One thing I really am starting to notice about soup is that you don't really have to follow the recipe exactly. Just kind of make your own thing up and as long as you have delicious ingredients everything will come out fine. This soup recipe called for a lot of things that I hadn't made/cooked with before: turnips, a boquet garni, slab bacon. I used some of them (turnips) and substituted the rest(boquet garni and slab bacon).
I also had my first cooking disaster in a while- the pepper disaster! Or pepper calamity? Pepper overload? Anyways, on an impulse, I decided to add in a little bit of ground pepper to the soup. Not too out of the ordinary, right? Well, my stupid grinder (one of those store-bought ones) broke so that more than half of the peppercorns went *plop* right into the soup. Now, I don't know if you have ever eaten a whole peppercorn before but let me tell your right now that it is not a very pleasurable experience. I was freaking out with the idea of company coming over (who had never eaten my cooking!) biting right into a whole peppercorn. So, I first started out trying to fish them out with a spoon (my tablespoon measurer to be exact). Fortunately, a lot of them floated towards the top. Then, after about five minutes of this and a very slight cursing breakdown, my fiance came to the rescue. First, he used a slotted spoon to just get the solids out and then hand pick the peppercorns out. Then, I had the brilliant idea of using the colander and dumping all the solid ingredients out. Alas, the peppercorns were too large to fit through the holes in the colander, so I basically ended up going through every single ingredient, throwing out the peppercorns and putting it back in the pot. This took about 45 min or an hour or so in total.
Oh, and just as a side note before I go onto the cooking part. What is slab bacon and where do you get it? I looked it up on wikipedia, and it seemed to be a very fatty cut of bacon similar to salt pork but not cured. I couldn't find it anywhere. Mind you, I did only look in Safeway (this was cooking on a budget!) but I haven't seen it in other stores either.
Side note number 2: Pay the extra money for organic carrots. Just do it. ::shudder:: Regular grocery store carrots left a bad taste in my mouth that stayed there for about thirty minutes. Ick ick ick Of course, part of this was because I didn't peel them (I get lazy) but that never makes a difference with organic/farmer's market carrots.
Okay, now onto the recipe:
Ingredients:
1 cup dried beans
1/2 lb slab bacon (I just used regular bacon)
1 boquet garni (I used Italian seasoning)
12 cups chicken stock (I used more)
1 bunch leeks
2 small turnips
3 large celery ribs
2 medium potatoes
4 medium carrots
1/2 head green cabbage
1/4 lb green beans
2 garlic cloves
1. Prepare dried beans (basically, pick through for stones and bad beans and then soak overnight).
2. Rinse the slab bacon, put it in the saucepan, and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil, simmer for 10 minutes.
3. Put the beans, pork, and boquet garni into a large pan; add all but 2 cups chicken stock. Boil for 10 minutes. Cover pan and simmer for 1 hour.
4. Prepare leeks, dice turnips, celery, potatoes, and carrots. Shred cabbage and cut up beans. Prepare garlic (i.e., mince). Add all to pan.
5. Add rest of stock; bring back to boil. Simmer until meat is tender, about 1 1/2 hours.
6. Remove and discard boquet garni; remove pork. Discarding fat, cut meat into small cubes (this was hard to do with bacon so I just chopped it). Replace in pan; season to taste. Server very hot.
Oh, and in case you want it, here is the baguette recipe. I won't say much except that it was very good, delicious with the soup (as I thought it would be) and came out a lot better than the last time I made it. I think I am finally starting to get the hang of baguette making!
Easiest and Best French Bread
Ingredients
3 1/2 cups (about 1 pound) bread or AP flour, plus more as needed
2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. instant or rapid-rise yeast
1 1/2 cups water
1. Place the flour in the container of a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Add the salt and yeast and process for 5 seconds. With the machine running, pour most of the water through the feed tube. Process about 30 seconds. The dough should be in a defined but shaggy ball, still sticky; you would not want to knead it by hand. If the dough is too try, add water 1 tbsp at a time and process for 5 to 10 seconds after each addition. (If it is too wet, which is unlikely, add another tbsp of flour and process briefly).
2. Dump the lump of dough into a large bowl. Cover loosely with a plastic bag, plastic wrap, or towel. Let sit for 2 to 3 hours at room temperature. If you would like to let the dough rise for a longer period of time, which will help it develop flavor, refrigerate for up to 12 hours; bring it back to room temperature before proceeding.
3. Sprinkle a very small amount of four onto a counter or tabletop, cut the dough into 3 or 4 equal pieces and shape each into a ball, sprinkling with a little more flour if necessary. Cover with a towel and let rest for 20 to 30 minutes.
4. Spread a large, heavy piece of canvas or cotton on a table or counter top and sprinkle it very lightly with flour. Or use baguette pans, sifting a little bit of flour onto them.
5. Press each dough ball flat, then fold it over onto itself twice; seal the resulting seam and, using your hands, roll the dough into a long snake (as you did with clay when you were a child). Do not use too much flour or the dough will slide all over the counter top and you will not be able to roll it. Place the loaf, seam side up, in a fold of the cloth or seam side down in a baguette pan. When all the loaves are formed, cover with a cloth and let rise for 1 to 2 hours at room temperature; the loaves will be about 1 1/2 times their original size.
6. About 30 minutes before you're ready to bake, preheat the oven to 450. When you are ready to bake, sprinkle each loaf very lightly with flour and slash the top several times with a razor blade. If the dough has risen on a cloth, slide into onto floured baking sheets or gently move into onto a plank of wood measuring about 4 x 15 in, then slide the bread off the plank directly on to a baking stone. if the dough has risen in baguette pans, place them in the oven. Spray the inside of the oven to create steam, then put the loaves in the oven.
7. After 5 minutes, spray again. Bake 25 to 35 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown and the internal temperature of the bread is at least 210. Remove, spray with a bit of water if you would like a shinier crust, and cool on a wire rack.
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| Picture of the soup boiling |
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| Jeremy's friend Seth joins us for dinner and games |
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| Jeremy, a fellow wolfie, enjoying his meal |
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| Who is that handsome man? |
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| Look who stopped by! |
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| My delicious baguettes... mmmmm |
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