Fetri Detsi: Ghanaian Okro Soup

Every bit of this soup was made from scratch over hot coals by a class of 11-13 year-olds in an underprivileged public school in the Jamestown neighborhood of Accra, and it is staggeringly beautiful. 

AHHH CUTEST CRABS EVER!

The smells in this classroom were as vibrant, fresh and fearless as Ghana itself, and so were the kids Tyler and I were lucky enough to spend about an hour with. But we'll get to that later. My story of fetri detsi starts the night before, at a restaurant called Buka in the Osu district of Ghana. We got off to a promising start with a greeting from a rather fat and friendly frog.

Once upstairs, we were seated at a patio table with a perfect breeze in the 80-degree evening, and whiled away the wait for dinner watching the semifinals of the Africa Cup of Nations and sipping on palm wine and coconut water right-out-the-coconut. The menu featured Ghanaian and Nigerian specialties, and I settled on okro (same as okra, they just make it more manly I guess) soup with its traditional accompaniment, banku.

Banku is that mound on the left, and it's one of the bajillion Ghanaian staples made from cassava. In this case, it's cassava and corn flours fermented and pounded into this slightly sour, sticky dough. You grab bits with your fingers and use it to soup-scoop. Sounds easy, right? It's a bit more challenging than you might think because the soup itself has certain qualities not unlike pizza cheese in an early-90s Little Caesars commercial. To all my friends who say they don't like okra because of the slime, you ain't seen nothin' yet. Slime in this dish is a point of pride. The word mucilaginous comes to mind but, honestly, doesn't do it justice.

Ghanaians probably watched You Can't Do That on Television and were like "pffft, amateurs." Seriously, whether I was using my spoon or my banku-caked fingers, I would pull and pull, thinking that at some point the slime would break. And time and time again I was proven wrong. The slime is persistent, and the slime is delicious.

I've been a fan of okra since I first had it, which admittedly wasn't until after college when I moved to South Carolina and they were like "this is a vegetable" and I was like "oh cool give me some." I know I'd been previously aware of its existence, but growing up in central California it wasn't exactly part of our everyday (or any day) diet. But since then I've considered myself all-in in any preparation I've had (particularly bhindi masala though - oh man, I want it now). This preparation, I can't lie, was a little challenging. I've never considered myself to be an "I don't like the texture person" but this texture coats your tongue in something you've only previously seen secreted by aliens in horror films and dares you to change your taste paradigm and keep going. The second challenge is the spice level, which is high. This isn't a "what spice level 1-6?" situation, this is a "we make it this way" situation. Even as a big fan of hot things, I had to take a few breathers.

I must reiterate here: okro soup is DELICIOUS. It just takes a bit of reconfiguration.

But it became so much more than delicious the next day. I gained a new appreciation for it when Tyler and I were welcomed by Dominic, the teacher of the cooking class at Accra Sempe 1 Primary School. He gave us time to introduce ourselves and let the kids figure out if they liked us (they were v. cool), and then it was time for us to be simply amazed.

We were shown how the kids start from raw cassava, peeling and hacking it up with a sharp knife incredibly deftly before putting it out in the sun to dry in order to be ground and milled into flour. Seriously, he only looked at the cassava maybe once every 4 or 5 slashes. I was so jealous of his ease.

Eat your heart out, MasterChef Junior.

We were shown the mashing of okro, onions and garden eggs (which do not as I assumed hatch pets for the Cabbage Patch Kids; they're just eggplants) to compose the soup base. 

We were shown the pounding and pressing through a sieve of kpakpo shito, the super spicy peppers that lend their fiery juices to the soup (and also are made into the ubiquitous and addictive red and green pepper condiments served with every meal). And the tough physical labor involved in working the banku dough and forming it into dense, flavorful and uniform little packages.

At the same time, kids at two other stations were busy whipping up other local dishes like total pros. This shouldn't be a total surprise, as Dominic told us most of these kids starting helping cook at their parents' sides when they were 5 or 6 years old. The confidence these kids had in the kitchen - which to remind, was some school room tables, pots and pans, and bowls of coals with grates set over them - left me feeling both inspired and inadequate.

