Baked Alaska

This is my first week for participating in the Sunday Slow Soupers. For those of you who may be new to my blog, we are a group from Slow Trav Website who began as Sunday Slow Bakers, then turned into Sunday Slow Scoopers. We started out with an Italian dessert cookbook, then moved onto ice cream. As Sunday Slow Soupers, we now are making a soup each week, and we'll post our results on our blogs on Sunday. Instead of using a cookbook this time, each member is submitting a recipe that we'll try.

The first week's selection was Porcini Mushroom and Chestnut Soup. I couldn't find chestnuts here, so decided to skip the first week.

This week the selection is Mexican Turkey Soup, chosen by Jerry of Jerry's Thoughts, Musings, and Rants. He thoughtfully chose a soup that would use leftover turkey we had from Thanksgiving. Very nice of him considering he lives in Canada and already celebrated his Thanksgiving I believe it was last month.

I was looking forward to this month's soup, as I love butternut squash. The recipe looked very simple, and was different than what I am used to making, as mine usually contains apple juice. I didn't have any butternut squash on hand, but had 3 other winter squashes - an acorn, a delicata, and a carnival. The Delicata came in my CSA box, and the other two were purchased to decorate my Thanksgiving table. So I decided to use the 3 of these, and I roasted them the evening before making the soup. Here's the photo:

After the squash had roasted, I let it cool and then scraped the flesh out into a covered container, and put it in the fridge for the night. The next evening I made the soup, and it was extremely quick. I sauteed the onion until soft, added the squash, broth, and seasonings, and simmered until hot. I used my immersion blender to smooth, and in less than 30 minutes I had a great soup. I love the kick that the hot pepper added. For so few ingredients, this soup has lots of flavor, and this soup will be made many times in the future. I served my garnished with fat free yogurt, and served a salad of greens, sliced oranges, and a balsamic vinegrette and a thick piece of sliced bread. Perfect for a winter evening.

I can't believe we are already on week 4 of the Sunday Slow Soupers. This week's soup was chosen by teaberry, and what a good choice it was. If you are looking for a very flavorful, filling soup, then try this Italian Wedding Soup. It contains small meatballs that are made from ground turkey and flavored with many things, including parmesan cheese, allspice, nutmeg and cinnamon. The broth is a flavorful mixture of onions, celery, and onions, enriched with chicken stock, balsmic vinegar and Marsala wine. It makes a nice large pot with plenty of leftovers. My suggestion would be to make a double batch of the meatballs, and freeze one half so that you'll have them on hand when you get a craving for the soup again (and believe me, you will).

This week's soup came from Nancy. She had never made the soup before, but thought it sounded like a good soup for Christmas week. The recipe came from an old Bon Appetite issue.

I had never had pumpkin soup before-lots of butternut squash, etc. This recipe uses canned pumpkin. While the recipe was good, it wasn't my favorite. Could have been the canned chicken broth I used. I added some Sherry Rum Pepper Sauce to it, and that really helped brighten up the flavor. I think you could instead add regular sherry, or a type of vinegar.

Well, I'm late posting my Sunday Slow Soupers soup. I made it last week, but forgot to take photos, and froze half of it, and so I had to wait until I thawed it out to take a photo. Shannon chose this soup because it contains black eyed peas, a food that is eaten by many on New Years Day. She got the recipe from Kalyn's Kitchen blog. The soup is wonderful-very flavorful with the ham, quite salty, and healthier with the addition of greens. You can use any type of green-I used kale. I loved the soup the first few days I ate it, and as I mentioned, I froze the other half to be eaten at a later time. Today, I was so thankful to have that soup in the freezer. It has been about -10F for the past few days, and today it never got above that at our house. When we went to bed last night, it was nice and toasty. When I got up this morning, it was 54 in the house, and went down to 50. Our heater wasn't working!!! We have one bedroom/bath downstairs which is on a separate thermostat. Thank goodness that heater worked. What happened is that we had a valve that didn't work, and didn't allow hot water to flow through the pipes to the baseboard heat, and a pipe froze. Usually when we don't have heat it's because the electricity went out. At least we had that. We called the plumber and he came and replaced the valve, but said we'd have to try to get the pipe thawed. We could either build a fire, turn on all space heaters we had, etc. and see if they thawed. No luck. We called a guy who thaws pipes, but he couldn't make it out until tonight. We had to stay in the unheated portion of the house a good part of the day, because we needed to keep an eye on the fireplace, propane heaters, electric heaters, etc. to make sure we didn't start a fire. Around 7pm tonight, he came and thawed out the pipes (luckily, they didn't burst), and we now have heat.
Back to the soup-I thawed it out for lunch, and not only did the soup still taste great, it was very warming to have while in the cold house. I did make sure I saved enough to have a small bowl on New Years Day for good luck and prosperity.

