soup « The Perpetual Feast

Posts Tagged 'soup'

Buffalo Bone Soup

Published February 22, 2009 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
Tags: barley, buffalo, soup

I have been having some odd experiences. On at least 4 occasions, people I have known for a long time, but perhaps not seen for a while have stared at me with a puzzled expression, not seeming to recognize me. One person came up to me after a committee meeting and told me that she didn’t know who I was until I said my name in the introductions. Now this seems strange to me, because when I look in the mirror, particularly when I am in the buff, I feel like I look exactly like I always have – pale, pink and flabby. My face looks the same, although I have more neck, and I am still a short, somewhat plump redhead. I know empirically that I must be different – the scale says so and my pants are too big – but unrecognizable? It’s disquieting.

This recipe is really a variation on my mother’s soup with flanken. Flanken are very fatty little bits of short ribs which are too fatty to use in most dishes. I haven’t seen buffalo bones, except for T-bone and other steaks. But this week there were buffalo ribs in the meat case along with the usual cuts. The butcher and I agreed that these might not make good barbecue, so I decided on soup. Really, you need bones to make a rich meat soup.

This is an imprecise recipe, because you can add a bit of whatever you want. My mother always used this soup mix as the base of her soup. This makes a thick, porridge-like soup.

soup-mix

Buffalo Bone Soup

2 pounds of buffalo bones
7 cups of water
soup mix
¼ cup barley
½ of a large onion, chopped
other things to add if you like
1 cup of dried shitake mushroom (small pieces)
a carrot, chopped
a stalk of celery, chopped
chopped parsley
Salt and pepper to taste

Trim as much fat as you can off the meat – really, if they are ribs you are not going to be able to get most of the fat off. Place in a large pot and cover with 7 cups of water. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 3 hours, stirring occasionally. Remove meat from pot and set aside, pour liquid into a large container and chill overnight. Remove from refrigerator. Great gobs of fat will have solidified on the surface of the soup. Remove them all, using a strainer if necessary. Measure the soup liquid into a pot and add water or broth until you again have 7 cups of liquid. Add contents of the soup mix plus ¼ cup of barley, and shitake mushrooms if you are using them. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 1 ½ hours. Add onion and other vegetables if you are using them and cook for another ½ hour. Add salt and pepper to taste. I had intended to chop up the rib meat and add it to the soup, but even after long cooking they were too fatty. This makes about 5 servings of soup, at about 4 grams of fat/serving. This soup went right into the freezer to take for lunches.

buffalo-soup

Mushroom Bisque

Published January 28, 2009 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
Tags: cauliflower, mushroom, soup

While reorganizing all the containers of frozen goodies in my freezer, I came across two boxes labeled “Mushroom Bisque.” I remember that as being one of my favorite soups, warm and comforting. It almost always makes me want to curl up for a nap. (Hmmm, maybe it’s the sherry in the soup.) So when I came in from some frigid outdoor chores, I microwaved a bowl, and immediately after eating curled up under the down comforter for a nap. That being said, it is also an elegant dish to serve for company. Then I remembered that I had photographed the soup, garnished with mushroom slices, when I first made it for a small dinner party – and before it became a delightful frozen leftover.

I can’t remember where the original recipe for the soup came from. I know it was called “Mushroom-Cauliflower Soup”, which did not make it sound very appealing. This was one of the soups I made because of aging mushrooms and cauliflower that I needed to use. And was I ever surprised! Don’t let the old name put you off, though. You don’t even know the cauliflower is in there – it just tastes like a cream soup.

Mushroom Bisque

1 pound mushrooms (mixed or just plain old button mushrooms), tough stems removed
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
Cooking Spray
1 Tablespoon butter
2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
3 cans reduced fat beef broth or 6 cups mushroom broth if you want to make it vegetarian (this batch was vegetarian)
1 cup dry sherry
2 cups chopped cauliflower
Mushroom slices for garnish (optional)

Coarsely chop mushroom. Spray a large pan with cooking spray and melt butter over medium high heat. Add mushrooms and onion and stirring often until mushrooms begin to brown, 12-15 minutes. Add flour and mix well. Remove from heat and stir in beef (or mushroom) broth, sherry, and 1 cup of water. Add cauliflower. Return to high heat and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer until cauliflower is tender when pierced – about 5 minutes.

