2009 May 24 | dinner with Julie

Archive for May 24th, 2009

Soup

Yes, I know that’s not soup. But it was my best-looking photo, don’t you think? Yesterday Wade made us Indian chicken – I can’t recall his formula except that it was a spice blend they had picked up in Seattle. Sorry, gin & tonics on the lawn tend to dull my short-term memory. He also made a spinach salad (the same dark, crinkly stuff I had out at Edgar Farm) with sweet diced mango and crunchy rhubarb he had quickly pickled himself earlier in the day. Pickled rhubarb. Huh. It sure made a fantastic addition to a salad, particularly with a handful of salty cashews.

I’ll spare you (and myself) the events of today, but at around dinnertime tonight (and up until after 10) I was busy making lots and lots of soup with the sistas – Butternut Squash and Lentil Soup with Italian Sausage, Broccoli, Spinach and Leek, Hamburger Soup, Mushroom, Bean & Barley Soup with Chicken, and Bouillabaisse. Not with my actual sisters, but about 30 of my new Soup Sisters. (Kind of like blood brothers, but with girls and cooking, rather than with boys and cutting yourself.)

I was part of the third official Soup Sisters event put on by a two-month-old group who gather regularly for hands-on soup making sessions. They hang out, visit, cook (in enormous pots in a professional kitchen – tonight we took over the Cookbook Company), have some drinks, sit down to a bowl of soup and crusty bread while their pots cool, then portion the soup out into labeled reusable Pyrex dishes to distribute to the Calgary Women’s Emergency Shelter. Great idea. I lost of how many dozens of bowls we hauled downstairs to the fridge to be delivered tomorrow.

It was a very full weekend, and one I shouldn’t be telling you about well after midnight when I still have a bunch of prep to do and a 6 am call time for a foodstyling gig tomorrow morning. (I feel like I’m trying to pull off a report the night before it’s due. I wonder if I have any duotangs left.) Wait, it’s now after 1, and I have to be up in four hours. I am cutting this short. No wonder my eyeballs feel like they are about to roll out of my head.

Tonight, these soups were the two favourites:

Mushroom, Bean & Barley Soup with Chicken

½ oz (15g) dried wild mushrooms
canola or olive oil, for cooking
2 onions, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 ribs celery, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
½ lb (250g) fresh mushrooms, sliced
1 cup pearl barley
2 L chicken or vegetable stock
2 cans white kidney beans, drained
1 rotisserie chicken, skinned and shredded or cut small into pieces
1 tsp. salt, or more to taste
1/2 tsp. pepper, or to taste
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

Soak dried mushrooms in 1 cup hot water for about 30 minutes. Strain liquid through a sieve lined with paper towel (to get rid of the grit) and reserve. Coarsely chop the mushrooms.

In a large pot, heat a drizzle of oil over medium-high heat and cook the onions, carrots, celery and garlic for about 5 minutes, or until soft. Add the mushrooms and barley. Add the stock and 2 cups of water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for about half an hour. Add the beans, chicken, salt and pepper and simmer for another 20 minutes.

Stir in parsley right before serving, or sprinkle some over each bowl. To freeze, cool completely first. Makes 12 to 14 servings.

Butternut Squash and Lentil Soup with Italian Sausage

This recipe comes from one of the Sisters – we streamlined it a little, but in the original she grills the sausage and slices it into the finished soup at the very end, rather than cooking it right in from the beginning.

1 Tbsp. each canola or olive oil and butter
1-2 Italian sausages, mild or hot
1 onion, peeled and chopped
2 carrot, peeled and chopped
2 celery stalks, with leaves, chopped
1 L chicken broth
2 cups water
2 cups red or green lentils
1 tsp. thyme
2 medium butternut or acorn squash, peeled, halved, seeded and cut into chunks
salt & pepper

In a large stockpot, heat the oil and butter over medium heat squeeze the sausage in out of its casing; cook, breaking it up with a spoon as if you were cooking ground beef. Add the onion, carrot and celery and cook for another 5 minutes or so, until the vegetables are soft and starting to brown a bit. Add the broth, water, lentils and thyme; bring to a boil, cover, reduce the heat and simmer for half an hour.

Add the squash, dried thyme and simmer for 30 -45 minutes or until the squash and lentils are thoroughly cooked. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serves 8.