a surprisingly good soup

I think I tend to like the idea of soup a lot more than the soup itself. I especially like making soup - it’s so fun to toss things into the pot and see how the flavors meld - but I’m not always inspired by the result. I wasn’t very excited about this soup - a “white chili” with salsa verde, chicken and white beans - but much to my surprise, it turned out fabulously tasty.

The whole reason I made it in the first place was a container I found in the freezer: chopped grilled poblanos and jalapeños mixed with grilled corn taken off the cob. I had no memory of putting it in the freezer (we did a LOT of grilling last summer), but it seemed perfect for a soup.

I cut up some boneless chicken thigh meat and browned it with cumin seed and slivered garlic. I added chicken stock and simmered it until the meat was cooked through, then dumped in the frozen grilled vegetables, a can of Herdez salsa verde and a can of Progresso white beans (normally I do cook my own beans, but I was feeling seriously lazy). I brought it all up to a simmer, then put it away in the fridge until evening.

What a shock! It was delicious - the corn gave it a rich sweetness that contrasted with the sharp pepper and tomatillos flavors, and the beans were plump and sweet. I finished the leftovers the next day at lunch with cheese and crackers, but a quesadilla would have been nice, too. Another soup that probably can’t be replicated, but it’s always nice when thrown together things work out this well.

saag paneer & dal

This whole soft-food thing has been a great brain exercise for us. I’m feeling like I’ve eaten enough white carbs to do me for a while, so thinking of things that are soft and flavorful but NOT bread/pasta/rice is a real challenge. I managed a small bowl of chili at a restaurant last weekend and realized that beans are my friends - soft, nutritious and full of protein. We decided to make red lentil dal for dinner, one of the softest and most comforting foods out there. To round it out, we made one of our favorite Indian dishes, saag paneer (spinach with panir cheese). Panir is the tofu of India: bland on its own, but a great foil for and absorber of strong flavors.

I love saag paneer not just because it’s softly spicy and full of cheese - it’s also really easy to make, assuming you can buy panir at your local shop like we can. If you have to make it from scratch…well, in that case, you might want to make something else (unless you have better luck making cheese than I do). Same with the greens - you could certainly buy a bunch of fresh spinach, but this is a dish where I think it’s better by far to just pull a bag of chopped spinach out of the freezer.

cassoulet for New Year’s Day

I was only recently introduced to the idea of eating beans on New Year’s Day for good luck and prosperity. I’ve always figured I’ve gotten my good luck from our noodles the night before - but on the other hand, you can’t have too much good luck. So this year I decided to try my hand at a cassoulet.

I know that there’s a lot of argument over what makes the “true” cassoulet. I read the recipes in The Art of French Cooking and The Cooking of Southwest France, and I read David Lebovitz’s post on Camp Cassoulet in Gascony.  Doing it the “official” way, with confit and pork fat and God knows what, certainly sounds exciting. But you know, the only people I was trying to impress were J and myself, and I just wanted it to taste good. So I did it all in one day, skipped the confit, and came up with something I was really pleased with. My one concession to working ahead was to have a pork roast for dinner a few days previous, so we could use the leftover meat.