Put 1/3 of the soup in a blender and puree, taking the center lid off and putting a kitchen towel over the hole to prevent splashing. Repeat until all the soup is pureed. Return to the pan and stir over medium heat until steaming. Makes 6 soul-warming servings at 2 grams of fat/serving.

mushroom-bisque

Bean Soup

Published January 7, 2009 Uncategorized 1 Comment
Tags: beans, principle, soup

Well, if it’s going to snow, it must be time for soup – bean soup to be precise. It’s hearty, filling, tasty, and has very little fat. It doesn’t make the snow stop but it makes it slightly more bearable. I use the recipe from HamBeens 15 Bean Soup, but there are bean mixes sold in bulk at the grocery, or just mix your own bean blend, with 20 ounces of dried pinto, lima, garbanzo, split pea, red, etc., beans to your liking.

Bean Soup

20 ounces of dried beans
1 pound of very lean ham, cut into 1 inch dice
1 cup of onion, coarsely chopped
1 15 ounce can of diced tomatoes, undrained
1 Tablespoon of chili powder
Juice of one lemon
2 cloves of garlic, minced
seasoning packet from soup mix or ½ teaspoon of smoke seasoning (or to taste)

Put the beans in a large pot or bowl, cover with 2 quarts of water, and allow to soak at least 8 hours or overnight. Drain beans. Add 2 quarts of water and ham (you can also use low fat turkey smoked sausage, but it is about 1 gram more of fat/serving). I recommend a high quality ham slice, such as Kirkland, which has very little fat.

kirkland-ham

Bring beans and ham to a boil and simmer uncovered for 2 ½ hours, stirring occasionally. I find I sometimes have to add a half cup of water periodically to keep the soup from getting too thick. After simmering, add onion, tomatoes, chili powder, lemon and garlic. Simmer for another 30 minutes. Add contents of seasoning packer or smoke seasoning and cook for 2 more minutes. This makes 10 servings at about 2 grams of fat/serving. I find that the soup gets really thick, and I have to add a little water when I reheat it.

bean-soup-bowl

PRINCIPLE: One of the reasons I made soup is to stock my freezer. One of the basic principles I have followed to lose weight is that it is very important to have low fat food available on a moment’s notice, especially when I am ready to grab at whatever is convenient. For example, when I get home from work and am tired, I would be perfectly happy to make dinner of cheese and crackers. Now even if they are low fat crackers and reduced fat cheese, this is not very healthy – especially not frequently. So my freezer looks like this:

freezer-food

The soup got labeled with the name of the contents, date it was made (so it doesn’t linger in the freezer forever), and the fat grams/serving.

bean-soup-labels

Then the soup was packaged for freezing – after I ate a nice hot bowl.

bean-soup-stack

Crock Pot Potato Soup

Published December 22, 2008 Uncategorized 2 Comments
Tags: hint, leeks, potato, soup

Winter has hit with a vengeance. Single digit and below zero temperatures. 23 inches of snow in one day. The snow outside of my garage door was above my shoulders! Here is my truck after the first snow. Yes, there is a vehicle under there. It took me two days to shovel out – and then it started snowing again. It’s snowing even now.

truck

It is definitely soup weather. There’s nothing like coming in from shoveling snow, with freezing fingers and a frozen nose, and heating up a bowl of homemade soup you made in anticipation of the worst. This potato soup is a combination of several recipes. I made it with most of the potatoes chopped coarsely, but I recommend cutting half of them into 1-2 inch chunks to give the soup more chunky texture.

