The RedMolly Picayune-Democrat

Soup365 #14needtofigurethisout. Scotch Broth (w/no actual Scotch)

So I've heard, here and there, that global warming is actually likely to manifest itself as "global weirding." And yeah, I do know the difference between "weather" and "climate," but good heavens we're having an annoyingly weird spring. It's rained every day except yesterday for like four weeks straight. My garden is sun-starving. My roof is dripping. And my soups are remaining in the "warm and nourishing" category rather than lapsing into the "languid and refreshing" category into which I thought they would have fallen by now.

Anyway, this hearty lamb soup certainly fit the nourishing bill. You could certainly vary the amount of barley used to make it thicker or thinner, and just about any fresh veggies you have sitting around would be excellent candidates. I bet it would be lovely in fall/winter with a whole bunch of root vegetables, too. The cabbage may not be a traditional addition, but everyone gave it a thumbs-up.

Do try to find some teeny-tiny "creamer" potatoes if you're making this soup. Their flavor and texture really complement the lamb's slight gaminess in a way that chunks of bigger russets just wouldn't.

Scotch Broth
Serves probably eight or ten; I made a bunch on purpose; it gets even better with age.

2 lamb shanks, 2 to 3 pounds total, trimmed of excess fat
Salt and pepper
2 Tbsp olive oil (or, for a full-on taste sensation, use bacon fat!)
One bouquet garni: several stems each of parsley and thyme, plus a couple of bay leaves, tied together or crammed into a tea ball
1/2 to 1 cup (I used 3/4 cup) pearl barley, rinsed, possibly soaked for a couple of hours in cold water if you have time and/or the inclination
Water to cover 
4 or 5 medium-sized carrots, scrubbed (peeled if they're particularly ugly, otherwise don't bother) and sliced
About 1/2 pound small white creamer potatoes, halved or otherwise cut down to bite-size
1/2 head green cabbage, shredded
2 Tbsp more olive oil (or, y'know, bacon fat)
1 large onion, chopped
2 or 3 ribs celery, likewise chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp to 1 Tbsp (Drunken Angel) hot sauce, optional but advised
Plenty of salt. Seriously. I probably ended up using about a tablespoon. Don't freak out; just go for it.
Freshly ground black pepper

Sprinkle lamb shanks with salt and pepper. Heat 2 Tbsp olive oil over medium heat in a large soup pot. Add the lamb shanks and cook, turning every few minutes, until well browned on all sides.

Add barley and bouquet garni; cover with cold water; bring to a simmer; cover and simmer over nice low heat for a long, long time. Two hours or so should do it. (You could also give this project 8 hours or so in the slow cooker.) Check periodically to make sure the water level hasn't dropped too low.

When barley is tender and lamb shanks are cooked through, remove bouquet garni and discard; remove lamb shanks and set aside to cool. Stir in carrots, potatoes and cabbage; return to a simmer and cook for another half hour or so, until carrots and potatoes are sufficiently tender. (If you're making this in the slow cooker, give it an couple hours or so on High.) Once lamb shanks are cool enough, shred off meat with fingers and reserve. Discard bones or feed them to a nearby dog, who will love you forever and ever as a result.

Heat remaining 2 Tbsp olive oil in a skillet. Add onion and celery; saute over medium heat until tender, about 7 minutes; add garlic and saute for 1 minute more. Scrape sauteed vegetables into soup and mix well. Simmer for a couple more minutes.

Stir meat back into soup and heat through. Whisk in hot sauce; taste and season generously with salt; grind in some pepper.

Serve with buttered whole-grain toast for that full-on hearty Highland experience.

Soup365 #116. Sorry about the whole vegan thing...

...and also about the split peas, which also didn't make it into this rendition of Veganomicon 's Double Pea Soup with Roasted Red Peppers.

Red lentils took their place, also bacon.

Never having eaten the original, I can't say whether or not this was definitely an improvement, but my suspicions are that yes.

(I do love me some split peas, and I had every intention of using them, but they weren't around, so oh well. Mess of pottage it was instead.)