But it wasn't just the skills, it was the fun, too. They were working hard, but one boy whose name was Wele (not sure on spelling there) asked if he could take my phone for a photo shoot, which of course led to some of my favorite photos of the day:

And I got some cute ones of the kids goofing off, as well:

Samuel, who Dominic told us was the best student in class and who told us many times that God would bless our families, took some time to tell Tyler about his favorite footballers (all the while incredulous that Tyler herself had been a goalkeeper):

But overall, with warmth and kindness and joy, in a spare kitchen with no air conditioning when it was over 90 outside and hotter with bare feet literally hovering over hot coals - it was all about the soup.

When everything was completed, the kids proudly showed us what they had made and asked us if we were coming back again on Monday. Nothing made me want to stay as much as this did.

In my life of spending way too much time eating and cooking and thinking about food, this hour will stay with me as one of my all-time favorites. And so will these faces.

Bonus: The wall of this kindergarten we visited depicts both okro and garden eggs - and there are some more cute kids so YOU'RE WELCOME.

Sopa Portuguesa

Picture this: I'm sitting in Accra, Ghana, with coworkers, staring at this blog post blankly for a good...let's say 20 minutes. I had uploaded pictures, put a title on the entry, and sat there occasionally eating a shrimp and all-casionally looking like I had died about 6 hours previous. I complain for the blankth time that I can't make myself type anything, make the most pathetic face at Tyler (sitting across from me at the time) and say "you write it." Imagine my surprise when she held out her hands for my laptop and then didn't stop typing until we left for the airport. The result was a true delight for me to read, and she so perfectly captured our soup-related culinary exploits in Portugal last week. There's even going to be a cat involved, so get ready for a treat! And after you fall in love with Tyler's writing, check out her blog too. Okay, I'll shut up (minus a few notes thrown in) - too many pretty things for you to see ahead!

**

[Ed. note: Our tour guide, Yuri, points Nicole and Tyler in the direction of soup probably.]

Hello, Soupruary fiends! This is Tyler. You don't know me, but if you follow Corrie on Instagram, I'm the one who stands in front of things and smiles. After a very long (and wonderful) week in Ghana, Corrie is feeling a little drained creativity-wise. Totally understandable. I mean, did you read that James Franco soup-related blog yesterday? I laughed uncontrollably, and also put a few items on my DIY list.

Along with accompanying Corrie to Ghana, I was also along for the ride in Portugal and therefore am very qualified to discuss the soups that we encountered along the way. Will I be able to wax poetic about the mouth feel of vegetables you can't pronounce? No. But we can't all be Corrie Loeffler.

[Ed. note: I'm going to let Tyler say nice things about me a few times in here. And no, before you ask: Tyler is not a figment of my imagination, invented to make me feel like I'm cooler than I am.]

This lil soup was served on our TAP Portugal flight from Newark to Lisbon. According to the fancy little menu they give you in business class, it was called "Yellow Lentil Soup with Lentil Ratatouille," but I just considered it a bowl full of yum. As someone who doesn't regularly dive into things like "lentils," I can't tell you if it was truly as lentil-heavy as the title suggests, but Corrie seems to think there was a lot more flavor involved [Ed. note: Curry], and I tend to agree with her about these sorts of things. What I can say is it was very smooth and lovely, and the ratatouille was surprisingly delightful for something that was poured into my bowl from a thermos.

When we finally made it to Lisbon, Corrie was on a mission to find some good soups to share with you all (she really is pretty serious about this whole Soupruary thing). We stopped at this cute outdoor cafe for a coffee and a snack between shopping and walking tours, and the perfect opportunity presented itself.

Here I am, modeling "Creme de Cenoura" like a champ. That means cream of carrot, and it was magical. Definitely more potato-based than I was expecting or than you would probably imagine based on the color of the soup, but as usual, I was not disappointed by ordering "what she said." 

Here's a fun photo from when Corrie, Nicole, and I ventured outside of Lisbon proper to explore Sintra, the must-see city that's a short train right away. My function on these excursions is to wait for Corrie to say "Tyler, stand in front of that," but this time she got in the photo with me! Truly an exciting moment.

