Recipe: Hoop Soup Snoop Group Potato Soup

Yes, that is the real name for this recipe. And yes, it does come from my Dr. Seuss cookbook. Are any of you really surprised that I have a Dr. Seuss cookbook? I didn't think so. Bonus points to anyone who can correctly identify which Dr. Seuss book this recipe come from though!

I've been on a bit of a Dr. Seuss roll lately. I actually wrote my own Dr.Seuss-ish story at work the other day in honor of Bike to Work Week. And when I discovered that one of my coworkers had never read a Dr. Seuss story, I brought some to work for him to read. Naturally, he loves them. :P

Yesterday when I was trying to come up for something to make for dinner, I knew I had to make something special. Why? Because I GOT NEW POTS!!! My parents gave me this absolutely amazing set of pots and pans for my grad gift, and they arrived this week! Due to a whole bunch of different factors, last night was the firs time I had a chance to cook with them, so I wanted to make a dish truly worthy of them. And where else could I turn but to my handy dandy Dr. Seuss Cookbook?

Anyways, the first test of my new cookware turned out to be a smashing success! Not only are my pots beautiful, but they heat up super fast and super evenly. Oh, and the soup was delicious. That too. :P

Really nothing could be simpler than this recipe, or more comforting on a cold it's-supposed-to-be-summer-but-it's-raining sort of day.

But before we get to the recipe, first you have to admire my pots! Okay, I know that's just a pot lid, but still, look how shiny!!

Anyways, your first step is to chop up some potatoes and an onion and throw them in a pot with some water. Like so:

Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium, cover, and cook until the potatoes are nice and soft and mashable (about 20 minutes).

Next, drain the potatoes and mash them with a potato masher, like so:

If you left the skins on your potatoes like I did (even though the recipe says to peel them), then your mashed potatoes will probably end up slightly chunkier. But that's okay. A few lumps never hurt anybody.

Slowly add the milk to the potatoes, stirring as you do so. Put the pot back on medium heat and keep stirring until it's all blended. For a smoother, thicker soup, scoop out some of the bigger chunks of potatoes and quickly blend them your Magic Bullet (or regular blender. That will work too), then pour the puree back into the pot.

Now comes the seasoning part. The recipe honestly doesn't call for much in the way of seasonings, but I find potato soup tends towards the bland side of things, so I like to spice things up. I use lots of fresh ground black pepper, a very healthy dose of seasoning salt (yum!), and some chili pepper flakes, just for good measure. Don't be afraid to be very liberal with the seasonings. After all, who wants a tasteless soup?

Once you've reached your preferred level of flavour and the soup is hot all the way through, ladle it into some bowls and top with croutons, cheese, bacon and green onions. Mmmmmmmm.

Here's the full recipe!

Ingredients:
1 pound potatoes, peeled and cut into several pieces
1/4 chopped onion
6 cups water
2 tsp salt
2 cups whole milk
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
4 slices crisply cooked bacon, crumbled
1 cup croutons
1/2 cup minced green onion

Directions:
1. In a large saucepan, combine the potatoes, onion, and water and 1 tsp of salt. Bring to a boil over high heat. Cover, reduce the heat to medium, and cook until the potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes.

2. Drain the potatoes and return them to the hot saucepan. Mash them with a potato masher.

3. Stir the milk into the mashed potatoes and return to medium heat, stirring until the soup is well blended and hot, about 5 minutes. Taste and add salt and pepper as desired.

4. Put the cheese, bacon, croutons, and green onion in separate small bowls to accompany the soup.

Makes 4 servings.

Recipe: Mulligatawny Soup

Subtle, creamy, comforting. Those would be my top three words to describe this tasty, tasty dish. Perfect comfort food, whether you're sick, tired, or just plain ol' grumpy. I should know. I was those last two items before I made this, and now I am neither. Okay, that's not true. I'm still tired. BUT I'm no longer grumpy. So kudos to the mulligatawny soup. (Added bonus: mulligatawny is just super fun to say!)