Non-Vegan Non-Double Pea Soup (at least the roasted red peppers made it in there...)
Serves six-ish, or eight-ish, or somethin'-ish

4 slices good bacon, diced small
1/2 large onion, diced
1 or 2 jalapeno peppers, unseeded, minced
1 2" piece of ginger, cut in cute little wee slivers
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
A couple sprigs of fresh thyme
1-1/2 cups dried red lentils, rinsed and picked through
5 to 6 cups vegetable or chicken broth
2 medium red bell peppers
Half a 16-ounce bag of frozen green peas
1 tsp or so thick hot sauce, preferably Drunken Angel Hot Sauce

Cook the bacon in a cold soup pot over medium heat until crisp; remove with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels; reserve. Pour off all but 2 Tbsp fat from the pot and return it to the stove over medium heat.

Add the onion and jalapeno; cook, stirring occasionally, until onion is translucent, about 7 minutes. Add ginger, cumin and coriander; cook, stirring, 1 minute more.

Add thyme, lentils and broth. Bring to a boil; cover, reduce heat and simmer until lentils are getting pretty darn tender and starting to fall apart, about 1/2 hour. Meanwhile, roast the peppers: Place them on a foil-lined baking sheet and broil, turning every few minutes, until blistered/blackened on all sides. Remove from the broiler and put in a bowl, then cover the bowl with a plate. Let stand, steaming, for a few minutes; then strip off the skins, pull out the stems and dice the peppery flesh.

Add diced peppers, reserved bacon and frozen peas to soup. Return to a simmer and cook for another 20 minutes or thereabouts.

Taste for salt and pepper; make adjustments accordingly; serve forth, piping hot and decidedly non-vegan.

Soup365 #113. A last gasp of winter

It was blustery, grey and damp. The cold was settling in my bones; the sky was nothing but clouds from horizon to horizon.

"Screw seasonality," I thought. "What we need here is a nice hearty warming beef stew."

This one is a little less heavy than many of the varieties out there. I didn't put any potatoes in--instead, we served it over mashed potatoes. (Yeah, there goes the "less heavy" right there. Oh well.) And the cider used as braising liquid gave everything a welcome fruity lightness without being overly sweet.

If you don't have hard cider on hand, or if you're for some reason philosophically opposed to cooking with the Devil's Own Suds, then you could certainly substitute apple juice or soft cider. I would cut it down to just 3/4 cup, though, and increase the broth to 2 cups. Good hard cider isn't nearly as sweet as apple juice.

Beef Stew with Cider and Bacon
Serves six, maybe. You could easily double it, and I bet it would be even better the next day. I won't get to test that theory out, because it's all gone already.

1/4 pound hardwood-smoked bacon, diced
1 pound boneless beef chuck, cubed (about 3/4" cubes?)
Salt and pepper
1-1/2 large-ish onions, chopped
1 to 2 Tbsp Montreal steak seasoning (or coarse salt, ground black pepper, a little cayenne and some paprika)
1 12-ounce bottle hard cider, either pear (which I used) or apple (which would be fine)
1-1/2 cups beef or chicken broth (I didn't have beef, so I used chicken, and I really liked how it turned out... plus having 3 animals in 1 dish is sort of awesome in a gluttonous carnivorous sort of way)
4 or 5 carrots, well scrubbed but not peeled (unless they look ugly... then peel them), halved lengthwise and sliced
2 bay leaves
3 Tbsp butter
3 Tbsp flour
Optional: chopped fresh flat-leaved parsley for garnish

Put the bacon in a cold soup pot over medium heat. Cook, stirring frequently, until crisp; remove with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels.

Brown the beef in the bacon fat, turning as required (but not sooner than necessary) until all sides are nicely darkened. Don't rush this process. As beef is finished, remove it with a slotted spoon to another plate.

If there's an inordinate amount of fat left in the pot, pour some of it off. I did not have this problem. (You'll want about 3 to 4 Tbsp.) Return to medium heat; add onions; cook, stirring regularly, until onions are translucent, about 7 minutes. Add steak seasoning and cook for another minute, stirring vigilantly.

Add cider, broth, bay leaves, bacon and beef. Bring almost--but not quite--to a boil. Cover, reduce heat and simmer 1 hour. (Or more. Up to 2 hours would probably be OK.)

Stir in carrots. Cover, reduce heat and simmer another 45 minutes to 1 hour.

A few minutes before serving: Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Whisk in flour. Cook, stirring constantly, until flour smells toasty and mixture has colored slightly, about 3 minutes. Whisk mixture into soup. Stir it in really well.

Serve forth, preferably poured over some ridiculously creamy mashed potatoes.

Image by Flickr user Auntie P. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Soup365 #111. Salmagundi

Hodge-podge. Witches' brew. Miscellany. Whatever.

