root vegetable chicken soup

Someone’s got to eat the end of the root vegetables. Or heck, maybe you’ve just gotten some out of the ground that have been growing over the winter. You’re my hero. Here’s your answer, nonetheless, a silky, salty, garlicky chicken soup full of big hunks of soft, starchy root vegetables.
Now that it’s getting warmer out I’m starting to regret my decision to get bangs. The other day was like 62 and they felt like a a sheet of plastic on my face. Sweaty plastic. I’m not sure headbands will work so well for the mid day workouts I like to do during my work days, lest I look like I have a drawbridge on my forehead. And please, I’m not washing my hair in the middle of the day. Who do you think I am?

roasted carrot and caramelized onion soup with caraway

Sometimes it’s the little details that make me happy in a recipe. Like nicely roasted carrots and caramelized onions in an otherwise very simple soup. And homemade chicken broth. And then, anything with caraway seeds in it is superlative in my book. The best seed.

watermelon gazpacho

Pretty sure this will be my last watermelon post for a bit. And hopefully the last fruit one for a bit, too. Not positive on that last one. I haven’t posted anything with cherries in it. And I like cherries. Really like cherries. Shoot. Uh, I’ll incorporate meat. I got it, don’t worry. Ohhh man, then peach season is upon us too…
My garden’s at the point now where if I am busy for a couple days in a row, it gets completely overgrown. Tiny little zucchinis turn into like county fair blue ribbon contenders. My arugula keeps fighting me, trying to bolt. I’ve pretty much given up on my broccoli rabe. I can’t keep up. But man, a veggie garden is the most fun thing ever. It makes me feel like such a city slicker – being so amazed and amused at the plants. Not that I am or was a city slicker. And not that I didn’t have a veggie garden growing up. I don’t know, those little plants still make me giddy. I can’t wait until I have a house of my own. Then I will turn the backyard into a produce aisle. I saw my first pear tree the other day. I was by myself and I squealed out loud at those little pears just dangling from the branches.

lettuce soup

I like how lettuce soup sounds like gruel or something. Thin, watery, tasteless broth with wilted leaves of iceberg lettuce floating listlessly about. Served lukewarm to you in a rough hewn stoneware bowl while you hang your head and try to will it down your throat. Gross. I hope you don’t bypass this. It’s nothing like that. Instead, it’s bright and springy and a fun way to use big beautiful heads of lettuce and perhaps whatever kinds of greens you have around.
I’m going to the Grand Canyon the first week in June. Rim to rim trip. It’s going to be stupid and hot and long. Stupid because what the heck was I thinking to agree to hiking 23 miles one day and then doing it all over again (the way back we’re splitting into two days, but still). So hotttttt. And sunnyyyyyy. Ahhhhh. Oh and I think some of the people we’re going with are going to be running some of it. And how am I supposed to not run it if other people are running. I’m very susceptible to fitness peer pressure! We’re also going to be hiking day trips around Utah before the Grand Canyon hike. There’s going to be so much Southwest in my life. Colorado is kinda southwesty. I still find that weird to think about. I don’t identify with the southwest very much. Except kokopellis. I mean, I do have a rather large kokopelli collection. Including a tattoo of one on my ankle. Joking.

gingery chicken and bok choy soup

I’ve never made like a regular old chicken soup. I had a Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul book that my mom gave me that I never read because I was waaayyy too cool in high school to read that (I am still too cool to read any of those books. And anything by Mitch Albom, BARF – I know that because I was forced to read one of his books for a class and I railed into the teacher for a) liking it and b) making me read it). Sorry mom. My mom doesn’t even read my blog. I’m like the only blogger in the world whose mom doesn’t read her kid’s blog. I don’t think she likes my recipes. Or I’m boring. Or both. Or she still feels bad that I didn’t read Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul. I am at least fairly confident that she would think Mitch Albom is schlock, too.

Speaking of books, Joe got me a Nook for Christmas. I went bonkers and started reserving all this e-crap on the Denver Library’s site and then all of a sudden it all became available at the same time. I downloaded them all, so I’m frantically trying to read through them one at a time so that I don’t have to wait another two months for any of them to become available again. I’m reading The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. I have no idea why. I only kind of somewhat liked the first half of the first book. But for some reason I feel compelled to finish them. I don’t know how many more times I can take the author lasciviously describe Lisbeth Salander as anorexic. At least he seems to have dropped the whole trying to shock us with how pierced and tattooed and punkgoth she is (what is this 1993? ooohhhh goths! piercings!!). But that might be because she’s indisposed in a hospital bed right now. Sigh. What am I doing to myself? I could be reading Blood, Bones, and Butter. I think this might be my favorite movie review in a long time.

