Soup

[stoutfellow]

The last few weeks, I've been a bit too distracted to do much cooking, but this week I decided to get back into the swing of things by making a pot of mushroom soup. It's been a long time since I made any kind of soup from scratch, and I've never made mushroom soup before. The recipe called for a full pound of chopped mushrooms, and they looked very bulky floating in the stock, but they shrank to an acceptable density in the course of the cooking.

The recipe also called for cayenne pepper, and as a result it's a bit on the picante side for me, but it's pretty tasty despite this. A bowl of the soup, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and a glass of milk to cut the fire makes for a nice, filling meal on a cool wet day like today.

Comments

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

I love making homemade soup. It's a very satisfying process. I like making my own homemade stock to cook with, too, especially when all it takes is a chicken carcass, a bit of onion, a bit of celery, and a crockpot. Something from almost nothing. Almost magic.

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

I'm going to have to get a crockpot one of these days. I've never made my own stock; I've gone with bouillon cubes or with the pre-made stuff in cartons.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

Alas, modern crockpots have been regulated by the government to cook hotter than is good for stock, so unless you can find an old one at a garage sale or whatever, you may be better off using a stockpot on the stove (which requires a lot more monitoring). But this is second-hand information (from a cooking list I'm on), so you might want to pick one up and experiment. My only crockpot is fifteen years old and still going strong [knocks wood]. I'm going to be in a world of hurt when it finally goes south.

Homemade stock is better, IMHO, than the carton stuff because you can regulate the amount of sodium, and it's worlds better (in flavor, lack of additives, etc.) than bouillon.

[sci-o-biscuits.livejournal.com]

I've never used a crockpot. I wouldn't know HOW to use one. But I make a lot of really nice homemade soups - love 'em.

If you like onion soup, try to make a batch from scratch - with the oozing broiled cheese on top, yum.

Most of the time, I make soups with vegetables, herbs, chicken or beef; and some combination of brown rice, noodles, and/or barley. I've gotten pretty good at this over the years, and I'm not much of a cook, otherwise.