Scheduling Note – Major site changes are underway this week so I will be posting off of the usual schedule. Thank you for your patience!

As I’ve warned before – I can’t make a small batch of soup! Feel free to cut this recipe in half if desired.

1 cup toasted slivered almonds or peanuts (salt free), for garnish

When the soup is finished simmering, add salt to the pot, and puree the mixture in a blender until smooth. Serve hot with a swirl of wasabi cream on top.

Postscript: The lovely Mayberry Magpie sent me the nutrition information for this soup.
Per Serving – Calories: 169 Fat: 7.9g Fiber: 3.7g Protien: 11.5g

But then I fell into a trap. It was a very crafty trap if I do say so myself. When reading the recipe for this chipotle corn chowder in the Canyon Ranch cookbook I noticed that it called for vegetable stock and then gave a page number with a suggested recipe. Flipping the pages I discovered a simple vegetable stock which used ingredients that were already in my fridge and only required an hour to simmer on the stove. With an hour to spare, I quickly chopped up the vegetables, threw them into a pot, and let them simmer. 60 minutes later I strained out the veggies and tasted the clear lightly colored broth left behind (with a pinch of salt). Delicious. Really delicious. As in I had to keep myself from just ladling up a cup of it on the spot and drinking it straight. The light delicate flavors of the leek and carrots blended beautifully with seasonings of marjoram and thyme. It was a vegetable stock epiphany.

When the stock was used as a base for the chipotle corn chowder, the resulting soup had a light vegetable undertone that couldn’t be beat. Best of all, using an unsalted stock meant I could season the final soup with just enough salt to taste, avoiding the overload of salt that normally keeps my soup-loving ways to a dull roar. I’m a bit embarrassed to say that I have now made this stock every week for the past month. I find myself picking up a leek and carrots at the grocery store just so I can come home and make another batch. My freezer does hold a few containers of the leftovers, but by and large we have enjoyed eating a lot of soup. Since it is only January, I have a feeling that this is going to continue for several months to come. If you also roll your eyes at the thought of making your own stock, let the siren song of this recipe seduce you into trying it just once. You never know, it may just turn you into one of those people…

Homemade Vegetable Stock (Printable Recipe)
Adapted from Canyon Ranch Cooking
Makes 9 cups of stock

Ingredients:

1 leek, well rinsed, trimmed, and chopped
2 medium onions, chopped
3 carrots, scrubbed and chopped
5 stalks celery, without leaves (they impart a bitter flavor), chopped
1 cup chopped parsley stems
2 bay leaves, broken into halves
1 teaspoon dried marjoram, crushed
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme, crushed
12 cups cold water

Directions:

Place all ingredients in a large soup pot over high heat and bring the liquid to a rolling boil. Reduce the heat and let the stock gently simmer, uncovered, for about an hour.

After an hour, pour the stock through a large colander lined with cheesecloth into a large bowl. Gently press down on the solids with the back of a spoon to extract any remaining flavor and liquid. Discard the solids. Use the stock immediately to make soup, or once it is cool, place it in sealed containers. The stock can be kept in the fridge for 1 week, or frozen indefinitely.

If you say the word “escarole” Mr. B’s face lights up like a kid running loose in the cereal aisle. His love for this uncommon leafy green harkens back to his days living alone as a bachelor in downtown Chicago. Winters in the Windy City were frequently long, cold, and dark. Lacking a wonderful wife to cook him braised short-ribs, minestrone, or a roasted lemon chicken, he ordered up his comfort in the form of a white bean and escarole soup from Salerno’s. They even delivered.

Years later, when we were dating, it began to look as if he might be eating dinner with me for the rest of his life. Mr. B decided “we” should learn how to make a white bean and escarole soup. At the time I was delighted that he wanted to tackle another project in the kitchen and curious to try a new vegetable. Now, wiser to his ways, I realize he wanted to ensure he could still get his favorite soup whenever the weather called for comfort. Luckily I fell in love with both Mr. B and his white bean and escarole soup.

The clean lemony broth is at once comforting and refreshing. Adding escarole at the very end of the cooking process lets it wilt slightly while still maintaining a pleasing bite. To make a vegetarian version just substitute vegetable stock for the chicken stock. A healthy soup, this is an excellent light dinner for busy weeknights. Including prep time, the whole recipe comes together in less than an hour- almost as fast as take-out! With a pillowy mound of freshly grated Parmesan melting on top this is a bowl of comfort that you will ‘order up’ whenever possible.

