2010 Wrap-Up

A few notes on this year:

• 30 soups in 27 days, with one day taken over by guest souper Aron
• 156 bowls of soup served (not counting seconds!), plus 10 more at Aron's (159 in 2009)
  
• 64 individual soup-eaters (up from 54 last year)
  
• 25 brand new soup-eaters (attendees who didn't come last year)
• Only 2 temporary, stress/exhaustion-induced breakdowns!
  
• The spread of Soupruary—Congrats to Mick for his month of gorgeous soups in North Carolina! You did it, man! Can't wait to try some of his recipes, and he's inspired me to start baking more breads (Starch March anyone?).
  

Thanks so much to everyone who participated in Soupruary II, and thanks especially to Josh for being so supportive and helpful throughout. Being able to spend so much time with friends is a true joy, and the memories we made this month will live on far longer than any of the leftovers in my fridge or even stains in my aprons. Thanks for letting me experiment on y'all, brave souls; I hope you had as much fun as I did. Nothin' but love.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a glass of wine and an overwhelmingly be-bubbled bathtub that will not wait any longer.

Tom Yum Goong and Thai-spiced Butternut Squash

Last night of Soupruary...etcetera, etcetera, etcetera!

Location:The Rich Ranch

Attendees:
Bill, Leslie, Ashley, Joshua, Brent, Laura, Erin, Jeff, Julie, Aron, me


Menu:Spinach and artichoke wontons (Bill & Leslie)
Veggie egg rolls (Bill & Leslie)
Veggie spring rolls (Brent & Laura)
Pan-fried plantains (Aron)
Tom yum goong
Thai-spiced butternut squash soup
Mango sticky rice
Tamarind candies because Josh loooooves them (Jeff & Julie)
And the themed drinks of the evening: Little Kings, and the Siam-ease (Bill)

Entertainment:The King & I, complete with Yul Brenner's square torso (a.k.a. blockso, a.k.a. Lego with nipples (© Jellyrod))

The Soup:
I managed to find some gorgeous Ugly Ripe tomatoes at Findlay market today:


Can you believe it? Tomatoes that great in February! That kind of made my afternoon. That and the smell of butternut squash roasting away for an hour:


And here's what made my night:


Bill and Leslie got me flowers and had a champagne toast to mark the end of the month—So very sweet!

Plus, look at all these beautiful people:

I can't imagine being surrounded by these precious folks and not feeling wonderful about life.

And it doesn't hurt that the soups were darn good.

The Tom Yum definitely had a kick to it, but it lived up to the YUM part for me. Josh and Bill each sampled both soups, with differing results: Josh preferred the Tom Yum and Bill was very happy about the squash. As for me, I'd make them both again. Like, tomorrow.

In case you haven't used it before, here's what galangal looks like:


It looks a bit like ginger, but it doesn't smell or taste like it. It's a little citrusy and earthy. Oh, and it's way harder constitutionally than ginger, so you'll need a pretty sharp knife to do anything with it.

One awesome thing about the Tom Yum, boy does it come together fast. Start to finish in about 25 minutes with Josh's much-appreciated deveining assistance.

The squash soup takes a little longer, but once that squash is roasted it's easy as pie (scratch that—way easier than pie) and I highly doubt it's possible to screw it up.

So with this, I've reached the finish line, and can stop bothering you all with my blogs and status updates and one-track mind (except for maybe some kind of wrap-up entry. Maybe.). Until next year, happy Soupruary, lovelies.

Tom Yum Goong
Adapted from templeofthai.com

8 cups Asian vegetable broth (made from bouillon from Asian market)
2 fresh lemongrass stems, cut into 1–2" pieces and bashed up a bit
4 big slices of peeled galangal
2 or 3 hot peppers, sliced thin
1/4 cup Thai fish sauce
2 cans straw mushrooms, drained and rinsed
4 tomatoes, cut into manageable sections
1 1/2 pounds medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
juice from 3 limes
leaves from 1 bunch of fresh cilantro

Heat broth over medium with lemongrass, galangal, peppers, fish sauce, and mushrooms. When hot (but not boiling), add tomatoes, shrimp, and lime juice. Cook until shrimp is cooked through—about 3 minutes. Be careful not to boil, or the lime juice will lose its zing. Add cilantro and serve, telling guests to be careful not to eat the big chunks of galangal and lemongrass.

