Gumbo Verde Louisiana

This Gumbo works nicely in a crockpot. Serve in soup bowls with Rice and Louisiana style Hot Sauce. Easy to do and tastes fine. Nearly impossible to overcook it. Just gets thicker and richer. 

Throw it together and let it simmer for hours. Yes, you can do it on the top of the stove, but why? This is more you-have-to-cook-dinner-365-days-a-year cooking. EASY to do. Tastes good. 

Forgive the brevity and lack of direction - sometimes I get these recipes written down on the backs of envelopes. The Greens are the best part of this Gumbo for my taste. I double the amount.  

Gumbo Verde

1 pound smoked or garlic Sausage, sliced in bite size pieces

2 cans of Navy Beans

1 can Beef Consomme with 2 cups Water

1 package frozen chopped Mustard Greens (10 ounces)

1 Onion, chopped

1 Bell Pepper, chopped

2 clove Garlic, chopped (optional)

Salt and Pepper to taste

Saute the Sausage with Onion, Bell Pepper and Garlic. Combine Sausage mixture with the Consomme and Water, Beans, Greens. Add Salt and Pepper to taste. Simmer slowly until the Beans become very soft and the Gumbo is thickened thereby.

Feel free to substitute cannellini or pink beans. You can use turnip greens or collards. I like frozen Turnip or Mustard Greens. I can only find them frozen in ethnic markets. So worth searching for. 

Beautiful Soup So Rich and Green

BEAUTIFUL Soup, so rich and green,
Waiting in a hot tureen!
Who for such dainties would not stoop?
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
- by Lewis Carroll

January is National Soup Month. I love soup both hot and cold. The soup recipe below had its start with a recipe by Poppy Cannon in Eating European at Home and Abroad published by Doubleday in 1961. I altered it to suit our family. Poppy Cannon (August 2, 1905 - April 1975) was at various times the food editor of the Ladies Home Journal and House Beautiful.

Perhaps best known for her books on food, Miss Cannon was also the author of 2,000 magazine articles on a variety of topics, and wrote newspaper columns ranging from fashion and travel to race relations as well as poetry and fiction. Read more...

Emeril LaGasse makes this Portugese soup with linguica sausage added. I have tried that and my children like this Vegan version better.

Ingredients for Caldo Verde Soup:

6 Potatoes
4 tablespoons Olive Oil
¼ teaspoon Black Pepper
1 tablespoon Salt
1 Dried Hot Pepper (optional)
4 cups shredded Greens (Kale or Turnip are especially good)
2-6 cloves fresh Garlic
2 quarts Water

Wakame finely shredded with scissors (optional and to taste)

Peel and slice the potatoes. Cover with water and add olive oil and peeled garlic cloves, and cook until tender. Remove the Hot Pepper. Mash the potatoes and garlic in the broth. Add salt and pepper. Then add 4 cups shredded fresh greens or one large package of frozen greens and the wakame if using it. I almost always use frozen because it’s faster than shredding fresh greens and the results are good. Cook for an hour or until the greens are tender.

Note: If you are cooking for dedicated hot food haters, make Caldo Verde without the hot pepper and serve Louisiana hot sauce or Tabasco as a condiment. Ms. Cannon writes that this soup may be made with a combination of cabbage and spinach. I found that combination insipid. She also does not include garlic. I don’t think she would recognize my version but I must thank her for the fabulous start.

And to those who know and love Lewis Carroll as much as I, please forgive the poetic license and quotation wantonness. I know the soup spoken of was Turtle, Mock Turtle.

The Other French Onion Soup

It is icy and cold in Philadelphia. I want hot comforting soup. January is National Soup Month so I am republishing this easy Soup recipe.

This onion and cheese soup is simple to make, really tasty, and does not require any special cooking skill at all.  The quantity is infinitely expandable, just maintain the proportion of  equal weights of onion to potato. Serves 2 to 4 people.

3 large potatoes
3 large onions
8 ounces Swiss Cheese (quantity to taste)
Garnish of Minced Celery Tops

Peel onions and potatoes and place them in a deep soup pot. Be generous about removing outer layers of onion that are too tough to cook. Add enough water to cover the vegetables plus one inch above them. Bring water to a boil, then turn down and simmer until onions and potatoes are very soft. Grate the cheese. Mash the vegetables in their own broth when tender. Season with Salt and Pepper. Stir the cheese into the hot soup and serve. Garnish with minced celery tops.

Note: Do not overcook or it will be glue. Cook only until the vegetables can be pierced with a fork. You want some texture in your soup.

You may wish to substitute another cheese or garnish (minced parsley, bacon bits, etc.).  I prefer the combination above, as taught me by an elderly French woman whose surname I never learned. She was Madame Sophie always. A little green salad and some good bread and I feel a happy well fed person.

