So...for something completely different...
How does everyone feel about soup? Like it? Hate it? Eat it out of a can? Only eat it at fancy restaurants with a soup course? Move spoon toward you or move it away from you? Anyone else grow up eating it with a teaspoon rather than a soup spoon or a tablespoon? Tomato soup -- milk or water? Secret desires for Campbell soup with grilled Velveeta sandwiches? Favorite soups? Is chili a soup?
These questions come up also because Saturday I found myself making soup. This is a rare thing. I'm generally not much for soups. Chicken soup/broth when sick. Potato soup once in a while. Cream of mushroom/celery/chicken available for cooking. Tomato with grilled cheese sandwiches maybe once a year. And perhaps 3-4 big honking pots of the "fire&ice" chili each year. (Is chili a soup?)
And once or twice, like yesterday, when the @#$^%@#$^ cold winter crap gets to me, when I make a several-days-worth pot from scratch based on what's on hand.
I had to improvise a lot, though, as the refrigerator was lacking of much in the line of usable vegetables. (Celery, usually an essential for me, always available turned out to be frozen/spoiled in the back of the crisper. !$#@*@#$!! Kale was spoiled, most of carrots were spoiled, though there were perhaps 2-3 rubbery, yet usable in soup, ones. One small head of purple cabbage. One very small white onion, rest all spoiled. Peppers that had gone beyond spoiled to really disgusting. Some frozen chiles in the freezer. Vegetable part of soup going to be real challenge.
Milk. Butter and margarine. Bacon. Two eggs (probably still good, won't know until cracked). Vinegars, Italian and blue cheese dressing, Angostura and Peychaud bitters. Cheddar, blue, and pepper cheese, and perhaps a bit of Asiago that is salvageable. Queen and arquebina olives, various dill pickles and hot peppers.
Cupboard wasn't much better. Three Yukon gold potatoes that may or may not be good. Lots of cans of refried beans and Bush's baked beans. Some green chiles. Lots of stocks. No mushrooms. No canned corn or peas. One can of lime/cilantro diced tomatoes and one can of tex/mex diced tomatoes. Lots more jars of pickles and hot peppers. One can of potatoes. Lots of condiments. Canned tuna. One envelope of salmon. Various kinds of pasta. White rice. Stove top stuffing and Kraft mac/cheese. Ritz crackers. Bread crumbs. One Slim-Jim. Lots and lots of spices.
Rye bread. English muffin bread. Two "bakery" hamburger buns.
Two cans of Guinness that have been here since Rourke, the Kats, and Mr. and Mrs. zombieslayer visited. Half a dozen bottles of white and red wines (Gewurtztraminer, Pinot Grigio, Shiraz, Chardonnay, Shiraz, two kinds of Chianti). Lots of liquor (Cuervo Gold, various single-malt whiskys and Bourbons and two kinds of Rye, various gins, Chartreuse, orange liqueur,Malibu (WTF?), Ten Canes rum, Portugeuse brandy, grappa. One bottle of cranberry/pomegranate juice, one of spicy V8, one of spicy Bloody Mary/Maria mix, teas and coffees.
Lots of meat and fish in the freezer, could go any direction in terms of protein. Chicken, beef, pork (both Iowan and Spanish), lamb, venison roast, various sausages/wursts. One Kobe burger, but no regular hamburger. Breakfast sausage and little smoky links. Cod, salmon, shrimp, fake crab. But what was I to put with that protein?
Going out to the store was not an option. I hate $%^%&@ winter -- the point of improvising is that I refused to go outside. Plus I wanted to laze around like a slug watching two football games, not get dressed in clean clothes so I could go to the grocery store and then give the dog two extra pre- and post- trip walks to poop and pee.
And my head was set on having soup available during the Packer game and for several days afterward when I was unlikely to be motivated to cook anything.
Given the above, and tasked with making soup, what would you make?
Think about your answer to this last question before adding your suggestion to my contribution in the "part II" thread.
(to be continued)
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Romans 12:2 (NKJV)