"Creamy" Potato Soup

I just spent the last 3 weeks visiting family and friends in Florida and on my way home I stopped to visit friends in Gainesville. Scott Jones sent me home with a 10 lb bag of lovely potatoes. Jan & Alan Zak sent me home with a couple of giant Vidalia onions & 3 sweet watermelons. I decided to only use the potatoes & onions for soup.

This week's soup is a 'creamy' potato soup with homemade dumplings. I put creamy in quotations because I made a condensed version of the soup that is dairy-free and thickened with mashed potatoes instead of cream. I sent it home with Friends from Bulls Head Meeting with the instructions to thin the soup with milk, soy or rice milk, or some kind of broth.

I began the soup-making by heating some water and soaking a handful of dried shitake mushrooms. Both the mushrooms and the soaking liquid, which becomes a wonderful mushroom-flavored 'tea' will find their way into the soup.

I washed, but did not peel, about 5 Yukon Gold potatoes. These will later be mashed for the 'creamy' part of the soup. They went onto the stove in a pan of water to cook until soft.

I chopped the Vidalia onion, 4 carrots and 4 stalks of celery and softened them in olive oil in the bottom of my soup pot. This is what culinary professionals call, mirepoix, and it forms a flavorful aromatic base for building the soup.

I chopped up more potatoes - an assortment of red, blue, and white-skinned, these into smaller bite-sized pieces because they will stay as chunks in the soup, added them to the mirepoix and covered the whole mess with a couple quarts of tepid water. I used tepid water instead of hot water because it helps the potato pieces maintain their shape and structure if you bring them up to cooking temperature gradually rather than all at once.

The soaked softened dried shitake mushrooms were already sliced so all I had to do was throw them into the pot. I added the soaking liquid when the soup looked like it could use some more water. For protein, I cut up 2 cakes of dried, spiced tofu into small pieces and stirred them into the soup. This is a product that I picked up at my local Asian grocery store. It's very versatile and lasts a long time in the refrigerator, perfect to pull out whenever you want to add a bit of protein to a dish.

To make the soup extra hearty, I made some hand-formed egg noodles and dropped them into the simmering broth. I've always made these and didn't really remember where I learned them until spending time with my 98 year old grandmother, Dot Cesky last week. She pulled out a recipe for spatzle from her Czech mother-in-law that includes a bit of nutmeg in the dough. My noodles very much resemble this spatzle, so this time I tried adding nutmeg and it was a nice note. I beat 2 eggs with pepper, Adobo seasoning and nutmeg. Then a little at a time, I add all-purpose wheat flour until it forms a stiff dough. When it's stiff enough to handle, I powder my hands with flour, pick up the ball of dough and pinch off morsels and drop them into the simmering broth. I'm quite sloppy with this process on purpose, because little bits of flour that fall into the broth help thicken it and I'm going for a thick, condensed soup.

When all the vegetables and the noodles were cooked - just a couple of minutes, I poured the water off of my first pan of potatoes (if I needed more liquid for the soup, I would have poured it in, but my pot was in danger of overflowing). I mashed the potatoes with an old fashioned hand potato masher and gently stirred it into the soup. As the heat worked on the mashed potatoes, the soup became a true 'condensed' soup, very think and ready for garnish and thinning. In the photo at the top of this post, I have thinned the soup with 1% milk and garnished it with pecarino romano cheese and black pepper.

Matzoh Ball Soup

In honor of Passover, this week I made 2 different soups with matzoh balls. The first is a vegetarian matzoh ball soup chock full of vegetables that I shared with Friends at Bulls Head Meeting on Sunday. The second is a slightly more traditional chicken matzoh ball soup that was the opening course of a Seder I hosted in my home on Monday evening.

I began the whole project on Saturday by making a huge batch of matzoh balls. I used Streit's matzoh meal and doubled the recipe on the back of the box. I started by beating 8 whole eggs, 1/2 cup of olive oil, and 1/2 cup of water together, seasoned with a liberal shaking of Adobo seasoning.

I added 2 cups of matzo meal and mixed well.


I put it in the refrigerator and let the mixture chill for about 45 minutes. Then, I moistened by hands and rolled out balls about an inch in diameter and placed them on wax paper. At one point, the mixture became too sticky to work with, so I put it back in the refrigerator and finished after it had chilled some more.


The matzoh balls went back into the 'fridge to rest while I made the rest of the soup.

As I often do, I started by mincing some garlic and chopping a couple of onions, a bunch of celery and 4 large carrots. I heated a bit of olive oil in my soup pot and added the vegetables. While they were cooking, I chopped up a small head of cabbage, then added that.


I added 3 quarts of water and 2 large cubes of Knorr vegetable bouillon and let the soup simmer until the carrots were done. Then, I added a pound of fresh sliced mushrooms, a bag of frozen peas and a bag of frozen mixed vegetables.


I brought the soup to a boil and then dropped in half of the matzoh balls. I covered the pot and let them cook for about 20 minutes.

The other half of the matzoh balls went in the freezer for Monday's soup.

It is said that there are 2 kinds of matzoh balls - sinkers and floaters. These were somewhere in between - a little too heavy for my taste. I prefer my matzoh balls more fluffy than these turned out though some people like them more dense.

On Monday, I made another batch of soup - this one by boiling some chicken leg quarters for broth and then adding onions, carrots and celery. I seasoned the broth with pepper, salt, and Bragg Liquid Aminos. After picking the meat off the bones and adding it back to the broth, I brought it to a rolling boil and added the matzoh balls from the freezer. I was so happy and excited when they floated to the surface and became fluffy! As I dished up the soup during the break in the Seder, I garnished each bowl with freshly chopped parsley and green onions.