Anyway, the sweetness of the apples, leeks and maple-smoked bacon performs a lovely balancing act here with the earthiness of the beans and tomatoes. Sherry, in its justly famed role as a matchmaker and ground-smoother, marries the various ingredients beautifully (ZOMG GROUP MARRIAGE HIDE YOUR CHILDREN), and the result is... this bouncing baby soup.

On the "how much did everyone eat?" scale of soup success, this one earned highest marks. Jim came home from work (after having had soup leftovers for dinner at work) and ate two bowls. The notoriously slight-appetited Rhys ate two bowls. I ate two bowls, even though I wasn't technically hungry when I started cooking.

And Fisher? Fisher had four. And only stopped because I told him we needed to save enough for Jim to take to work the next day.

There were about two or maybe three servings' worth left. Jim took all of it. And ate all of it. (Of course, this was the one occasion I had someone take me up on an offer of leftover soup--only to go home to pack some up for her and find it was vanished sans trace...)

I made double what the original recipe called for, since so many of the reviewers said they wished they'd had more. Still probably could have gotten away with making half again as much.

Salmagundi, or, Apple-Leek-Bacon-Tomato-Sherry Soup
Serves... eh, not enough.

1/4 to 1/3 pound good hardwood-smoked bacon, diced (or just kinda chopped, if you're using "ends and pieces" as I was)
1 medium onion, chopped, or omit it and use 1 or 2 more leeks
1 large-ish or 2 small-ish leeks, white and light green parts only, halved lengthwise, rinsed well and chopped
3 ribs celery, chopped
4 cloves garlic or more, minced
1 to 2 Tbsp Montreal steak seasoning, boughten or made yourself (if you don't have this to hand: it's basically coarse salt, pepper, paprika, red pepper flakes and a little dried dill)
4 cups cooked pink beans (I had some left from the sauerkraut & bean soup of yesterseveraldays; you could also use two 14-ounce cans pink or pinto beans, rinsed and drained)
2 14-ounce cans diced tomatoes
4 cups beef broth
2 medium apples--Granny Smiths or Jonathans would have been lovely, but what I had was Fujis and they were great too--peeled, cored and chopped
1 cup dry sherry (NOT COOKING SHERRY)
Salt and pepper to taste
Sour cream for serving (seriously, a couple of teaspoons of sour cream in each bowl transfigures this entire soup)

Put the bacon in a cold soup pot over medium heat; cook, stirring occasionally, until crisp. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels. Pour off all but about 3 Tbsp fat.

Return the pot to medium heat; add onion, leeks and celery. Cook, stirring regularly, until tender and/or translucent, about 7 minutes. Add garlic and Montreal seasoning. Cook, stirring, one minute more.

Add beans, tomatoes and broth. Bring to a boil; cover, reduce heat and let simmer.

Once the soup is simmering, combine apples and sherry in a small saucepan. Cook and stir over medium-high heat for several minutes (you don't really have to stir constantly, but near-constantly is pretty good) until apples are softened. Transfer apples to soup, along with most of the sherry (I probably used about 2/3 of the remaining sherry; you could probably also just dump it all in). Stir in reserved bacon.

Continue to cook at a nice low simmer until you think it's good and ready. I probably gave mine about 40 minutes. Anywhere from 25 minutes to a little over an hour is just fine. Taste it and correct seasoning as warranted.

To serve: Ladle into bowls; whisk a little sour cream into each bowl until smooth.

Image by Flickr user alisonhulot. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Soup365 #96: (Re)Loaded Baked Potato Soup

They're easy, inexpensive, delicious and (according to the Idaho Potato Commission) fairly nutritious. They're baked potatoes!

This is the third, I think, baked potato soup I've made so far, inspired by one of my kids' favorite on-the-cheap meals: loaded baked potatoes. Of course, you could feel free to enliven this further with any additional potato toppings you like--chives would have been nice, chili perhaps a little less so.

(Re)Loaded Baked Potato Soup
Serves six-ish

3 medium russet potatoes
1/4 pound bacon, diced, or 2 Tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion
3 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 to 1 tsp red pepper flakes
1 pound broccoli, chopped (peel the stems first)
1 cup frozen corn, partially thawed, or not (measure it out when you're prepping the other ingredients and just let it sit)
1 cup sour cream
Additional salt and pepper to taste
Grated Cheddar cheese for serving

Bake the potatoes, either old-school (cut off ends, throw them in a 425-degree oven for about 45 minutes) or high-tech (microwave them 'til they're just tender, then finish them off in a 425-degree oven for 10 minutes or so). Split them lengthwise and set them aside to cool.