Pickle Soup

Polish people love pickles. We use crushed pickle puree to season dishes like sauteed mushrooms. We even make Pickle Soup.

You can find many Pickle Soup recipes on the Net. This recipe comes from Treasured Polish Recipes for Americans published in 1948 by the Polanie Club.

It would be silly to publish a Pickle Soup recipe without publishing a recipe for Polish Dill Pickles. They are delicious and easy to make. So look for that to be posted next. I have three volunteer cucumber plants. So I will be making lots of pickles.

Babcia is translated as GrandMother.  My Babcia made Pickle Soup at Easter with the broth left from cooking the kielbasa for the cold breakfast that breaks the Easter fast. I wondered for years how she got that unique savory flavor. And then I found my vintage Polish cookbook.

I have to make this. If you, Cher Reader, make it before I do, let me know how it goes. I will update.

DILL PICKLE SOUP

3 large Dill Pickles
3 tablespoons Butter
Meat or Vegetable Stock
1 cup Sour Cream
2 tablespoons Flour

Slice the Pickles and saute in Butter and Flour until thoroughly wilted. Add the Stock and simmer slowly for half an hour. Strain and add the Sour Cream. Serve with Pierozki.

Portagee Joe's Cafe Shrimp Bisque

Click Me for More Photographs

This recipe comes from Eggs I Have Known by Corinne Griffith. It was Miss Griffith's Coconut Bars that so delighted Clark Gable. I write about those elsewhere. Of course, this cookbook is out of print.

I have not yet made this bisque. I am going down to the Italian Market to get the shrimp today. I expect this dish to be delicious. I give it to you verbatim. Old cookbooks are low on directions. And I do not think this movie star actually ever cooked anything. We shall see. Nip and tuck.

Portagee Joe's Cafe was one of the small cafes which could be found along Fisherman's Wharf in 1950's Monterey California.

Portagee Joe's Shrimp Bisque

1 tablespoon Celery (chopped fine)
3 tablespoons Butter
2 cups Milk
1 cup cooked Shrimp (mashed fine)
1 wineglass Sherry
1 tablespoon Onion (chopped fine)
3 tablespoons Flour
3 cups Cream
1/4 teaspoon Salt
Paprika

Cook Celery and Onion in Butter over a slow fire for 5 minutes. Place in a double boiler and cook over hot water. Add flour. Add Milk, 2 cups Cream and put remaining 1 cup of Cream aside. Cook mixture until thickened. Add Shrimp, Salt and one drop of Tabasco Sauce (approximately) and reheat. Now whip remaining cup of Cream, add Sherry to Cream and Paprika. Remove soup from stove. Add whipped Cream and stir. Serves Six.

Ms. Mary Walker's Cucumber Soup

This is cucumber season. We are inundated with them. What to do? Make this delicious Cucumber Soup. I give it to you verbatim - straight from Ms. Walker's keyboard.

A note from Ms. Walker:
It's not my recipe. It comes from a 'Marks and Spencer' (British Dept. Store) cookbook called 'St. Michael's Cookery Book' - published in 1980, which I picked up at a flea market when I was visiting relatives a few years ago.

I don't need credit - but it you want to publish it and allot credit, it should be the original 'St. Michael's Cookery Book' by Jeni Wright..

Chilled Cucumber Soup
(VERY British)

2 tblsp butter for frying
1 onion (about 2inch) finely chopped
1 European cucumber diced (WITH skin and seeds - which is why it should be a European)
1-1/2 tblsp flour
20 oz hot milk
10 oz chicken stock
Salt and pepper to taste
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
And to finish - 1/2 pint heavy cream
chopped fresh mint
green food coloring - if desired

In 3 or 4 quart saucepan - saute onion and cucumber in butter - then cover and cook gently for about 5 minutes

Stir in flour and cook for a further 2 or 3 minutes - stirring constantly

Remove pan from heat and gradually stir in hot milk - stir thoroughly. Stir in the stock and return to heat. Bring to gentle simmer - stirring frequently. Season with salt and pepper and nutmeg

Lower heat - 'half cover' so steam can escape - and simmer very gently for about 20 minutes - stirring occasionally. Be sure it doesn't stick or burn.

Puree with an electric 'stick' blender or in a food processor. Should be consistency of heavy cream!

Allow to cool before refrigerating. Serve chilled with cream and mint - if desired. OR - in the winter I serve it hot with croutons. YUMMMMM!

Let me know what you think. I usually make a double batch so I can share with neighbors.
When cucumbers are in season and available I usually make the onion/cucumber sauté 'base' and freeze it until I'm ready to make soup - which is what I used this morning.

NOTE: If European cucumbers aren't available - you can use regular cukes BUT you would need to peel and seed them - so you would need 2 or 3 to equal one European.
Good Luck.