White Chili...because every "chilly" queen needs a white chili "night" to the rescue!

Once upon a time, in a place far far away, there was a swishy caterer/food shop to the elite. Said caterer treasured their recipe for the new and cutting edge "white" chili more than any sapphire, emerald or ruby (or even pesto torte). Alas, they fell foul of a disgruntled employee...who, to extract vengeance upon the evil overlord employer, disclosed the secret of the "blanco"...the heroin of the tale. Through an accomplice, who shall remain unnamed, I share this white gem with you...a glistening diamond of a soup.

The deal with this chili...well, besides the intrigue surrounding the acquisition of the recipe...is that it's perfect for either chicken or turkey or pork. It is even perfect without meat, should you so desire.

White Chili:

1 pound white beans (or 5 cans, drained and rinsed)
6 cups chicken stock

Either simmer the beans in the stock until soft, adding stock as needed, or if using canned beans, proceed as follows.

1 Tbs vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped fine
1 medium onion, chopped
4 4 ounce cans green chilis

Saute the garlic, onion and chilis in the oil until tender. Add the following:

4 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp ground oregano
1 tsp oregano leaves
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

4 cups cooked chicken, turkey or pork

Add to beans and spices and simmer one hour.

I used a pork roast for this version.

Covering the roast with water in a large stock pot, I added a whole onion, pepper corns, jalapenos, a head of garlic, bay leaves and some cayenne pepper:


The roast cooked until the meat fell from the bone. Remove the meat from the liquid, and "pull" into pieces (I take this opportunity to remove all fat):


Okay...so the cheats. Buy a couple of rotisserie chickens and pull the meat. Or, use your left over holiday turkey. Both are perfect.

Saute the onion, garlic and chilis and add spices:


Toss that mixture in with the beans and stock, add the meat and simmer one hour:



I fried up some corn tortilla strips and garnished the soup with some cheddar cheese, the chips, a dollop of salsa and some chopped green onions.

That's all there is to it! On a night when you'd like a white knight on a stead to rescue you from the gloom...inSTEAD, pull out this white chili; it'll warm your heart.

Paula

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Pretty Darned Good Black Bean Soup

You see, unlike Cook's Illustrated, I would never claim to have "the perfect" anything with a recipe. And in all honesty, I don't think they should either (but they do...if you are interested in more on this topic, read this post). So, I have taken their recipe for Black Bean Soup, from January 2005, and improved it.

Doesn't that look wonderful?

I started with some really amazing beans from Rancho Gordo. I found out about the wonders of Rancho Gordo beans from Alosha's Kitchen when Melissa did this post about her Rancho Gordo love. I read the comments and it was unanimous that the beans are fabulous. Well, if you know me, that was too much to resist. So, I got online and ordered a variety of beans and some chili powder. Great company, Rancho Gordo! I say this being in the mail order business myself, as part of our retail store. They were just super to deal with and I hope you will give them a shout and order some beans too! I can't wait to cook more.


On to the soups. Here are the recipe ingredients from Cook's Illustrated:

Beans
1	pound dried black beans (2 cups), rinsed and picked over
4	ounces ham steak , trimmed of rind
2	bay leaves
5	cups water
1/8	teaspoon baking soda
1	teaspoon table salt
Soup
3	tablespoons olive oil
2	large onions , chopped fine (about 3 cups)
1	large carrot , chopped fine (about 1/2 cup)
3	ribs celery , chopped fine (about 1 cup)
1/2	teaspoon table salt
5 - 6	medium cloves garlic , minced or pressed through garlic press (about 1 1/2 tablespoons)
1/2	teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 1/2	tablespoons ground cumin
6	cups low-sodium chicken broth
2	tablespoons cornstarch
2	tablespoon water
2	tablespoons lime juice , from 1 to 2 limes
Garnishes
	lime wedges
	minced fresh cilantro leaves
	red onion , finely diced
	avocado , diced medium
	sour cream

Oh, yeah...don't try to get on to get the recipe from that site. You have to be a paying member. Or you can get a 14 day free trial, but you have to give them a credit card. Cook's Illustrated is like my mother, she doesn't share well either.

