Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Recipe of the Week: Quick Potato Soup for a Cold, Icy Day
Well, I couldn’t sleep. Woke up at about 4 AM and realized I hadn’t had much dinner last night, long story involving goats, dogs (Levi’s surgery went fine, thanks for asking) and preparations in the expectation of a sleet/ice/snow storm all day Thursday. (There’s already a glaze of ice on the porch steps, as I discovered when I stepped outside to put the dog out and measured my length on the ground immediately thereafter. Ouch). That was the point at which I abandoned the idea of a quick trip to the Giant Eagle to pick up some supplies before “things get bad.” They already are. Even with the weather.
So. Mother Hubbard’s cupboard isn’t quite bare, but there’s not much quick and easy to be found. I’ve always loved potato soup, though (good comfort food on a day like this), and I thought I’d see if I could make that work. Results are surprisingly and spectacularly delicious. Here’s the recipe, before I forget it. (Note that you could add other things. Celery springs to mind. But “springing” was the last thing the remaining two stalks of celery in my fridge were doing yesterday when I threw them in the compost. “Flopping” was more the order of the day. So, no celery for me, this time round.) But you could. Anyway, here we go:
QUICK (AND GOOD) POTATO SOUP
- About 1 1/2 lbs of potatoes. (I had a bag of those tiny bite-size ones, and used them whole and unpeeled. Then I added a large baking-size Russet potato which I peeled and cut into chunks)
- About four strips of thick-sliced bacon (more if you like). If you use less, you might want to add some butter to increase the fat quotient, I should think you want to end up with 3-4 tablespoons of fat. When you take the bacon out of the fridge, chop it into pieces about 3/4″ long, while it’s still cold. Much easier than crumbling it after it’s cooked, I always think.
- One enormous (or two large) onions. Dice fairly small.
- Water. Pace the coal mine, my well’s still functioning. Shhhhhh . . . .
- Chicken stock, or a good bouillon mix. I like “Better than Bouillon.” Mostly real ingredients, not just salt. Tasty.
- About 1 tablespoon dill weed, dried, or a couple of tablespoons fresh. I had dried today.
- Milk, half-and-half, or (today’s discovery, because I’m not terribly well supplied in the milk department at the moment and I didn’t want to use it up right now, because, weather), a can of evaporated milk
- Salt and Pepper to taste
Boil the potatoes in enough water to cover until tender but not falling apart (mine took about eight minutes). Drain them.
Fry the bacon on low-ish heat in a medium saucepan (you don’t want to discolor the fat), until it’s crispish. Remove the bacon with a slotted spoon or something similar.
Dump the finely diced onion into the bacon fat, and fry, again on a low-ish heat until soft but not discolored.
Dump the potatoes in on top of the onion, mash them up a bit, and add enough water/chicken stock to cover. If using water, add in your bouillon cubes/mix of choice here, at full strength according to the instructions on the jar/box.
Let that simmer gently for about ten minutes. (This is why you didn’t cook the potatoes to a mush, the first time).
Add the dill, fresh or dried, more or less, to taste.
Add salt and pepper to taste (the bouillon and bacon will pre-salt, so suggest not going wild on the salt. I added plenty of fresh-ground pepper, though).
This is the genius bit–slosh in some evaporated milk until things look and taste about right. You could use regular milk, but I found the evaporated milk to be tasty and rich. Used about 1/4 of the large (pumpkin pie-size) can. The rest can be put in tea or coffee (as per British World War II, or NAAFI practice), or used in other ways of your choice.
Sprinkle in the reserved bacon (if you can remember where you put it to keep it away from the cat. I hid mine in the oven, I eventually remembered. . . ), and stir.
That’s it. Delicious, steamy, chunky, nourishing, stick-to-your-ribs potato soup. Tastes like yum.
Enjoy! (Don’t you just hate it when the perky little millennial says that just as you’re about to dig into your nice dinner? #MeToo)
Published in General
Make the crust:
Have four 1-cup wide-mouth mason jars (or eight half-cup jars) at the ready.
Finely grind the almonds, cacao powder and salt in a food processor. Drizzle the maple syrup over the mixture, then process until the mixture begins to clump together. (No need to wash the food processor, just scrape it out.) Divide the crust crumbs evenly among the jars, and use your fingers or a flat-bottomed drinking glass to press it flat. Set aside.
Make the filling:
Drain the cashews, rinse them well, and drain again. Place the cashews, maple syrup, vanilla bean seeds, salt, cacao powder, and lemon juice in the now-empty food processor, and process to a paste, scraping down the sides and bottom of the bowl occasionally. With the motor running, drizzle in the water. Blend well until very smooth, a couple of minutes, stopping to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl occasionally. With the motor running, drizzle in the melted coconut oil, and blend until combined. It should be the consistency of softened ice cream.