Asparagus Chowder

A few months ago, John Perry, a member of Bulls Head Friends Meeting who frequently eats my soup, ask me, "What is your favorite soup, Vonn?" I had to think about it for a moment because I have lots of favorites, but then I answered, "Asparagus Chowder."

This is a soup that I only make in the springtime, when fresh asparagus is available. It must be spring somewhere, because when I went to the store yesterday, they had fresh asparagus on sale. I try to be a locavore as much as possible, but it's February, it's been a long hard winter & I've been sick for much of it, so a taste of spring is exactly what I need.

This soup was inspired by the tastes of my grandmother, Jean Fisher's cooking. She had a big patch of asparagus growing by the back door of her kitchen. She'd send me out to cut off the young spears and then, using fresh cream she had milked from own cow that morning, she would make a rich creamed asparagus. The flavor of the asparagus infused the cream, spiked with black pepper. As a child, I could eat this as a whole meal.

My asparagus chowder is lighter than my grandmother's creamed asparagus, but it's still luscious, savory, and rich.

I started this batch by scrubbing 5 medium white potatoes and chunking them into bite-sized pieces. I then covered them with ample cold water in a saucepan, added a large cube of Knorr vegetable bouillon and cooked them until fork-tender.


While the potatoes were cooking I prepared 2 pounds of fresh asparagus. I know that many people favor the very skinny asparagus spears, but I like the fat ones. They actually aren't any tougher and they have more tender flavorful insides. No matter the diameter, asparagus can be fibrous and woody at the bottom of the stalk. Fortunately it's very easy to separate the tough part from the tender part. Just grasp the tough end and snap it off - like magic, it breaks in exactly the right place. How cool is that?


As I broke all the tough parts off, I continued snapping the asparagus into pieces about an inch or so long. Isn't it beautiful!

I peeled and chopped 2 small onions. I heated some olive oil in my soup pot and added the onions and 2 cloves of minced garlic. When the onions were translucent and the garlic was beginning to brown, I stirred in 1 pound of fresh sliced mushrooms.

When the mushrooms had released much of their water, I stirred in about 3 Tbs of all-purpose flour. The flour browned and formed a thick paste around the mushrooms, onions and garlic.

Very gradually, in small batches, I poured the cooking liquid from the potatoes into the soup pot. I stirred well as I added the liquid to incorporate it into the paste without allowing it to form lumps. After all the liquid was added and bubbly hot, I added my asparagus pieces and let them simmer until they were tender but not mushy.

I added the cooked potatoes and some lowfat milk, stirred it together and let it heat through gently. I seasoned the soup with a shot of Bragg Liquid Aminos, a healthy dose of black pepper, and a pinch of cayenne pepper. I garnished my bowl with some grated pecorino romano cheese. mmmmmm. My sweetie stopped by just as I was finishing the photo shoot and liked it so much she ate 3 bowls!

Merry & Pippin's Onion Soup

My friends sometimes accuse me of being a bit of a hobbit, meaning I suppose, that I enjoy the simple pleasures, especially good food shared with friends. Anyway, that's what I tell myself, but they could mean that I'm short and have hairy toes. As I sit here holed-up in my warm, comfy home looking out on a nasty storm of 'wintery mix', I'm perfectly happy to be a hobbit today.

One of the hobbit's favorite foods is mushrooms. I love the scene in the Fellowship of the Ring when Frodo, Sam, Merry & Pippin stumble onto land where Frodo had been caught illicitly hunting mushrooms as a youth. After reuniting with the farmer, the hobbits are sent on their way with a basket of mushrooms as a token of forgiveness. I wanted to name this soup after the farmer, but would you eat it if I named it 'Maggot's Onion Soup'? I didn't think so.

This soup is similar to a French Onion Soup, but that soup relies on beef or veal stock for it's broth. In order to make a vegetarian version, I'm making a mushroom broth instead. The soup is vegan if you don't put the cheese on at the end, but I love the cheese. It adds a wonderful dimension. I'll call this one vegetarian.

I began by rinsing a large handful of dried shitake mushrooms and soaking them in hot water. As they hydrate, the soaking water will turn into a mushroom 'tea' that will flavor the broth.



I peeled and sliced 5 large onions. In my soup pot, I heated a little bit of olive oil and threw in the onions. I let the onions cook over medium heat until they were caramelized - a nice toasty brown. I let this take a good long time, like about 20-30 min - there's an ice storm outside, I'm not going anywhere. Then I added a half pound of sliced fresh baby bella mushrooms and continued caramelizing the mushrooms and onions together.


When they were sufficiently brown, I poured in a half-cup of dry red wine and stirred it around to get up all of the deliciousness was starting to stick to the bottom of the pan. Then I poured in the soaking liquid from the shitakes.

I seasoned the broth with Bragg Liquid Aminos, black pepper, and one cube of Knorr vegetable bouillon and added some more water.

I made some croutons by slicing some day-old baguette rolls, sprinkling them with olive oil and toasting them in the oven at 350F. After about 6 min, I flipped them over to let them brown on both sides.

To finish the soup, I dished it into a bowl, topped it with the croutons and then grated some aged provolone cheese on top. This went under the broiler for about 3 minutes until the cheese was melted and toasted.

A few years ago, scientists reported that in addition to the 4 tastes the tongue could discern - salt, sweet, sour, & bitter - a fifth taste had been recognized, umami. Umami is sometimes described as savory or earthy. If you want to experience umami, try this soup. With the mushrooms, the caramelized onions, the Bragg's, and the cheese, this soup is rich with umami.

Any soup blog that begins with hobbits must end with umami.