My Favorite Soup (and how to Ramen-ize it)

This soup came into being about 4 years ago when I wanted to do something different with the baby bok choy in our CSA farm box. I love simply sauteing baby bok choy with garlic (so good) but sometimes I just need to change things up. At least three recipes were combined (based on what ingredients I had on hand) and I improvised the rest. It has since become one of our most favorite soups and it's always a treat when we have all of the stuff on hand to make it.

That said, like the several soups that inspired this one, it is very forgiving of substitutions. I've made it with kale instead of bok choy (not as good, but not bad), and I've even made it without the cooked chicken (still delicious but not as filling). I've made it with vegetable stock, rotisserie chicken, and dried mushrooms instead of fresh. When I had some leftover cooked brown rice in the fridge, I used that instead of ramen noodles.

The name is a mouthful, but what do you call something that is at it's most basic, Chicken Noodle Soup, but really is so much more? We pretty much just refer to it around here as "Mock Ramen Soup". It's decidedly not real ramen, but it is definitely delicious... and easy, super flavorful, and pretty darned healthy too.

Curried Chicken & Coconut Soup with Baby Bok Choy 
(and Optional Ramen Noodles)
Serves 4 large or 8 small portions

Ingredients:
2 Tbsp sesame oil
1 clove of garlic, minced
2 Tbsp fresh ginger, minced
10 oz  white button or cremini mushrooms, thinly sliced
3 bunches of baby bok choy, thinly sliced (keep tops and thicker stem ends separated)
1 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp each: cumin, chili powder, and curry powder
4 cups chicken stock
1 can full-fat coconut milk
2 cups cooked chicken, chopped or shredded
juice from one small lime (or half of a larger lime)
1 good pinch sea salt
fresh ground black pepper, to taste
ramen noodles (optional, see below)
good quality soy sauce (our favorite is nama shoyu)

Optional additions (and when to add them)…
1 small red onion, thinly sliced or diced (sweat with garlic & ginger during step #1)
1 sweet potato, diced small (add with bok choy stems in step #1)
For a hit of heat try adding some Thai red curry paste (add just before the mushrooms in step #1)
1/2 Tbsp each: fish sauce + brown sugar (add at step #2, with the broth and coconut milk)
1 red bell pepper, julienned (add with the chicken in step #2)

Directions:
1. Heat oil in a large pot or Dutch oven, over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and half of the minced ginger and cook, stirring, until aromatic, about 30 seconds. Add in sliced mushrooms and bok choy stems, and cook for 3-5 minutes. When the liquid begins to evaporate, stir in the turmeric powder and the rest of the seasonings.

2. Add the broth, coconut milk, and remaining minced ginger. Bring to a boil, then lower heat to simmer. Add cooked chicken pieces and lime juice, stirring occasionally until chicken is heated through, or up to 30 minutes.

3. Add sea salt and black pepper. Stir the bok choy leaves into the pot and let them wilt for a minute or two. Taste the broth and adjust if needed. Keep it less salty though if you will be using soy sauce in the bowls.

4. Divide soup into bowls over cooked noodles, if using (see below). Add soy sauce individually, to taste. Top each serving with any (or all) of the following garnishes.

Garnishes:
fresh cilantro or basil leaves, chopped or torn
fresh chives, finely chopped
avocado, diced small 
fresh corn

Wanna Ramen-ize it?
Better noodles are certainly out there, but if you buy the instant ramen (like I do), be sure and get the square package (not the kind in a styrofoam cup), and throw away the seasoning packet—there's nothing good in there—the noodles are all we're after. Continue with the directions below.

Regardless of which noodles you use, if you're going to refrigerate or freeze some of the soup for later, cook only enough noodles for the current meal, separately, according to the package directions. Divide the hot cooked noodles between the bowls and continue with the serving step below.

Here's How:
About 5 minutes or so before serving the soup (just prior to step #3 above), drop the block (or two) of instant ramen noodles into the simmering soup pot. Let them cook, giving them a stir occasionally, until they're fat and happy. Taste test a noodle to check done-ness. Serve as soon as the noodles are ready.

Serve it up:
I generally use a big fork or tongs to pull out the cooked noodles and divide evenly into bowls, followed by a big scoop of the chicken and veggies, and finally a ladle or two of the broth over the top. Continue with step #4 above and be sure to provide chopsticks and/or forks alongside the soup spoons at the table.

