Dinner with Julie

Day 327: Pork, Potato and Swiss Chard Soup with Rosemary, and No-knead Bread

I’m not liking these early lights-out. My photos are looking particularly crappy without the aid of natural light.

I’m going to keep it brief tonight – only because I have decided to finish building this site a recipe index, which is taking a whole lot longer than I thought. (I have to go through every post and manually cut and paste the links in to an index page I built – if there is a faster way, I don’t know about it.) My dinosaur computer – it’s practically a Commodore 64 – is not speeding up the process. So I figured if I categorize a month per night, it should only take me another week or so.

I meant to make something out of Anna’s new book tonight, and I did flip through it, but when we went outside to blow bubbles in our ski jackets I discovered the Crock Pot I put on the patio Thursday night after my class in Red Deer. We had made pulled pork, the recipe where you put browned pork shoulder on chopped celery and carrots and top it with a (near) beer. I couldn’t bring myself to dump all that broth, so brought it home. When it’s cold you can just pull the fat from the surface before straining it, and upon doing so I discovered a lovely little chunk of pork still submerged. I had sort of decided on a Chickpea and Chard Soup with Rosemary and Lemon from Anna’s book, and the pork/pork stock just took it in another direction. Serendipitously, I had a batch of no-knead bread ready to bake too.

This is an odd recipe to make as I did, unless you have some leftover pulled pork and pork broth. But I imagine it would be just as delicious made with leftover shredded turkey and turkey stock. It was good, cheap, filled the gap, got some greens in. I’m not going to sing from the rooftops about it though. (The no-knead bread, however. You have to try this.)

Pulled Pork, Potato and Swiss Chard Soup

canola or olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
3-4 garlic cloves, crushed
1 Tbsp. chopped fresh rosemary
1 cup leftover pulled pork
3 cups pork stock (or chicken, or vegetable, or beef)
2 Yukon gold potatoes, unpeeled and diced
1 bunch chard, ribs removed and greens roughly chopped (or spinach, or kale)
salt and pepper

In a soup pot, heat a drizzle of oil and saute the onions until soft. Add the garlic and rosemary and cook for a few more minutes, until the onions are starting to brown. Add the pork, stock and potatoes and bring to a simmer; cook for 20 minutes, until the potatoes are tender. Add the chard and cook for a few minutes, until it wilts (chard is sturdier than spinach, so will take a bit longer). Season with salt and pepper and serve hot.

November 22 2008 | pork and soup | 2 Comments »