Monday's Soup Thread
......everything-but-the-kitchen-sink soup!

Dinner tonight? It's Monday. So, it's soup night!

I thawed a small (3/4lb.) pasture-fed chuck steak which was $6.98/lb. (remember, I buy by the serving, not the pound), selling price was $4.71 and it was $1.00 off. So, $3.71 was the total.

I added it to my 7qt. crockpot with the last bottle of that horrid beer I've been getting rid of in cooking for over a week. Letting it marinate for a few minutes while I searched for other ingredients to see what direction this soup was going to take.

My scavenger hunt around the kitchen looking for anything that was almost gone and not saved for a different recipe, started in the refrigerator. There, I found and added torn pieces of raw kale, shredded green cabbage, a little juice from some fermented pickles that were gone, a couple spoonfuls of  naturally-fermented sauerkraut and some small carrots that had frozen.

My digs in the freezer unearthed cilantro and a small chunk of red sweet bell pepper. I also found some unrecognizable items that I did not label because I was certain I would know what they were later. Well, I do not. I've got to stop doing that! I saved those mystery items for a later date when I have more time to figure them out. From our garden I had frozen overgrown green onion tops and bulbs, a large Poblano pepper. The theme of this soup was beginning to be obvious with what I was finding! Spicy!

Peppers, cilantro and big onion tops (and various other things) are easy to break apart or crumble to add to recipes as long as they don't thaw first. I add the carrots whole because they are small and the over-grown green onion bulbs (which were cut from the tops before freezing) are pinched at the little end forcing out each layer so there are  interesting long, skinny mild onions in the soup.

My cooking style is a little rustic because it is fun, easy and it makes mistakes look planned! Some may consider that deceitful and lazy but I prefer "creative".................

As I crossed the kitchen to add my finds to the crockpot I passed a bowl of the few onions we have left from our garden so I grabbed two very small yellow ones to slice into the pot. I spied my salad dressing container almost empty sitting by the sink waiting to be washed so I can start another batch. There was about a tablespoon or two of balsamic vinegar and olive oil thickened with spices mixed in it at the bottom. So, I poured a little water in the container, shook it a bit and poured that into the soup. The acid of the vinegar not only compliments the other flavors in this soup but helps bring out the flavors of other ingredients. I do not like to waste anything!

Now for the spices. I added garlic, basil, my general go-to spice from Costco, chili powder and a little curry. I also grabbed a small can of organic tomato paste because it seems to me that soup using beef or game meat is always better with a tomato base.

It is starting to smell really good in here now. Spicy soup will taste really good on this dreary day.
I will add some oven-steamed garden winter squash to add more bright colors, flavor and to thicken it. Any extra squash will be pureed to be  baked with eggs, milk, honey and cinnamon for a custard dessert.

This will feed us tonight with some homemade drop biscuits flavored with some herbs and a sprinkle of Parmesan in the batter, served with a mix of coconut oil and butter--- and honey for my husband. And of course we will each have a raw veggie salad.

Most of what I used was either given to us, from our garden last year, or the last of things I didn't want to throw away or just give to the chickens. The only thing I used from this week's food budget was the meat. Even the salad ingredients are what's left from last week's shopping trip.

And there was very little work. I did not cut up the steak since it will be falling apart by meal time anyway. I only cut our garden onions and the shredded cabbage. Other things were crumbled or torn and the carrots and other small items were added whole. The steamed winter squash only has to be scooped out once it is steamed after it has been cleaned. If I can keep our cats out of it,  the inedible parts---- the skin, stringy stuff and seeds----will be given to our chickens. The top woody stem will be added to the kindling bucket and I will go through and pick out the mature seeds to dry and replant this season.

The thread for this week is: soup tonight, tomorrow we will have leftover soup that I've put in the blender and added a little cream or half and half to in mugs with some kind of sandwich or wrap. I will also use the soup for lunches.  When there is not much broth left I will drain the other ingredients, use some of the broth to make a kind of sauce or gravy (cornstarch and cold water), mix it with the veggies and meat. Then I'll add this to a pie plate or shallow glass pan and top it with the leftover drop biscuits which I will butter the bottoms of to keep them from getting soggy, cover this and stick it in the freezer. If there is broth left I will use it to add to a spicy sauce  since it is a spicy soup.

It's a small thread but goes a long way economically. I hope this helps you.

Kathi~