Make this soup, I command you
November 27, 2012
I’ve been eyeing up this recipe of Andrew Zimmern’s, ever since he posted it a day or two before Thanksgiving last week. And I thought, wouldn’t that be delicious as soup? Wild rice soup, in fact. Tonight I finally had time, well, took time because it was 7:30pm when I got started, due to working late. I thought, I’ll whip up the soup in no time (because it’s chopped and sautéed vegetables, white sauce, and meat), have a beer while I’m cooking, then have more beer while I’m eating and watching the last performance show for this season, 14, of Dancing with the Stars*. It will be a perfect evening. And it has been (other than the fact that none of the three different beers I enjoyed managed to get above 5.5% ABV, but at least I drank the tastiest one last). Okay, so the soup took an hour and fifteen minutes from the time I started boiling water for the wild rice until the time I was ladling the finished product into my maw but all in all, that was pretty quick, as cooking from complete scratch goes.
A week of Christmas: office pot-lucky!
December 21, 2011
Today we had a potluck at the office, which was what I made the Tex-Mex Soup for. I managed to get the two large containers of it to the office intact, despite having to make a dash for the train. I have had liquid disasters in my backpack before due to loose-fitting lids and jostling.
My soup was met with a fair amount of enthusiasm, but not nearly as much enthusiasm as for what Office Santa left under the tree for each of us. We knew we were getting a couple of the recently delivered new company mugs and probably figured that, like past years, there would also be a little bonus check. Boy, what a bonus. My bosses are getting each of us an iPad—an iPad 3 when they come out in a few months, or an iPad 2 now if we’re just too impatient.
Patience is a virtue.
I had been vaguely mulling over the idea of getting one with my tax refund in February but hadn’t yet decided whether to spend that much money on something I don’t really need. Problem solved. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. I have the best bosses in the world. There’s a reason why I’m coming up on my seventeen year anniversary.
There was much gaiety for the rest of the afternoon.
The weekend in cooking: three recipes
November 21, 2011
One of my joys in life is to spend the day cooking. This usually happens on Sundays as I prepare lunches and suppers for the week ahead. I confess that in the last year or two I’ve gotten a little lazy about cooking, generally because I discovered I like trying restaurants and particularly because food trucks hit the Minneapolis scene. But every time I end up cooking I remember how much I love it.
This weekend I was in overdrive. Odell Brewing had posted a recipe earlier in the week that I wanted to try for dinner. I also found an egg recipe to make for breakfasts; I’ve burned myself out on plain eggs recently so I need to dress them up currently in order to be able to consume them. Finally, I decided I wanted to make soup for lunches this short Thanksgiving week. No recipe for that.
I am copying and pasting the quinoa and egg recipes from the original sources, but editing them to reflect how I made them. I am linking to the original sources after the titles. The soup recipe I made up.
They’re all delicious!
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Brussels Sprouts & Quinoa Salad (original source here)
1 pound Brussels sprouts, trimmed and halved
Salt and pepper to taste
Olive oil
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 clove garlic, minced
1 cup quinoa
2 cups water
1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
2. Toss Brussels sprouts in olive oil, salt and pepper, and spread onto a baking sheet and bake for 20–25 minutes. Remove and let cool.
3. In a large non-stick skillet, toast the quinoa over medium heat for 10 to 15 minutes; add two cups of water, bring to a boil, cover and cook for 15 minutes.
4. While sprouts cook, whisk 1-1/2 tablespoons of olive oil, 1 tablespoon of soy sauce, 1/2 tablespoon of honey, a pinch of salt and pepper and garlic until thoroughly combined.
5. In a separate bowl, whisk together 1-1/2 tablespoons of olive oil, 1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar, 1/2 tablespoon honey, and a pinch of salt and pepper until thoroughly combined.
