Soup is good food

I have soup recipes for you. No pictures, but believe me, both are great! Here in Wisconsin (and nearly everywhere I think) it's been cool and breezy. Throw in some rain, and it's a perfect day for soup. I love making hearty soup when it's cool out. On Monday, I had a delicious lunch at an Indian Buffet, so I needed something light for dinner. I opted for 0 Point Soup. Perhaps I am outing myself here, but 0 Point Soup is a Weight Watchers meal. Without going into too much depth, foods are given points and you eat a certain amount. 0 Point Soup is essentially broth with veggies in it - 0 point veggies (no starches like potatoes, legumes, corn etc). It can be adjusted based on your tastes. Here's how I made my 0 Point Soup:

1 onion (carmelized, yummy!)
3 or 4 carrots (from my garden!)
~48 oz low sodium chicken broth
2 daikon radishes (also from my garden)
4 leaves of kale
a few leaves of Napa Cabbage
Tuscan Sunset seasoning

I caramelized the onions and then added the carrots & radish to cook a little. Then added the broth, the rest of the veggies and seasoning - then simmered for about 20 mins. It's a great filling, vegetable soup. If you need a little extra, some bread to go along side, doesn't hurt -- too much!

My 2nd soup is one I spotted a few weeks ago. It's from The Pioneer woman and is Corn Chowder with Chiles. I had been waiting and waiting to make this. Today was the day.

Recipe: Corn Chowder with Chilies

Prep Time: 10 Minutes  |  Cook Time: 20 Minutes  |  Difficulty: Easy  |  Servings: 8

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Ingredients

• 2 slices Bacon, Cut Into 1/2-inch Pieces (or Smaller)
• 2 Tablespoons Butter
• 1-½ whole Yellow Onion, Diced
• 5 ears Corn, Shucked (about 4 Cups)
• 2 whole Chipotle Peppers In Adobo Sauce, Finely Diced
• 1 whole 4-ounce Can Diced Green Chilies
• 32 ounces, fluid Low Sodium Chicken Broth
• 1-½ cup Heavy Whipping Cream
• ½ teaspoons Kosher Salt (more To Taste)
• 3 Tablespoons Corn Meal OR Masa
• ¼ cups Water

Preparation Instructions

(Carefully) slice the corn kernels off the cob. Set aside.
Add bacon pieces to a pot or dutch oven over medium heat. Cook for a couple of minutes. Throw in diced onion and stir, cooking the onion for 3 to 4 minutes. Add butter and melt. Add corn. Stir and cook for one minute. Add both kinds of chilies and stir.
Pour in chicken broth and cream. Add salt. Stir and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low.
Combine cornmeal (or masa) with water. Stir to combine, then pour into the chowder. Cover and cook for 15 minutes over low heat. If chowder needs more thickening, add another tablespoon of cornmeal mixed with water. Cook for another ten minutes.
Serve with crusty sourdough bread or in a bread bowl. Absolutely yummy!

Now, based on the 1st soup, you can probably guess I made a few adjustments. I did not use heavy cream -- I went with half and half. My cream soups tend to separate - I don't know why - but this one was no exception. It's still good, it just doesn't look as creamy as the picture. I will blame it on the half and half.  Oh, and also only used 1 tbsp of butter. Otherwise, I made it as is and I did the nutritional calculations and it really wasn't that evil of a soup. I did limit myself to one serving. I will have more later!

Eat Your Heart Out, Columbus

Columbus may have 'discovered' America, but I have recently uncovered TWO new things about myself and food. Looks like I win.

I love satisfying salads (those that contain much more than greens). I also love chickpeas. So it's only natural that I would want to make this recipe: Brown Rice and Chickpea Salad from Cooks Illustrated. Being as how it's a Cooks recipe, it's kind of a pain in the ass (fussy), but it was worth it. This was the first time that I've ever used dried chickpeas. Yes, the canned variety worked just fine in the past, why mess with tradition? Well, the only recipes I try to stick to very carefully are those from Cooks. I respect the scientific process and they work hard to determine the best way to fix something. Fine. Dried chickpeas. Soak them for many hours (I remembered ahead of time - yay!), and wait, what's this? I tasted one and huh... these are actually pretty good as is once they've been soaked... [tried a second handful] hmm... nutty, creamy... nothing like those that come out of a can [tried some more]... Oh crap, now I'm going to have to soak chickpeas from here on out [grumble... tasting more] because I could have eaten them all raw. Who knew? Cooks did I suppose.


Anyway, back to the recipe. The salad has a curry-basil sauce that is especially tasty, and you top with toasted almonds (do *not* skip the toasted almonds). This would make a great take-along lunch. Except that Rob is currently busy scarfing down the rest.

I am pleased to announce that I have discovered THE best and easiest way to cook kale. It should have been obvious to me to roast kale since I cook nearly everything else this way. So why didn't I think of this already? Crispy Sesame Kale from the Vegan Yum Yum cookbook. The cookbook is really great, and her blog is beautifully scrumptious, so check them both out. Toss the kale with some dark sesame oil and sesame seeds, and throw into the oven for 10 min. Easy, healthy and insanely delicious.

Goin' Green

I really love making soups and stews. I enjoy the one pot / one meal technique: it's less to worry about (sync multiple dishes so they're all ready at the same time), and less to clean up (Rob is especially thankful for that). Warm hearty soup, a glass of wine and some good tunes are all I need after a chilly ride home and long day at work.

This is one of Rachel Ray's 30-min recipes: Kal-iflower Stoup. It's healthy and vegetarian (except for the chicken broth, which could, of course, be substituted for veg broth). I really want to like Rachel Ray. I like her TV show (I'm referring to the 30-min meal show, not her daytime one), and I appreciate the short-on-time approach. However, her recipes are hit and miss with me. Some are delicious and some just suck. This dish gets more like a 4-star rating. I love that it's healthy - and let's be honest -- we're talking about KALE. How good can kale really be? So, she did well considering it includes 2 bunches of bitter chewy kale.

Kale. I only love kale for one reason: it's a superfood. It's so healthy that it makes me a better person just putting it in the shopping cart. It's in that awesome-good-for-you Brassica family (e.g., brussels spouts, broccoli), and that group has claimed to ward off cancer. Let's face it - that family needs to bring something to the table other than turned up noses. Warding off cancer and providing a plethora of vitimins (it's an excellent source of iron and calcium), and antioxidants, are pretty good reasons. Plus, it's very pretty in the garden. So I'm slowly learning to enjoy kale.