Most days we try to eat in at the studio at lunch and at home for dinner if we possibly can. But things were getting out of control. We were working long hours and we had fallen into a the default pattern of eating out in restaurants, not only for lunch, but also for dinner, many times–more times than we could really afford, actually. This was really sucking away the hard earned dough.
So we had to get real, and make the serious effort to cook at home again. Besides, we needed to eat out of the freezer in order to consume the homemade broth, leftover soup, chili, spaghetti sauce and the mountains of chicken breasts, stacks of hamburger patties and excesses of Amy’s sausages all of which seem to multiply if left alone in the dark for too long. Also, we had to make room for the new tenants…all the holiday leftovers soon to arrive.
By supplementing the overstock with a few trips to the grocery store to pick up a few basics and some veggies and fruits, we managed to eat every meal at home for over two weeks, no problem. Besides saving money, a welcome unexpected and added bonus was that I lost 6 pounds in 8 days by doing nothing different at all other than just eating at home. I know that there can be a lot of extra fat in restaurant food, and we all know that portions are larger, but I never expected it to make that much of a difference.
It’s always a challenge to look in the freezer and search the cupboards for interesting ingredients to throw into soup or add to stew or use for making creative side dishes. One of the soups I made using miscellaneous ingredients from my kitchen turned out pretty well, so I wanted to write it down so I don’t forget it.
This concoction was prompted by two of Trader Joe’s boxed soups, Carrot Ginger and Squash Apple, which had been languishing in my cupboard because, let’s face it, while they sound yummy, they really are not all that great, as is. I thought I’d see if I could fix them up.
I came up with what I call my Vitamin A Soup, or, Squash, Carrot, Pumpkin and Pear Soup
This isn’t going to be a recipe with exact measurements, but it’s more of a description of what I did by using up a lot of leftover bits of stuff. With soups, it pretty much doesn’t matter how much stuff you put in as long as it satisfies your taste buds. At least that’s how I approach it.
I sauted a diced, large sweet onion in a little olive oil along with a couple cloves of garlic and a diced shallot. A chopped leek would have probably been better than the shallot.
When the onion was transparent, I added the boxed soups and brought them to a simmer. I had two previously cooked sweet potatoes which I squashed up and threw in. I added 5 or 6 carrots which I had peeled chopped and cooked in the microwave until they were soft. I threw in a small can of pumpkin, not the seasoned kind.
I always stir and taste and check for consistency, etc. as I go along. This soup was getting a little thick and it was a little bitter from the canned pumpkin, so it was time for serious work.
To thin it out, I added about two cups of homemade chicken stock.
To season it, I added cumin, curry powder, a little tumeric, a tiny bit of cinnamon, a little ground up rosemary, a little powdered ginger. Given the choice, I would always use fresh ginger or spices, of course.
It still needed sweetening up, and I would have used applesauce, but I didn’t have any on hand. I remembered that I had 5 Bosc pears in the fridge about to go over to the dark side. So I peeled and chopped them and poached them in the microwave. I used the hand held blender to puree them and threw them in the soup. It was just what the soup needed to add some sweetness, and the undertones of pear were very nice.
I let it simmer for about an hour so the flavors could mingle.
I corrected the seasonings and decided that it could use a touch of heat to perk it up, so I threw in a dash of cayenne.
Then I used the immersion blender to puree it. Before I served it I added a little half and half. You could use milk, or you could do nothing, depends on your taste. We topped it with toasted pumpkin seeds.
It was yummy. Only problem is, I now have three new containers of soup in my freezer.