I'm in the home stretch of trying to get my home ready for a house guest, and cleaning out the fridge is topping my list. A few months ago I joined a CSA (community supported agriculture) and have been buying a small box of locally grown organic produce, more about that another time. The point is that I've been getting produce I would not normally buy and I'm learning a big lesson about waste, again, more about that another time.
There's nothing a smoked piece of meat can't make taste delicious! Along with my pressure cooker I cooked up a batch of smoked turkey, chicken and bean soup with everything else I had in my kitchen, but the kitchen sink! See if you can identify all of the veggies, there are nine (well actually eight, but two different parts of the same veg).
I haven't pre soaked my beans in forever, basically since I did some pressure cooker recipes for Tim Ferriss, trying to get into his new book (4 Hour Chef), none of which made the cut, but I believe that's only because Tim didn't let me teach him! lol. Anyway, all of the recipes I adapted for the smaller 4 qt PC, as time needed to be taken into consideration, and although I used my new 6qt this morning, I used two methods I learned from the prior experience, #1 I used dry, unsoaked beans, #2 I cut my smoked meat into thirds to cook faster. The whole process took around 1/2 hour-45 minutes. I also cleaned out all the veg and chicken bone scraps in the freezer and used my 10qt to make them into stock. I've got another batch of soup to make (chicken lentil and mushroom) but I ran out of celery.
I skipped 6:00am yoga for a later class, still a ton of things to get done today....so glad I cleaned out and got rid of so much crap already! It's 7:30am and I've got to leave in 1 hour....can I get the fridge done in 1 hour? Yikes!
PS You know a soup is good when you can eat it cold! I think I ate near another whole bowl waiting for my dinner portion to heat up!
Veggie list, from bottom to top. Jalapeno, yellow onion, leeks, celery romanesco, Brussels, outer leaves and stems (the rest was used for salad), celery root (top left), carrot (top right). I also used white beans and pintos, chicken thighs and 1 lg smoked turkey leg.
My wife won't cook with onions and won't let me cook with onions :(, I miss onions.
ReplyDeleteYum! Love all veggie soups! I'm making your white bean vegetarian chili on Wednesday! In my pressure cooker! One of our favorites!
ReplyDeletePlease post the whole receipe for the chicken lentil and mushroom, it sounds great!
ReplyDeleteguy,
ReplyDeleteA world without onions? That's just pure craziness! Your wife must've had some sort of childhood trauma...can you get away with leeks?
The lentil and mushroom recipe is on my old blog under the blog title "zucchini ribbons" I think. It's super easy, so easy I forgot about it. (originally done with turkey)
I had my daughter in law make it in the PC.
saute sliced mushrooms and push to the side of the pan once brown. In the same pan saute veg until soft and translucent (onion and celery, usually, lol!), you may need to add another splash of oil first.
Deglaze the pan with 1/4 soy sauce, add 4-6 cups water, 1-2 c. brown lentils (or mixture of brown and green). 4-6 bone-in, skin-less chicken thighs (you could brown these in the pan first thing, but who has time? Or use ground chicken or turkey, brown first, remove from pan, adding back in at the end of the recipe).
In the PC it takes about 15-20 min, in a regular pot it should take about 45 min. Taste for salt and pepper (be careful as the soy sauce is salty) Add spinach leaves to wilt in the hot soup.
chicken
mushrooms
onion/celery (leeks?)
soy sauce
water (or stock)
lentils (1-2 c.)
spinach
The rest is up to you!
Beth,
ReplyDeleteWhite beans are the bomb! My favorite but I'm not sure how they stack up nutritionally. I used a combination of small white beans and pinto in this mornings soup.
The one addition that I may make regularly was the celery root. I never buy it, although I like it just fine. It added some nice body to the soup.
That white bean chili will be the next thing I'll show my daughter in law how to make...super duper easy!
My son told me he's been using the PC everyday since I took them over last week!
She eats my german potatoe soup w/leeks no problem, yea i'll use leeks thanks!
ReplyDeleteI make beans in the slow cooker. It is easy. I cook two pounds at a time and freeze them. The added benefit is that it reduces the amount of gas the beans produce significantly.
ReplyDeleteMike,
ReplyDeleteI have to confess that I am not a fan of the slow cooker....but I do appreciate how many others use it, similar to you, as a way to do exactly what I believe in, which is to prepare home cooked foods and meals.
I never have a problem with beans and "gas", and neither does Mark, who eats my cooking. I used to credit pre soaking my beans. It's been said that the gas producing enzyme gets drained away with the soaking water (?). But now I rarely soak and still not gas...there you go!
thank you for your comment