Instead of paying 5 euro each to have someone drive us up to the top of the mountain, we were super money savvy and took the long was up, walking/hiking/climbing/struggling through a winding path that resulted in my Fitbit congratulating me multiple times throughout the day for the 8.9 miles, 21,942 steps, and 88 floors that we endured. It was my favorite day in Portugal (mostly due to the effort of getting up to the Castelo Dos Mouros) and was totally worth it!

[Ed. note: Tyler was looking for soup probably.]

Corrie's basically my personal photographer and gets the best photos of me when we're traveling together. We also tend to finish each others' weird, long sentences by the end of a trip, but I won't go into that here because soup. LOOK AT THAT VIEW. WE EARNED THAT VIEW, FOLKS. EARNED IT.

[Ed. note: Tyler swears she never used to write in all caps, and has been known to blame the change on me. I hope the reason is that I do it too often and she got used to it, and not that I've caused some substantial raising of her blood pressure.]

[Ed. note: This cat was a garbage at helping us find soup.]

 When we finished with our super exhausting climb, we realized that we were in fact adults who could more than likely afford the 5 euro back down to the bottom of the mountain, and as a bonus, our driver hopped out of his car and literally sprinted to a little lunch spot that exceeded all of our expectations. (There's about a 98% chance he was illegally parked, but I don't remember people really following many traffic laws in Portugal, so...) Corrie and I each got a different soup, and I enjoyed mine but promptly forgot its composition after eating it. She says it was a green cabbage soup with tons of veggies (but mostly potato), and now I vaguely remember eating something yummy like that. Those little green pieces were probably very healthy, though the amount of cream might have cut that health factor in half.

[Ed. note: I genuinely don't think there was that much cream, it was just super smooth potato-y fake cream. They're, like, potato experts in Portugal. This is what the biased media isn't telling you!! The cabbages, they love them there. We went to a grocery store and they were one whole produce section top to bottom! And they're beautiful, and they even make a staggering array of cabbage-inspired dishware that I wanted to bring home.]

 Corrie's had all the things that make her happy: broth, bread, eggs and garlic. (The broth may have had some furry/feathery/previously alive creatures mixed in, but she was willing to let it slide because it was delicious.) It was traditionally Portuguese, but I don't remember the name and surprisingly neither does she. 

LOOK HOW HAPPY SHE IS. HAVE YOU EVER SEEN SOMEONE SO HAPPY?! (Humble brag, I captured that photo.) [Ed. note: Cross-reference.]

 If you've never been to Portugal, I can't really describe how lovely all of the buildings and tiles and just everything is. What I can say is Corrie pointed and commented on all of the things, and she also took all of the best photos, per usual.

Side note: According to everyone in Portugal, it rains roughly 30 times a year in the beautiful city of Lisbon, which means we experienced 10% of the yearly rain during our trip. I lived in my rain jacket, Nicole ruined an umbrella, and Corrie wore the most attractive shoes you've ever seen despite the cold cold temperatures.

[Ed. note: This is Tyler making fun of my hideous, VERY COMFORTABLE shoes. Do not be fooled.]

Our last night in Lisbon, Corrie did that thing she's known for, which is looking online for restaurants and immediately settling on the city's culinary gem. For us, that was A Cevicheria. Did we have to wait two hours for a table for 3 because they literally could seat 12 people in the restaurant? Yes. Was it still worth it for what we ate? Totes. 

You could tell it was a legit seafood place because 1. they had seafood on ice chilling (hah) behind the bar, and 2. there was a giant ass octopus on the ceiling. Because what kind of a seafood restaurant doesn't have a papier-mache seafood creature hanging above its patrons?

[Ed. note: Five seconds of googling can seriously make you seem incredibly good at picking restaurants. I'm just grateful people are willing to go along with me sometimes!]

Corrie documents everything that she eats, which allows me to tell you this beaut includes mackarel, celery, ginger, tapioca, and green apple. (Though Corrie thinks there must be green tomatoes in it, too, and I smiled and nodded like I knew what I was talking about, too.) This meal was the best we had in Portugal and scores in the top ten of my life, so it was legit. Nicole loved the "pearls" in the soup, and Corrie loved the apparently-there green tomatoes, and I loved being with coworkers who I love, so we all had a blast. And soup because it's Soupruary, and this blog is ostensibly about soup.

