March 10, 2015

• Looking into the Soup Pot

  I've been participating in the Lenten soup suppers every Friday at my church. This last Friday I made soup again. By popular demand, I made my Thai Pho again - a triple batch. They ate until there was only enough left for 2 small bowls. I decided, after trying the other soups, that I am a picky soup eater. So far the variety of soups presented tend toward the mundane and conventional. I know that tomato soup is popular and the cooks try very hard to personalize them but, well, it is still tomato soup. We had Italian tomato soup made with lots of garlic and oregano that tasted like spaghetti sauce. Then there was the parmesan basil tomato soup that was tasty but reminded me of a pale version of spaghetti sauce. We've had squash soup which was pretty darned bland. There have been bean soups both in a clear broth and in a tomato base. Both suffered from the "Catholic touch" which is to say that if you left out the 8 cups of water, they'd be much heartier and more flavorful! Since I'm signed up to bring soup again on March 20th, I have been experimenting. On Sunday I was looking up soup recipes and found one that looked good. It was one from the cookbook author Ina Garten (the Barefoot Contessa). I liked the photo but the cooking time was 2 hours and 10 minutes. Yikes! I wanted to make it for lunch. So I did a few shortcuts and voila - a quick and easy version.

  Seafood Chowder

  Ingredients:
  Swanson's Seafood broth (Bam! Over one hour off the prep time!)

  
  2 T. butter
  
  1/4 cup flour
  1 package imitation crab (another big chunk of time saved because I didn't have to sift through crab meat and pick out the shells)
  6 large shrimp - peeled and tailed
  
  1 - 5 ounce salmon filet
  
  1 cup frozen corn
  1 cup frozen diced potatoes (beats peeling a large potato and dicing it up)
  
  1 very large carrot diced
  3 T. dehydrated onion
  1 stalk celery diced
  2 T. olive oil
  1/4 t. pepper
  Salt to taste
  Chopped fresh parsley
  

  Directions
  1. Dice the carrots and celery (takes the most time ~10 minutes).
  2. Put the olive oil in a large saucepan and heat. Add carrots, potatoes, celery and corn and saute until tender. (~10 min)
  3. While the veggies are cooking, peel and chop the shrimp and dice the imitation crab meat. Then cut the salmon into smallish cubes.
  4. The veggies should be tender so add the seafood broth and onion bringing it to a boil. (~2-5 min)
  5. Melt the butter in a skillet and stir in the flour to create a roux. Do not brown the roux. (~5 min)
  6. Add the roux to the seafood broth and veggies stirring well.
  7. Place the shrimp, fish and imitation crab in the skillet and cook until the fish and shrimp are done. (~5 min)
  8. Stir cooked seafood into the thickened broth and add pepper. Before adding any salt - taste the soup! You might already be as salty as you need.
  
  9. Stir and turn off the heat.
  10. Place soup in a bowl and garnish with the fresh parsley.
  

  Sparky rated this a 8.5/10 because I only added 1/8 t. pepper and I should have gone with the full 1/4 t. Anyway, he gobbled it up after adding a little more pepper... but that was his preference. Seems this one will join the meal rotation.

  • 7:06 am
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