The summer I turned 12, we took a big family trip to visit relatives in Washington D.C. It was a big trip both in the distance traveled- we lived on the West Coast and typically didn’t travel out of the region, and in the duration- we stayed for two weeks. My memories of the time spent in D.C. are surprisingly vivid, and are not surprisingly filled with lots of food.

One of my favorite stops on the trip was in the historical town of Williamsburg. I watched with fascination as a blacksmith pounded horse shoes with sparks flying and a cooper shaped long boards into barrels. Walking around a costumed historical village was almost like living in a novel- I loved it! While in Williamsburg, I purchased two books- Entertaining Ideas from Williamsburg and Christmas Decorations from Williamsburg. Filled with pictures of the decorated houses and traditional recipes, they added illustration to my fanciful day dreams of living in a historical village. (And yes, at 12 years old I was already a total cooking and decorating geek!)

Now many, many years later I still enjoy looking through these books and satisfying my inner Martha Stewart tendencies while reminiscing about our trip. One photo that has always enticed my creative side is a beautiful pumpkin encircled by fall flowers and filled with a savory squash soup. This fall I decided that I needed to stop day dreaming and just get in there and do it! So I tracked down the supplies and ingredients, set aside a few hours, and got busy.

The process is simple, requiring only a knife, bowl, scissors, and a metal skewer. First you wash the pumpkin’s exterior and cut a large opening in the top. Next you clean out the inside of the pumpkin using a spoon to scrape out the seeds and membrane.

Once the pumpkin is finished, you can fill it with hot soup and serve the soup directly from the tureen. This would make a lovely centerpiece for a fall buffet, or could even be adapted using small pumpkins to create personal ‘bowls’.

How to Make a Pumpkin Tureen (Printable Instructions)
Adapted from Entertaining Ideas from Williamsburg

1 medium pumpkin, rinsed and dried

1 large assortment of flowers, leaves, and berries

Sharp knife

Large metal spoon

Large bowl

Newspaper

Scissors

Metal skewer (or another sharp, pointy metal object)

Instructions:

Next use the skewer to poke a hole into the side of the pumpkin. You will want to stay about 1/2″ below the opening, which will help keep the foliage from falling into the soup if bumped. Cut the stem of a flower to equal the depth of your skewered hole (about 1/2″) and carefully push the stem into the hole. Repeat this process around the edge of the pumpkin, creating a pleasing pattern with the foliage.

The second secret is to finish the dish with a splash of high quality vinegar. It brightens the flavors and adds a lovely nuance to the finished soup. For the harvest bean soup, I used a delicious Gegenebauer Apricot Vinegar sent to me by the fun people at Cube Marketplace. You may recall that last winter I purchased an incredible artisan polenta from Cube and was thrilled with how well it accompanied coffee and chile braised short ribs. Well they were thrilled that I enjoyed Cube products and sent the vinegar to try as a thank-you.*

Harvest Bean Soup (Printable Recipe)
Serves 10

Ingredients:

1 lb. Yellow Eyes Beans, soaked overnight (or dry great northern beans)
1 large Ham hock
1 lb. Cooked ham, diced into small cubes
2 Tablespoons Olive oil
1 large Onion, chopped (about 3 1/2 cups)
3 Carrots, peeled and sliced into thin rounds
2 ears of Sweet corn, kernels removed (or 1 cup of frozen corn kernels)
1 large Red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded and diced
1/4 cup diced fresh Fennel
5 cloves Garlic, minced
3 Celery sticks, strings removed and diced
1 Bay leaf
1/2 Lemon, juiced
1 Parmesan rind
12 cups water
1 Tablespoon Ham Soup Base (I like Penzey’s)
2 Tablespoons Kosher Salt
1 teaspoon Ground Pepper
2 Tablespoons Apricot Vinegar (or a quality white wine vinegar)

Grated Parmesan cheese
Crusty bread

Directions:

Place a large stockpot over medium heat. Add olive oil to the pot and warm it for 1-2 minutes. Once the oil is warm, add onion, carrots, corn, red bell pepper, fennel, garlic, and celery and saute until the vegetables are softened. Next add the beans, cooked ham, and ham hock to the pot and stir to combine the ingredients. Add the bay leaf, lemon juice, Parmesan rind, water, and soup base. Stir well so that all ingredients are incorporated throughout the soup. Cover the pot with a lid and simmer the soup for about two hours or until the beans are cooked through.

The full recipe can be found at Steamy Kitchen.