Friday, March 5, 2010

Chinese Take-out Won Ton

Won Ton soup.. sad to say I frequently write it off as a generic, soso soup.. which is really not fair..

It's quite a tasty broth.. the bits of pork and scallion really bulk up the flavor.. I'm not exactly sure what was in the wontons.. but I know they were good. . .

about half way through I dumped a soy sauce packet in, because I like the flavor.. and when I was all out of 'tons, I dropped in the bag of crispy noodles that comes with it (top left.).. which. were. delicious. in the broth.. this was exactly what I should have ordered and thinking back I'm really glad I did.. perfect.

wikipedia
Enjoy this unnecessarily blurry pic of the Miso from Yama Sushi in Denville.. I finally remembered to take a pic!

It's a bit darker Miso than the Kaze soup.. hard to say which is really better.. they're both pretty good. The seaweed pieces are a bit bigger in Yama's.. other than that.. pretty much the same.. either way.. a great flavor and a real nice precursor to my sushi..

wikipedia
Yama Sushi

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Miso - Again!

Every time I get a picture of miso soup it's while I'm at Kaze.. I wish I remembered to snap a shot while I was at Yama in denville.

anyway. you know my story on this Miso - Delicious as usual!


perhaps a tumblr was the better direction to go with this?

Cambpells V8 Broccoli


I take super flattering cell phone camera pics, I know.. it's great.

Long story short.. I'm pretty sure these are supposed to be used for casseroles or larger soup bases n such.. wasn't really a whole lot to it. pretty bland.

Gave it a dash of salt, a shake of parmesan cheese, and a shake of lemon pepper - and I didn't dislike it.

Price you pay for healthy eating I guess.. to me it's just bland.. we'll see if any of the others fare any better

Nutrition, as usual. - perhaps i'll start snapping a pic of the ingredients some time in the future..

V8 Soups

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Campbells Chunky Chicken Corn Chowder


Used to eat this all the time.. I'm still not sure how I feel about it.. It tastes good, but I'm just never finding myself saying "Self, I'm really in the mood for some chicken corn chowder."

Take from that what you will.. but I'm certainly not saying NOT to try it..
No ingredients pic.. but the Nutr. Info

Progresso Chickarina


What to sayyyy about chickarina... Other than it's more or less Italian Wedding soup without spinach.

Continues the typical canned soup awkward gray meatball tradition.. overall not a bad tasting soup though.

If I were to make any complaint, however, it would have to be the incredibly tiny amount of chicken in a soup called CHICKarina..

Nutritional info

can't find a single thing about the history of this soup. I guess you can fall back to the wedding soup wiki if you need something else to read.

Progresso R.S. Italian-Style Wedding

Wish I hadn't used such a giant cup. . makes it look like I ate it all - which finally wasn't the case!

Anyway. Back to the Soup. To be totally honest. . I didn't much care for this as reduced sodium. . and I put some more salt in it about 1/2 way through.. I had bought two. . and I ate the second one (not in the same day, I promise!) without adding salt for the sake of eating the soup as intended

I'm not saying it was bad - but until a medical professional tells me to cut salt.. I'll stick with regular sodium levels in my soup

Info

I've already linked to this wiki for wedding soup.

Tortilla Soup

Went to Qdoba a month or so ago.. and ordered some of the Tortilla Soup.

Definitely enjoyed this - should mention that you better like spice if you plan on ordering this.. cus it was surprisingly hot.

and "inspired by" I came across on the web.

* Non-stick olive oil spray or a tsp of olive oil
* 1 small sweet onion (I use a think slice of a big one) diced
* 1-2 bell peppers (I used about ½ each of a green, orange and red) diced
* 3 cloves of garlic chopped
* Chili powder
* Cumin
* Cilantro
* Lime Juice
* Tabasco (I would imagine you could use any hot sauce)
* Can of chicken broth (what a nice generic size - can.. up to you I guess)
* Can of diced tomatoes with green chilies
* Tortilla strips

Spray a medium saucepan with olive oil and sauté the onion, peppers and garlic until tender, about 10 minutes. Towards the end, add the chili powder, cumin cilantro, splash of lime juice and Tabasco to taste.Stir and let the flavors mix for a minute or two. Add the chicken broth and can of tomatoes with chilies.

What you get it a nice chunky soup. Now to thicken, and this is optional, I take a scoop at a time and puree in the blender then add it back to the soup. I usually do not puree it all just about 2-3 scoops to thicken the broth.

