Lucky Number 7

Yesterday I had soup #7 for lunch. This one is called Split-Pea and Pumpkin (p. 220). But, due to the aforementioned legume shortage, Molly substituted lentils for the split-peas.

This one was not my favorite soup so far, despite the abundance of CUMIN (which I love). I've never really been a big fan of pumpkin as a savory food, so I think that's the problem here. I did have pumpkin pie for dessert though and that was perfect!

Enough bouillon to kill....

...a horse?

...a man with high blood pressure?

Choose your analogy.

Any time a soup calls for chicken stock (or any other kind), Molly substitutes vegetable. And when you are planning to make 400 soups, you're going to need a lot of bouillon. She pretty much bought out the store - and this is only the beginning.

Today for lunch I had Creamy Tomato Soup (#6 - p. 141). This was one of the products of Molly's soup marathon last weekend. Apologies that I don't have a close up photo of it, but I was too hungry to spare any time. (You can check in out in the 'so much soup' post though.) It looked pretty much how you would expect creamy tomato soup to look. This one was alright, but I couldn't help imagining how amazing it would be with middle of the summer homegrown tomatoes.

Chance of flurries

So, it turns out there is a reason why "food photography" is an actual thing. Soup is really hard to photograph! You'll just have to trust me that this looks AMAZING. A couple of weeks ago I was visiting my Auntie DeAnn in Missouri and she had a big pot of this Chili Blanco made. I pretty much wanted to eat it for every meal the entire time I was there. SOOO good. She gave me the recipe (from an Atkins cookbook) which is basically ground pork, canellini beans, onions, and jalapenos. I used one special, super spicy jalapeno that my brother grew in his garden in Nevada. There must have been something special in the dirt out there because these things were HOT. My chili didn't turn out nearly as good as my aunt's, but so it goes. Tonight is the first time they are calling for sub-freezing temps here in Chicago, and also a chance of flurries. Not a bad night to be having a bowl of this. 

A small nod of recognition to our first soup containing meat. Most likely a rarity.

So much soup

Remember when Molly thought making one soup per day was too hard? Now apparently she thinks it is ok to make 3 soups in one day!

Ridiculous. She didn't even have enough pots, so needed to come by and borrow one of mine. Fine with me though! I know have a nice variety of soups to sample.

I started today with the Potato and Corn Chowder (#5 - p. 161). The name was such an understatement! This soup had corn and nice big chunks of potato (as you might guess), but also beans, celery, and peppers. The broth was nice and not too rich. Note: Due to legume scarcity, canellini beans were substituted for broad beans in this soup.

Birthday soup x2

This weekend was full of birthday celebrations for me. For dinner Saturday, Molly let me choose any soup from the 400 soups book. I knew I wanted something with mushrooms, so I perused the index and found Mushroom and Bread Soup (pg. ??). I tend to be more attracted to soups with chunks in them (I think because they seem like they will be more satisfying). This was a creamy soup though and it did not disappoint. It was so filling, I could barely finish my bowl. This is #4 out of 400. (1% done)

Sunday nights I have Family Dinner at my friend Alicia's house. This week being my birthday, I got to choose the menu from a couple of options. I opted for black bean soup. I'm not sure what recipe she used, but it was great. One of my favorite parts about black bean soup is that it is such a receptive canvas for all kinds of condiments. I topped mine with avocado, sour cream and cheddar cheese.

Happy birthday to me!

Slow-cooker FTW!

One of the best parts about soup is how easy it is to make. This is especially true for slow-cooker (or crock-pot) recipes. I'm not lucky enough to have a slow-cooker of my own yet (it's on my Christmas list though! hint hint), but that's why I have friends. Right? Several of my friends have the book Fix It and Forget It (add that to my wish list too) which has a ton of great recipes.

I had a pretty busy night last night. I went straight from work to Spanish class and then stopped over to have dinner with some good friends - J, B & B. They served up the Veggie Chili from this book, but substituted vegetable stock for the tomato paste, giving it a much soupier consistency. I had mine with a dollop of sour cream and some fresh bread for dipping. ¡Muy delicioso! And it was served on a beautifully set table!

Molly #3 - Squash kicks it off

***This is actually the 3rd soup Molly has made/I have eaten from the "400 Soups" book since we dreamt this project up, but it's the first one being blogged "live". (I'll talk about the first 2 at some point, for completeness' sake.)


Molly made this soup while I was away for the weekend, but thankfully froze some for me. I thawed it out and am enjoying for lunch at work today. With squash, there's no way to avoid evoking thoughts of fall and early winter - which is generally ok for a soup. It's a bit warm today for this varietal, but it still tastes good! Creamy with a hint of spice. 

Turns out, the spiciness in this soup was a result of Molly's imperfect spice jar labeling system. While she thought she was in possession of some rare light-orange paprika, it was actually turmeric. Worked for me!