If you're using bacon, place it in a cold soup pot over medium heat. Cook, stirring, until crisp; remove with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels; pour off all but 2 Tbsp fat. Return pot to medium heat.

If you're using olive oil, heat it in a soup pot over medium heat.

Either way, now would be a fine time to add the onion. Cook it, stirring regularly, for a good long while--you want it to get really tender, maybe even a little browned. Give it 7 to 10 minutes or so.

Add broth, salt, and pepper flakes. Scrape the innards out of the baked potatoes and add to pot. (You can chop up the skins and add them too, if you like.) If you're using bacon, add half of it to the pot now. Bring to a boil; cover, reduce heat and simmer about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, steam the broccoli until just tender and no longer quite so grassy-tasting. Remove from heat and set aside.

When simmering is done, turn heat to very low, get a potato masher and mash the heck out of the potatoes. Be thorough. Don't use a mixer.

Stir in broccoli and corn. Whisk in sour cream very thoroughly.

Serve piping hot, with sprinklings of bacon and cheese and whatever other toppings you feel inspired to include.

Image from Flickr user ex.libris. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Soup365 #95: Barter economy, now with more pork

 

Image by Flickr user WordRidden
CC BY 2.0

It was a red-letter day yesterday. One for the books, one for the diary. For yesterday I made my first-ever exchange of soup for a thing of value.

That thing was a massage, delivered by my lovely and talented friend Ute. And that soup was a pork and roasted vegetable soup, served to Ute and her delightful children by me (though I was pretty much ragdoll-limp and useless after that rubdown).

Up next: guitar lessons? a facial? the water bill? Who knows what I can sucker someone into trading me convince someone to exchange with me for a potful of sustaining and lovingly handcrafted soup?

Pork and Roasted Vegetable Soup
Serves seven, with two people having seconds and one person (Fisher) having thirds

3 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 medium butternut squash (the neck section works well), peeled and cut into 1/2" chunks
1 medium carrot, ditto
1 turnip, ditto
About a pound of small red-skinned potatoes, unpeeled, halved/quartered/eighthed depending on size
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 400. Spread the olive oil on a baking sheet. Add vegetables. Sprinkle with salt and pepper; toss to combine. Roast vegetables for 15 minutes; remove from oven, toss and return to oven. Roast until veggies are tender throughout and browning a bit, about another 15 to 20 minutes. Remove and set aside to cool.

2 lbs pork roast (I used shoulder roast), egregious chunks of fat trimmed away, remainder cut in roughly 3/4" cubes
2 Tbsp olive oil or bacon fat
1 medium onion, chopped
1 rib celery, chopped
2 medium carrots, peeled and chopped
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1 Tbsp fresh thyme leaves
3 Tbsp butter, softened
3 Tbsp flour
6 cups chicken broth
3 Tbsp Dijon or other decent mustard
Salt and pepper
Plenty of fresh parsley, chopped

In a large pan or pot, cook pork over medium heat, turning frequently, until browned on all sides. Remove from pan with a slotted spoon and set aside.

In a large-ish soup pot, heat olive oil or bacon fat over medium-low heat. Add onion, carrots and celery. Cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are very tender but not browned, 7 to 10 minutes. Add salt, pepper flakes and thyme; cook, stirring, one minute more.

Add chicken broth and browned pork. Bring to a boil; cover, reduce heat and simmer a good long while until pork is very tender. This will take at least an hour; an hour and a half would be better.

Stir together softened butter and flour until very smooth. Whisk this mixture into the pot, along with mustard. Add reserved roasted vegetables. Increase heat slightly and simmer, uncovered, until soup is slightly thickened.

Taste and add salt and pepper as you see fit. Serve with parsley sprinkled attractively atop.

86. Baked Potato-Bacon Soup, Redux, Spring-Style

Remember the Bacon-Baked Potato Soup over which everyone wet his/her pants?

No? Here's a link to reference.

Anyway, here is a lighter, springier, vegetable-ier version of it. According to my family, it's equally devourable. And there are tons of delish bits of produce which even your meat-and-potatoes eaters won't mind.

