I think latex is their main ingredient at many joints. (My wife and I made some fine ones this morning. No exotic secret recipe--they came straight from a box.)
I know that cooking family sized meals at home is much easier than than cooking in large quantities for customers, and I know restaurateurs often need to shave costs where they can. But there is potential even in the most basic ingredients that it seems many cooks either don't know or don't care about.
I can do it better--on the cheap. At least I think.
My current job--teaching at a university--isn't terrible, but I can't survive doing it for another 20 years. And what I want at least as much as anything else is to get out of the metropolitan hive. I live in Ann Arbor, MI, on the fringes of Detroit. Ann Arbor has a lot going for it, especially foodwise, but I want to live somewhere with fewer cars and fewer people, and more open spaces to roam. Not that I'll have a lot of roaming time while trying to start a business, but I'd like to think the possibility is there when the odd day off comes along.
This is what I want to make happen.
Souperpreneur is less the diary of a dream than of a dreamer. I want to open a soup shop. But this ambition is forming among masses of other obligations and interests, inner and outer struggles, and other dreams. This blog going to keep track of a life that is, hopefully, progressing toward opening that shop. It may get messy and distracted along the way, but for the first time in years, I have an idea about where I want the way to lead. My gratitude in advance to any who choose to follow.
So, for once in my life
let me get what I want.
Lord knows it would be the first time.
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