This was my week for the selection for our Sunday Slow Soupers. I decided to go with my fish soup. I came up with this recipe to use the halibut and cod that we catch from our boat each summer. I like this soup because it is healthy and easy to make. It is low fat, only good carbs, and lots of good lean protein. You can make lots of changes/additions to the soup. Add chopped zucchini or summer squash, add kale or swiss chard, etc. I hope you enjoy this soup!

This week's soup was chosen by Deborah of Old Shoes, New Trip. Deborah decided to choose a Portugese soup called Caldo Verde, or Green Soup. Her soup comes from Jean Anderson's cookbook: The Food of Portugal. Here is the history of the soup, taken from pg. 97 & 98 of Jean's book:

This week's recipe was chosen by Palma, of Palmabella's Passions. She chose a soup that I was interested to try-Leek and Asparagus Soup. This is a Roman dish, that is traditionally served at Easter time. This soup was very easy to make. You saute sliced leeks and chopped potatoes, then add chopped asparagus, chicken broth, and pancetta if you choose. Simmer 30-40 minutes, then puree. Then the soup is put back on the stove and half and half is added. The soup is garnished with fried leeks and crushed Amaretti cookies. I made only two substitutes-I garnished with fried shallots instead of leeks, and I used Fat-free half & half instead of regular. I loved the addition of the garnishes, but the soup was also good a few days later without any garnishes. It tastes like a potato-asparagus soup, and is very flavorful.

GUMBO WITHOUT OKRA OR TOMATOES

Another week of Sunday Slow Soupers, and another great soup. This week it was Sandi from Bugalu at Whistlestop Cafe turn to choose the soup. She chose her Gumbo. She says the key to good gumbo is fresh ingredients. When reading the recipe, I noticed it didn't call for okra or tomatoes, which I thought every gumbo contained. But Sandi said this is a Louisiana recipe that just has a roux base and that it is usually more of a coastal recipe when it contains okra and tomatoes. I decided to make two versions-one with okra and tomatoes and one without. I liked them both, but the one without the tomatoes was more intense in it's flavor. As far as seafood, I used, I decided to use items we had in our freezer that we caught this summer. So I used the chicken thighs and andouille sausage called for, and I used shrimp and rockfish. No scallops or oysters. Be sure and take the time to make a proper roux-it really adds flavor to the dish. If you need any help, click here for more detailed directions.

It's Sunday, so time for another soup. This week's soup is brought to you by Marcia of Happy Trails to Us: My Reluctant Blog. She chose a soup that she tweaked slightly that was orginally published in the December 2006 issue of Bon Appetit. The soup is Split Pea and Green Pea Soup with Fresh Dill. This soup is very good. The addition of the frozen green peas and the fresh dill make it much more lighter and fresher tasting than most split pea soups usually taste. I followed the directions with a couple of exceptions: I forgot to buy a leek, so I used chopped yellow onion. I also used chicken broth and added a ham hock for flavoring while cooking. I'll make this soup in the future again for sure. It's healty also. Next time I might add some chunks of ham to make it more filling, and also double the recipe.

I am just loving the Sunday Slow Soupers. I love soup, and have even been making other soups during the week, not just the one for our group. They're filling, usually healthy, and make lots so we've got leftovers.

I rarely eat or make chowders, because they're usually so rich, full of cream and butter. When I first saw that this recipe from Sheena called for 1 stick of butter, I thought I can't make it. I usually save my fat and calories for desserts, not for my main course. Then I saw that the recipe serves 12. I knew I would cut the recipe in half, so I was down to 1/2 stick of butter. But I decided to modify this recipe even more, and it turned out great! I cut the recipe in half, but used only 2 tablespoons of butter, and instead of whole milk I used 2%. For my seafood, I used halibut, salmon, and shrimp, and a can of baby clams. For the liquid, I used one bottle of clam juice, and then the juice from the can of clams, with the addition of water to make the correct amount. This chowder has so few spices that I thought it was going to need some hot sauce or something, but it didn't at all. Even though I cut back on the butter, the buttery taste came through and I just loved it. I will be making this again many times, and I'm glad to have a chowder recipe in my repetoire.

This week our soup is Baked Potato Soup, brought to us by Anne. At first I thought, oh no, this is going to kill my diet. Then I read that she got this recipe at a Weight Watchers meeting years ago.

This was an interesting soup to make, as it is very different from the way I usually cook. I don't buy prepared foods often(other than gourmet items), and this recipe called for frozen shredded potatoes and a package of country gravy mix. I decided to follow the recipe as written, and add a couple of additions-I added frozen corn, and cubed ham.

