TUESDAY'S LUNCH SPECIAL IS FROM:
Maureen in Barcelona,
Spain!
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Grammie's Good Green Soup!
Dear Odd,
What I read on the occasions when I check out this site is pre-this, pre-that,
open-a-can-of-these 'goodies', so as a grammie, I feel almost compelled upon to
share at least one cheap, easy, but from-scratch dish. It is called Grammie's
Good Green Soup, so named by Gabe (6), whose enthusiasm for anything not on
the end of a popsicle stick is highly limited.
1) Take a reasonably big pot and heat (slowly) a little oil in the
bottom.
2) Chop a little garlic and an onion, and toss into the pot. Let them
simmer, not burn, and while they are so busied...
3) Chop up the nice parts of as many leeks as you want, and throw them
in, too.
4) Now that things are beginning to smell lovely, peel a carrot or two,
cut them up rather small, in they go.
5) Do the same to one medium sized potato (or two of those little ones
that usually rot before you bother to peel them).
6) Now take four or five medium-sized (and always pretty cheap) zucchini,
peel them with a carrot-peeler, cut them up in chunks and throw them in.
As this thing is growing, you want to add salt, pepper, a bay leaf (or two if
the ones you buy are not noticeably aromatic), maybe a little thyme (tied in a
bunch so you can take it out later), and be stirring from time to time.
DON' T LET IT STICK TO THE BOTTOM.
7) Add a little water or chicken stock (everybody has some in his
refrigerator, right?), put the cover on and let the veggies get a little soft,
mix them up, and at some point you consider opportune, pour in more water (or
your delightful chicken stock - never the too-salty, canned kind) to cover, but
not more than to cover. Let simmer, a little short of a major
bubble-bubble-toil-and-trouble eruption.
8) Now clean up the mess of peelings, which will be easier if you've done
the whole operation on newspaper, and wash the cutting board and utensils. Go
check your Email or something, and come back half hour/45 minutes later, and
turn off the heat.
9) This next step is one of those little things that mean a lot: REMOVE
the bay leaf(ves) and the thyme.
10) Taste for salt.
11) Add a little chunk of soft white cheese to the hot stuff, and blend
the whole thing together (one of those hand-held, column blender things is
easier than ladling it all bit by bit into the pitcher type blender) so that it
becomes 'cream soup', but without cream calories.
So now you've got a veritable injection of vitamins in a pot, which you can keep
in the fridge for a few days, warming it up when you need a boost. Also, it
fills you up, thus keeping The Monkey at bay.
All the best,
Maureen, Barcelona, Spain
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