[Ed. note: Maybe it should be a blog about sardines, though.]

And that's all from me. That'll do, pig. That'll do.

**

Thanks so much, Tyler! This made me SO happy. Tomorrow: Ghanaian soup! Then back to home, my kitchen, and all-new recipes.

Kitty Cat Soup

No cats were harmed in the making of this blog post. 

Last year I bought a condo in uptown-downtown Cincinnati, leaving my beloved Over-the-Rhine after 7 years and moving a whole 3 blocks away. With the move, I vowed I'd finally take the time to really decorate my home, something I've never done apart from semi-purposefully placing my myriad tchotchkes. I don't mean hire an interior decorator or anything; in fact, mostly I just mean "put a thing on your wall like you're going to stay a month or two, would you?"

Unfortunately, I don't have a vision for these things. My mom has that gift, where you look at a room and see what should go where, and I love seeing the photos she sends of her latest DIYs - but I guess that's not a trait that I inherited. And when I go to friends' places and there's a definite style, I'm always bowled over and ready to present them with medals of achievement in grown-humanness.

So imagine my surprise when I suddenly had a fully formed idea of what needed to be on the wall of my dining nook. These four epiphanic words flowed from my mouth so naturally, so smoothly - a bit of divine inspiration so intrinsic to my soul that it's like it had always been there, deep inside me, just waiting to come out. The words were: James Franco Macaroni Art.

You see it, right? Can you think of anything more perfect?

I put together this scheme. Print out a variety of James Franco photographs, go to TJ Maxx and purchase as many strange pasta shapes and colors as possible, and trick my girlfriends into having a craft party and pretending I'm not that weird.

Alas, as too often happens with dumb I MEAN BRILLIANT plans, this never came to pass. And I hadn't thought about it in quite a while until I went to make soup and found my condo disastrously noodleless. My first thought? "Why did I fail you, James Franco?"

Due to the fact that I gave up on my dreams, I couldn't take my art off the wall and repurpose it as dinner.

Look! It's broth! I swear there will be soup at some point!

Obviously you can make soup without pasta, and I do it often, as evidenced by the three soups I've featured so far this year. But I knew what I wanted, and that was a fortified broth with chunky vegetables, bright citrusy herbs, and some quality extruded alimentary paste. GIVE ME CARBS OR GIVE ME DEATH!

Alas, I began a somber scan of the other carbs at the ready. Bulgur, polenta (would that even work?), quinoa, brown rice...nothing sounded right as I pawed through my pantry.

Then, another epiphany, thanks be to James.

I would be shocked that this existed, but, I mean, did I google exactly this? Yes, yes I did. #illuminati

One of my charming coworkers, Laurie, had been compelled to buy me a package of kitty cat pasta  a few months back, and I had hidden it from myself so I would be sure to use it for something special. Ever found a $5 bill in your coat pocket? Imagine that feeling times how much I like noodles. MEOWREKA!

Not only was this type of whimsically shaped pasta just what I wanted to finish off this soup, it also felt particularly timely given that the Women's March had occurred the just the day before. (Check out my friend Emily Maxwell's great piece for WCPO if you haven't had a chance.)

Oh wow, just remembered this is a soup blog. Maybe I should write about soup for a second.

All I really wanted in putting this guy together was a broth that was a bit more complex than it deserved to be, and a chance to get some good Findlay Market vegetables in me. That worked out pretttty well I must say. The broth had so much body and flavor, and was the perfect hot tub for everything bobbing around inside.

Making a decision with every bite about how much of the pistou/pesto/paste/pfft you wanted to add in made the whole bowl basically a Choose Your Own Flavor Adventure. So that's fun!

Nothing like some bright crushed herbs.

This soup turned out good-to-v.good. The method is solid, the broth had a significant amount of flavor and body considering I've yet to make any homemade stock this year, and the pasta was obviously purrrrfect. You can also change up the vegetables at will, clearly, but this combo worked out great. What's not to love about leeks, peas, criminis and spinach? Here's a trick: if it sounds a melange you'd see on a menu with a fresh pasta and be like ohhhhhhh nooooo I NEED THAT, then it's gonna make a good-to-v.good soup.