(Vernie gives it two drunk thumbs up.)

Springy Bacon-Potato-Veggie Yummy Soup
Serves exactly five, with not a drop left.

1/4 pound good bacon, diced
1 medium onion, diced
2 leeks, white and light green parts only, chopped (but not as fine as you'd think)
3 ribs celery, diced
3 medium carrots, peeled and diced
3 medium russet potatoes, ends cut off
4 cups chicken broth
1 cup half-and-half (or cream, if you've got it on hand)
Lots of fresh dill, chopped

Place the bacon in a cold soup pot over medium heat. Cook, stirring rarely, until crispy; remove with a slotted spoon and reserve. Pour off all but 2 Tbsp fat.

Over medium heat, cook onion, leeks and celery in remaining bacon fat until onion is translucent, 5 to 7 minutes. Meanwhile, cook potatoes in microwave to "bake" them. (If you've got tons of time and are philosophically opposed to microwaves, bake potatoes in advance at 400 degrees until done, about 45 minutes.) Let potatoes cool slightly; then halve them and break them into chunks sans skins. This is easier than it sounds.

Add broth to soup pot; bring to a boil; add potatoes. Simmer over low heat approximately 10 minutes.

With a nice heavy-duty potato masher, mash the hell out of the soup. Think "watery mashed potatoes" and you'll have a good starting place. Return reserved bacon to the pot. Whisk half-and-half into soup.

When everything is good and hot and tasty, serve it forth with lavish amounts of dill sprinkled atop each bowl. Om nom nom nom nom, as everyone at my house yestereve said.

68. Fingers afire! Maple Sweet Potato Bisque with Optional Bacon

This is a lovely, gorgeously orange soup (which makes me feel a little bad about having made it on St. Patrick's Day), but it does need a warning:

The puree gets very hot and remarkably napalm-like both in consistency and in its effect on flesh. I spattered a couple of drops on my hand and got almost instant nasty blisters. Be aware!

This would also be perfectly easy and quite yummy without the bacon, though I would suggest using another ingredient to replace some of the bacon's smokiness. Perhaps a couple of diced canned chipotles and a little of the adobo sauce in which they're packed? Let me know if you try that and it works OK.

Another successful soup in that I thought I was making a big batch but there was nothing left after a single meal.

Maple Sweet Potato Bisque, from Ken Haedrich's Soup Makes the Meal: 150 Soul-Satisfying Recipes for Soups, Salads, and Breads *
Serves six-ish to eight-ish, or only four-ish if everyone's hungry

4 cups peeled, roughly chunked sweet potatoes and/or carrots. I had 3 medium sweet potatoes and ended up using 2 medium carrots to make an even 4 cups.
5 cups chicken or vegetable broth (I used 2 cups chicken, 3 cups vegetable, largely to test out a new ingredient: vegetarian Better than Bouillon. This admittedly flawed test proved that it was worth eating.)
1/4 pound bacon, diced (or 2 Tbsp olive oil or butter)
1 large onion, diced
About 8 leaves fresh sage, chopped, or perhaps a teaspoon or so of dried sage
1 Tbsp flour (it wouldn't be the end of the world if you left this out, like, say if you were non-gluten-eating)
2 Tbsp maple syrup (I'd probably omit this if using the chipotles, but if it works for you... hey, whatever)
1/2 cup cream, milk or half-and-half
Possibly a couple of diced canned chipotle chiles and a couple tablespoons of adobo sauce, if you're not using bacon and/or if you want some more smoky heat in this soup
Salt and pepper to taste
Additional fresh sage, sliced into ribbons, for garnish

Combine the sweet potatoes, carrots and stock in a soup pot. Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat and simmer until vegetables are fall-apart tender, about 15 to 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, back at the stovetop... place bacon in a cold skillet over medium heat. Cook, stirring frequently, until browned and crispy. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels. Pour off all but 2 Tbsp fat. (Or, if you're not using bacon: heat 2 Tbsp olive oil over medium heat.)

Add onion. Cook, stirring frequently, until onion is translucent, tender and beginning to brown, about 8 to 10 minutes. If using fresh sage, add it after about 5 minutes of sauteing... if using dried sage, you can probably toss it in at the beginning. When onion is tender/brownish, add flour and cook, stirring constantly, for one or two minutes. Remove from heat and set aside.