...and don't forget to slurp the noodles!

–Steph

PS... I know it's summer now, but honestly, I make this whenever I find myself with enough baby bok choy. If the weather is too warm for eating soup, I leave the noodles out and freeze the whole batch to enjoy at a later date. Heck, even in the summer we get the occasional chilly evenings, and unlike some soups, the flavors in this soup really are perfect year round!

Soup Happens (and sometimes it doesn't)

This has been the summer of food fails. Some of them I've written about, (the Farro Fiasco) and some I haven't... like the beautiful Plum Crisp, redolent of ripe summer days... yet tasting like bitter  betrayal. Then there were the Blueberry-Lemon-Oat Scones that never could hold it together). I can attribute all these fails (and more) to what I like to refer to as "user error". Entirely my fault, each and every time. I know what went wrong in each, and I'll make adjustments next time I try them.

Recently I made a big pot of soup. I know it's summer and I should be writing about sno-cones and sprinklers, but what the hey, we still have chilly evenings more often than not. If it's going to feel like March, I'm going to cook like it's March. The soup I made was unusual. Unusual because we didn't like it. At all.

Winter Soup For A Summer Cold

Summer colds can sure be aggravating. Just ask me and my hubby. One sneaked (snuck?) up on us recently when we were least expecting it. It's not exactly "cold and flu season" you know? This is summer for Pete's sake: pool parties, fruity drinks, and sunscreen.

The traditional comforts that we cling to during a cold bout seem so very out of place this time of year: snuggly warm socks and blankets... hot lemon and honey drinks... big bowls of soup. It's 85 degrees outside... for cryin' out loud. Talk about feeling "under the weather".

Black Bean And Tomato Soup

Did you know that black beans stain almost as badly blueberries? Well, they do. I know... I've been scrubbing scrubbing scrubbing dark stains off the once creamy white-ish interior of my enameled cast iron Dutch oven all afternoon.*

I made this really great black bean soup you see, and I tried to use my Dutch oven to make it in. Now, while it probably might have worked, the pot was so full that I got a little nervous. I grabbed my big stock pot and transferred the soup over — now it could have some wiggle (and slosh) room and I could have some peace of mind.

Uuuu-mami!**
This soup just rocks on so many levels, it's hard to know where to start. It's amazingly easy, super affordable, makes a ton, and tastes fantastic. Oh, and one of my very favorite recipe terms applies as well... "largely unattended". That means I get to go do something else for a while and when I come back dinner is ready. What's not to love about that, right? 

It has a big meaty rich flavor, or as Hubs described it, "Mmm, it's delightful!". Ain't it amazing what a couple slices of bacon can do to a soup? Well, he loved it and so did I.... and that's good... we have a lot of it. Or did I mention that part already?

Quoting... DeSylva & Brown

"You’re the cream in my coffee, 
You’re the salt in my stew; 

You will always be my necessity— 

I’d be lost without you. 

You give life savor, 
Bring out its flavor; 

So this is clear, dear, 

You’re my Worcestershire, dear."

—From the show "Hold Everything" (1929) 
Lyrics: B.G. DeSylva & Lew Brown / Music: Ray Henderson

(Click here for the song!) 

PS...Happy Birthday Honey! 

Popovers Filled with Beef and Leek Stew

I'll sometimes describe a dish as being much more than the sum of its parts. That can be said about lots of foods really, though it's most impressive when there are very few parts to the equation in the first place.

Last night I made one of our favorite budget-friendly dinners, a three-ingredient wonder that never fails to render us both into silent, ravenous reverie. Just three ingredients, including the roast. That's right, including the roast. There's a pinch of flour, a splash of olive oil, a sprinkling of salt and pepper, but really it all comes down to three ingredients... chuck, leeks, and balsamic vinegar. That's all.

A Stew From A Few

What else is remarkable about this stew? Besides the fact that one of the three ingredients is leeks and my onion-hating husband wanted seconds? Or besides how it's terribly cheap to make and yet tastes rich and complex? Well, yeah, other than that, I guess it is pretty unremarkable (she said with tongue planted firmly in cheek). Truly, it's nothing less than kitchen-alchemy.