Okay, so here's my theory about bean soups and what I see as a major flaw in the Cook's Illustrated recipe. If you have to use a thickener, you started with too much liquid to begin with. The key is to give the beans the amount of liquid they need. As they absorb the liquid, they will tell you when they need more. You only give them as much as they need to get tender, and after that, as much as you want to achieve the thickness you desire.

It's perfectly great to remove a portion of the soup and puree it. That just makes it creamier. I didn't do that for this recipe. I wanted to see those beautiful beans in their full glory.

Another flaw in their recipe, as I see it, is their choice of liquid. Water? Low Sodium Chicken Broth? How boring.

Here's my adaptation:


Beans

1 pound dried black beans (2 cups), rinsed and picked over
Water enough to cover beans with 2" over the top of the beans

Soup

1 huge or 2 large onions, generous chop (about 3 cups)
2 carrots, generous dice (about a cup)
3 ribs celery, generous dice (about a cup)
1 tsp salt
5-6 medium garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon ground cumin
3 12 ounce bottles of lager (I used Yuengling lager)
1 32 ounce box vegetable stock
1 hunk of tasso*
2 shakes of hot sauce (I used Marie Sharp's)***

Garnishes:

Sour cream
Red onion, chopped
Fresh cilantro leaves
Guacamole**

Beans: Cover with water and soak for 4-6 hours, until tender. Discard soaking water. You can do a quicker method by putting the beans and water in a pot with a tight lid and simmering them briskly for about 1.5 hours until the beans are tender. Still, ditch the soaking water.

Soup: Dump everything into your stock pot, with the exception of one bottle of lager which you will use as your reserve liquid to be added as needed. It looks like this starting out:


Cook, covered, at a low heat for about an hour. Remove the lid (now is a good time to taste it and adjust your salt, if needed) and continue cooking on low heat and adding lager, as needed, for about 1.5 hours. I was off work, so I let it slowly simmer most of the afternoon.

Remove the ham (it will be falling apart), pull it apart with a fork, add it back to the soup.

Ladle the soup out and garnish!


Hey, I'm sure it's not perfect (can't everything be improved upon?), but it was pretty darned good!

Feel free to change it up to suit your tastes!

And join me as I dine on some Pretty Darned Good Black Bean Soup! ;)

Paula

• *Tasso is cajun ham, read the link, and I got a chunk of it from a friend who brought it to me from Louisiana. The cajun seasoning and the smokiness of the meat is perfect for this soup. Here's a site where you can buy it. Absent that, I would throw in any ham piece or a spicy sausage.
• **Guacamole is a favorite of mine. I'll post my recipe soon. There are some good ready made ones out there, such as Wholly Guacamole. Diced avocado works well too.
• ***Marie Sharp's is a hot sauce made from habanero peppers. Fear it not! I promise it's not too hot! I just recently got a bottle as a gift from a friend...I'm hooked.
  

Oh! I almost forgot! Shout out to The Wooden Spoon. Maura is the one who inspired me to use lager in the soup. She's got a killer red sauce recipe that she uses it in.

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The No Cream of Asparagus Soup

What is "No Cream of Asparagus Soup?" It is a creamy delight of asparagus soup that is minus cream!

Yes, another soup! Honestly...the soup season is almost over. So, one last (maybe) soup behind the cut. I found a recipe on VegCooking, but I altered it so much I am going to just give you my version.

