Monday, March 28, 2011

How To Make Soup

When your refrigerator gets to the point where you can't open it without the orange juice falling on you and your grandson, it is time to make soup.

Gather all of the leftovers. Search diligently in all of the corners and drawers for the containers of foods you have cooked and not finished and saved for the last week.
They may include many various and diverse items, depending on your menu for the week.
Such as:
Red cabbage, onions, apples, golden raisins, dried cherries and caraway seeds. With a tiny bit of bacon.
Venison cooked with the above.
Rotisserie chicken from the Publix Deli.
Green beans, carrots, and heirloom small potatoes.
Organic salad greens which have just gone one step too far in age to be presented as salad.
Quinoa.

Fill your large, favorite pot with water halfway up. Add a packet of Knorr vegetable soup mix.
Cut up the potatoes and carrots into bite-sized pieces. Add those.
Add the red cabbage, etc.
Cut up the venison and also the chicken, giving all the skin and tendons and other parts you don't want to your old, old boxer dog who is standing there with hungry eyes, waiting for such treats.
Throw in the mixed salad greens. Don't bother to cut them, they will wilt to small size. Let it come to a simmer.
Taste. Consider.
Soy sauce? Salt? Some tiny frozen peas that need to be eaten soon and I am not kidding?
Oh yes.
A bit of smoked paprika? Pepper?
Uh-huh.
Wait! There's a small container of salad in the refrigerator. You know there is. It was made with greens, of course, and tomatoes and basil and pickled carrots and cauliflower and grilled asparagus in olive oil. Toss that in too. You'd forgotten the mozzarella cheese in there. Oh well.
Taste again.
Oh yes.

Put the lid on and let it simmer for awhile. Join the dogs in licking your lips as the smell fills the house. Resist the idea of gettin' jiggy wid it. Don't add no cumin seed. Don't add no shallots. If you have some red wine, I suppose that would be okay. Take the ingredients you have as an ordained situation.

Consider making some oat bran muffins with carrots and apples and cinnamon as you go out to shut the chickens up in the hen house. Think to yourself how nicely this would tie it all together into a meal.

Think about how some people are feeling all gourmet tonight because they went to Boston Market instead of McDonald's.

Feel sorry for them.

Bake your muffins. Make sure to include walnuts.

Wonder what you would call this soup, if someone held a gun to your head (oh, please, NO!).

Decide on Hunter/Gatherer Love Soup.

Serve with butter and local honey.

To yourself.

Tomorrow, when your husband is back in town, serve the same meal to him. Kiss him and thank him for the deer meat.

Bow your head to the joyful task of eating.

Amen.

26 comments:

  1. Dear Mary, the Hunter/Gatherer Love Soup looks fabulous! I could live on soup.

    I make a mean minestrone which I serve with tons of fresh parmesan and bread with lots of cold butter. I love butter too.

    Hope you've had a good day my dear friend. A little something for you arrived today... I'm waiting for one more thing then I'll send the parcel. Much love to you xx

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  2. Christina- Soup is the very essence of food. And love. I would love to try your minestrone. And who doesn't love butter?
    Oh, how I hope I can find what I want to send you.

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  3. I do this with all the week's leftover vegetable side dishes.

    My kids aren't fans now but someday they'll miss it.

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  4. Wow, that sounds amazing. I want some....and to be able to smell it.......I can't wait till computers offer THAT feature!

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  5. Erin- You know they will. They'll be calling you up saying, "Mama. How'd you make that soup?" I promise.

    Rebecca- Wouldn't that be nice?

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  6. Ok: I love the froggy on the top.

    And, just so you know, I gasped at the 'fridge, and commenced howling. And I thought that I was the only one with such a dangerous appliance.

    Yes, I agree with you: this Hunter Gatherer Love Soup definitely takes you up the Ladder of Evolution!

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  7. Ok wait wait. I have spinach that's fresh -do i cook it first? dont tell anyone that i'm this stupid that i have to ask...

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  8. Laura- Oh Lord. I'm surprised the health department hasn't shut me down.

