More Soup

I am rich and set for at least two weeks of No Cooking, for in the freezer are 6 large containers of various soups.  Nothing like a quick meal scooped into a bowl and there you have protein, vegetables, and few carbs without digging through pots and pans and cripes, the ending sink full of dishes.  One bowl, one spoon, The End.  Less time eating means more time doing fun stuff.

Cream of mushroom made with cremini, shiitake, and the ubiquitous Agaricus bisporus, the grocery store mushroom is concentrated forest, woods, and earth with a cup of real cream and butter.  Eat one mushroom a week to sustain a healthy immune system, it's like taking a capsule of alternative medicine hooha except it's just a mushroom.  Not to scoff at the health food shop, lord knows they have gotten a few bucks from my wallet, and I would say most of it worthwhile.  Most.  Read the labels and do research, and you'll be fine.

Next is a container of chicken vegetable made with lovely chunks of chicken thigh, whose dark meat contains more vitamins, fat and calories as it is the weight-bearing muscle of the bird that practices endurance.  It has lots of a protein called myoglobin, which promotes iron and oxygen binding as the muscle works.  You try to catch a chicken, or maybe as a friend of mine has, run from a crabby one.  They are elusive, determined, and fast.  The white meat of a chicken tastes like wet cotton to me; it is found in the anatomical areas that need quick bursts of power, as in the muscles that sustain respiration in birds that mostly live on the ground.  A bird that flies more, such as a duck, will have dark meat throughout since the chest muscles are responsible for wing movement and need the capacity for distance.

I always have a supply of squash-carrot soup, the simplest of recipes: butternut, carrots, a bit of chicken stock and a can of coconut milk.  Next to that is a chili that is thin enough to qualify as soup.  Cans of tomatoes, three types of beans, raisins, ground beef, a few chocolate chips, garlic, oregano, cumin, chili powder, sometime pumpkin seeds if I have them, lots of onions, and a can of corn.  Rinse off all the canned items in a colander to eliminate sodium, but do put a small sprinkle of iodized salt in the mix.  Recent findings in thyroid science point to an interesting iodine deficit in areas of the country in love with sea salt, which has none added.  I stick with Morton's.  Cheaper, too.

We haven't had an iodine problem in this nation for years, since they started putting it in the salt; all this touchy-feely sea salt trend may be fun to play with, but if you are experiencing general lethargy, try going back to iodized salt.  I know, I know, "general lethargy" is a dopey term that blankets a lot of anything, but then again, iodine may just be the fine tuning you need.

There was a ham bone in the fridge and a half-bag of dried beans in the cupboard.  Tossed them together after an overnight soaking of the beans and then simmered on low for about two hours before adding onion, celery, and carrots.  If you add tomatoes, wait until the beans are soft or you are out of luck; the acid from the tomatoes (or lemon or wine) stops the cooking process and the beans will be like pellets of mockery swimming throughout the remaining deliciousness.

Lastly, a package of turkey backs had an attractive price of $1.76.  You can't find that nowadays, so it was quite the prize to bring home.  Tossed into the crockpot, the meat fell off the bone by the time work ended, and I finished making the soup with a short cup of jasmine rice, red peppers, carrots, onion, and celery, a cup of cream and a boullion cube.

Any soup tastes better the next day, and the whole idea of not having to cook from scratch is plenty attractive as well.  And I like making soup.  In another incarnation, I made soup every weekday in a basement kitchen for a cafe in Chicago.  People came in for my soup, it jazzed up the rather bland turkey sandwiches on pumpernickel or the mid-seventies spinach salad with mushrooms, hard boiled eggs, and canned bacon bits.  I got to try recipes and whittled the list to the favorites, some of which I still make: familiar gumbo, mulligatawny, tomato rice with mushrooms, a beef barley with dill pickles.  On the odd side were a spinach-ham-yogurt concoction, a tomato and oatmeal soup, a bread soup, cock-a-leekie with prunes, and kim chee with cucumbers.  My soups made you strong to face the day, still do.

Night time, pots put away, bowls washed, spoons in the drawer.  I drew a sketch today, first in a long time; I was pleased with it, hope the person who receives it is also.  This week shall be spent, at least in intent, on returning to drawing.  I have a tattoo to design for a friend, and many ideas for personal work that will be abetted by soup in a bowl as I push and pull pencil and color into human forms.  Sleep well, I tell you, my plants are stretching towards the window with small new growth, a sign of longer light during day.  Spring is closer than it is further.

 The light is welcome, for the dark winter shutters more than shortened sun in this latitude, and the nights have been exceptionally bleak without snow to reflect the moon or street lamps.  Still cold though, so pull up the blankets as you tuck in, check the animals, and turn out the lights, to let yourself float on pillowed dreams.  Good night.