The ingredients:


No Cream of Asparagus Soup:

• 2 lbs fresh asparagus, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
• 1 medium onion, chopped
  
• 1/2 cup celery, chopped
• 1 Tbs olive oil
  
• 1 large potato, peeled, thinly sliced
• 3 tsp fresh thyme
• 32 ounce box vegetable stock
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 cup soy milk
  

In a stock pot, heat the olive oil and add the asparagus, onion and celery and saute until slightly soft:

Peel and thinly slice the potato. Also, you can see some asparagus peelings there, I peeled the thicker parts of the stems because it was huge asparagus. The big woody stems are stringy and tough unless you peel them:


Add the potato slices and the thyme and vegetable stock to the pot and simmer with the lid on for about 30 minutes. The addition of the potato adds starch that will help make this soup creamy.


It will end up looking like this:



Use your immersion blender to puree the soup, or do so in batches in a regular blender. Add the soy milk and salt and pepper. It has this consistency:


Crusty bread and a bowl for the soup (I garnished mine with several asparagus heads that I steamed in a tad of water in the microwave for 15 seconds) and you are ready.


Can you tell I adore soups? Yes? Good...I hope you do too! Join me as I dine...

Paula

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It's Chilly...How About Some Chili?

I interrupt my regularly scheduled post to bring you the following announcement and unscheduled recipe. It's snowing...

Let's make some Chili!

I wasn't really planning on this post, but it's snowing...so let's do it. I made chili last night, but I didn't do the normal step by step pictures. I just made my chili without even thinking about a post...then it hit me! It was supposed to snow! I should have done a photo shoot! Well, after I made the chili, I did snap a few pictures so you could see.

Honestly though, you don't need pictures, this recipe is so easy even a caveman can do it! *wink*

Paula's Chili

1. 3 pounds extra lean ground beef, browned, drained, rinsed (I mix in ground venison if I have it.)
2. 2 Large Yellow Onions, lightly sauteed.
3. 64 oz. tomato juice
4. 2 10 ounce cans of Rotel tomatoes (or 2 cans diced tomatoes and one small can green chilies)
5. 1 28 ounce can Hunt's Crushed Tomatoes
   
6. 2 16 ounce cans Bush's Light Red Kidney beans, drained, rinsed
7. 1 Tbs Cumin
8. 2 Tbs Hot Chili Powder
9. 1/4 tsp Cayenne Pepper
10. 3 Tbs Pickled Jalapeno's, diced
11. Optional: 1 tsp Crushed Red Pepper Flakes; 2 Tbs Fresh Chopped Ciliantro (I forgot I had some Cilantro paste in the frig...I am adding 2 Tbs for the next day. You can find it in the produce section of most grocery stores...I found mine at Kroger.)
    

[Note: you can control the heat by using regular chili powder, eliminating the cayenne pepper and the jalapenos. My chili is hot, but it won't burn your mouth or anything.]

Dump all that stuff in a stock pot:

Simmer for a couple of hours on low heat with the lid off. This recipe makes a ton (of course...I have a hard time doing small soups), but it is even better the next day and it freezes very well.

Now, take a baking sheet, cover it with corn chips....top with cheddar cheese...slap on some jalapeno slices...pop in the oven at 350 degrees until the cheese bubbles. Nom, nom, nom!


Ladle some chili in a bowl and top it with some sour cream, diced green onions and some cheedar cheese...get you a plate of nachos...and chow down!



It's SNOWING! It's Chili! Join me as I dine...

Paula

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Cauliflower Leek Soup...The "Not Potato" Leek Soup

I love soup...really, I just love it. I was at the grocery store recently and they had some really beautiful leeks. So, immediately I thought of Potato Leek soup. Yum. The problem? Byron and I gave up potatoes, except for special occasions.

I got the brilliant idea (which I thought was so innovative) to substitute cauliflower for the potato. I was going to be a trail blazer in a new food combination of delicious low carbness. Not. When I googled cauliflower leek soup, there were pages of recipes. Oh well, I made it anyway.




Cauliflower Leek Soup, the "not potato" leek soup...awaits behind the cut.

Speaking of behind the cut...I owe a long overdue thanks to my friend, Sarah from Seattle. Without her help, I never would have been able to get cuts on this blog. Besides that, she is the inspiration for ideas for upcoming meals. Thank you, Sarah! You are truly made of awesome!

