Sopa Verde

The majority of my soups have a mashed vegetable of some sort in them.  This soup has mashed broccoli.

As a disclaimer...this is not the most attractive looking soup.  Nor is it the tastiest soup.  However, if you really, really, really, like green vegetables...you just might enjoy this soup.  

This soup was one of the many things I made during my cooking frenzy last week.  I didn't write down anything that I did and the details are kind of fuzzy now, so I'll just have to do my best to recreate it here.

Ingredients

(amounts approximate)

 2 cups chopped broccoli

1/2 cabbage, chopped

1 1/2 c chopped asparagus

3 stalks celery, chopped

1/4 sweet onion, chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 cup cous cous

butter

bacon grease

veggie stock

water

seasoning to taste

(I don't remember what I used...thyme & sage maybe?

Cook the onions on low heat in bacon grease, stirring as necessary.  Add the garlic when the onions are browned.  Meanwhile, steam the broccoli in a soup pot with butter.  Add some veggie stock if the broccoli starts to stick. When it is soft, put it in a food processor until smooth, then set aside.  Put the asparagus, cabbage, and celery in the soup pot with some butter/bacon grease and steam.  Add veggie stock as needed.  Add the onions and mashed broccoli.  Season to taste.  Add water and veggie stock to achieve desired consistency.  Add slightly more water than you think you want.  When the soup is thoroughly blended/cooked, add the cous cous and cook til soft.  

To be perfectly honest, I did not particularly enjoy this first taste of the soup. 

It may or may not have anything to do with the fact that I don't particularly like broccoli or asparagus.

However, I made a big pot of this green goop, so I've been eating it.  I think it did taste better after the flavors had time to blend together in the fridge for a few days.  

Ginger-Carrot Cream Sauce and Figgy Chops

Ginger-Carrot Cream Sauce

3 small-medium carrots, grated

1/4 small vidalia onion, chopped small

1 clove garlic, chopped small

1-2 inches ginger root, grated

heavy cream

Figgy Chops

First, buy some of this amazing stuff

Then, rub it all over some boneless pork chops and cook them in a skillet with some olive oil

Ginger-Carrot Sauce

Figgy Chops and Asparagus

Chops, Pasta, Meal.

Steamed Asparagus

Steamed Asparagus...and some other things of course.  Because asparagus doesn't make a meal. 

Thank you, Alton Brown.  I turned on the TV the other day while I was eating lunch so I could...watch somebody else making food... and this is what I found.  I'm still not an asparagus lover, but it's supposedly super good for you, and I just happened to pick some up the last time I went grocery shopping so...

So today, I decided to try his asparagus-steaming method.  I don't normally cook lunch, but I was short on options, and didn't really feel like a tuna-sandwich.  I ran a 5 mile race this morning (came in 1st place overall with a time of 33:08...felt good to beat all the guys...) and I wanted a nice big pasta lunch to refuel.  So I made some sort of tuna-mac, and decided to have asparagus on the side for a vegetable.  Because otherwise I would have had to make a salad...and I'm getting bored of salads.  And I'm pretty sure salads are NOT the food of champions...just because.

So for the asparagus...I soaked a couple of paper towels, chopped the ends off of about 20 asparagus stalks, and laid them on the towels.  I sprinkled them with salt, garlic powder, lime juice, and fresh basil.  Then I rolled it up, put the roll on a plate, stuck it in the microwave, and set it for 3 minutes.  They came out super bright green which is awesome...because it means I didn't cook out too many of the nutrients.

I still don't love asparagus...but these were definitely more on the edible side of the asparagus-scale.  They actually weren't too bad.  If only they didn't taste quite so much like...asparagus...

The tuna-mac was pretty simple, just pasta, tomato soup, tuna, and shredded cheese.  It would have been way better if I had baked it, but I was too hungry to wait that long.

And of course...what's a celebratory meal without a tasty beverage?  The cantaloupe I chopped up the other day was super juicy, so I saved the juice.  Today, I added some lemonade to that juice.  And some whiskey.  It was tasty and refreshing. And pretty.