When potatoes and carrots are very tender, turn off heat and allow to cool briefly. (This is where I went wrong, leading to painful self-burnage.) Then puree solids, in batches if necessary, and including a cup or so of broth in each batch, in a food processor or blender. Let them puree a good long while so they're very smooth.

Return soup pot to heat. Whisk in sauteed onions, stirring thoroughly. Pour puree back into soup (CAREFULLY! This is the point at which I burned the hell out of myself) and whisk to combine. Whisk in cream or milk, maple syrup, 2/3 or so of reserved bacon (if using it) and chipotles (if using them).

Bring soup to a very gentle simmer. Simmer 10 minutes to allow flavors to blend. Serve with reserved bacon and strips of sage to garnish.

*This is the first soup I've made from this deceptively humble-looking cookbook, and I was pretty darn impressed. I also like the concept of the book: each soup is paired with a salad and a quick bread or other baked goodie. Looking forward to the days when I have energy & time enough to try some of the bread recipes to go alongside my soups!

57. Smoky, chunky Black Bean-Salsa Verde Soup (plus delicious Corn Cakes!)

For someone who likes peace and quiet as much as I do, I sure am bad at being home all by myself.

The boys stayed overnight at their friends' house last night, which meant the house was empty. Very empty. Very silent. Very still.

I walked up the stairs. Back down the stairs. Into their bedroom (which is weirdly clean right now, because they made me very angry two days ago and chose to atone for their misdeeds by tidying the heck out of their room, unasked). Into the living room (where there was no sign of boyness, save a Tintin book casually cast aside). And, finally, after several hours of rattling around like the last jellybean in the jar... into the kitchen.

Where I found solace in making this soup. It goes together startlingly quickly and tastes better the longer it simmers.

I had a half-batch of black beans that I'd frozen a couple of months ago and then stuck in the refrigerator to thaw a few days ago. As a result, they were already pretty mushy/creamy and perfect for soupmaking. If you're using freshly cooked-from-dried or canned black beans, you might want to pull some of them out at the end of simmering time and mash or puree them, then return them to the pot.

The nicest thing about this soup? I timed it just right so that it was ready to eat when Jim got home from work at a little after midnight last night. Because any soup tastes better with company.

(Oh, and the second nicest thing about this soup? The corn cakes I made to go with it, which were, quite honestly, a revelation. Soup is always better with some nice carbo-riffic side to soak it up with, and these took under ten minutes start to finish. Also, they were so delicious we made another batch today to go with today's soup, which you will hear about tomorrow.)

Black Bean-Salsa Verde Soup
Serves about six, I suppose

4 ounces bacon, diced, or 2 Tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, diced fairly small
1/2 tsp salt
3 to 4 cups cooked black beans (that would be 2 cans, drained, rinsed and re-drained, if you're using canned)
3 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1 cup salsa verde (I used the Trader Joe's kind--it worked great)
Juice of 1/2 lime
Salt and pepper to taste
Sour cream, for serving

If using bacon: place bacon in a cold soup pot, put over medium heat and cook, stirring regularly, until bacon is crisp; remove with a slotted spoon and reserve; pour off all but 2 Tbsp fat; return pot to medium heat.

If using olive oil: heat over medium heat. Wasn't that easy?

Either way: add onion and cook, stirring frequently, until tender and translucent, about 7 minutes.

Add salt, beans, broth, salsa verde and reserved bacon, if using. Bring to a boil; reduce to a barest simmer; cook uncovered for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally; then cover and cook until beans are nice and fall-apart-y. I'd recommend at least half an hour total of gentle simmering time, though more would certainly not hurt.

If you like, scoop out half the beans, puree or mash them and return them to the soup. If the beans are tender enough on their own (or if you've cooked, frozen and thawed them, as I did), don't bother.

Whisk in lime juice; taste and correct salt and pepper. Serve with dollops of sour cream atop, accompanied by

Corn Cakes
From The Simpler The Better: Sensational Home Cooking in 3 Easy Steps by Leslie Revsin

1 cup yellow cornmeal (yesterday, I actually used fine-ground white cornmeal and it was fine; today, coarse-ground yellow polenta, also fine)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg
3/4 cup buttermilk
1-1/2 Tbsp brown sugar
1 Tbsp butter, melted
Additional melted butter (about 1 Tbsp) for greasing the pan

Combine cornmeal and baking soda in a medium bowl.

In a small bowl, beat the egg. Whisk in remaining ingredients, except for, of course, the pan-greasing butter.