Turkey Soup with Noodles

This soup marks the end of Tom Turkey–well, almost, I still have some of that great turkey gravy in the freezer. There are biscuits and gravy in our future for sure, but tonight, it's Turkey Soup with homemade noodles. After defrosting the turkey stock and the bag of leftover cooked turkey, I just added some herbs, carrots, celery and noodles. In virtually no time at all, it was a soup. A simple, good tasting, nourishing soup.

Play dough for grown-ups
Initially I was going to just make my regular pappardelle noodles and cut them into short pieces, but wouldn't some other shape be more fun? And wouldn't a different shape of pasta just taste so much better too? Without an extruder however, options are somewhat limited. Without years of experience hand-shaping pasta at an Italian grandmother's side, my options dwindled even further. So, after making up a batch of my favorite go-to pasta recipe, I sort of followed the instructions found here for hand-shaping pasta. I say "sort of followed" because I off-roaded just a bit. Okay... I played. A lot. Try it yourself and see if you don't too.

So Many Soups

The big list of soup links as promised. As with all of these bookmark-clearing link lists I've been posting, I have yet to make any of the yummies listed. They're kind of like my wish lists. If anybody makes one of these scrumptious sounding soups... let me know! Sometimes it's hard to decide what to make next... what sounds good to you?...

• Chicken Stew with Dried Limes at NYTimes.com
• Beef Stew with Beer and Paprika from The Pioneer Woman
• Slow Cooker Stuffed Pepper Soup from the What Megan's Making blog
• Green Curry Broth Recipe from 101 Cookbooks
• Acorn Squash Soup with Brown Butter and Maple Yogurt at Serious Eats
• Leek and Potato Soup from NYTimes.com via The Bitten Blog... a true soup classic.
  
• Alice Waters' Chicken Noodle Soup at Serious Eats... for what ails you.
• Curried Sweet Potato Soup with Goat Cheese Biscuits from Joy The Baker
• French Onion Soup At Home And At Sea
• Christmas Lima Bean Stew from 101 Cookbooks
• Mushroom Barley Soup from At Home And At Sea 
• Curried Sweet Potato Soup with Apricots at Serious Eats
• DIY cream of chicken condensed soup from The Kitchn... for those of us who want to "kick the can" without giving up our favorite comfort foods from the Golden Age of Casseroles.

Cremini Créme Soup

I'm getting a big list of soup links together from my backlogged bookmarks folder, but since this soup actually got made and consumed (and loved)... it gets a post all its own. It deserves it. This soup knocked my thick woolen winter socks off.

Initially I had doubts, but was won over in the end by an amazing complexity of flavor that was created from a few unusual ingredients. Like a good mystery novel with 4 or 5 different story-lines going in different directions, this soup kept me guessing the whole time as to how all the elements would finally work together to a satisfying end. It all wrapped up nicely, in fact deliciously so, and I'm ever so glad of it.

Earthy and dark, and yet delicate and bright. Perfect for a cold winter's eve...

Waiter, There's A Birdie In My Soup!

I make soups because they are generally cheap, filling, easy and healthy. Sometimes the soup tastes great and sometimes the toast I serve alongside it is the best part of the meal. When the latter happens, we suffer on through, looking anxiously forward to the day it's all gone and we can have something else for dinner. Anything else.

Because of this hit-and-miss proclivity I have with choosing soup recipes, it may seem strange that I would take the chance of trying new soups at all. But I do. Maybe it's like how the Hubs describes golfing... how it can be frustrating, maddening, and infuriating... and then you hit the ball just right and in that fleeting instant, the planets are in alignment, a choir of angels sing, and you have just made the most perfect shot off of the most poetic swing in the whole entire glorious history of the sport. Or so he says.

Maybe that's how I am with soups. Because I have made great soup before, and regardless of any lackluster soups that may come afterward, I know that another great soup might be right around the corner. I just have to keep swinging.

 

Last month I made a soup that was so good—so amazingly good—that I wanted to drop everything and post it right then and there. With fanfare. I couldn't though. Too much else going on. Frankly I was lucky to post anything at all between Thanksgiving and New Year's. So what did I do? I made the soup again.

This is the kind of soup you look forward to having for a few nights in a row. The kind you're disappointed in finding out that there's no more of. The kind of soup I wish I had a bowl of right now.

Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice Soup from What Megan's Making

Notes: First time out substitutions... I used dried mushrooms, turkey stock, brown rice, smoked turkey meat. I used 3/4 cup half &half and made up the difference with 2% milk. Second time making it, I used vegetable stock (it's what I usually have on hand) and brown rice. Don't freak out over the amount of spices! I almost cut back on the quantities, but ultimately decided to trust the recipe. So very glad I went with trust. It all came together magically and with a little pinch of sea salt at the very end... unbelievably delicious.

*For non-golfers (or people without golfing friends to ask)... a "birdie" is when you get the little white ball into the cup in one less hit than they think it should take you. It means you're a better golfer than most. See, each hole has a number assigned to it which is referred to as "par" ... as in the saying "par for the course". This is the number of hits or strokes it should take a good player to get from point A to point B. If you're better than good, and can do it with one less stroke (e.g. 1 under par)... that's a "birdie". Well done, you! If you're able to do it in two strokes under par... it's called an "eagle". If you make eagles all the time... well, maybe think about giving up your day job and go out on tour (you hotshot, you).

(Just For Fun) Favorite golfing movies: Guys will undoubtedly say Caddyshack or Happy Gilmore, while gals will say Tin Cup. Then there's the one most people all like... The Legend Of Bagger Vance, which is all kinds of wonderful on all kinds of levels... even if you're not into golf.

Crock, Stock and Two Smoking Hot Loaves Of Bread

Yesterday was the day I dirtied up just about every pot, pan, mixing bowl and measuring cup I own. Two big kitchen projects (plus a few small ones) converged and aligned and generally bumped into each other at every opportunity. I never intend to have days like this. I certainly don't plan them this way, but they sometimes happen. Hey, you do what you gotta do when you gotta do it, right? Well, the lovely turkey carcass in my fridge desperately needed to be dealt with, and I couldn't put off baking the bread another minute. I'd gone far too long without toast.

Onion Soup For Onion Haters

A WORD PROBLEM: You have married a good man. A man you love and who loves you back. You have committed yourselves to each other before God, and vowed to love and cherish each other for the rest of your days on this earth. This good and loving man hates onions. One day you come across a tasty sounding recipe for Five Onion Soup and think what great thing it would be to make for dinner. You set about making shopping lists and gathering the ingredients you will need. Are you:

a) Trying to lovingly guide him past his unreasonable dislike of a flavorful vegetable by preparing it in new and interesting ways?

b) Scatter-brained and forgetful? Or are those the same thing?

c) Counting on the fact that he won't want any of this delicious soup so you can have it all to yourself?

d) Just plain confused about why you do some of things you do, but feel that anything is better than being predictable, and besides, a blog is cheaper than therapy?

e) All of the above.

The Great Summer Pantry & Freezer Clearance: Day 2

I found the perfect soup to deplete my frozen back-stock of stock. There was still a lot of vegetable stock left, and then there was the last of the turkey stock from last Thanksgiving that I found shoved in the back of the freezer. Pooled together they would be just barely enough for this big soup. What I didn't count on was how thirsty the brown rice was. It just kept absorbing liquid and I had to grab a can of chicken stock from the pantry in order to placate the giant soup-sponge it had become. What the soup pot demands, the soup pot gets. But once it gets everything that it wants, it's happy.

That's what I was shooting for - a happy soup, a soup that's everything it should be: warm, filling, flavorful, and full of good things that are good for you but taste so good together that you don't have to pretend to like them. A good soup is always more than the sum of its parts.

The Great Summer Pantry & Freezer Clearance: Day 1

In my freezer you will find a big bag for collecting veggie scraps and trimmings in. When the bag is full, I make vegetable stock and then freeze that to use later. All in all, it's not a bad system. Unless I haven't made soup for awhile... and just finished cooking up another batch of stock. Clearly, I needed to make some soup. What I wanted was a soup that wasn't too heavy. It is summer after all, though most evenings are chilly. I also wanted a soup that didn't have a shopping list of ingredients. Did I mention that I have beans in the freezer too? Yep, two kinds.  Is it soup yet?  Almost...

