The Family That Chops Vegetables Together....

....will have vast quantities of soup to show for it.

Last week we made soup. Making soup is comfort cooking for me, because soup can be mass-produced not just in quantity but also in variety. My cooking philosophy is that if I have to cry while chopping onions, it might as well be for 10 as for 1. So I like to make several soups simultaneously. It's efficient, and I'm Singaporean, and Singaporeans are efficient (it's what I've heard).

The girls all wanted to help. So everyone got a cutting board and a knife befitting their skill level, and we chopped away. 

This took all of one day (but we started in the afternoon). The vegetables (and wild rice) were ziploc-ed and refrigerated for Day #2, when we cooked. 

We did the usual three soups - chilli, cream of chicken and wild rice, cream of broccoli and cauliflower, and a new recipe - beef and vegetable soup. I'd never even eaten this last variety of soup, but Dave requested it, so I found a recipe that looked tasty (i.e. has more than 10 ingredients) and tried that. Karen, Arne and Dave did the final taste test since - as I said- I had never had it, so I didn't know what it should taste like. 

Here is the recipe we used - final tasting by experienced beef-vegetable soup eaters is recommended, to finish off the seasoning at the end.

Beef Vegetable Soup 
adapted from Paula Deen's recipe here:


Ingredients

• Water (4 quarts = 16 cups)
• 1 can (14.5 oz) petite diced tomatoes
• 1.5 - 2 cups diced onion
• 3 Tbsp dried parsley
• 2 Tbsp beef bouillon (I used 3 ++ small cubes)
• 1 Tbsp Italian seasoning
• 1 Tbsp salt
• 1 Tbsp seasoned salt
• 1 Tbsp Worchestershire sauce
• 0.5 Tbsp black pepper
• 0.5 Tbsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp celery salt
• 2 bay leaves
• 2-2.5 lb beef short ribs* OR 2 -2.5 lb short ribs and stew meat, diced to 0.5"
• 1 cup thinly sliced carrots
• 1 cup diced celery
• 1 cup french beans, cut to 0.5"
• 1 cup (I used the whole can) black eyed peas
• 1 cup corn
• 1 cup butter beans
• 1 cup okra
• 1 cup diced potatoes, cooked but not soft/soggy

* The short ribs don't give as much meat and are troublesome to strip later in the cooking process, but they give a good flavour.


Method:

1. If using any stew meat at all, dice and marinate with soy sauce, pepper and dust in flour, then brown in pan to seal.
2. Put all the ingredients in the list up to and including the meat into a dutch oven and bring to a boil. Do not add in the vegetables if they are already cooked/soft. If they are fresh, they can be added into the pot at this stage.
3. Simmer for 1.5 - 2 hours, then remove the ribs, strip the meat and return to the pot, discarding the fat and bones.
4. Add in the remaining vegetables and simmer for another hour or until they are tender. Note: I put the soup in the fridge overnight for the flavors to blend, then filled a crock pot the next day and cooked for about 6 hours, seasoning to taste at the end.

I love the tip about swirling a lettuce leaf at the surface to remove oil and surplus floating herbs. Having the soup in the fridge also solidified the fat around the walls of the containers and made it easier to remove it.

I don't think I've shared our chilli recipe, so here it is. It's very subjective, and this is the first time I've ever written it down. I also make it far less spicy than I personally like, for the majority of the chilli eaters in our family. The most important things I've learned, when making chilli are

• You must not eat it on the day you make it. Leave it in the fridge overnight, or two nights before heating it up again.
• You must use cumin. Lots of it. Coriander, too.
• You must not cook it (for the first mixing, I mean - reheating is fine) in a crock pot. You must cook it over the stove and it must bubble and reduce (and evaporate), to deepen and concentrate the flavors. It is even OK if it gets a teeny bit burnt at the bottom. 

Beef and Bean Chilli 
(adapted from here):


Ingredients 

• 3 lb ground beef
• 2 large onions, diced
• 2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 4  14-oz cans of petite diced tomatoes (either regular or chilli-varieties), with liquid
• 2 large red peppers, diced
• 1 rib of celery
• 1 can dark red kidney beans
• 1 can black beans
• 1 can white beans
• 1 can any other beans
• Beef bouillon, to taste
• Ground/powdered cumin, to taste (start with 2Tbsp, and add generously, 1 tsp at a time)
• Chilli powder, to taste (start with 1-2 tsp)
• Ground/powdered coriander (1 tsp)
• Fresh cilantro (about 2 Tbsp)
• Salt, pepper to taste

Method

1. Brown beef and onions, drain fat.
2. Put beef and onions in dutch oven/stock pot, with other ingredients except cilantro. Do not add water yet.
3. Boil, then reduce heat to simmer for 1-2 hours, uncovered. 
4. Taste and season. Add water and bouillon if necessary.
5. In the last 20 minutes before turning heat off, add in cilantro.
6. Cool and refrigerate overnight (or longer).