A Soup Love Story
I was always a sandwich girl. I would certainly choose a sandwich (yum) over soup (bleh) at any opportunity. But then I became sensitive to wheat and also had to control my pre-diabetic tendency by reducing carbs. I had to turn to soups.
I knew how to make chicken stock, but I dug deeper into the world of bone broths. After realizing beef bone broth took 24-48 hours to cook, I quickly bought an Instant Pot (pressure cooker), and by being able to cook the bones under pressure at a temperature higher than boiling point, would reduce this time down to 5-6 hours. That helped!
So now I had bone broth. I also remembered a great lesson from my husband’s grandmother: about how soups needed a “dressing” - that just broth or water was not enough. A delicious soup needed something sauteed in a fat: onions in butter, garlic in oil, cream added later… something richer, fuller.
In my book Inspire, I list the key elements of soups: the flavour base/dressing, broth/liquid, vegetables, protein, starch…and I devised a “soup Chart” that laid out a half dozen different directions you could go in, with each soup you make.
I follow this practice. Weekly I make a bone broth with lovely, local, organic grass-fed beef bones or pastured chicken. I make a big pot of soup that I portion out in single serving containers and freeze – and do this often to accumulate a good variety on hand. Some busy workdays I take one out for lunch and one for supper (often they are really like thick stews). This provides me with handy, healthy, “fast” food, for days I don’t cook, or when someone comes by unexpectedly for lunch.
Other times, I just make “clean out the fridge” soup, with what’s on hand. This brings us to the soup photo – a soup I made last week by cleaning out the fridge. It was a quick throw-together soup AND one of the best soups I’ve made in years!
I had roasted a chicken earlier in the week and immediately made the broth instead of freezing it and saving for later. The broth was a bit watery, so I boiled it down and reduced it by almost half. Now I had a great, robust liquid base. I had some leftover rice, and the meat picked from the bones after the broth was done. I threw this in the pot and then popped in a couple long-in-the-tooth heirloom tomatoes and some chopped frozen spinach, and lo and behold, in the back of the fridge there was some of the pan juices from the roast chicken – I threw that in as well.
Well, that had been a particularly lovely roast chicken, stuffed with herbs from the garden and half lemons.
It had resulted in a particularly nice quality of pan juices. The Soup was done. I though… eh, that should be fine… but it was spectacular. The lemon and herbs came through, the broth was so flavourful. It was a lovely surprise, and I’ll try and repeat it again!
My contractors came the next day to work on my renovation and I saved a couple bowls for them. They love my soups and I spoil them rotten, cause good contractors are hard to find.
