Monday's Stoup

If you ever watch Rachel Ray or read her books, you will run into the word, stoup.  That is what she calls a soup that is very think or a stew that is a little thin, somewhere in between.

That is what we had tonight.  I found a recipe on Pinterest that was cabbage roll soup.  It was a Russian version of stuffed cabbage rolls made into a soup.  I can do that.  I love cabbage rolls, but I don't especially love making them.  It takes more work to make them, parboiling the rice, separating the cabbage leaves and softening them in boiling water. Then they have to be assembled and finally cooked for an hour.  

This recipe cuts out a lot of work by making the ingredients into a soup.  Instead of using this Russian version which had a lot of ingredients that I don't use in my mom's recipe, I used only my recipe's ingredients.  Sort of.

First was the addition of onion.  There are not onions in Mom's recipe.  Secondly, I used meatballs instead of ground beef.  Of course, the rice was just added to the soup rather than in the meat.  Then, I put the whole thing in the crockpot so I could do it earlier and not have to worry about it.

Consequently, the rice thickened it to the stoup stage; more than I wanted.  The flavor was not quite right. The meatballs were filled with crumbs and tasted different.  It was good, but was not like the same* as Mom's Cabbage Rolls.

It looks good.  It tasted good. What more could you ask?  It filled my smaller pot, with two 15 oz. cans of diced tomatoes, one cup of rice, and half a bag of meatballs (not Italian) plus 3 cups of broth and still it was not soupy.  Add half an onion chopped and 1 T. dried sage rubbed.  Cook on high two hours to thaw the meatballs then on medium for two hours. Add chopped Cabbage and cook on high an hour or more until softened. That is all.  Salt and Pepper optional--canned tomatoes and the meatballs have a lot of salt.

It was much easier to make than stuffed cabbage rolls.  Great warm soup on a cold night.  Enjoy.

HAPPY DINING

BLOG'nGRAM

*An Amyism when she was growing up.  (My oldest daughter)

All About A Bean

How many dried beans do you have in storage?  Enough for one year?  Two years?  Eternity?  If you eat them as often as most people do, you probably have enough to last through at least your own lifetime and probably the lifetime of your children.  There are several schools of thought on the shelf life of dried beans.

The dry pack canneries associated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints suggest that they are good for  thirty years, I believe.  That is 29 years longer that I would like to use them.

My aunt who lives in South Western Colorado on the plateau near the border of Colorado and Utah where pinto beans are dry farmed (whew) says that you should keep beans one year from harvest then throw them out and get new ones. 

The grocery store beans may be over a year old when you purchase them,  It would be really difficult to know unless you understand the packing codes.  What does the 'use by date' tell you about when they were packed?

May I refer you to a little bean bible that I got somewhere, most likely stole it from my mother's cookbooks.  It is called "The El Paso Chili Company.   Beans."  It is hard to tell what the title is because one is written over the other on the book jacket and simply "Beans" on the Title Page.  Author is W. Park Kerr, a co-owner of the El Paso Chili Company at the time it was published in 1996.

I do enjoy this little book.  It gives lots of information on beans and bean cookery.  Kerr states:  "Dried Beans are virtually immortal, having remained edible (that is cookable and even growable) for hundreds of years."  He does qualify that statement with "they will just take a little longer to cook."

That is an understatement.  In my experience beans that have been in storage a while (two or more years)  do take longer to soak and cook.  A lot longer.  I soak my older beans for at least thirty-six hours and cook for all day or more in the crock pot.  

Here is a tip from one of my daughters who researches these things.  Put a tablespoon or so of whey in the soaking water.  It does something to the beans to make them more digestible.  I use whatever whey I happen to have on my cottage cheese, yogurt or Kefir.  It is the watery part that you probably throw out.  It is great for soaking beans and grains.

Some beans rehydrate faster than others, but they are not done until they are al dente and that does not mean slightly undercooked.  It means simply to the tooth [you bite them in half and feel how they chew.], and pasta may continue cooking after drained, but beans don't.  Undercooked beans are the major cause of gas.  In my experience the softer they are the less likely they cause gas or constipation.  They just have to be done or they don't digest properly.

A little antecdote my uncle used to tell.  He said my aunt always cooked a potato in the beans to soak up the gas.  Then she would eat the potato.

I plan to feature bean recipes for a while on Monday Soup Day.  When my family was young I always made soup or stew and hot homemade bread on Mondays.  I still make the soup, but not the bread.  I will heat up Costco's pitas slathered with butter or bakery French bread toasted with butter and sometimes garlic bread seasoning, make scones or biscuits.  It depends on the soup and what compliments it.

