Jambalaya

So jambalaya isn't technically a soup, but I'm headed to New Orleans this week, already made gumbo months ago, and had some okra that needed cooking. Okra, also not necessarily a jambalaya ingredient, but oh well! I went heavy on the vegetables in this recipe, because I like vegetables. As to be expected, I also omitted any seafood, despite the fact that my neighbors had a crazy crawfish boil the day before I made this and I could have easily stolen some crawfish from their mountain of creepy little leftovers.

For this not-soup you'll need: vegetables-at a minimum, onion, celery and pepper, if you're like me, also throw in some garlic, , zucchini, okra, carrots and tomatoes, chicken (or seafood like shrimp or crawfish if you like), some rice, some broth, fresh parsley and thyme, and hot seasonings of your choosing. 

A short word about the spices, most jambalaya call for cayenne pepper. You can spice this up or spice it down anyway you choose. I started at my wall-o-spices for a while before deciding on cayenne pepper, ancho chili powder and the usual boring salt and pepper.

First, chop your veggies. Into one bowl goes two cloves of garlic, minced,

one medium yellow or white onion, diced,

Two stalks of celery, diced.  Please ignore the sad, pale color of this celery. It had been in the fridge for a while but was still perfectly edible.

About a cup of baby carrots, sliced.  Set this bowl aside.

Into a different, and probably larger bowl goes three plum tomatoes, chopped, seeds included,

One zucchini, cut in half then into rounds.

Be careful not to inadvertently drop some zucchini on the floor. If you do, just call over your trusty puppy vacuum to clean it up for you.

Back to veggies. Dice the peppers. I used one yellow and one red for some extra color. The choice of yellow bowl and yellow pepper was probably ill advised.

Lastly, the okra. Ignore the sticky goo and just slice into rounds, removing the stem and tail. Set this bowl aside.

Now the chicken. I used about 1 1/4 pounds.  Dice it up into bite sized pieces and throw in a bowl.

Season with your favorite hot thing. I used some cayenne pepper, probably about a teaspoon.

Last prep step, the fresh herbs.  I used about a half tablespoon of thyme and about as much parsley.  I just ripped the little thyme leaves off their little thyme stem, no further cutting required. 

For the parsley, I just shredded a bunch of leaves with my hands.

Now, get to cooking. I used my cast iron dutch oven (giggle, giggle). First heat a bit of oil of your choosing over medium-high heat and add the chicken.

Cook until the chicken is almost done, about 8 minutes and add the onion veggie bowl.

Cook until the onions start to get translucent, about 5-8 minutes and add the okra veggie bowl.  Unless you have a ginormous cast iron dutch oven this addition is going to make the pot quite full. Do your best to stir it all up well.

Cook for at least 10 minutes, maybe closer to 15 depending on how long it takes you to stir everything up. Then, add about 2 cups of stock.  Just dump it in willy-nilly. Your average stock container is 4 cups so I think its pretty easy to figure out when you've poured out two of them.

Then add 1 cup of rice.  I used standard long grain white rice, but you could use brown or whatever you have in the pantry, except maybe arborio since we aren't making risotto here. I saw a recipe using farro and thought about using barley, but went with the white rice.

Give this a stir then dump in the fresh herbs

Cover and cook for about 30 minutes. Take the cover off and taste. Now is a good time to add any salt, pepper, or if you're like me some ancho chili powder and a bunch more cayenne. Also, if the rice isn't cooked and there isn't much broth left, dump in some more.  Cover again, cook for another 15 minutes or so until the rice is cooked. Enjoy!

Fiesta Chicken Soup

In honor of Cinco de Mayo in a few days, I thought it was appropriate to cook something a little Mexican-inspired.  I was thinking tortilla soup but didn't really want to make or buy tortilla chips. Instead, I present what I'm calling Fiesta Chicken Soup.  I'm going to confess that I was a tad bit hungover while making this soup on account of Dube's Seafood Fest 2010 the night before. I openly admit that there are some inconsitencies between the pictures I'm presenting and the actually reality of this soup. I will also admit that I nicked two of my fingers while chopping veggies, not bad enough to bleed, but bad enough to notice, especially since I rarely nick a finger when chopping veggies. It was a tough morning.

