Awesomw Soup #17 Grilled Spinach Soup

Grilled Spinach soup

This is one soup day we were very happy not to have visitors. For a start Mike picked a soup out of a new book I had picked up for him at a local book sale called ,” The Great Book of Classic Cuisine” This one sounded very different and interesting. After all,classic cuisine, what can go wrong with that?

I should have known something was wrong when Mike called from the kitchen and said, “I'm not going to serve this in half a coconut.” I thought that was strange. It was only later after looked at the finished soup and then saw the picture in the book that I realized he had thought the picture was of Grilled Spinach Soup when in fact it was an entirely different soup, Grated  Coconut  Soup.

The soup itself was similar to French onion soup in that it has a spinach base and then grilled bread coated with cheese floating on top. Sounds good okay? However , apart from the spinach which was cooked very quickly in the base liquid ,it was very bland and all the taste came from the cheese on top. If the spinach had had more taste or had added herbs to flavor it it might have been better. Mike gave it only a 7.5 and I gave it a 6. Just an uninteresting taste and like French onion soup, difficult to eat. Te best part was the stringy cheese.

I had brown wheat rolls left from the last batch I had made so we had those with the soup which helped a bit but these are never as tasty as when first made. Maybe it's the smell that accompanies the fresh rolls that we really enjoy.

Still I had made a fresh apple pie that day  so we thoroughly enjoyed a slice of pie a la mode and forgot about the spinach soup.

We did notice that this soup leaves a selection of small spinach leaves stuck to the bottom of the soup bowls which if you are very clever ( and imaginative) you can read a fortune like you do with tea leaves. We tried.

Mine was “Keep spinach for salads not for soups in future”.

Mike's was “ Eat this soup when sick as spinach is good for strengthening  just as Popeye said”

Maybe we will make the Grated Coconut Soup later on this year.Should be fun sawing a coconut in half. But I'm sure Mike has the tool to do it !!

Awesome Soup #15 Chicken Minestrone Soup

Chicken Minestrone Soup

When you hear that Mike gave this soup a 10, you will know this was an excellent soup. It was a perfect soup with lots of interesting flavors. It obviously had chicken in it, but the chicken had the added flavor from all the different veggies and herbs . I had seen the large amount Mike was cooking in the pan but he said he had made it to serve just two people and it did that with just a very small amount left over.

I just knew it had a LOT of veggies and chicken in it. If fact most of the lunch I spent guessing at just which ones they were in this soup. I guessed zucchini, carrots, peas , basil, noodles . I knew also it had rosemary as I was sent out to pick some from the garden . I knew it had potatoes as I had burnt my mouth on a piece of very hot potato. I missed the celery and Parmesan cheese. It was indeed a very tasty and hot soup with lots of good taste in a thinnish broth just as I like it. I gave it a 9.8 but only because I was mad that I had burnt my mouth . Mike thinks that's a bit unfair as it was really my fault.

The recipe calls for Italian crusty bread to eat with the soup but I had been out all morning shopping so had no time to make that so instead I made some quick peach muffins which actually didn't really go with this soup but were rather like a desert. They were good anyhow but a bit lacking in peaches.

This is definitely a soup we can recommend and will no doubt have again.

PS. Remember we like to share our soup days with company so if you would like to come just let us know.And yes, Ruth, you can come more than once !!!

Awesome Soup Blog #15 Roasted Pepper Soup

Bradford pear tree in bloom

I'm somewhat late in writing this soup blog this week as Spring has finally come in all it's glory to Texas , well our part anyhow and I've spent most of my time digging and planting and pulling out the exotic natural plants known as “thistle” which seems every year to do so much better than last year.

Last week we were so impressed with the roasted veggie soup that Mike cooked a roasted pepper soup this week and it certainly was delicious and very tasty. Pre-roasting the red and yellow peppers gives  that extra flavor and allows the soup to retain a vibrant red/orange color. Prior to tasting , I was a bit dubious about this soup as I am not very happy with eating hot or spicy food but this soup surprised me as it was not in the slightest bit peppery and had a fine taste. Mike had one problem in the preparation as it said to peal off the skins of the peppers after roasting but that proved nigh on impossible to do , so he went ahead and left the skins in place. When blended , you couldn't tell at all. Mike gave this soup a 9.5 , and I gave it a 9 mostly because again the texture wasn't quite as smooth as I prefer.