Crock Pot Potato Soup

3 pounds of potatoes, peeled, half coarsely chopped in the food processor and half cut into 1-2 inch pieces
2 leeks (optional), cleaned, white parts and a little green, coarsely chopped
2 medium carrots, peeled and coarsely chopped
1 stalk celery, coarsely chopped
2 medium onions (or one large), coarsely chopped
3 14-ounce cans of non-fat low sodium chicken broth
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
1 Tablespoon dried parsley flakes
2 Tablespoons butter
¼ cup chopped chives (optional)
1 can non-fat evaporated milk
½ cup fat free half and half (optional, but it makes it creamier)

Put all ingredients except the evaporated milk and fat free half and half into the crock pot. Cook on low for 8-10 hours, on high for 3-4 hours. You may want to check it an hour or so before it is supposed to be done, so it doesn’t burn. One half hour before the soup is done, stir in the evaporated milk and fat free half and half. You can adjust the seasoning (salt and pepper) to your taste after the soup is done. Since I made this primarily to eat for lunches, I tend to add salt and other flavor enhancements when I reheat individual bowls of soup. This makes 10 servings at about 2.2 grams/fat/serving.

potato-soup

Variations As you can see, I served the soup with a dollop of non-fat sour cream (why is a lump of sour cream always called a dollop?). I also added a sliced up low fat hot dog one day. I expect ham would also be good. Just remember to add the fat grams for these add-ons to your counting.

Hint: Leeks require some special handling. Soil is mounded up around them while they grow, and you must make certain that all the sand and grit is out of them before you add them to a recipe. Some people cut them in half lengthwise and soak them, rinsing them several times. I cut the leeks in half lengthwise, and then into 3 inch pieces. I put the pieces in a colander and rinse them under running water, stirring with my hand to make sure that the pieces are well-rinsed.

Buffalo Borscht

Published October 19, 2008 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
Tags: buffalo, cabbage, Jewish, soup

When I was growing up, borscht was this red soup made from beets that came in a bottle. You poured it in a bowl, plopped some sour cream in the middle, and ate. But recently I discovered that there is a whole different kind of borscht, which is a sweet and sour cabbage soup. It tastes like my mother’s stuffed cabbage, one of the favorite foods of my youth, which she only made for special occasions. Actually, I remember liking the cabbage and the sauce better than the filling.

To make borscht, you cook meat to make a broth, then add the other ingredients. The meat typically was flanken, a cut of beef (short ribs) that appears to consist of bone, gristle, and fat, Clearly, this had to be updated. So get out the soup pot.

Buffalo Borscht (Sweet and Sour Cabbage Soup)

Cooking spray
1 1/2 pound buffalo roast, trimmed of all visible fat and cut in 1/2 to 1 inch pieces (I used bottom round)
1 large onion, coarsely diced
2 quarts of water
3 14 ounce cans of chopped tomatoes, undrained
1/2 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large head of cabbage, cored and shredded

Spray the bottom of the soup pot with cooking spray. Brown the buffalo pieces, stirring occasionally. Be sure they get nice and brown to make a rich broth. When the meat is browned, add the 2 quarts of water. Stir so that all the browned bits on the bottom are mixed in the broth. Add the onion. Cover and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 2 hours, stirring once or twice. Stir in the tomatoes, lemon juice, brown sugar, and salt. Allow to simmer while you shred the cabbage. I cut the cabbage in eighths lengthwise, and then cut it in half inch slices across. Taste the soup and adjust the seasonings to your own sense of sweet and sourness. You’ll probably have to adjust it again after the cabbage cooks. Add the cabbage and stir well. Simmer for another 2 hours, stirring occasionally. Adjust seasonings (lemon juice, brown sugar, and salt) at the end of the cooking. I usually put soup in the refrigerator overnight to remove the fat, but when I did, there was absolutely no fat on the soup surface. It is hard to estimate the number of servings for this soup – it makes a lot. I estimate a 2 cup serving to be 2 grams of fat. Serve hot (it reheats very well) And yes, you can plop a dollop of fat free sour cream on it.

Variation: Some people add diced carrots, celery, or even beets to this. I don’t. I like my cabbage straight up.

Chicken Soup

Published October 5, 2008 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
Tags: chicken, hint, soup

I learned a new way to make chicken soup. Not a new recipe, but a new technique. Who would have thunk it! I have made chicken soup the same way forever – a fat chicken, an onion stuck with a few cloves, celery, and carrots. Throw them in the pot and cook forever.

This is the way my mother and grandmother – and probably generations before that, made chicken soup. Well, maybe not the cloves. The only thing I ever remember my mother doing with whole cloves was sticking them in the cross hatches on the top of a canned ham – a recipe that I think involved pineapple rings and brown sugar. And I don’t remember Grandma Freydl ever using cloves, whole or ground. The only spice I remember Grandma using was cinnamon, in fantastic cookies and cakes.