A Tale Of Two Soupies

It's been my observation that a great many people with a public school education from a particular decade or two, were required to read Charles Dickens in their Jr. High/Middle School English classes. The Dickens novels they read varied with the school, the year, the teacher, and the city, and it became something of a party-lull conversation starter for me. "So, which Charles Dickens novel did you have to read?". The other person would look at me strangely for a moment or two* while it sunk in, and then you'd see the understanding in their eyes as they nodded and replied, "Great Expectations... how 'bout you?". If they hadn't been required/forced to read Dickens, then I knew that they were much younger than myself or they'd had alternative schooling (which meant they were much much younger than myself). People much older were usually obvious to spot and didn't need to answer silly questions in order for me to guess their age-range. But if necessary, I would just fall back on the "Who was your favorite James Bond" or "What was your first rock concert" line of questioning** to instantly peg them.

For the record, my English class read Charles Dickens' A Tale Of Two Cities. As I was forced to read it under duress (much preferring my beloved Ray Bradbury paperbacks), my brain absorbed precious little from my requisite Dickens. I wonder if I should reread it. I've come to appreciate Dickens more over the years, and it might make my English teacher smile (wherever she is). That would be nice for her, since she'd no doubt be frowning a great deal over my poor grammar and sentence structure. Ah well, you can lead a horse to water... right? Yeah, that was me. A stubborn horse suffering through page after page of A Tale Of Two Cities. It was a pretty dreary tale. Downright depressing as I recall. There were lots of downtrodden peasants and ignoble noblemen, tragedy, revenge, knitting needles and guillotines. Quelle horreur! Not the sort of thing I want to be reading right now.

The weather outside is frightful enough; I want comfort and warmth from my reading matter as well as from the meals I prepare. Homemade soup really is the best thing for these cold and blustery days, but I couldn't decide which of these two soups to make. Even indecision is a decision, so I decided not to decide... and made both. Like a lot of soups, their ingredient lists were not long, nor were their preparations complex. Peasant food (or as I like to call it, "pleasant food"). Flavorful, filling, and cheap. And (a drum roll if you please)... I didn't have to go to the store for anything! Which is just fine with me, since it's absolutely raining buckets. In other words... perfect soup weather, regardless of which one we decide to have tonight.  Vive la difference!

Roasted Garlic And Potato Soup from thekitchn.com
See also: Roasted Garlic Soup on page 66 of How To Cook Everything by Mark Bittman

My Notes: Used one small head of garlic, dried thyme, 4 sm-med red potatoes, a chunk of Romano rind. Had no chives. Salt & pepper to taste. Tasted good but needed something more. Added a couple of glugs of vermouth. That really made it, adding another layer flavor and deepening the whole. Recipe didn't say when to add cheese/rind, so I added it with the potatoes. Potatoes took WAY longer than 10 minutes to soften. More like 40 minutes.

Soppressata Pasta Fagioli from seriouseats.com
See also: Pasta e Fagioli on page 52 of How To Cook Everything by Mark Bittman

My Notes: Made this without the soppressata. Used a little oo with the onions. Sliced the garlic cloves in half and fished them out later. Omitted the pepper flakes. Used 2-14.5 cans of diced tomatoes. Used canned chicken stock. Added 2 tsp Sundance dried herb blend. Salt & pepper to taste. Pre-cooked navy beans in the slow-cooker. Used 16 oz. elbow macaroni, cooked separately then added in when dishing soup into the bowls.

*I get this a lot.
**Roger Moore and The Go Go's, respectively. Now you know everything.
Quelle horreur!: French, meaning "How awful!"  Pronounced: Kel Uh-Ruhr (or something to that effect).

Vegetable Stock for Free or Cheap

Recently empowered by making turkey stock (and desperately needing more space in my freezer), I decided to make some vegetable stock.

I'd been saving up veggie scraps in a big heavy-duty zip-top bag in the freezer for just this purpose: carrot ends, onion ends, chard stems, herb stems, slightly soft squash, potatoes, tomatoes, and wilted greens, among other things. Almost any vegetable scrap is fair game so long as it's not too far gone. The bag was full, so the time was now...

Vegetable Stock
Adapted from Basic Vegetable Stock, page 73, Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites, 1996

Approximately 6 cups of assorted veggies (avoid sulfurous* ones)
1 potato, cut into quarters
2 tsp peppercorns
1 bay leaf
2 tsp thyme
1 clove of garlic, smashed
filtered water to cover

1. Put everything into a crock-pot set on LOW for 10-12 hours. Let crock cool until comfortable enough to handle. 
2. Put a large sturdy metal colander inside a large bowl in the sink** and line the colander with a floursack towel. Very carefully pour the contents of the slow-cooker into the lined colander. Let drain for a few minutes. Gather up the corners and sides of the towel and twist to extract more of the liquid from the vegetables. 
3. Let the stock cool completely. Use within 2-3 days or divide into freezer containers, label, and freeze to use later. Yield: approximately 3.5 pints (7 cups).