I decided again to bake whole wheat bread but this time to make a dough and then bake it in the oven. This recipe added gluten flour, to help with the rise, and also honey and canola oil so the taste was slightly different . It certainly rose well. I feared at one point I might not be able to get it out the oven but as you can see by the photo all went well. It sliced well, was airy and light and a good bread. It also kept very well so we were to eat this bread for the following 2 days before it went stale.

I finally also had found some flat soup dishes rather than bowls similar to the ones featured in the Soup Bible . I have been looking for these for quite a while. So much of our conversation was about the bowls. If you look carefully you can see part of the phrases written on the sides of the plates but I bet you can't guess what it says!! It's amazing how a neat bowl enhances the food

Next week on the menu is Chicken and Minestrone soup. Looks like a hearty meal in the book.

Open invitation as usual but please call us first.

Awesome Soup #14

Roasted Tomato and Pasta soup

Tomato again ? Can I hear you saying. Well, yes, as we have found the tomato based soups are very tasty and there are lots to choose from in our Soup Bible.

    As we all know tomatoes in winter time lack the “omph “ of fresh tomatoes and this soup is supposed to compensate for that- which it certainly did. Prior to mixing the soup you roast a combination of tomatoes, garlic, red pepper and red onions so you get this lovely aroma wafting through the house before you even get to lunch.

    The ingredients are then blended into the stock , pasta is added and a wonderful smooth appetizing soup comes to the table. We really enjoyed this one and the touch of fresh basil just added the right peppery taste. Mike gave this a 9 and I gave it an 8. It is certainly one we would have again.

No bread cooking this day as again we had plenty of bread waiting in our fridge to be eaten. I did cook some applesauce and pecan muffins which we had planned to eat afterwards but we started eating them with the soup and they complimented it very well as they were not overly sweet, in fact they were just right.

   
  After discussing the pros and cons of the soup and muffins our talk veered to Mike's latest project , a wood shed for keeping all the spare wood he accumulates. It's coming along nicely and despite always running out of wood for the framing etc I guess it will be finished by Easter.

   Come on over and see it and share some soup. You are very welcome.

Awesome Soup day #13

Summer Tomato Soup

I requested a tomato soup this week so Mike came up with this one that looked really good in the photo. I've always liked tomato soups but find the canned versions sold at the supermarket ,very salty for my taste. “It says this soup can be eaten cold” , Mike said. Well I know it isn't Summer yet in fact it's just coming up to Spring in Texas but it isn't that hot so I said, “No let's eat it warm”.So that's what we did.

We had one more discussion as the soup was cooking. There didn't seem to be any liquid in this recipe and so we wondered if the juice from the tomatoes would be enough. Well it was JUST enough for 2 people and that was with the other blended ingredients which , according to the recipe should be strained out before serving. Mike decided to add the strained items back in when he added the sour cream . It turned out to be a very nice tasting soup but somewhat on the sparse side. Good job we didn't have visitors!!

On reflection that is probably why it's called Summer soup because in Summer you get inundated with those large juicy tomatoes which have lots of juice. So Mike gave this one an 8 and I gave it a 7 .We both agreed it was very tasty but just didn't come out as the recipe had said it should which was partly our fault for messing with the recipe.

I didn't make bread this week as we had half a loaf of shop brought French bread that we needed to eat.( shop bought= cheating!!)

However to quiet my conscience, I made an apple crumble with fresh golden delicious apples and Mike made hot creamy custard and that was quite lovely.

So all in all , a different kind of meal this week, but most enjoyable .

Mike has already picked out another tomato based soup for next Wednesday but this one will be quite different and there will be plenty.

Call us if you'd like to come try it. We'd like to see you.