Other ideas: Add leftover chicken, top with cheese, pour over rice, you can really do anything with it. It’s pretty versatile

Serve, garnished with tortilla strips


--Sadly, doesn't mention how many it serves.. oh well

Not wikipedia, but it's something

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Round Steak Caserole

I haven't update for a bit. So I'm going to start counting things with soup in them! Horaay!
Anyway.. round steak casserole..
I wasn't terribly familiar with it before I made it.. I had a ton of london broil and no more dehydrator.. so i was a bit desperate to do whatever i could to use it while I still could, as i'd frozen it much earlier in the year (I pulled the rest and made a carolina style bbq sauce for it, if you were wondering.)

ingredients

London broil, or any Round cut.
flour
oil
can of Campbell's tomato soup
Italian triad - onions, carrots, celery
mashed potatoes

cube the steak, flour it and brown it in the oil, put in casserole dish

diced the onions, fine diced the celery, rough chopped the carrot
sweat the triad in some oil, time dependent on the different vegetables
mix into meat

pour in Campbell's tomato, thin it out a bit - not too much though.. since it's not going to get thicker..

mix it all up and cover with mashed potatoes like a hamburger pie, etc.
bake it.. I think i did 375? not 100% on how long though..

obviously didn't hold together the best it could.. but i was pretty happy with it..



it went over rather well.. I'm actually going to keep this in the back of my mind for the future..

wikipedia
wikipedia

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Beef Stew

For real this time!

Lean, boneless stew beef, cut in small pieces
Potatoes, sliced
Carrots, sliced
Green beans, cut n trimmed
Onion, chopped
MBT, or whatever bullion/stock/broth you want - not in the mood for the cream of mushroom/cream of celery/tomato soup blend. Also not in the mood for the seasoning game..

Toss it all in the crock pot and go do something else..
(I also can't wait to get MY crockpot back out..)
Come back later and find:


Starch from the potato really thickens it enough that you don't need a flour slurry or anything..

Monday, December 7, 2009

Panera Fronion

So a few weeks ago I hit up Panera with Darrin - no surprise there. As usual I got the you-pick-two.. went with the Fuji Apple Chicken Salad and the French Onion Soup.

This..

















Is the picture I managed to take with his phone - as mine was dead..
I rrrrrrrrrrreally need to move, and unpack the camera already...

as per usual.. The feasting had already commenced when I had the clarity of mind to realize I needed a photo for this..

Luckily, someone else had the foresight. 

Aaaand someone's interpretation.

wikipedia

Miso

So I recently went out for some sushi with Stacy, and part of the lunch special included a bowl of miso soup. For some reason I always forget to snap a photo before I start devouring... and miso was no exception.



It had a very good flavor - a white (shiromiso) broth, pieces of tofu, scallions, and seaweed/wakame.

For anyone concerned, the name of the restaurant is Kaze in Roseland, NJ.. a nice, typical sushi cafe - I would recommend going.

I've decided to put the corresponding Wikipedia article in my posts, to make up for my lack of facts/info in these posts..

Should be in the house soon - then my projects can resume!

wikipedia

Friday, November 20, 2009

Chinese Take Out

Another soup driven on by lack of want to make a dinner. Ordered up some Chinese food tonight - grabbed a soup I Hadn't had before instead one of the usuals - Hot n Sour, Won-ton, or Egg Drop.

This is Shredded Pork and Pickled Szechuan Cabbage Soup.


Very Spicy - Naturally, but still a good flavor to it. Pretty typical Chinese soup chicken broth underneath the heat.. I was kind of expecting a carrot or some other vegetables besides just the cabbage from prior pickled cabbage experience.. but the lack there of really didn't spoil the soup. The pork was a bit suspect, but then again that's no real surprise.

here's a terribly easy pickled cabbage recipe.

Even better! I've found a recipe!

From there it's just making chicken broth with some soy sauce and shredded pork.

wikipedia with wikipedia
and
wikipedia

Medieval Times

Went to Medieval Times the other day as part of a friends birthday celebration.. part of the meal (and I will say they give you a decent meal) Was a Tomato Bisque. . I know what you're thinking, "Bisque has seafood!" Well.. I didn't name the soup.. I just enjoyed it.


Here's what I imagine to be the most accurate recipe for Tomato Bisque --

INGREDIENTS
1/4 cup butter
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 stalk celery, finely chopped
1 carrot, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

3 tablespoons tomato paste
4 cups chicken broth
2 (14.5 ounce) cans fire roasted diced tomatoes, drained
3 tablespoons white sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 cup heavy cream
salt and black pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS
Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the onion, celery, carrot, and garlic. Cook and stir until the vegetables are tender and beginning to brown, about 8 minutes. Stir in the flour and cook 1 minute longer, stirring constantly.

Stir in the tomato paste, chicken broth, tomatoes, sugar, and nutmeg. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer 15 minutes until the vegetables are very tender.

Pour half to three-quarters of the soup into a blender-depending on how chunky you want it-filling the pitcher no more than halfway full.