farmhouse butternut squash soup

Butternut squash soup is one of the easiest and best soups ever. Broth, squash, salt. It could be that simple. But what the heck would be the point of posting something like that. Instead, there is this moderately more fancy version that I like to make but that is still totally easy. It feels a little more rustic and has more complex flavors. Just a bit of tartness from a Granny Smith apple and a tid of apple cider vinegar. Oh, and then there’s nutmeg just to pull out the sweetness in case you were worried it would get buried with the apple and vinegar.
Did you realize that it’s December?? This means that each and every day I try to do something Christmas-y. (Un)fortunately, several of these activities will be cookie and pie-centric. It just has to happen. I ate so much winter fruit crisp at Thanksgiving that I was kind of hoping I’d get sweets out of my system, but in actuality it created a sweets monster. Total monster. I want to kill it, but Christmas is telling it to make pies and cookies. Basically, I want to create an edible version of marthastewart.com. So, having a soup like this around is a good thing, because what’s the point of eating a full, real meal if you’re just going to stuff yourself with dessert after. Dammit. I’m hosed.

warm cucumber soup

Holy crap I love dreary, drizzly days. Can someone relocate me to London? Or help me buy a cozy cottage on a moor? I am seriously the most productive on days like that. Which isn’t so great if you happen to live in Denver. But, as it turns out, those days do come along a couple times a year here and it did the other day and I kicked some butt. One of my most favorite things to do on a day off is to cook in the middle of the day, for the sake of this poor blog’s photographs. And what better a recipe for a dreary September day than warm, yet still slightly summery, soup?
And what’s even more lovely about it is that I’m battling the onslaught of a cold. Just that horrible little drip in the back of your throat. I know it’s chicken soup that you’re supposed to eat, but any warm soup feels particularly good to eat when you feel kind of blech-y…even with dairy in it – aren’t you supposed to not eat dairy with a cold? I don’t know anything.

gazpacho

I’m pretty much on a diet of chopped vegetable dishes. Every meal I’ve eaten in the past two weeks has either consisted solely of a) potato salad, b) green bean salad with basil, sautéed radishes, and hunks of mozzarella, c) citrusy coleslaw, or a hearty helping of one of those next to some protein that I was mostly eating just to stave off devouring a giant bowlful of one of those salads. Now that tomatoes are starting to come in? Oh boy. Watch out. Is it possible to eat all of your daily calories from tomatoes? Can I try? No? Okay, I’ll throw in some grilled corn on the cob slathered with homemade lime mayonnaise and queso añejo. And some peaches and cherries. That’s fine. God I love summer.
Gazpacho is a little difficult for me. On the one hand, it’s probably one of the best soups you can eat. On the other hand, it seems a little shameful to purée fresh, ripe, local (expensive) heirloom tomatoes. Maybe that’s because I don’t have any of my own in a garden in my back yard. I kind of feel that they’re like precious gems and to adulterate them with anything more than some coarse sea salt and a basil leaf is to somehow cheapen them. But I freaked out a little when I realized that our 18 days of above 90 degree weather had finally broken and I hadn’t made gazpacho. Gazpacho is for 97 degree days. But hey, it just so happens that it’s pretty damn good at 83 degrees too.

fennel and zucchini soup

The perfect rainy spring day lunch, starring the sorriest fennel bulb in existence. I had planned on using the bulb for some days but just couldn’t get my act together. Those days included failed blog recipes, meal after meal of leftovers, a sudden burst of food inspiration that ended up in a crabby 10pm dinner, and all without figuring how to work in the fennel bulb I’d bought. I had bought some zucchini at one point to make this soup, but then that aforementioned burst of inspiration came to me and I decided to make a Spanish tortilla with them. The end result was beyond delicious, but it wasn’t exactly a tortilla. There’s a definite difference between a Spanish tortilla and a frittata. The main difference being that a frittata you just bake. A tortilla you have to flip. I used a pan that was a bit too small for the amount of ingredients I used. I didn’t think it would ever set in order to flip it. At that point I just said screw it and chucked it in the oven. I WILL post a tortilla recipe one day. I’ll get it. I guess I don’t mind trying again and again (I do get to eat it, after all), just so long as I don’t start at 8pm. In any case, I needed to make this soup to use my fennel.
This soup is an in between soup – not a heavy winter stew and not a chilled summer vegetable soup. It’s creamy, but light. Barely any seasoning lets the flavors of the vegetables come through and it’s served with lightly sautéed grape tomatoes and the fronds from the fennel bulb. Like I said, my fennel bulb’s future was quickly becoming dismal, and the fronds were getting pretty wilted, but I managed to salvage enough for the garnish. I think this soup would go well with a simple grilled fish. I had had a big breakfast (read, the remainder of the tortilla) and this soup hit the spot for lunch on a grey and rainy day. Rainy days are a fun change from Denver’s almost relentless sun (I’m sure a lot of people would hate me for saying that).