Dinner tonight - or last night.

... so tell me about some half-decent food you've all been eating, dammit!

So I can sort of dream & imagine ..... <sigh>

Last night I made some vegetable soup. I put in the usual suspects...carrot, onion, celery, garlic, potato. Then I put in a fennel bulb, sliced and a huge turnip. It turned out alright with a bit of thyme thrown in. A bit too turnippy, though for my taste.

I think it's vegie soup here too. I have some leftover garlic-butter-slight bit of chili pepper-mashed potatoes, and some leftover roasted purple sweet potatos slices, which I'll dice - then,

Well, I did this odd thing, heh. I like a brand of antipasto fairly well; it's mostly olives and a few onions and carrots, brand name Mezzetta. So I ate the olives and carrots and onions, and had the juice left (mostly olive oil, chardonnay, spices, jalapeno, garlic). So, into that I put in some leftover roasted carrot, and some chopped fresh onion, as a test, since I liked that marinated onion and carrot in that jar.

Point being, I might add some of those carrots and onions to the soup, and probably some more of my stored roasted garlic.

I've some scallions (yes, I've eaten some of them already and didn't come down with E. coli path variant).

Will probably mix these things with chicken stock. Will report back..

I should make homemade tabouli, as the herbs are getting less fresh..
domani, I'll do it domani.

I'm roasting some pig tails.

No idea what I'm going to have with them. The dogs'll be happy, since they get most of the benefit of this little cooking project.

~~~~~~~~

I've asked Set to saute some garlic, onions, celery tomorrow - to go into a pot with carrots, white beans, canned baked beans and some smoked sausage. It'll be something good and filling to have after I get back from work and dance class.

Sounds good, ehBeth. I know that onions, garlic, carrot, celery thing as battuto... and I surmise it is starter for many cuisines.

I got away from baked beans (with all the sweet stuff) years ago, but am interested in savory baked beans. Who knows, by now I might like the sweet ones again.




signed,
my Mother was from Boston and raved about bean sandwiches -






though I never did have one of those. And now I wonder what bread they used, my mother being born in 1901.

By father was born in California in 1906, and I don't remember him ever mentioning baked beans, though he was also irish catholic.

My cousins always serve canned sweet baked beans at the larger family dinners up til today.

Clearly the immigration had different routes.

This time of year I always make my famous chicken soup - simply, chicken broth, lemon juice, sauteed sliced or chopped mushrooms and toasted almond slices. For some reason, this is one of the best. And it really does fend off those colds.


'Course, I do drink a bit of chardonnay while making it, so the whole thing's a pleasure "heh heh" (in deference to osso not liking smileys)

Huh, that sounds good. I often throw the kitchen sink at soup, but tend to like simple and delicious (see Jane Grigson), can see them as primo.

On this one though, am wondering re the mushrooms, with their range of earthy presence.. and what works with which. Almost a separate thread..

And you are saying this works with lemon..

Does that work with all mushrooms in combo with almonds?

I'm not arguing, just interested.

osso - get your glass of wine, sit back in a chair, and rest your head while I describe the flavours -


the chicken broth is flavourful but subtle... the lemon juice adds that piquant je ne sais quoi that chicken broth sometimes needs... it's cheeky yet vibrant... the crisp crunch of the toasted almonds is your "interest", and the musky yet muted flavour of the sauteed almonds rounds it all off. It's a beautiful combination.

I often cook rice in a chicken broth-lemon juice combination.

Now... one of your secrets, please?

battuto = mirepoix. I never knew what it was called until Jerry R (remember him) gave it a name.

Boston baked beans with Boston brown bread, wondering if that's what your mother raved about, Osso.

Well, I'll never know, McKenzie. I, as a ten year old in the early fifties, thought of it as what I think of as Wonder Bread, or Weber's bread. (running now, with arms over my head.)

Oh, your dinners all sound so good, so wholesome, so normal .....!

Soon, very soon, I will be able to return to some semblance of normal, interesting dinners, too. (Just a few more days & a few more bunches of reports to write! I am longing to have the time, again!)

Please continue ... Rave on, even!

I'm living vicariously here.

smoked and braised kangaroo on the menue here.

That's not funny, dp.

(But I understand where you're coming from. Awful times

Humour in the face of adversity msolga. If ya dont laugh youll go mad from the stress.

A reference to myself and my avatar, not the local wild life.

Yeah, I know, dadpad ... <sigh>
I wasn't having a go at you, you know that.
The plight of wildlife in bushfires is too awful to contemplate, though.

But I understand perfectly where you're coming from: if you don't laugh you'll cry.

Simmering my own idiosyncratic version of curried chicken and it's starting to smell pretty good. The basmati rice is done and there's (store-bought) naan bread. Nobody else is home! Good thing I'm hungry...

That soup turned out great, I'm going to remember the use of one or more day old mashed potatoes in soup. I also added a bit of cabbage, say, 3/4 cup full, and a dollop of that canned curry sauce I still had in the fridge. (Yes, soon I'll make my own curry sauces; this was on a shelf by the wine department of a Cost Plus/World Market store. I passed it on my way to look at earrings. I've used it in soup a few times now.)

An aside, the marinated onions in that antipasto oil mix were good.
I'm going to do a from-scratch rendition, with and without sauteing the onions a bit first.

Mashed potato in soup, osso? That's a new one on me. As a thickening agent?


I've finally finished my reports (this afternoon) & the application has been posted, so now I can think about cooking again!
Tonight: an el quicko woked chicken slices & capsicum (because that's the only suitable vegetable I had in the fridge) on steamed rice. Not great, not dreadful either.

Yes, MsOlga, as a thickening agent.

I've an old friend who makes a lot of pureed soups using potatoes and some other veggie, say, for example, cauliflower, but she usually starts with boiling fresh potatoes. In this case, my already cooked and mashed potatoes were red potatoes; don't know how the more mealy baking type potatoes would work.

That's a big improvement on boring old flour, osso.
Another way of thickening soups (if the ingredients suit) is to puree a bit bit of the cooked soup, then return it to the pot with the rest.

Let me tell you, osso, it's quite weird to be discussing thickening soup, given the weather conditions here today! (pant, pant..)