This turned out to be a very filling and tasty soup. I loved the addition of the ham-it gave it more flavor, plus added more protein.

This soup was so good. I rarely eat French Onion Soup, but I was quite happy when I saw that Sharon L had chosen it. The recipe sounded very easy, and I don't think I've ever made it before.

Sharon said the key to the soup was cooking the onions very slowly until they carmelized. This did take some time, but the recipe was very straight-forward and easy to make.

Guess what I had for lunch today?

I can't believe today is March 1st. I have to say I am glad that February flew by. Now if only March and April will do the same. Those months are still winter here, so I will be glad to come to May. (Except when I'm on vacation in April, then that time can go really slow!)

I also can't believe that we have been making soup for 15 weeks now. This week's soup was chosen by Kim. It is her mother's recipe for Lentil Soup. I made it yesterday, and it was a perfect day for soup-snowing and cold.

This week for our Sunday Slow Soupers, we had a bit of a misunderstanding. We didn't have anyone who was participating assigned. So we decided to use a recipe that Shannon found in Gourmet, for a Winter Minestrone. I was extremely happy with this choice, as I love minestrone, and I was suprised no one had chosen it as their soup. This ended up being a very expensive soup for me to make, as the swiss chard and escarole cost $3.99 each. But it made a very large pot, and the rest of the ingredients(besides the pancetta) were relatively inexpensive. I had never used escarole before. When raw, it's rather bitter tasting. But cooked, it really mellows out. I like that this soup is full of lots of healthy greens. I have frozen quite a bit of the leftovers, which will make some nice meals in the future. I served mine with just a sprinkling of grated parmesan reggiano over the top, and some toasted chewy bread on the side. And of course, a glass of red wine.

It is almost impossible to believe that we are at Week #17 of our soupmaking. I guess in some ways the winter has flown by (only in some ways though).

This weeks soup was chosen by Jan. She said that she originally found this recipe in the Dec. 2001 issue of Gourmet, and has been making it ever since. The recipe called for serving it cold, but she enjoys it more hot. It is a very unusual soup that we really enjoyed(who ever heard of banana in a soup?). It calls for a combination of fruits and vegetables, which are cooked in chicken broth, pureed, then cream and curry powder are added. I used 1 teapsoon of regular curry powder, but decided I wanted more of a kick, so I added another 1/2 teaspoon of Sri Lankan curry powder, which is more spicy and hot. I also used a combination of skim milk and fat free half and half instead of cream, and skipped the butter.

Okay, I know, I say this every week-I can't believe I've been making soup every week for the past 18 weeks. I was almost a little late with this one. It's Sunday morning, and I just made my soup, and just had a cup for breakfast.

This week's soup was chosen by Debrah. She chose a soup that she's been making for at least 20 years. It was a very easy soup to make-saute onions, garlic, ginger, and carrots in a little olive oil, cover with chicken broth and simmer until tender, puree, and add orange juice. How much easier could a soup be? I think you could also add different things to change the flavor of the soup-a little cream to make it richer, or a little curry powder, a little red pepper flakes... The orange flavor is really strong in the soup, and if you don't want a strong orange flavor I would suggest using maybe half of the amount of orange juice called for and use extra broth. Thanks Debrah for sharing a flavorful, healthy soup with us.

This week's soup was brought to us by Marta of Postcards From the Trail.
Her choice was a delicious-sounding Coconut Curry Chicken Noodle Soup.

We're coming to an end with our Sunday Slow Soupers. I think we have 3 weeks to go. Even though I've been making soup for 20 weeks now, I'm still enjoying it, and each week brings a new suprise.

This week's soup was chosen by AnnieNC. She chose Hot and Sour Soup. She found the recipe online years ago, and has been making it ever since. It's not like a tradional Chinese Hot and Sour Soup-it's not thickened with cornstarch.

I followed the recipe with a few exceptions: I used 3 cans of broth, the entire block of tofu, and also added brocolli and carrots. The soup is very easy to make, and very flavorful. My husband hasn't eaten tofu in years, and has never liked it, and he really liked this soup and said he didn't mind the tofu at all. Another easy, healthy soup to add to the recipe collection.

This is the last week I will be participating in our Sunday Slow Soupers. There is one week left, and I'm sure the last soup will be very good (Cream of Artichoke), but I will be out of town and unable to make the soup. I am really going to miss our soup-making. We've had some great soups over the last 21 weeks. But soon warmer weather will be here, and we'll be moving on to Salads. But, in the meantime, our soup this week is Gulaschsuppe, or Goulash Soup. This soup was chosen by kayee. Another great soup. I think I cooked mine a little too long, as I ended up with very little broth left in the pan. But on the otherhand, my beef was extremely flavorful, and the broth that was left had a wonderful intense flavor of paprika.