Not Your Mother's Chicken Soup: Woman's Day

Lesson 1 Learned from Not Your Mother's Chicken Soup:
-When the recipe suggests cooking "x amount of time or until vegetables are tender", don't just cook "x amount of time", actually check and see if the veggies have become tender.
Lesson 2 Learned from Not Your Mother's Chicken Soup:
-untender yams - unlike creamy-soft roasted yams - taste amazingly like carrots.

Good, gingery, sinus-clearing soup this. We shredded the chicken and added it to the soup, but you could just take the chicken out the broth and eat it seperately. If you're sick, this is the soup you'd want, I think. Nice and spicy, and no nausea-inducing soggy noodles.

peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

p.s. I really cook more than just soups. Honest. :D

Herb Ravioli Soup: Sunset

This soup was pretty!

I admit, I was sucked in by the title of the section this soup was under. But doesn't "Bright, savory soup" just make you want to cook up a batch? It only would have been better if it was "Bright, savoury soup". Ah, British spelling.

Anyway, very yummy, and perfect for a Saturday night.

peace of Christ to you,
Jessica

alterations:
-I didn't exactly measure the herbs. I just picked a bunch in about the right amounts.
-I forgot to pepper it.
-My package of ravioli was 9 oz, not a pound, and it was chicken sausage pesto something else, not plain ol' chicken. :D

Chicken and Potatoes over Sautéed Spinach

Tonight I made this recipe from Cooking Light.

I actually made it over spinach and kale 'cause I had a bunch of kale trying to go to seed in the garden. That meant that I had to steam the kale a bit, just because it takes longer to cook than spinach.

I also forgot to take a photograph of this one; but I really don't think it would have photographed well. It didn't look amazing.

And, initially, it didn't taste amazing. The first bite of chicken was a bit bland, as was the first of potato. But then, a taste of the broth, and the dish came alive. The broth had all the concentrated flavors of onion and ginger, of five-spice powder and sherry. Pretty soon my mouth was burning, in a really good way.

This taste very different than anything I've made before, probably a result of the five-spice powder. There was a bit of licorice to it (from the anise in the powder), which was really interesting. I'll make it again.

peace of Christ to you,
Jessica

alterations:
-I took the ends of the green onions and the skin of the ginger and boiled them from a couple of hours, then took the resulting veggie broth, salted it with boullion, and used that in place of the chicken broth. Yum.
-I used a bunch of green onions in the place of each leek, 'cause the ranch market was out of leeks.
-I didn't peel the potatoes. Why throw out all those good vitamins and all that good fiber?
-added kale, as mentioned above.

for Sharon

Here's the recipe for African Chickpea and Spinach Soup, as I made it (I altered it slightly from the original). I got it from Vegetarian Times, but look as I could, I could not find it on their website. So, here it is:

-2 tsp. olive oil
-1 onion, chopped
-2-3 cloves garlic, minced
-1/4 c. chunky peanut butter
-2 c. chicken broth
-1 tsp. paprika
-1 tsp. ground coriander
-1/4 tsp. chili powder
-1 can chickpeas, drained
-1 can diced tomatoes, undrained
-2.5 oz. frozen, chopped spinach, thawed

1) heat oil in large pot over med heat. Add onion, saute 5 minutes, till soft and golden. Add garlic, sautee 2 minutes, or till lightly browned.
2) Mix peanut butter and chicken broth, set aside. (This was easier for me because I used reconstituted boullion, so my broth was hot. By the by, the easiest way I've found to reconstitute boullion into broth is to put the boullion in a glass Pyrex 1-qt. measuring cup, then pour boiling water - heated in a tea kettle - over the boullion, and stir. Easy to see how much you ought to add when it's in a measuring cup.)
3) Add paprika, coriander and chili to onion mixture, and saute 1 min., or until fragrant (like you would with a curry, mmm!). Stir in peanut butter mixture, chickpeas and tomatoes. Simmer. Stir in spinach. Simmer on low with lid on till suppertime. In my case, about an hour.


Warning: for some reason, this dish smells funny, but tastes good.

Enjoy!
-Jessica Snell

Asian-Style Beef Stew with Sweet Potatoes: Family Circle

This was . . . well, it was okay. Not great. A bit too citrusy for my taste, and the yams seemed to have a very bland flavor that did not go well with the rest of the rather flavorful stew. Not bad though. I wouldn't say "don't make it". Just a bit unexciting.

-Jess

alterations:
-yams instead of sweet potatoes. I think. I tend to get them mixed up.
-I used beef ribs, boiled with the soup, instead of chunks of beef. After the meat cooked, I took it off the bones, chopped it up, and put it back in. I think this did add a bit to the not-so-stellar flavor of the stew (made it too greasy). If you make it, take their suggestion about the meat, and it'll probably be pretty good.
-I put in extra ginger. 'Cause we like ginger hereabouts.

Irish Colcannon and Thyme Leaf Soup: Cooking Light

My first recipe is in honor of St. Patrick's Day: a nice potato and cabbage soup from this year's March issue of Cooking Light. You can find the recipe here.

I don't think that this is a repeater. It wasn't memorable, wasn't awful, but it was, like most soups, a great way to eat some extra veggies.

However, I have to admit, part of the lackluster result might have been due to my substituting dried thyme leaves for fresh (the recipe calls for one tablespoon fresh, so I substituted one teaspoon dry). You can take a peek at my other alterations below.

If you're a soup-as-side dish person, this isn't a bad one. But it falls a bit short as a main dish.

-Jess





Alterations:
-I used reconstituted boullion instead of "fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth"
-I used dried thyme rather than fresh.
-Being unable to find savoy cabbage, I used red cabbage - giving the soup its pretty purple color. :D
-I estimated, rather than measured, the amount of potatoes and cabbage.