This is definitely a soup that works well as a full meal. You don't even need bread!

Well, I just revoked my typing privileges due the blasphemy of the previous sentence, so I'll sign off here. This is the last of my pre-travel soups, but I'll put up posts about all the soups I tried in Portugal and Ghana for the next few days -- and I do promise 100% less James Franco.

I Have Kitty Cat Pasta! Soup

Serves 2 as a meal

For broth:
Pat of butter
1 shallot, diced
1 clove of garlic, chopped
4 cups vegetable broth
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
A few sprigs of thyme, rosemary and parsley (or whatever you have)
1 bay leaf
Piece of Parmesan rind (my bit was about 2" by 1")

For soup:
Splash of olive oil
1 cup quartered small crimini mushrooms
1/2 cup small cat pasta (or whatever pasta shape you like)
1/4 cup fresh or frozen peas
1/4 cup thinly sliced leeks, white and light green parts only
1/4 cup canned white beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup fresh baby spinach

For accompaniment:
Olive oil
1 cup parsley leaves
1 clove garlic
1 tablespoon pine nuts
Juice of one lemon
Freshly grated Parmesan

Make the broth:

Melt butter over medium-low heat and and add shallots and garlic. Cook about five minutes, or until shallots are translucent, being careful not to burn the garlic. Add remainder of broth ingredients, turn up heat and bring broth to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer for 20 minutes or so to allow flavors to come together (longer if you have it). Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Remove from heat and use tongs or a fork to remove herb stems, bay leaf and Parmesan rind from the broth. Using an immersion blender, blend broth until silky and smooth. Return broth to medium-heat to bring to a low boil.

Finish the soup:

Add peas and leeks and cook for about 7 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat a splash of olive oil in a small pan over medium heat. Add mushrooms and cook until you're starting to get some nice brown edges, then remove from heat and season with salt and pepper.

After the peas and leeks have been going for 7 minutes, add pasta and beans to soup and keep at a low boil for another 8 minutes or until pasta and peas (the two Ps) are cooked through. Add spinach and cooked mushrooms and give it a good stir, then turn off heat. You want the spinach to wilt but not much more so it stays bright green.

In a blender, place parsley, garlic, pine nuts and lemon juice. Add about a tablespoon of oil and a good pinch each of salt and pepper. Blend until you get bright green, fairly smooth paste. you can add more olive oil if you'd like it to be looser, but I like mine at max herbal pungency.

Ladle soup into bowls and top each with a good tablespoon of parsley mixture and a healthy sprinkling of Parmesan. Serve with more parsley and Parm (the two Ps) on the side.

Roasted Red Pepper Tomato Soup with Pearl Barley Pilaf

This all came about because, while I was home in California for Christmas, my beautiful sister gave me a little bag of sun-dried tomatoes her friend had grown.

I'm not a big fan, normally. I mean, I love tomatoes to death - if I received heirloom tomatoes in place of actual heirlooms from a deceased family member I would be like SWEET and say a lil prayer. But sun-dried? Ew wrinkles gross.

Okay, so that's not the reason. My formative years were in the '90s, see, and sun-dried tomatoes were everywhere but especially in places I thought were fancy. And wanting to someday be a fancy lady myself, I'm pretty sure I ODed on the stuff. To be fair though, these chefs where being very liberal with them. I don't know if there was some sort of tax abatement based on ounces of sun-dried tomatoes used, or a secret contest among the culinary illuminati to see how many chefs could throw on a dish before someone would be gauche enough to complain (both v. logical explanations), but it was just sun-dried city. And sun-dried tomato city ain't big enough for no other flavors, y'hear?

Let's be reasonable with ratios, please.

But you tell me someone grew something in the garden without killing it, and then went to the extra step of processing it in some way, and I can have it for free? That is mid-30s professional woman catnip. Imma find something to do with those sun-dried tomatoes that I delicately transported via Delta Comfort Plus, so help me God. And I'm gonna make me like it.

If you smash the words "Finished Barley" together you get Farley. Do you date me?