Enjoy your beans.  Learn to cook them and eat them.  They are good for you (says your mother).

HAPPY BEAN COOKERY


BLOG'nGRAM

Kitchen Sink Soup

It is inevitable.  I must post my Kitchen Sink Soup recipe. This is just one iteration of hundreds of Kitchen Sink SoupS.  

Where did this silly name come from?  This is the name that I give to everything but the kitchen sink--all the compatible leftovers in the fridge cooked in a pot.  You know how those pesky leftovers pile up in the fridge.  Just stick them all together and call it soup.  Kitchen Sink Soup!

This soup could also be called Creamed Tortellini Florentine, if that sounds better.  I was in a hurry and didn't want to have chicken tonight, so I remembered a pin that I added this last week and it sounds good called Creamy Tomato Tortellini by Two Peas in a Pod.  http://www.twopeasandtheirpod.com/creamy-tomato-tortellini-soup/#_a5y_p=1277451

I didn't have all the ingredients, as usual, but I did have good stuff in the freezer that I had put away for another day--1/2 bottle of Bertolli's Alfredo Sauce, 1/2 package of Totellini, part of a can of Evaporated Milk and part of a large package of baby spinach--all in the freezer (didn't hurt any of them). The tomatoes were in food storage. 

Store leftover spinach flat in the freezer in a zip lock bag.  

When ready to use you can break it into small pieces while it is still frozen by rumpling up the bag, or use whole for baby spinach.

Creamed Tortellini Florentine

(Kitchen Sink Soup)

1 pkg Tortellini with cheese (1/2 of the Costco 2-pack--1 package) That size

2 Cans Petite Diced Tomatoes (15 oz. or one large can)

1 qt. chicken broth

1/2 tsp. onion powder

1/2 tsp. garlic powder (this is a quick meal--feel free to saute fresh onion and garlic)

1 package frozen chopped spinach (or fresh frozen)

1 bottle Bertolli's Alfredo Sauce

1 can Evaporated Milk or fresh cream (whatever you have)

Combine tomatoes, chicken broth and spices. Bring to a boil and add tortellini. Boil gently for about 5 minutes. Add spinach and cook on medium low heat for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and add Alfredo sauce and milk or cream and serve.  (If it needs more heating, do not boil or the cream will curdle.) Makes about 6 servings.

Kitchen Sink Tortellini Soup

I had half of these ingredients and made 5 medium bowls of soup.  This soup is a fun and looks a little pink with the tomatoes and cream.  Would be fun to serve for a Valentine's day lunch, or for Christmas with the green and red.

HAPPY COOKING

CYBERGRAM

Yellowstone's Famous Roosevelt Beans

Today's Food storage meal from last weeks menu is simmering in two crock pots plus white beans cooked yesterday.

I prefer to cook my own beans. Add some biscuits and you have a warm, hearty meal for a cool, rainy day. It is Yellowstone's Famous Roosevelt Beans.

1 pound ground beef
1/2 pound bacon, cut into 1/2 pieces
1 onion, diced
1 (16 ounce) can pork and beans
1 (12 ounce) can kidney beans
1 (12 ounce can) lima beans
1 (12 ounce can) butter beans
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
1 tablespoon mustard
1/2 cup ketchup
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees

In a frying pan, brown the ground beef and bacon. Drain the fat. Add the onions and sauté until soft. Stir in all the different cans of beans, brown sugar, vinegar, mustard, ketchup and salt and pepper. Transfer to a baking dish and cook for 45 minutes. Makes 8 to 12 servings.

Xanterra Parks & Resorts

This recipe is from the Roosevelt Lodge in Yellowstone National Park. It is supposed to be a baked bean recipe, but makes a good soup if you cut out all of the brown sugar; the ketchup has enough sugar. Added more bean liquid for a soup consistency. No need to bake the soup, simmer a crock pot instead.  I used my smallest 3 quart pot.

Yellowstone's Roosevelt Bean Soup

Serve with Gluten Free Biscuits, butter and Kempe's raw honey (my grandchildren's bees).

  

This is a great storage use recipe. I have beans and more beans in food storage and they are getting old.  I must soak them for a couple of days sometimes to get them soft enough to eat. (Warning, undercooked beans give potent gas.)

By cooking my own beans--a bit of a project with three different beans, I now have several two-cup servings of beans in the freezer.  

Thanks for the two crock pot gifts, my sweet girls.  I use both.