Thai-spiced Butternut Squash
Adapted from 101cookbooks.com

Note: I doubled this recipe to have enough for a crowd.

2 small butternut squash, halved, and seeds scooped out
1 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter
sea salt
1 14-ounce can coconut milk
2 tablespoons Thai red curry paste (or to taste)

Preheat oven to 375 F. Place squash skin-side down on a baking sheet, spread butter evenly on exposed flesh and sprinkle with sea salt. Roast for 1 hour.

Scoop squash flesh out of skin and into a soup pot. Add coconut milk and curry, then either transfer to a blender or use an immersion blender to puree until smooth. Heat the puree over medium heat, and add water to thin it to the desired consistency. Add salt to taste, and more curry paste if desired (I wanted to keep mine mild, so I used just over a tablespoon per batch).

Soupruary 27th: Peas & Pas

How can I not love a day when I can spend three hours making tomato sauce? You should seriously smell my apartment right now. I had to fight to keep myself from crawling into the oven all afternoon—it was just that tantalizingly roasty up in there.

Location:
Mi casa es su casa.

Attendees:
Aron, Jeff, Joshua, me

Menu:
Steamed broccoli
Summer squash with lemon herb butter
Tomato soup with peas and pasta

Entertainment:
Soupruary's one and only kitchen fire! There was definitely something on the burner that was ready to get some attention, and boy did it. Flames up to 3...inches...high! We managed to put it out with a metal pot lid after Aron shook some towels at it for a few seconds—which was basically risking his life seeing as he was attired in a polyester jumpsuit.
Oh, and then we went to see You, You're Awesome and Bad Veins and danced all night (fueled by soup!), and that was spectacularly fun.

The Soup:
My friend Bettina was the inspiration for this one—she told me about it on Monday night and I kept thinking all week that it's just the kind of comfort-food goodness I need right about now. I wanted something with heft and body that would keep me going all night, and this fit the bill precisely.

My second inspiration was reading Thomas Keller's recipe for this roasted tomato sauce on Friday—I knew immediately that I could not wait more than 24 hours to have it in my oven.


And now I may be ruined. I'm not sure I'll ever want any other tomato sauce. I could've just eaten a bowl of it and forgotten about making soup, but the spirit of Soupruary dictated otherwise.


This isn't a taste that will blow your mind, or be unlike anything you've ever had. It's perfectly normal, but exceptional in its perfection of said normalcy. It tasted just how I wanted it to, and kept me smiling through the whole bowl.

Adapted from Bettina's family recipe and Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc at Home

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup finely chopped yellow onion
1 cup minced leeks, white and pale green parts
1 cup fennel, chopped
1 teaspoon minced garlic
2 tablespoons light brown sugar
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 28-32 ounce cans of whole peeled San Marzano tomatoes
1 bay leaf
bunch of fresh thyme
kosher salt, to taste
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
3 cups vegetable broth
4 ounces pasta in the shape you prefer, cooked al dente and then set aside
8 ounces frozen peas
grated Parmigiano reggiano, to serve

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine vegetables in a baking dish and cook 45 minutes or until tender and browning, then remove from oven.

Stir in brown sugar and vinegar and return to oven for 10 minutes or until liquid is absorbed.

Pour one can of tomatoes into a food processor along withthe juice from the second can of tomatoes and process until smooth. Coarsely chop or tear apart the tomatoes from the second can.

Add tomato puree, tomatoes, thyme and bay leaf to the vegetables, stir, and return to oven for 90 minutes.

Discard thyme and bay leaf, and transfer sauce to soup pot. Add vegetable broth and frozen peas, and bring to a simmer. Add pasta and simmer till heated through. Serve with grated Parmigiano reggiano, if desired.

Soupruary 26th: Cream of Mushroom

Say it with me now: Umami. Oooomahhhhmeeeee.