Add some not-dried tomatoes, red peppers and a little spice in the mix, plus OH LAWD a chewy grain, and I was pretty much in comfort food heaven. Particularly when you add in this bit of over-the-top salivary-gland-stimulating oomph:

Note: not potato skins. I was planning to make grilled cheese but the corner store was all out of good bread, so I stopped at Brezel for some little pretzel sticks. Turns out I accidentally happened upon the perfect soup dippers. I split them, topped half with caramelized shallots and white cheddar and the other half just with white cheddar and threw them under the broiler. Will you want to eat these all day? Yes. But you'll be glad when they're gone and you can be at peace as you count your blessings AKA how many ended up in your tum.

On a serious note: we need to talk about pearl barley. It is so delicious I want to call it like "deloish" or something equally awful, but I'd never do that. You chew it and you're like "Oh, I'm nourishing myself. My body and my soul. Wow, who knew?" (Basically every bite is like that.)

Soup before it learned to sing.

What you can expect from this recipe is a perfect winter night affair - easy to throw together and familiar flavors with a few unexpected touches to remind you it's the fruit of your labor rather than an off-the-rack situation. 

Roasted Red Pepper Tomato Soup with Pearl Barley Pilaf

Serves 4

2 tablespoons plus a splash of olive oil
1/3 cup pearl barley
1 shallot, minced
1 clove of garlic
1 tablespoon chopped sun-dried tomatoes
3 cups vegetable broth or no-chicken broth (or whatever you wanna do about broth)
1/2 cup roasted red peppers
1 28 oz. can whole San Marzano tomatoes
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves
Zest of one Meyer lemon
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh parsley
1/4 cup fresh grated parmigiano reggiano
Splash of sherry vinegar

Heat a splash of olive oil in a small pot over medium-high heat, then add shallot, garlic, and sun-dried tomatoes and cook, stirring frequently, about 5 minutes. Add barley and cook until barley is starting to look toasty. Add one cup of broth and bring to a boil, then cover and reduce heat to simmer. Cook for about 30 minutes or until water is absorbed, and set aside.

Meanwhile, heat your oven's broiler, moving your oven rack to its highest perch - mine goes to 500 so that's what I set it at. Take a large rimmed baking sheet and dump the can of tomatoes (including juice) onto it along with the roasted red peppers. Add the two tablespoons of olive oil and the red pepper flakes and mush it all together. Season with salt and pepper, and then throw it under the broiler for 10 or 12 minutes. When the tomato juice starts to turn black, take it out and dump it into another pot, scraping all the charred bits in. Add the remaining two cups of broth along with the basil, turn the heat to medium-high and let that come to a low boil, then stir in parmigiano reggiano.

Remove soup from heat and purée using an immersion blender. Add a splash of sherry vinegar and stir, then taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper if necessary. Ladle soup into bowls.

Stir lemon zest and chopped parsley into barley pilaf, then divid it equally among bowls and serve.

Fresh Pea Soup with Leeks, Dill and Mint

I've been having a love affair with peas from the time I first lived alone, back in 2004. I'm all for making (or going out to) a complicated meal, but give me a 10 oz bag o' freezy-peas for solo dinner in front of the ol' Hulu and that's a semi-embarrassing guilty pleasure that can't be improved.

Or so I thought.

This herbaceous bowl combined the very specific satisfaction that I get from a meal (and I do contend it's a meal) that I'm pretty sure only I would like with the feeling of doing something special for oneself. Taking a few extra minutes to make something nice. Something just a little different, something creamy, something with texture and brightness, something I'll remember instead of something that's just filling a need. What a privilege it is to take a minute to eat, really eat and not just feed, alone. The least utilitarian you could get, but a seriously inexpensive way to make yourself feel loved. 

 This soup served as my happy spot on a rough day, my moment of calm before a mile long to-do list. (Thanks, dumb blog, for making me do stuff like this.) But, really, this barely counts as effort; it takes 20 minutes to make. And if you made this with frozen peas instead of fresh you could make it happen in half that. We aren't talking major investment here, but the whole time I was eating it I had that "lady who just took a sip of fancy coffee in a commercial" look on my face. You know the one. 

lol yep

Okay, now that you have coffee on your mind, I'll tell you what this actually tastes like (Hint: not coffee). Brace yourself: It tastes like peas.