My Notes: I divided mine into 1 and 2 cup portions before freezing. Make sure to leave an inch of space at the top of the containers to allow for expansion during the freezing process. (Oops!) From now on, I think I'll freeze them first and then add the lids.

 *These include: broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts. According to the original recipe, it's evidently a good idea to also avoid asparagus, eggplant and peppers. I imagine that's because of their strong flavor compounds. They must not play well with others...the little bullies.
**This way I don't have to lift the big heavy (and hot) crock any higher than necessary. There are enough dangers in the kitchen as it is. Thinking ahead and thinking ergonomically will help prevent pulls, strains and other mishaps.

Turkey Vegetable Soup

Two weeks ago the Hubs & I watched some Jacques Pépin episodes for the first time. It was one of those head-shaking, "Where have we been all this time?"-moments for us. The man is a total rock star! Well, the next day I was out "thrifting" with a friend and she finds a Jacques Pépin cookbook on the rack. Of course I bought it. It was all of a dollar I think. How could I not?

Yesterday I made turkey stock with that big carcass from Thanksgiving, and today I went looking for a turkey soup recipe. Imagine my surprise when I found the perfect one in my new Jacques Pépin book! Coincidence? Maybe... maybe not. Using some of that fantastic turkey stock from yesterday and armed with my rockstar cookbook, I made up a batch of turkey soup, packed with vegetables...

Turkey Vegetable Soup

Adapted from: Cooked Turkey Carcass Soup, page 16, Cooking With Claudine by Jacques Pepin, 1996

2 quarts Turkey Stock

1-1/2 cups carrots, sliced into coins

1-1/2 cups celery, diced

2 small zucchini, diced

3 cups baby spinach, roughly chopped

1 leek

8 oz. mushrooms, sliced

1-2 cups cooked turkey meat, chopped or shredded

2 cups egg noodles

3 big pinches of salt
ground black pepper

Put everything into a stockpot or dutch oven, except the noodles, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, drop heat to low and cook for 20 minutes, covered. Remove lid, add the noodles and salt and pepper to taste. Cook for 10 more minutes. Serve with buttered sourdough toast. If not serving it right away, let cool before dividing it into containers. Will keep for a few days in the fridge, or a few months in the freezer. If you are not planning on serving it right away, do not add the noodles. Cook them separately and add them before serving. Otherwise, they will break down too much during the freezing/re-heating process. It will still be edible and probably taste o.k. but it won't look very good, and if you like your noodles whole... they won't be. Yield: approximately 7 cups of soup.

My Notes: The original recipe says to pick any meat off the bones after making the stock, but we picked the usable meat off the carcass before we made the stock. The meat was already cooked to perfection and I didn't want to cook it twice. Went a little nuts with the amount of veg in this soup. May have to add more stock to it when serving, to you know, make it "soupier".

Quoting... E.M. Forster

"This meat has surely been used for soup," 

said Miss Bartlett, laying down her fork.

- A Room With A View (1908) by E. M. Forster

The Ultimate Thanksgiving Leftover

The other night, we drove home after having spent a wonderful Thanksgiving with our friends. We were fat, happy, warm, and fuzzy... and we were toting the carcass of a 19-pound bird in a plastic bag. It is without a doubt, the ultimate leftover. It is also a very welcome and a generous gift. Wanna know what we did with it? We made turkey stock of course! Lots and lots of gorgeous golden rich turkey stock. It's so good, I may just have to start roasting turkeys... they really are so versatile (and much more flavorful than chickens). In the meantime, I'll just have to rely on the kindness of friends who know how much I value a roasted bird carcass, or to use the more genteel phraseology... a "turkey frame".

My Basic Turkey Stock Recipe

1 turkey carcass

1 bay leaf

2 tsp peppercorns

1 large onion, quartered

1 green apple, quartered

1 Tblsp dried rosemary

2 tsp dried thyme

1-2 pinches of other dried herbs

2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

enough water to cover

Put all the ingredients into a large pot on the stove and simmer for 3 hours or... put in a crock-pot on low for 10-12 hours (or high for 6-7 hours). Take off heat and skim off fat and any floating bits. Remove large pieces with a slotted spoon and/or tongs, discard. Let cool some more and then pour through a mesh sieve. Optional: line sieve with 2-3 layers of cheesecloth or a flour-sack cloth. Pour stock into storage containers, label and refrigerate or freeze for later use.