The chicken soup is always delicious, but my big disappointment has always been the chicken breasts, which should have come out tender and succulent, but after several hours of cooking had every bit of flavor cooked out of them and tasted like cardboard. They weren’t even good cut up and put back into the soup. Then I read a recipe that said if you wanted to use the chicken breasts for a meal, cut the chicken in quarters and REMOVE THE CHICKEN BREASTS AFTER 20 MINUTES OF COOKING. Revelation!! The breasts are succulent and can be eaten for dinner, or on a sandwich, put back in the soup after it is finished or whatever. The dark meat can withstand the continued simmering, so it can stay in the pot and continue to add flavor to your soup.

Chicken Soup

1 4-5 pound chicken, cut into quarters
1 large peeled onion stuck with 4-5 whole cloves
3 large carrots, cut in half
3 cleaned large stalks of celery, cut in half
salt and pepper (see note)

Put 5 quarts (20 cups) of water into an 8-10 quart pot. Add the chicken, onion, carrots and celery to the pot. I usually peel the carrots because I am fond of cooked soup carrots, but you don’t have to. I take the chicken wings off so they can stay in the pot after I remove the chicken breasts, and leave the skin on everything to add flavor to the broth. I take the skin off after the chicken is cooked, and before I add it to the soup for serving. NOTE on salt and pepper: I usually don’t add salt or pepper to the soup until I use it. That way, if I am using the broth as a base for something that has soy sauce or fish sauce as flavor, I can control how salty the resulting dish will be.

Bring the broth to a boil, skimming the impurities (the grey stuff that floats to the top) off occasionally. Reduce heat and simmer covered for 20 minutes, skimming occasionally. At this point, remove the chicken breasts. If you are energetic, you can take the skin off the chicken breast, and remove the meat from the bones and toss the skin and bones back in the pot. I’m usually not that energetic. I just want to sit down and eat the nice juicy chicken breast. Continue to simmer the broth, covered, for another 1 1/2 hours. Remove the chicken and vegetables from the broth and set aside. Allow the broth to cool for about 20 minutes.

Strain the chicken broth into a large container or two. I use a small, fine strainer, but you can use any strainer or colander lined with cheesecloth. Put the strained broth into the refrigerator for at least 3 hours or over night. When you take it out of the refrigerator, the fat will have risen neatly to the top and solidified.

Skim every bit of the fat off the broth. Although I take every bit of fat off the broth, I usually count the resulting chicken soup as having 1 gram of fat/cup, since I am sure that I don’t do as good a job of removing fat as store-bought chicken soup.

You are now ready to use the broth for whatever you want. My immediate use was to make chicken noodle soup for myself and my friend Tizzy to warm us after working outside in the brisk fall air. I cooked fine No Yolks noodles, skinned and cut up the chicken thighs, cut up the remaining soup carrots (I ate one of them right out of the pot the day before), and two of the stalks of cooked celery. I added a tablespoon or so of dried parley flakes, as well. I warmed 4 cups of broth, and added the noodles, etc., to heat through. We each seasoned our soup to taste with sea salt and freshly ground pepper. Our big bowls of soup had about 8 grams of fat.

I froze the remaining broth to use in later recipes.

Hint: You can freeze any soup in sturdy zip top bags, which takes up less room in the freezer, as long as you make sure that the outside of the bags are dry, and you have room to freeze them flat before you stack them.

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ABOUT KAREN

I have lost 200 pounds. I did not do it through surgery – I don’t like knives and needles – or by joining a club, vigorous exercise, or rigorous dieting. I did it by gourmet cooking. To be precise, by cooking low fat, really delicious food. I love to cook as much as I love to eat. Food magazines are some of my favorite reading. I would feel deprived if I couldn’t have the sensuous experience of good food crossing my lips. This blog is about my perpetual feast, my passionate love of food, with recipes, photos, and occasional advice and principles that I have learned along the way.

More about me.

The Perpetual Feast

Posts Tagged 'soup'

Buffalo Bone Soup

Mushroom Bisque

Bean Soup

Crock Pot Potato Soup

Buffalo Borscht

Chicken Soup

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