But BETTER, duh. The leeks add some earthy sweetness, which is nice and all, but the herbs will make you feel like you discovered some secret of the universe. So few ingredients, so much flavor.

You'll see two piles o' peas above, because at first I thought I'd cook the garnish separately, but I thought better of it and corrected mid-course. I mean, I stumbled through one whole improv course in college. I can do stuff like that.

My favorite magic touch here is the spinach. You think that beautiful bright green is just from the peas? No way, Shirley May. You'd be hard pressed to convince me that anyone but the most annoying accomplished gourmand would taste the spinach in this soup, but just a cup of fresh leaves not only adds (insert blahblahblah health benefits) but also lends their intense vibrancy that give you a better clue about what it is you're eating. Before your spoon ever hits your mouth, your brain is like "WHOA check out this freshness, babe! Let's go conquer the world! Like, after we're done eating or whatever."

 

Post-straining refuse. R.I.Pea.

You will love the texture of this velvety soup - I felt like a real soup sommelier the way I was rolling it around on my tongue (no spit bucket though). This comes not just from letting an immersion blender fulfill its divine purpose, but also from giving the fine mesh strainer its due. Is this step of added refinement a bit of overkill on luxury for a dinner standing at my counter? Uh, not today, Satan. 

lol nope

Other easiest-ever way to zhuzh up something simple: the "two ways" ruse. Everything on top of this soup is also in the soup. All you have to do is not blend part of it and boom: both textural and visual interest. If you're thinking "that sounds like cheating," uh, I'm pretty sure it is. But this bowl is just for you, beautiful; and, from where I sit, IT'S CHEAT DAY.

Fresh Pea Soup with Leeks, Dill and Mint

Serves 1 as a meal, 2 as a starter

Splash of olive oil

1/2 cup sliced leeks, white and light green parts only

1 1/2 cups fresh green peas (or frozen, no problem!)

1 1/2 cups vegetable broth

1 cup fresh baby spinach

1/4 cup fresh dill, roughly chopped

1/4 cup fresh mint, sliced into thin ribbons

Heat olive oil in a small pot over medium heat and add leeks. Season with salt and pepper and cook, stirring, until softened and just starting to brown (5 minutes-ish). Remove about a tablespoon of leeks and reserve for garnish.

Add broth and peas. If fresh, bring to a soft boil for about 15 minutes or until tender; if frozen, cook 5 or 6 minutes until tender and still bright green (don't overdo it!). Using a slotted spoon, remove a about a tablespoon of cooked peas and add to reserved leeks.

Take a big pinch of the dill and the mint and toss it with the reserved peas and leeks. Add spinach and remaining mint and dill, and cook until spinach is wilted (one minute-ish). Blend with an immersion blender or regular blender, taste for seasoning, then pour into a fine mesh strainer set over your very favorite bowl. Using the back of a spoon, press the soup through the strainer, discarding what won't press through. Top with reserved leeks and peas, and eat alone, preferably while listening to your favorite podcast. 

Cannellini Bean Soup with Shallots, Tomato and Manchego

It's Soupruary! Spoiler: I still like soup!

I'm actually in Ghana at the moment, which goes a little something like this:

It also goes a little something like not-having-a-kitchen. But I wasn't going to let a silly thing like being out of the country spoil Soupruary, so I took some inspiration from the classic scouting motto/Lion King song "Be Prepared" and did some pre-travel soup cramming, at only the slightest expense of being fully prepared for my trip (I forgot one adapter; big whoop). I actually went so far as to make this soup for breakfast prior to leaving for the airport. Yes, breakfast. When it comes to what constitutes breakfast, I am fully Free Love.

And I feel great about that. See, it never fails that the biggest casualties of my travel preparation are the poor vegetables in my fridge. No matter how much I tell myself I won't have time for too much cooking before I leave, I'm always a bit too optimistic in the face of a Findlay Market Saturday. Suddenly departure day is upon me and the little beauties I had such hopes and dreams for, all the dog-eared cookbook pages and magazine tear sheets...there comes a point where you have to say "we'll get 'em next time, tiger" as you're sprinkling your junk mail with jalapeño halves and a cucumber that just wanted to be pickles if you'd only had a bit more time.