For this soup you will need, a pound or so of chicken; garlic (not pictured, inconsistency #1); one large onion; hot peppers of your chosing, I used one serrano pepper (inconsistency #2, there are two pictured); some corn; half a pint of cherry tomatoes; one bell pepper; two avocadoes; a can of black beans, two cans of diced tomatoes with jalapeno peppers; broth of your choosing, cilantro (inconsistency #3, I'm pretty sure parsley is pictured, but I did actually use cilantro); and salt, pepper and cumin to taste (inconsistency #4, chili powder is also pictured, though no one other than Brian knows that the little red spice jar has chili powder in it and not some other spice).

First, boil the chicken in enough broth to cover, to prepare it for being shredded.

Then start chopping veggies. First I minced three garlic cloves.

Next, I diced one large onion. This was a vidalia onion but any large onion will do. Set the garlic and onion aside in a bowl together.

Now, the peppers. I started with dicing the bell pepper.  I especially liked this bell pepper because it was both green and red at the same time. Though it only looks orange in the picture. It was not orange in real life.

Next, mince the serrano pepper.  I did not remove the seeds because I wanted the soup to be hot. If you don't like hot food, probably omit the serrano or use a milder pepper. Set the peppers aside in a bowl together.

Onto the tomatoes. I sliced them in half and set aside. You could probably leave these out since there will be plenty of tomato-goodness from the canned tomatoes, but I had these in the house already and wanted to use them.

Lastly, the avocados. I sliced them into squares in their skin, popped them out of their skin and set aside.

By now your chicken should be cooked. Remove it from the broth, but do not discard the broth.

Ask one of your hungover friends to shred the chicken for you. Hopefully your hungover friends are as pleasant as my hungover friends were and are willing to help (thanks Cort!).

Take the bagel bites out of the oven that you had to make for said hungover friends as payment for shredding the chicken. I said my friends were nice enough to help, obviously helping came with a price. Happily, I was hungry too, bagel bites are delicious and I never mind feeding my friends.

Now, back to the soup. Heat a bit of olive oil in a large soup pot over medium heat. Then add the garlic and onion.  Cook for about 5 minutes until the onions soften.

Next, add the peppers and cook for another 3 minutes or so.

After rinsing and draining, add the black beans,

the canned diced tomatoes,

the fresh, sliced tomatoes,

the chicken broth, both the broth reserved from cooking the chicken and additional broth, 8 cups total,

and the shredded chicken. Increase the heat to bring the soup to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Simmer for 20 minutes.

Add the corn.  I used a cup of frozen corn, but canned or fresh would work as well. Simmer for another 10 minutes.

Give the broth a taste and figure out what else it needs. Mine was pretty spicy on account of the serrano pepper and jalapenoes in the diced tomatoes. But I added about a tablespoon of ground cumin, pinch of salt and some fresh ground pepper.  I also shredded about a 1/4 cup of fresh cilantro and threw that in. Let it simmer another 10 minutes.

Aboutg 5 minutes before serving, throw in the avocado.

Put in your favorite bowl and set aside for a few minutes to cool. Enjoy once its cooled off enough to not burn your tongue, since burnt tongue + spicy soup = an unhappy eater.  This would be good topped with a little cheddar cheese and more cilantro.

Now, what to do while your soup cools? If you're like me, you were headed to Turner Field with the adorable puppy for their semi-annual Bark in the Park. It would be a shame if Harley didn't look a little special for this big day out. It was way too hot for the tuxedo, but the perfect temperature for a spiked mohawk.  For those why haven't spiked a mohawk lately, its not that easy, especially on a squirming dog.  Start with making the dog sit in your lap, and get the cheapest can of hairspray you can find. Spray the mohawk with wild abandon, after all, this needs to last all day.

Using your hands, there is no better tool for this, continue pulling the mohawk fur straight up and holding until the hairspray dries.

Then take your dog to the ball park, where he will receive many a compliment from people who have never seen a dog with a mohawk and calmly sit at your feet during the game.