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  9. SJ- No, don't cook it first. Just throw it in the pot and let it cook down with the rest. It'll be wonderful. And you're not stupid. How would you know if you've never done it before? Do you think I could last five minutes at your job? Oh hell no.

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  10. Oh my ... I am drooling. Num! ;-D

    That first sentence has me roaring with laughter! How often that's true, eh? ... with or without a grandchild whose wee head is being plunked upon by *stuff* that's plummeting out of the fridge! ;-D

    ... and this post ... It says everything about what matters most ...

    Thank you ...

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  11. Jaliya- I am glad you agree on how to make soup. Kisses...

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  12. This is called soup d'ordures, or garbage soup. I save the toss-aways from my vegetables to make stock and then toss in whatever the refrigerator holds. I learned this from an elderly French woman when I was a young woman. You learned it on your own and gave it a nicer name!

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  13. "Take the ingredients you have as an ordained situation."

    With these words, I will start looking at all our meals differently.

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  14. Sometimes, MM, I'm surprised I myself last more than five minutes ;) Good to know.

    I still haven't cooked that damn deer steak, but i have all the stuff now. I'm just trying to eat my leftover chicken and then I will. But, now that I think of it....leftover chicken, green beans, spinach, tomatoes, onion....soup!!!!!

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  15. It sounds so good. I am saving this to consider for the future minus the venison.

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  16. I love the frog/toad?! He delighted me when I opened the page.
    Oh I love when you make soup. I'm so glad you let us watch. Often when I think about the kind of woman I want to be, I think of soup. I want to be the kind of woman that can make a soup like you Ms Moon, and muffins and bread and biscuits too. You just brought me one step closer. Thank you.

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  17. I've almost lost a toe on a couple occasions from things falling out of the fridge.
    I imagine you've learned to cook like this out of necessity...feeding a family and not having any food to waste. It's something we all should learn to do.

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  18. 1. So glad your fridge looks like mine

    2. My mom called it garbage soup too

    3. "take the ingredients you have as an ordained situation"
    Best life lesson of the month

    Love you ms moon

    xoxoxo

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  19. I wish that you lived near me, because leftovers are just not my thing. They might be, though, if I turned them into soup.

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  20. What a way to deal with an overfull fridge. Yours looks like mine, but I can't imagine producing such a soup from it.

    You're a terrific cook, Ms Moon and I haven't tasted any of your cooking, only looked at pictures and read your descriptions. It's obvious. Thanks.

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  21. Love this post! It really should be published. You are a great cook. I love how you think of the perfect bread or muffin s to go with the meal. I love nuts but the 4 others in my house hate them in baked goods....so I add them to the side of a bread dough or a few muffin cups.

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  22. Love the soup name. Perfect!

    Love you more though.

    SB

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  23. FROG!

    I'm just finishing a chicken soup I made for myself this weekend. Not as good as this soup looks, though.

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  24. Your refrigerator is a hoot. And yes, I do the same exact thing except that I usually add beer or wine to the water. If the food was good before, it will be better with this marriage ceremony. But I need your muffin recipe to make my meal complete.

    That soup looks and sounds like it will carry you home.

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  25. I do have to say that you would make an awesome food memoirist.

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  26. Laura- Things do get out of hand, don't they?

    Sandra- Garbage soup- exactly!

    Lisa- It works for me.

    SJ- And what a good job you did!

    Syd- No venison necessary.

    Bethany- I'm so glad you like the frog. You can make soup!

    Mel's Way- It does solve more than one problem.

    Michelle- I love you, too.

    Elizabeth- You should try it. I wish you lived nearby me, too. I do.

    Michele R- Some people just do not like nuts.

    Ms. Bastard-Beloved- Love you too, baby doll.

    DTG- Soup does last awhile, doesn't it?

    Kathleen Scott- My favorite muffin recipe is on the back of the Quaker Oat Bran box. I add apples or carrots or whatever. It's perfect.

    Angie M- I have started a book doing such but haven't worked on it in some time.

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