Here are the ingredients:




The recipe I used can be found here. It calls for the addition of heavy cream at the end. I opted out of that ingredient. Instead, I put a dollop of Boursin cheese and some chopped scallions as a garnish. By using the boursin as a garnish rather than cream as an ingredient in the soup, it allows you to control the amount you want...or gives guests the option of not having it at all. This recipe is so very easy and so very tasty.

This photograph illustrates why it is very important to wash leeks well:


Leeks are grown in very sandy soil, so as the leek emerges from the earth, the grit they are grown in gets trapped in the layers of the leek. It's gross, but easily cured. You simply cut the leeks and put them in a deep bowl of water. Swish them around and pop them apart and the dirt and grit falls to the bottom of the bowl:



Heat the olive oil and butter in a large pot over medium heat. Saute the leeks, cauliflower and garlic for about 10 minutes. This time, I used my garlic press. You can see, it is beat up. Just like the reviewer in that link to the Susi Garlic Press, mine is 20 years old and never fails to work beautifully. If you hate chopping garlic, get one.


The colors of these ingredients as they saute are just stunning. As I was at this point in the cooking, I found myself pulling a Rachael Ray, exclaiming to myself how wonderful it smelled...and how I wished you could get *smell-o-computer*:


After the ingredients in the pan soften a bit, you add the vegetable stock:


Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, cover and simmer for 45 minutes. When the time is up, it looks like this:


With an immersion blender (or in batches in a regular blender), puree the soup:


Add salt and black pepper to taste:


Stir it in and you have a soup that is this consistency:


It has a wonderful creaminess that is not quite the same as potato, but wonderful nonetheless.

Heat up some crusty bread, set the table and you are ready!



Soup's on! Join me as I dine!

Paula

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Comforting Combo for Hearth Side Dining

It's winter and, when it's cold outside, nothing warms you like a squishy chair close to the fire and the comforting combo of tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich.

I spend my one day off a week cooking and cleaning, but I often have The Food Network on for background noise. Several weeks ago, Giada De Laurentiis did this recipe for Hearty Tomato Soup with Lemon and Rosemary.

The soup recipe was SO good, I started emailing it to friends immediately. It is only fitting that this recipe is the first featured dining experience; paired with grilled cheese sandwiches made from the artisan bread by Panera Bread, Miche Whole Grain, you have a hearth side dining experience made in heaven.

The soup is super simple. Here are the ingredients:
I substituted chicken stock for broth. I just think that adds to the rich wonderfulness of this hearty soup. [Note: This recipe can easily be Veganized or made a kosher combination meal by using vegetable stock and/or cheese substitutes.]

Also, my regular grocery store doesn't stock cannellini beans, so I used Bush's Great Northern Beans instead. The most important thing to remember is to read the labels. Most beans and canned tomato products have a lot of additives, especially high fructose corn syrup...hence my love of Hunt's and Bush's, they don't.

The onion, carrots and garlic saute for just a few minutes, until soft:
After that, you just dump in the other ingredients (note: mine is a double recipe, so it won't be nearly as big of a pot if you use the recipe quantities.):

Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for about 30 minutes. Then, remove the bay leaf and rosemary sprig and process in batches in a blender or with an immersion blender:
The texture of this soup is just incredible. The beans, while initially sounding like a funky thing to have in tomato soup, provide a creamy thickness as well as a shot of protein. Giada garnished her soup with creme fraiche and lemon zest. You could just as easily use sour cream or nothing.

In addition to that lovely grainy bread, I used a combination of cheddar and skim mozzarella for the grilled cheese.

Now, light the fire or pull up your most mushy chair, set a tray and you are ready!

It doesn't have to be complicated...it doesn't even have to be elegant...it doesn't take much effort...join me as I dine...



Paula

I noticed my copper pot was in need of polishing...don't expect that to change any time soon! =)

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