Location:
My lilypad


Attendees:
Brent, Laura, Sebastien, Katie, Matt, Tiffany, Joshua, me


Entertainment:
Catchphrase, complete with one free radish pass per person (unless you eat it accidentally)
The New Yorker Cartoon Caption game, complete with half-eaten radish game piece


Brent's amazing Batman impression, fueled by approximately a loaf of bread with butter and salt


Menu:
Linguine cacio e pepe
Balsamic-glazed zucchini
Roasted tomato caprese
Wild mushroom soup


The Soup:
One of my favorite soups from last Soupruary was Jamie Oliver's wild mushroom delight, but I'd seen this recipe praised on a few different blogs so I thought I'd give it a try. The result? Delicious, but I still think last year's wins.

Matt isn't quite down with mushrooms as the main event, as you can see:


But I think everybody else was on board. Brent made some good satisfactiony noises and deemed it incredible, and I would've almost certainly licked my bowl had I not been in polite company. (Okay, polite company + Sebastien.)


It's fun to watch the dried mushrooms get fatter and turn the water dark brown, so that's a lovely little roadside attraction on the highway to Yumtown.


Adapted from The Balthazar Cookbook

1 ounce dried mushrooms (I used a mix of oyster, porcini, shiitake morels)
1/2 cup olive oil
2 sprigs of rosemary
4 sprigs of sage
1 large yellow onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 pound white button mushrooms stemmed, cleaned and thinly sliced
1 pound shitake mushrooms stemmed, cleaned and thinly sliced
6 cups water
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
soft goat cheese
white truffle oil

Soak the dry mushrooms in 1 cup of warm water for 20 to 30 minutes, until plump. Strain the soaking liquid (I was supposed to use a coffee filter, but I used a double-fine sieve because I use a French press, thus no filters in la maison); reserve the plumped mushrooms and strained soaking liquid.

Heat the olive oil in your soup pot over medium. Throw in the fresh herbs and let them sizzle a bit, stirring a few times. When the oil is smelling amazing, add the onion, garlic, salt and pepper and cook for 5 minutes or until the onion is translucent.

Turn the heat up to high and add the fresh mushrooms. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add the water, reconstituted mushrooms and soaking liquid, and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove the herbs, then add the cream and butter. Puree with an immersion blender or in batches in a regular blender until it reaches the consistency you want. Serve with a bit of goat cheese and a little drizzle of truffle oil.

Got me!

My friend Julie just sent me this amazing documentation that I'm one of her Safari top sites (click to enlarge):


I love my friends so hard.

Soupruary 25th: Triple Soupsplosion!

Proof positive that I'm going bonkers, or, as Josh put it: CocoNUTS. (grrrrarggh)


Location:
My apartment


Attendees:
Brent, Jeffrey, Joshua, Julie, Laura, Mandy, Matt, Sebastien, Tiffany, me


Menu:
Radishes with butter and salt, cheese, crackers
Napa cabbage salad with fresh buttermilk dressing (dressing by Josh, and srsly: new favorite salad ever in the world)
Yukon gold gratin with goat cheese (cuz I care about FOOD)
Sunchoke soup with toasted pumpkin seeds
Green pea soup with tarragon
Sweet potato soup with buttered pecans
Salted brown butter Rice Krispies treats (solely because I was craving them, not in fact a generous gesture)

64 calories!

Entertainment:
Who needs it when you have such amazing company? We did get a stellar turtle impression though.

The Soup:
First, a haiku:

Dear Food Processor,
Thank you for chopping onions
So I didn't cry.

Second: Sunchokes are zero fun to peel. Jerusalem artichoke? More like JERKusalem artichoke, amirite? Case in point: check out this little monster, straight out of Guillermo del Toro's imagination:


BUT: The sunchoke was my favorite soup of the eve. Oooooooobaby it was interesting and different and scrumptious and oooooooobaby. If it runs for president of my tummy, I'm gettin' out the vote. (That may be the stupidest sentence I've ever written, so I'm leaving it.)

The green pea was my second favorite. I likely should have smoothed it out a bit more, but my beloved immersion blender ELECTROCUTED me for a second and I was instantly twice-shy. I happen to adore tarragon, even though it always tastes slightly fishy (you know, like ketchup). But even more than that, I've been so all about peas lately. I've bought fresh ones, I've bought frozen ones, and it never matters; you can always count on them to be tasteeeeeeeee.