This time I did better than usual. I tore through my perishables like a champ, even dutifully making a midnight snack of garlicky wilted spinach on my last night in the nursery. But as I went to clean out the fridge in the morning, there were still a few doomed ingredients. Staring them down, I couldn't bare to to part with them. 

The real tipping point were the shallots. They deserve more credit than usual here because they came from the weekend's batch of Marcela Hazan's dreamily simple tomato sauce. Her recipe says to discard them, but (as is the theme of this entire post) waste not/want not, eh? This made everything go very quickly, as my shallots had been previously slow simmered to nearly-spreadable silk with San Marzano tomatoes and Our BFF, Butter. My tomatoes, as well, were leftovers, hanging out with the shallots for the last few days just begging to be soup. So, not only do they deserve a merit badge for flavor (second scouting reference?), they also basically forced me to do something other than grab a granola bar this a.m. 

Those leftovers came together perfectly with garlic, canned beans (also leftovers), broth and herbs to make a warming and filling meal that made me feel accomplished in a way beyond the usual "I left for the airport without forgetting my credit card or phone" miracle. 

I don't have an ingredients picture here, because I really wasn't sure what I would end up using. Turns out the answer was "everything but the radishes." Maybe I didn't dream big enough.

The last ingredient I didn't want to mourn was a tiny chunk o' manchego. I didn't know exactly how it would behave, but a happy accident it was indeed. It melted, yes, but manchego is a sturdy cheese and maintained its integrity instead of disappearing into the soup proper. Just the concept of noodles of oozy cheese makes the orchestra section of my heart immediately start warming up, but happening upon them in the middle of running around trying to figure out how to get out the door? It was a surprise food moment that made everything swirling around me stop for a minute and all I could see was soup. Love at first ooze.  

Okay, so that was a bit grandiose. This is clean-out-the-fridge soup; we're not talking life-changing deliciousness. But that's the best part: even in a simple thing like this, you can create a pause. A minute or two to slow down, play with the cheese on your tongue and appreciate the arresting power of visceral pleasures.

Speaking of, I sprinkled on a bit of cayenne at the end, but that was more for pretty than for anything else. We can all use a bit of rouge now and then. 

Summary: Turned potential garbage into soup, and it was pretty good garbage.

 

Same soup, different angle (because I'm so rusty at this that I forgot to take literally any other pictures).

Cannellini Bean Soup with Shallots, Tomato and Manchego

Serves 1 as a meal, 2 as a starter

Note: I wrote this recipe as though you weren't starting from leftover shallots/tomatoes, but you won't be mad if you make both (link to tomato sauce above).

Splash of olive oil

2 shallots, roughly chopped

1 clove garlic, chopped

1/2 cup canned diced tomatoes, drained 

1 1/2 cups vegetable broth

1 cup canned cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

A few sprigs each parsley, rosemary and thyme (or whatever herbs you have lying around), plus a few leaves of parsley garnish

A wee knob of manchego or other meltable cheese 

Heat olive oil in a small pot over medium-low heat and add shallots and garlic with a pinch of salt. Stir occasionally until the shallots are soft and translucent but not browning. At this moderate level of heat, you can pretty much leave them alone for 5 minutes or so and not really think about them. Multitasking time! I cooked mine about 10 minutes total at this stage. 

Add broth, tomatoes, beans and herbs, plus salt and pepper if the broth you're needing needs it (I used Better than Bouillon vegetable base and only added pepper). Bring to a simmer and let it go 20 minutes or so to allow those fresh herbs to flavor up the broth. Another great multitasking opportunity here - as long as you aren't boiling the living day lights out of it, you can kinda set it and forget it until you're ready to eat. 

Remove pot from heat and remove and discard herb stems. Using an immersion blender, blend until smooth. Here you could choose to strain it through a fine mesh strainer if you're feeling like a fancypants, but I was more antsypants and therefore didn't bother. With these ingredients you really can get it pretty smooth sans strainer. 

Check for seasoning and add salt or pepper if you feel the need to. Top with shredded or shaved cheese and finely chopped parsley, and a light dash of cayenne if you'd like.