6. Toss the sprouts in soy garlic dressing and the quinoa in balsamic dressing and serve.
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Mini Mushroom-&-Sausage Quiches (original source here)
8 ounces turkey breakfast sausage, removed from casing and crumbled into small pieces
1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil
8 ounces mushrooms, sliced
1/4 cup sliced scallions
3 ounces shredded Swiss cheese
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
12 eggs
1/2 cup 1% milk
1. Preheat to 350°F. Coat a nonstick muffin tin generously with cooking spray.
2. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add sausage and cook until golden brown minutes. Transfer to a bowl to cool. Add oil to the pan. Add mushrooms and cook, stirring often, until golden brown and water is evaporated. Transfer mushrooms to the bowl with the sausage. Let cool for 5 minutes. Stir in scallions, cheese and pepper.
3. Divide the sausage mixture evenly in the muffin cups.
4. Whisk eggs and milk together in a medium bowl. Divide the egg mixture evenly among the prepared muffin cups.
5. Bake until the tops are just beginning to brown, 40 minutes for a 6-cup large muffin tin. (Regular 12-cup tins may need less time.) Let cool on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Remove from pan and let cool completely.
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Tex-Mex Soup (I made this one up all by myself!)
1/2 cup chopped yellow bell pepper
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 cup sliced tomatillo
14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes with green chilies
2 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup sweet corn kernels
1 cup cooked, shredded chicken
1-1/2 cups cooked black beans
1. Coat a dutch oven with cooking spray. Heat over medium heat. Sauté the peppers and onions until soft. Add the tomatillos. Cook for 2 minutes more.
2. Add the diced tomatoes and chicken broth. Bring to a boil.
3. Add the corn, chicken, and black beans. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes.
A bean theme
March 18, 2011
Due to my inability to arise in the morning with anything resembling extra time, I ended up eating beans in all three meals yesterday. I had originally planned on swinging over to Bruegger’s for an everything bagel, toasted, with plain cream cheese, but because I ended up (once again) catching the latest train that still gets me to work only three to five minutes late, that notion went out the window. Instead, I dashed up to the office, sat at my desk for a respectable fifteen minutes or so, and then ordered huevos rancheros from Esquina Mexican Eats, the excellent and pretty authentic restaurant on the first floor. It was then that I realized that with the 15 Bean Cajun Soup that I had brought for lunch, and the refried bean pizza thing that has become a mainstay of my suppers because it’s quick, easy, and inexpensive, I’d be eating beans for every meal. Huzzah!
I have no problem with this and neither do the people around me. I was going to explain why I think that is, but it turns out my hypothesis is misinformed. I will just leave it that I do not experience bean-induced toots. This is a good thing, because I do love beans and I completely appreciate that they are an easy way to boost my fiber intake. They are also cheap and versatile. The bag of 13 Bean Cajun Soup mix cost about $3 and made eight servings. Of course, I added a few other ingredients, but it’s still pretty inexpensive per serving.
The pizza thing I make for supper is just delicious. It allows me to indulge in my love of pizza in a much more healthful way. Onto a whole wheat tortilla, I spread 1/4 cup refried beans and a layer each of tomatillo, onion, and red bell pepper (or in this case, orange, because the reds didn’t look very good). I top it with 1-1/2 ounce pepperjack cheese and bake at 400°F for 18 minutes, and voilá, I have a delicious, fiberful meal.
There is one other tasty recipe that I’ll single out, and that’s the lentil soup that I invented at the beginning of the year when I was sick. I had stayed home from work and had to cope with the fact that I hadn’t gone to the grocery store over the weekend and had very little food in the house. I improvised with a few of the few things I had on hand and ended up with one of the best soups ever!
I like my lentils al dente. So I cooked 1 cup dry lentils for 15 minutes (bring to a boil, then simmer for 15 minutes, no more, no less, and drain, for the perfect lentil). After draining, I returned them to the pot with two cups of chicken broth (from bouillon) and one 14.5oz can of petite diced tomatoes with onion and peppers and the juice. Bring to a boil and serve over an ounce or two of diced fresh mozzarella cheese (you have to use mozzarella because it holds its shape when it melts; other varieties devolve into a gooey, shapeless blob of inconvenience). That’s it. It’s so good. The relative sweetness of the mozzarella perfectly offsets the savoriness of the lentils.
Below is a gallery of other yummy ways that I enjoy beans. Embrace the bean!
Kelly’s Unnecessary Blog 