At this point, you can set everything aside until you're ready to start cooking the cakes. When that time arrives, stir wet into dry ingredients.

Heat a large, pref. cast-iron skillet over medium heat. When it's good and hot, brush with a little melted butter (it should sizzle). Pour batter by scant quarter-cupfuls onto skillet; you should be able to fit in four at a time.

Cook just until bubbles start to appear in center of each cake, about 2-3 minutes. Flip (easier said than done) and cook for about 1 minute more on the other side, until nicely browned. Remove to a plate, place plate in warm oven and repeat with remaining batter.

We got 12 cakes from each batch of batter; feel free to increase or decrease the amount as you see fit.

The boys came back today. Apparently they stayed up so late last night (4 a.m., they claim) that they were not only useless for the rest of the day, but fell asleep about half an hour after getting home. Fisher was out for almost two hours. Rhys is still asleep. Think he'll make it all night, or is he going to wake up at 2 a.m. and want something to eat?

55. Take a little bacon, take a little sauerkraut, stir it up, stir it up, damn that's good!

Of all the weird-sounding combinations of ingredients out there, this might have been one of the weirdest, to wit:

• Bacon
• Sauerkraut
• Sour cherry jam

But honestly, especially after letting it sit overnight and eating it in Leftovers-for-Lunch form... it might also be one of the surprisingly yummiest.

This was inspired by a dish from Clifford Wright's The Best Soups in the World . It's an interpretation of a Belorussian (srsly... I didn't even know there was such a thing as Belorussian cuisine) dish. I skipped the bake-in-the-oven-for-an-hour step, choosing instead the simmer-for-half-an-hour-on-the-stovetop copout. And yeah, we still didn't eat 'til almost eleven. I apparently have a problem with making dinner in a timely fashion.

I also used diced peppered bacon instead of undiced rendered pork lard and my friend Rachel's highly nomzable sour cherry jam (happy birthday, Rachel!) instead of plum jam, which WTF that crap is nowhere to be found.

For this to be at all worth eating, the sauerkraut must be either fresh (as in homemade) or pretty darn fresh (as in a glass jar in the refrigerated section of your grocery store, i.e., Bubbies). If you make it with that foul crap from a can, I refuse to be held responsible for the (surely inedible) consequences.

This will be pretty good when you first taste it, but if you refrigerate it overnight and reheat it gently the next day, it will verge on party-in-your-mouth territory, for real.

Belorussian(ish) Bacon-Sauerkraut Soup
Serves six, roughly

1/2 pound plain old white button mushrooms, thinly sliced
5 cups water
1 tsp salt
1/4 pound good bacon (in ends and pieces form--why not?), diced
3/4 pound delicious mouthwatering sauerkraut, drained (and rinsed and drained again, if it's very salty, which Bubbies won't be)
1 medium-to-large onion, diced
2 medium carrots, peeled and diced
2 Tbsp sour cherry jam
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp flour
Plenty of ground black pepper
Juice of 1/2 lemon

Combine mushrooms, water and 1/2 tsp salt in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat; boil for 8 minutes. (Why 8? I don't know. But it's fun to be precise sometimes.) Remove from heat, cover and set aside.

Place bacon in a cold soup pot; set over medium heat and cook, stirring frequently, until bacon is crispy. Remove with a slotted spoon. Pour off all but 3 Tbsp fat. Return to medium heat.

Add sauerkraut to soup pot. Cook, stirring frequently, until strands look separate and shimmer with golden yummylookingness. Add onion and carrot; cook, stirring regularly, about 7 minutes more, or until onion is translucent and carrot is barely tender.

Scoop out 1/2 cup of the mushroom stock and set aside. Add remaining mushroom stock, plus mushrooms, sour cherry jam and 1/2 tsp salt, to soup. Whisk flour into reserved stock until smooth; add to pot. Bring to a boil; cover, reduce heat and simmer until slightly thickened, about 30 minutes.

Whisk in lemon juice. Taste and add pepper, plus more salt if needed (I didn't need any more at this stage). Serve hot, or cover, refrigerate overnight and reheat to serve the next day. (If chilled/reheated, you may want to spoon a little of the solid fat off the top. Not all of it, though...)

In Belorussia (?), it is customary to serve this soup with baked potatoes, so that's what we did. This will probably put you into a food coma, so don't plan on going anywhere/doing anything after eating.