Post by f***@sdf.orgPost by CarolGlad! It was fun to patch together. My Mom would have called it
'Kitchen Sink Soup'. After I moved out and she and I wound up in
the same trailer park (a very nice one), I'd bring her a bowl of
similar soups.
my parents rarely ate soup. when i was a kid if i had soup it
was chicken noodle or tomato out of a can. cambells. back then
they actually tasted good. now processed food is so highly
engineered to maximize profits it tastes like chemicals because
that's what they are.
I know a lot of bad ones out there. I like better the ones I make.
I'll start a bean pot once Don is home to chime in on type he'd like
this time. I've got all sorts of dried beans ready to go. I didn't
make it it 'Bean Heaven' as locals call it (La Tienda) but will soon.
We usually ask each other as we might have plans for using them in
other dishes so need a specific type.
Post by f***@sdf.orgmy wife introduced me to home made soups. her mother always made
them from bones, vegetable scraps, leftovers, etc and it was a
regular thing when she was growing up.
I don't think my Mom ever made a soup that wasn't from a can. She did
spend for the better ones though. Campbells was pretty good before
they dorked it up with too much salt as filler.
Post by f***@sdf.orgi recently discovered why my parents always disliked soup. both
grew up in large poor families. using up every scrap of food and
bones wasn't a way of making tasty meals, it was a necessity
of survival. my mom recently told me her family was so poor (and
large) they ate meat once a month if they were lucky. again,
extracting every last bit of nutrition and calories out of scraps
was a means of survival. i knew her family was poor, i didn't
know they were that poor.
It happens and happened a lot during the depression.
Post by f***@sdf.orgmultiple times my father criticized me when i bought a pressure
canner and we started canning 20 qt batches of homemade soup.
split pea with ham. chicken vegetable. turkey vegetable. beef
vegetable. he was saying soup is poor people food and i ain't a
broke ass muthafugga so why am i doing it. i work six days a week,
2-3 of those days every week i have a hot bowl of homemade soup
with pre cooked barley, noodles, or rice nuked in a microwave for
two minutes.
That's the one good reason for a pressure canner! I have little
interest in one otherwise. I can see putting up quart sized jars of
rich soups.
Post by f***@sdf.orgplus there's something rewarding about slaying meat and
vegetables while bones are simmering in a pot for an entire day.
especially when there's snow on the ground and temps outside are
single or negative digits.
LOL! Have you seen my vegetable broth posts? There's a person or 2
here who do things like it.
I'll post it in case as it's often the liquid base for my soups and
other cooking.
-------------------------------------
Vegetable Broth: There's no one exact recipe and that's because it's
based on leftover peels, roots, limp leaves, rubbery carrots and so
forth. Just about anything we ate in the past month, chopped or peeled
except for tomatoes and potatoes (no skins of them either). In the
'complex soup' you were looking at, some of it was the can juice but
that's only if making a soup as I open cans for parts of it.
- The reason to omit the potatoes and tomatoes is I like a clear deep
broth and those make them cloudy. If you don't care about that, feel
free to add them!
- Key is everything is cleaned and none are rotting, slimey or moldy.
Tear or roughly cut them down to be easier to handle.
- Onion skins and rinsed root ball (top and root) give the glorious
deep golden color.
- What to add is as varied as your diet. Gai Lan (Chinese broccoli)
leaves are common as they don't last long (5=6 days at most) but the
stems they are prised for, last a long time (3-4 weeks). I also like
Mustard Greens and other cabbage family greens. Turnip peels anf ends,
rutabega but only if you can dewax them well in super hot water.
Radishes, radish tops, root ends of leeks and any greens too tough to
eat, cucumbers! Lettuce core, cabbage core, cauliflouer core, (omit
all winter squashes for same reason as potatoes- clear broth, ends of
carrots, peels of carrots, dry outer leaves of cabbage, stems of
mushrooms that are woody, mushrooms about to go off and no immediate
use, ends of summer squash, rubbery celery and root, limp green beans,
Garlic bulb that froze (cut across so garlic itself cut through and
don't bother to peel), caps of bell peppers, ends of hot petters if
you want it hot (careful, won't work with many recipes. Rubbery
daikon. That's not a complete list, just a common one. Corn cobs if
you scraped the corn off.
- - Keep gallon bags in freezer for these and you can reuse them. You
need 1.5 gallon bags packed fairly well.
---- Dump all in largest stockpot and simmer with 1-2 tsp salt (it
needs a little at start or will taste flat and oddly adding salt later
doesn't fix it).
Basically all those end bits and peels that you normally toss, go in
there. Add water to 2 inches above the veggoes (some float so
estimate). Simmer 1.5 hours then taste test, Come back 15 minutes
later and taste and if same, it's done.
Put a large container with a paper lined collander in it someplace
steady and pour it in the collander. You may have to strain it twice.
I use thongs to pull most of the veggies out to the strainer so it's
easier to deal with the whole pot. Disgard all well strained
vegetables (nothing left in them). Oh, can compost the veggies if you
do that.
Takes longer to type up than it does to do. Because the peelings and
such are always going to be different, it's never the exact same twice
but it's always good.
--------------------------------
Post by f***@sdf.orgPost by CarolPost by f***@sdf.orgsubstitute bourbon for half the veggie broth and slice up a
stale loaf of italian bread to sop up broth, and that'd be some
good >> campfire grub. i'm thinking open dutch oven hanging from a
cooking >> tripod over open flames and washing it down with some 16
year >> laphroaig scotch.
Post by CarolInteresting! I don't have Burbon here but a nice table-type red
would have worked well for some of it! I've always got bread
around so yes, we cut some up since Don loves sopping up the soup.
As a result, I make a fair number of soups.
bourbon is good in food. for me is too sweet do drink. again, i
like your recipe. it encourages me to find and use aging stock
(canned vegetables, etc) in the pantry instead of tossing it when
it's beyond expired.
I don't worry too much on expired cans but try to keep it in reason.
If the can isn't dented, bulging etc, it's fine for an extra year or
two. I draw the line at 4 years but that's why I clear the older cans
yearly in late fall, so none get that old.