The sweet potato was nice too, but a little...sweet. I like my sweet potatoes heavily tempered with savory to balance that junk out, and I thought this recipe would do it. It was good, yes. But not quite up to the other two IMHO (there may be folks who disagree). There's the awesomeness of making three soups, though (on a school night, no less): You've got multichances to make good.

Let's get back to numbering.

THIRD: Holy cats. Today, February 25th, 2010, might be the best day of my life. Why? Because I tricked Jeff into doing my grocerying for me. None of this would've been possible sans that, for rlzies. I now present the most glorious thing I've ever come home to:


I'm attempting to talk Jeff into spending his non-blogging time starting an errand service called Jeffy-Do (because he always DOES!!!), and I think Sebby's on board too. This could be a Cincinnati miracle.

AND!! Jeff and Julie got me an amazing new apron and Findlay Market gift certificates. It's been a while since I've been genuinely overwhelmed, but this was genuinely overwhelming. So many hugs and kisses and hugs and kisses and hugs and IOUs going out to my lovelies.

So: all in all a wonderful night. I'm clam-happy and ready to bust out three more and then live on crackers and sparklewater for a month or two.

Oh, and you should totally at least make the sunchoke and the pea soup below. There's no excuse for not making the pea soup as it takes, like, 20 minutes in toto. That jerkusalem stuff, though: uhhhworthit.

Sunchoke soup with pumpkin seeds

Adapted from Bon Apetit, November 2008

8 cups water
1 1/2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
2 pounds sunchokes
3 tablespoons butter
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped leek (white and pale green parts only)
2 garlic cloves, chopped
7 cups (or more) vegetable broth
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
Pumpkin seeds, toasted in a dry skillet

Mix 8 cups water and vinegar in large bowl. Peel one sunchoke at a time (and it'll take some time), and place in vinegar water to prevent discoloration.z

Melt butter in your soup pot over medium heat. Add onion, leek, and garlic; sprinkle with salt and sauté until soft and translucent, about 12 minutes. Meanwhile, drain and rinse sunchokes, then cut into 1-inch pieces. Add to onion mixture and sauté 5 minutes. Add 7 cups vegetable broth, increase heat to high, and bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until sunchokes are very tender, about 1 hour.

Puree soup with an immersion blender or in batches in a regular blender. Stir in cream and season to taste with salt and white pepper. To serve, garnish with toasted pumpkin seeds.


Green Pea soup with Tarragon

Adapted from Bon Appetit, April 2009

2 16-ounce packages frozen petite peas, divided (do not thaw)
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 1/2 cups sliced shallots
4 cups vegetable broth
3 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon, divided
crème fraîche as an accompaniment

Place 1 cup peas in microwave-safe bowl; set aside. Heat oil in heavy large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add shallots and sauté until golden and almost tender, about 7 minutes. Add remaining peas, 4 cups broth, and 2 tablespoons tarragon; bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium and boil until flavors blend and peas are tender, about 7 minutes. Puree soup with an immersion blender or in a regular blender until completely smooth.

Cook reserved 1 cup peas in microwave until warm, about 1 minute.

To serve, garnish with crème fraîche, a spoonful of the microwaved peas, and a sprinkle of fresh tarragon.


Sweet Potato soup with Buttered Pecans

Adapted from Gourmet, November 1992

For the soup
3/4 cup finely chopped onion
1 cup finely chopped leek, washed well and drained
2 large garlic cloves, minced
3 large carrots, sliced thin
1 bay leaf
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 pounds sweet potatoes
a 1/2-pound russet potato
5 cups vegetable broth
3/4 cup dry white wine
1 1/2 cups water
3/4 cup chopped pecans
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
crème fraîche as an accompaniment

Make the soup:
In your soup pot cook the onion, the leek, the garlic, and the carrots with the bay leaf and salt and pepper to taste in the butter over moderate heat, stirring, until the vegetables are softened. Add the sweet potatoes, peeled, halved lengthwise, and sliced thin, the russet potato, peeled, halved lengthwise, and sliced thin, the 5 cups broth, the wine, and the water, simmer the mixture, covered for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the potatoes are very tender, and discard the bay leaf. Puree the mixture with an immersion blender or in batches in a regular blender until it is very smooth. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Make the buttered pecans:
In a skillet cook the pecans in the butter with salt to taste over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes, or until they are golden brown, and transfer them to paper towels to drain.