Hold down the lid of the blender with a folded kitchen towel, and carefully start the blender, using a few quick pulses to get the soup moving before leaving it on to puree. Alternately, you can use a stick blender and puree the soup in the saucepan.

Return the pureed soup to the saucepan and stir in the cream. Cook over medium heat until the soup is hot. Season with salt and pepper to taste before serving.

wikipedia
or wikipedia

Box Fronion

I recently ran out of dinner ideas and decided to use a packet of French Onion Soup mix to actually make the soup, instead of some sort of dip/slow cooker sauce..

I boiled down a little cream sherry,
added water, brought it back to a boil,
added the packet -

Decent enough flavor..Made myself a nice toast crouton and melted on a bit of swiss..

aaaaand..



Tada!.. Not the prettiest thing in the whole world, obviously, but definitely not the worst tasting.

wikipedia

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Pot Roast


Pot Roast is the bastard cousin of Beef Stew. If I had chosen to put everything in the crock pot and not just the meat and gravy, that's what I would have had..

London broil
onion soup mix (another soup tie in!)
flour/water
campbell's cream of mushroom (another another tie in!)
ketchup
shake of liquid smoke.

left all day... ~8+ hours..
w/ cream corn, egg noodles, and candied carrots.

wikipedia

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Progresso's turn

Campbell's and Progresso will be eating away at my money for the rest of my life, courtesy of my love of soup (not to mention the Jersey love for Campbell's).

I just partook in a bowl (or large cup/mug, rather) of Traditional Chicken Noodle from Progresso.

As to be expected from canned soup, it was just as good as I remember it being the last time I had it, and I assume the next time.









I enjoy that everything in the soup is BIG. I don't just mean flavor, of course, I mean noodles, chicken, carrot, and celery pieces.

and for anyone interested:
The label.

wikipedia

Oh Panera.. how I love thee..

Panera's Broccoli Cheddar


Probably one of my favorite soups of all time. I'm also terribly partial to their french onion. I have yet to determine if my love springs from the wonderful flavor of the soup, the accompanying bread, or both.

It's a wonderfully creamy soup with great flavor.
Obvious ingredients:
broccoli
cheddar cheese
carrot
Beyond that I would imagine:
butter
garlic
onion
salt & white pepper
chicken broth
flour
milk/light cream

Here is someone's best guess at the real recipe.

I would expect there will be a couple more Panera posts on here..
I'd also like to point out how happy I am with the direction Panera has gone with in terms of their place settings.. I genuinely enjoy the actual plates, etc. over their previous basket w/ kidney plates.

Not wikipedia.. but some history..

Trying my hand at something new

I know I've made promises to make certain things first. But since I'm the real audience of this blog.. I don't think anyone( I ) will mind if it come back to them and do something else first while I wait here in Moving Limbo.

And with that - Pumpkin Soup.
I made this to have to eat on Halloween before I went out. It wasn't bad. Not the greatest thing I've ever had.. but I've certainly tried worse..

Ingredients:
1.5 cups pumpkin purée
3 cups chicken broth





3/4 cup milk or light cream


for some reason my formatting is being ridiculous here.. and i'm done trying to fix it.
1 tablespoon flour


1/4 teaspoon ginger


1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon salt
2 egg yolks, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon minced chives (which i didn't have.. so i just gave it a dash of onion powder)

Everything in the pot:


Aaaand the "Finished" product:


Overall I suppose it was alright.. The snippet in the book about how it tastes better after you let the flavors sit and blend was definitely true.. I enjoyed it significantly more a few hours after it finished than right after it was done.


Though never one to be satisfied.. the next day i tossed in some cinnamon and brown sugar at no real measurement.. and that really bumped the flavor that much more.


I also made some Cinnamon/Orange zest meringues..
dropped one in the bowl of soup for some more flavor/a mock crouton.. Rather enjoyable!

I also took the opportunity to make a loaf of Pumpkin bread with raisins that came out rather perfect.
Needless to say I've had my fill of pumpkin till at least next Halloween..

Grandma's Split Pea

So I've stopped by my grandmothers - date this about.. ohh.. October 24th.
She has churned out another wonderful batch of her split pea soup.

I'm not 100% on her proportions but I DO know the ingredients.

Bag of peas - just the rinse kind. not the soaking kind.
Chicken broth
Beef broth
Ham bone & any pieces of ham left
Onion
Potato
S&P to taste.


I like a little crushed black pepper in mine - as you might be able to pick out..
I can't wait to finally move into the new place and be able to take some pics with the camera instead of my phone..

The soup has a long, low cook time..lots of stirring - and to my surprise no blending..
As to her report.. a lot of people sieve their pea soup and she doesn't.