Stuffed pepper soup

No funny story here. Just a simple request. A friend, whom I'm pretty sure I like much better than he likes me, made a comment to make a soup that I once made for him. Compounded by the fact that I will see said friend in Clemson this weekend, I thought it was fitting to once again show him just how much I like him by making this soup. Finkie - I hope this is the one you were looking for. It's not as easy as your velveeta shells & cheese and canned chili, but that dish is just gross and this one is actually delicious.

For this soup you'll need 4 green bell peppers, one medium onion, a few cloves of garlic, fresh herbs of your choosing, about 3/4 of a pound of ground meat, a 28 ounce can of crushed tomatoes, broth of your choosing and some little baby pasta.

First, go collect your fresh herbs. If you're lucky and smart like me, you have a backyard that's perfect for growing herbs (and a watering can that looks like a frog). We have a giant, unruly, rosemary bush. I snipped off about 2 inches of rosemary.

We also have a little herb box with some basil and greek oregano (and lavendar and sage, but I didn't use those). I cut off about 10 basil leaves and a inch of oregano.

If you're especially lucky, you'll also have adorable blue tailed lizards sunning themselves. I usually squeal at them and they run away,

Or the puppy goes after them and scares them away. Notice his summer fur cut complete with mohawk.

If you can't forage in your backyard for herbs, dried ones are okay to use. We actually have an entire garden box with peppers and tomatoes and cucumbers as well. Stay tuned for those goodies showing up later in the summer.

Now, onto chopping things up. I started with the garlic and minced two cloves.

Then I chopped the onion.

Then the peppers. I have a bone to pick with these peppers. I got them from the farmer's market at work. These were the only peppers he had and I knew they were cheaper than what I would get at the grocery store. Notice that they came individually wrapped in plastic. They are organic, I can only assume the plastic is to keep the pesticides from other veggies off these precious peppers. What gets me about this, is that most people who are into organic veggies are also into living a green life where they don't like to create excess trash. Wrapping peppers individually in plastic to keep them organic? Seems like a way to increase waste as well. There must be a better way. Anyway, I digress, off my soap box. I chopped these up into little pieces.

Now the herbs. I really like chopping/shredding fresh herbs. It makes the whole house smell so fresh. First the basil. Pile all the leaves onto each other and roll into a little basil cigarette.

Then, run your knife through the basil cigarette, creating ribbons. This technique is called chiffonade.

Now the greek oregano. I attempted to chiffonade the oregano but the leaves were tiny. So I just pulled the leaves off the stem and piled them up,

Then I ran my knife through the leaves until they were a size I liked.

Lastly, the rosemary.  I pulled the spiny little leaves off the stem and did my best to mince them. I find that rosemary leaves like to run around my cutting board, so I usually end up cussing at them or slicing a finger. Shockingly, neither of those events happened while I was making this soup.

Now for cooking, heat a large soup pot over medium heat and dump your ground meat into it. I used ground beef because I already had it in the house. The beef I used was a little fatty, but I elected to not drain the fat (side note, the Mister had some soup for lunch today and commented that it was a little creamy and couldn't pin point why. I think it was the beef fat. Not draining it was a good idea).

 Cook the meat until its done. You may be able to see the fat pools of deliciousness.

Now add the veggies.  Mix these up and cook for about ten minutes

Next, add the can of crushed tomatoes and 4 cups of broth.   I also added a bit of tomato paste because I wanted more tomato flavor.

Mix all that up and add your fresh herbs.  Now is also a good time to throw in some salt, pepper, crushed red pepper and any other seasoning you desire.  Turn up the heat, bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer. Simmer for about 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, add your baby pasta. I used pastina or little stars for those of you who didn't grow up with an Italian Nonnie and didn't realize that food items had non-Italian names until you moved away from Little Italy (aka Westerly, Rhode Island). Be very careful with the amount of pasta you add. The little pastas have an amazing property of soaking up way more liquid than you think they'd ever be able to soak. If you aren't careful, your soup will turn into a solid. I added 3/4 of a cup of pastina.

Cook the soup for 5 more minutes.  Give it a good stir before serving, the pastina tend to settle to the bottom.  I packaged my soup up for lunch so its not dressed, but this baby is yummy topped with parmesan cheese and some more basil. Enjoy!