Divide the soup among bowls and top each serving with a dollop of the crème fraîche and some of the buttered pecans.

Soupruary 24th: Tom Kha Tofu

If you can't stand the heat, eat the sides!


Note to my brother Karl: I'm aware that this post is going to make me sound like a wuss, and we're all impressed that you drink gallons of sriracha for breakfast. ;) I bet you'd at least admit this dish has a modicum of spice if you tried it though.

Location:
My lil downtown abode

Attendees:
Cybelle, Janice, Lauren, Sara, Sirli, me

Janice's look of spicy satisfaction.

Menu:
Mandarin salad (by Sara)
Red curry eggplant & haricot vert (which smoked up my apartment somethin' fierce)
Ginger fried rice (same exact side I made on the 11th, and truthfully I'm shocked I held out this long)
Tom kha tofu
Cappuccino trifle (by Lauren, who totally didn't bring leftovers to work for breakfast even though I'm sure she could sense my intense craving)


In case you were wondering, this is exactly the amount of hurt that 5 ladies can put on a trifle:

Entertainment:
Stories about Lauren's kids (Srsly, girl has the most entertaining stories and she knows how to tell 'em. Y'all should probably be jealous if you don't know her.)
Tales from the Work Bathroom (It's like Tales from the Crypt but the host is scarier)
Much later: Me going full PretzElrod and falling asleep in the living room. I hear there were pictures taken, but I'm going to be okay with that. You try making soup 24 days in a row and see how bright-eyed/bushy-tailed you are!

The Soup:
I got to use fresh uncut lemongrass for the first time!


I think the guy at Saigon Market is starting to think I'm incompetent. I've been there two days in a row and I can never find anything without help. He probably laughs at me when I leave, like "Pffffft that chick is totes gonna use that lemongrass INCORRECTLY." But I think I get the last laugh—I may not know where dude keeps the coconut milk, but the flavors in this soup were uhhhhhmayzeeng.


I say the flavors, because that part was undisputed. However, the spiciness was a bit on the no-joke side. Everyone put up a valiant fight, but only Janice was in the clean bowl club.

It was seriously good! Seriously, seriously! I would just dial the heat down a bit if I made it again to make it more widely palatable. I've never had a really spicy tom kha before, so I'm happy for the experience. And Cybelle said she was grateful for the sinus-clearing treatment (Coco's Soup Spa—should I open it?).

Adapted from toomanychefs.net

For tofu:
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup fish sauce
3 tablespoons sesame oil

For broth:
1 quart vegetable broth
2 14 oz. cans coconut milk
3 cloves finely minced garlic
1/2 cup lime juice
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 pound firm tofu
1/3 cup thinly sliced ginger
2 lemon grass stalks, trimmed and cut into 3-4" lengths.
1/4 cup fish sauce
1 tablespoon cayenne
2 tablespoons sriracha
2 tablespoon mustard powder
1 tablespoon grated lime zest
1 cup fresh cilantro leaves, no stalks
12 oz. can straw mushrooms, drained and rinsed
12 oz. can enoki mushrooms, drained and rinsed

Press the block of tofu under a weight between paper towels for 20 minutes.

Cut the tofu into bite-sized pieces, then coat with tofu marinade listed above and let sit for 10 minutes. Preheat oven to 350-F.

Spread the tofu in one layer on a baking sheet and bake 15 minutes.

Combine all the other ingredients except the mushrooms and cilantro in a pot, stirring well. Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer.

Remove tofu and flip, then put it back in the oven for 15 more minutes.

You'll have ginger and lemongrass detritus in the bottom of your bowl—you probably don't want to attempt to eat those. If you'd rather strain the soup, that works too.

Add the tofu, mushrooms and cilantro and cook on low until mushrooms are heated and cilantro has wilted.