Soup Season

A rich broth with udon and pork.

Eat more soup! When the cold weather comes around my house, soup season begins. It's, in most cases, the quickest, cheapest, and healthiest thing for breakfast, lunch or and/or dinner.

The soup above came about from some extreme frugality. A bag of bones came with my half-pig order. Because the freezer was so full, I immediately made some stock from the meaty bones. I roasted the bones until browned, picked the meat off them, and then made the stock with the bones. With two large quart containers of wiggly stock in the fridge and a pint of picked roasted meat, I was armored against the new war on winter. One night, craving a pho-ish kind of dish, I poured one of the quarts into my soup pot, and added a good pour of tamari, and some fish sauce. No spices, instead, once boiling I threw in some sliced scallions and dried udon noodles. While this was happening, the shredded leftover meat sizzled in a hot cast iron pan, making it crispy and chewy. A bowl, some broth and noodles, topped with that sticky meat: and it was just what was needed for dinner. Taking all of fifteen minutes. Soup!!

Roasted butternut and celery root soup, with savory bread pudding.

Then, there's this one: a soup that turned into a meal, and then the meal turned back into the soup. A full circle, if you will. Roasted celeriac and butternut squash, pureed and married to turkey stock (I'm pretty sure there wasn't even an onion in this) turned into a velvety soup topped with rosemary olive oil. (Here's my plug for a Vitamix: I love immersion blenders, to be sure, but it really has nothing on the velvet-making power of the Vitamix.)

The next day, I had a leftover baguette (which always makes me happy--I buy more than I need because the benefits of day old bread are many) that I wanted to make into a savory bread pudding. I used the leftover soup, buttermilk, some cheese and eggs--the standard bread pudding mixture--and within less than an hour (that's mostly baking time) I had a main course to be served aside a salad. Seemingly healthy, but I made a warm bacon dressing for the salad. Oops.

Fish chowder.

And fish chowder. May a winter never go by without fish chowder. And to think that dark thought is not so far-fetched! Sad, but true. Aside from the fish, this is a "pantry essential dish," like many other soups. That is, you can make it with what you have in the house. An onion, bay leaf, a potato, butter and some milk. This is a traditional New England-style chowder. (Say it! Chowdah!) to be sure. There are a million variations. And we will get to them. It's only December. We have plenty of time.

p.s. I feel compelled to apologize for the shoddy pictures; when I am about to eat my concentration goes out the window!