My Notes: I planned to do this all in the slow-cooker, but once I got the cut-up carcass in the pot, I realized that there was no way anything else would fit (that was one big turkey!). Dumped everything into my big spaghetti pot with 4.5 quarts of water to cover, simmered it on the stove for 2 hours, then put half in the slow cooker. I continued to simmer the remaining half for another 3 hours on the stove and set the slow-cooker on high for 6 hours. By the time it had cooled down, it was late at night, so I combined it all into one pot, covered it and put it in the fridge, then skimmed and strained it in the morning. Yielded 3.25 quarts total.

Ham Hock Bean Soup aka Navy Bean Soup

Went chasing after a memory today. Recent coversations about moms, comfort food and cold weather got me thinking about my mom's navy bean soup. While she's looking through her bazillion cookbooks for the recipe she used, I decided to forge ahead and see what I could come up with. What I found was Ham Hock Bean Soup. It had all the required elements, and it seemed a lot like the one I remember. Not that I've ever made it. Mom made it, we ate it and loved it.

This would be the first soup I've ever made from scratch. How bizarre is that? There are so many things like that, basic things, that I've never cooked before. I feel like such a newbie in the kitchen sometimes. But now I can say that I've made soup! The Hubs thought it seemed like a really involved and complicated recipe. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. I don't know... never made soup before! There were lots of different stages to this soup, to be sure, but it was pretty straightforward. And it was pretty delicious too. There were no complaints when all was said and done. The house smelled fabulous all afternoon, and we both had seconds. I'm sure there are shortcuts, but I don't want to know about them.*

We all grew up hearing that "soup is good food". And it really is. But not from a can. Or a jar. Soup from scratch takes time, and it's main ingredient is love. Cheesy... yeah, bear with me though, because it's true. If it wasn't, I'd just grab a can opener and be done with it. Most soups are made from a few simple, even humble, ingredients (it almost doesn't get much humbler than a ham hock, not in my kitchen anyway), most of which are already in the pantry. That leaves: time. And to spend that much time preparing food means putting love into it. You must love the process or the people who will be nourished by it. Or both.
 

Ham Hock Bean Soup, page 61, Sunset: Homemade Soups, 1986**  

(similar recipe here from Cooking Light: Hearty Navy Bean Soup )

Notes: The day before starting the soup, I soaked the beans for 6 hours, then drained, rinsed, and drained again. Stored them in the fridge until I was ready to use them. Used homemade chicken stock that my sister made during one of her visits (I won't say how very long ago that was, let's just say it wasn't made in this kitchen), dried beans from the bulk bin at the store, and my own dried rosemary (from that same other residence). Tried to chop the dried rosemary into smaller pieces and it flew around like a cloud of confetti! Don't chop... just crumble into the pot! Used a stick blender directly in the pot instead of trying to pour half into a blender like the recipe suggests. I may not use it often, but that stick blender has more than earned the real estate it takes up in my kitchen cupboard.

The recipe made 6 servings. I divided up what we didn't eat; two servings in the fridge and two in the freezer. I do wish it had made more, for all the work that went into it. But now that I've done it, it won't seem like so much effort the next time. Realized the next day that I forgot to add the salt and pepper at the end. It didn't need it! While the pepper might add a nice extra note, the ham hocks were plenty salty and neither of us noticed any absence of flavor.

*Do you know that the only packaging that I had to open, was the plastic wrap over the foam tray from the ham hocks? If I'd purchased them from a proper butcher counter, they probably would've been wrapped up in paper instead. When all was said and done, the only things I had to throw in the trash were to do with the ham hocks: the aforementioned packaging, the bones, skin, and fat. Since I'm going to make this again and am not willing to forgo the ham hocks... I'd better find an "old school" butcher counter! As for the rest: the produce bags get reused, and the veg scraps went into a bag I keep in the freezer for future vegetable stock.

**Now I know this isn't mom's recipe because of the publishing date. It tasted a whole lot like her soup though, and sensory memories like that don't lie.