This recipe (like all the ones I've been making) was ridiculously easy. It took about an hour to prepare, including chopping time (onion, chicken, apple, etc). But if you did the chopping ahead of time, or you didn't simmer it so long, you could probably cut down the prep time to ~40 minutes.

The thing that I liked a lot about this recipe (besides how easy and tasty it was) was that I had virtually all the ingredients already on hand. All I needed to buy was some curry paste, and now that I have that, I'm pretty much set! Of course, not all of you may keep coconut milk in the pantry, but I highly recommend it. It's delicious in all manner of curries and Asian dishes. Mmm.

My apologies about the blurry picture. I swear the full-size version isn't blurry at all, but something weird is happening every time I try to upload it. Grrr.

Your first step is to throw on some rice. I like to make mine in a rice cooker, because it's much harder for me to screw up that way, but you can always do it on the stove as well. Instead of doing just water though, throw in some of the coconut milk for a deliciously creamy finished product. (Be careful though -- coconut milk can bubble like crazy once it gets going. It can make quite a mess!)

Next, sauté the onion and garlic in a skillet. When they're just beginning to get soft, add in the chicken and apple.

Once the chicken is cooked through, stir in a tablespoon of curry paste. I'm sure you could use pretty much whatever type of curry paste you'd like and it would turn out great, but I myself used tandoori. Yum.

Warning: although you can't really tell in the above picture, after you add the red curry paste, the chicken will turn a rather alarmingly bright pink colour. Like really pink (i.e., the chicken starts to look more like ham). It was a bit disconcerting, but it tasted great anyways.

After about a minute, it's time to add some good ol' chicken broth, cream, and the rest of the coconut milk.

You may notice from the above photo that I've suddenly switched everything to a very large saucepan. If I was thinking I would have cooked everything in there from the start and saved myself another pan to wash, but as it was, it wasn't until I was merrily adding the 3rd or 4th cup of chicken broth that I began to realize I was going to have a very large problem if I didn't switch everything to a much bigger pan. Ah well. C'est la vie.

Also, the soup really isn't as yellow as it look in the above picture. The lighting situation on our stove is really terrible for pictures, so I did the best I could. It's actually much more of a delicate creamy pink than it is the squash-yellow of the above photo.

Bring the whole thing to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for about 10 minutes to thicken slightly. Now, if you don't care about presentation, then just dump all of your lovely coconut rice into the soup, along with some chopped green onions, give it a good couple of stirs, and serve. For a more elegant and impressive look, pile some rice in the center of a shallow soup bowl and then ladle the soup around the rice. Top with a sprig of fresh parsley for a garnish, and you're all set!

Here's the full recipe:

Mulligatawny Soup
Recipe from "The Guy Can't Cook" by Cinda Chavich

Ingredients:
3/4 cup long-grain basmati rice
One 400 mL can coconut milk, divided
1 cup water
1 tsp salt
2 Tbsp olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 chicken breasts, cut into 1/4 inch cubes
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled and cut into 1/4 cubes
1 Tbsp hot Indian curry paste (or to taste)
4 cups chicken broth 
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 green onions, chopped

Directions:
1.  To make the rice, combine the rice, 1/2 cup of the coconut milk, water and salt in a medium pot. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Cover and reduce the heat to low. Simmer for 20 minutes or until the rice is tender.

2. To make the soup, in a medium saucepan heat the olive oil over high heat and sauté the garlic and onions for 5-10 minutes or until just soft. Add the chicken and apples and cook until the chicken is almost cooked through, about 5 minutes.

3. Stir in the curry paste, coating the chicken and apples. Cook for 1 minute or until the paste is very fragrant. Add the broth, cream, and remaining coconut milk, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium low and simmer for 10 minutes to slightly thicken.

4. Stir in in the cooked coconut rice and green onions and heat through. Or for a special presentation, pile portions of the coconut rice in the center of each shallow soup plate, then ladle the creamy chicken soup around the edge of the rice.

Bee's Notes: 
The original recipe says it makes enough for 4-6 people. While I agree it easily makes enough soup for 6 people, I would definitely suggest making more rice if serving for more than 3 people. The amount of rice in the recipe gave exactly 1/2 cup of cooked coconut rice for each of the 3 of us.