Divide the filling evenly among the jars and set aside.
Make the ganache:
In a small, heat-proof, metal bowl, combine the coconut oil, maple syrup, cacao powder and vanilla extract. Place the bowl over a small saucepan of gently simmering water, and whisk until the oil is melted and the ganache is smooth and glossy.
Drop spoonfuls of ganache over the cheesecakes, and use a toothpick to swirl the two together. Cover the cheesecakes and chill until firm, 3-4 hours. (If you’re in a hurry, you can try chilling them in the freezer, as per the original recipe. If making one large cheesecake, it may take longer than 4 hours in the refrigerator to solidify.)
Store the cheesecakes in the refrigerator. The flavor improves after a day, and the cheesecakes will probably keep for up to a week.
Yes. This sounds lovely, though, thanks. At one point, in addition to avoiding the dairy, and corn oil, which is also an issue (do you know how many things have corn oil in them?), we moved on to a new phase, that of managing very high cholesterol via diet, because the statins cause peripheral neuropathy (tingling and numbness in hands and feet). He was actually one of the first to report that with Lipitor, before it was really recognized as a “thing.” On the bright side, I have no allergies. My mother didn’t believe in allergies. (Kidding. But she didn’t.)
Anyhoo, we ended up on the food plan that my late stepson dubbed the Reichsdiet, and it knocked out a lot of the meat and fat. Worked for the cholesterol, though. Ask me about oatmeal. Rice bran oil. Wheat germ. The right sort of fish. Leafy green vegetables. And so on.**
So I haven’t done so many things like the fake cheesecakes for quite some time (when I want a piece of cheesecake, I order the real thing for dessert somewhere). Heaven. That chocolate one sounds good, too.
**Not to mention, adventures with TVP, and Seitan (used to make my own). For a long time, we bought a lot of our stuff mail-order, at a place whose name I’ve happily forgotten, but which I used to refer to as “The Cardboard Food Company.”
Ah, the vegetarian ’70s! This almost makes me nostalgic for The Red Radish…a restaurant just-off “Lake Erie State U’s” campus. Not a lot of politics, but lots of sour cream…
An empirical approach for peripheral neuropathy is to treat it the same way you would diabetic neuropathy even if there’s no blood sugar problem. Supplement wise that would mean benfotiamine (fat soluble thiamine) and alpha lipoic acid. In the neuropathy forums people are talking about using ALA doses of 1-2/day in divided doses or two time release. It spills quickly into the urine and has a sulphur smell, so you can find out quickly how well a time release form works.
If he’s that sensitive to statins, he may have oddities in his CoQ10 metabolism, though statins also impair dolichol metabolism. Dolichols are a family of biological compounds about which the literature basically says “we don’t know much but they look really important.”
If you want a good dietary CoQ10 source… it’s heart.
We used to frequent a lovely little vegetarian restaurant in Wheeling WV (a bit less than twenty miles down the road from us). Absolutely gorgeous food. Run by a batty old lady. One day, we were home listening to the radio, and the big news was that she and her sister had been arrested and were going to go to trial for “doing away with” their lodger. A very odd situation all round. I didn’t follow it because it was just too weird and sad, but I am sure that neither of the old dears (think Arsenic and Old Lace) is with us any more, because they were both quite elderly, and this was almost three decades ago. I still miss the food, though.
Hm. Thanks.
I think he specializes in “oddities in his metabolism . . ..” It seems to be baked in the cake. Makes life interesting, though.
One more non veg soup idea. Great for cold weather; in fact I read it was a winter breakfast in Yemen.
Ingredients
Heat broth, cook chicken or beef in it (thin slice tough beef)
Add hawayij to taste
One time I wanted hot and sour soup and had some chicken stock in the freezer and a couple of chicken breasts. And sauerkraut. And hawayij.
I cut up the chicken breasts
Cooked them in the stock
Added hawayij
Added sauerkraut and cooked briefly
It’s a lot better than it sounds.
For an extra kick use kimchi instead of sauerkraut.
UPDATE: It would probably work with beef or lamb heart…
And for the REAL meat eaters:
https://thequantifiedbody.net/ketosis-brain-tumor-andrew-scarborough/
That soup would be heaven on earth in this weather.
Glad you’re all right, She.
Done.
Speaking of comfort food for a chilly day, I give you . . . .
Panang.
(My eyeballs are sweating.)