Old-fashioned Oxtail Soup!

I grew up on this hearty winter soup--or stew, if you prefer!--and I love it.  Remember the old saying "it sticks to your ribs?"  Well, it does.  It's wonderful, rich, simple peasant food and you really don't even need a recipe. 

Soup-making is sacred, to me.  Whatever combination of ingredients, I feel deeply connected to my ancestors stretching all the way back to the first pots that would hold a bubbling liquid, some meat, and some vegetables. (Tightly-woven baskets with hot stones dropped in, anyone?)

But I digress...

What do you have on hand?  Throw it in there!  We try hard to use organic vegetables and if that's not possible, fresh locally grown, and from the "clean 15" list of those least affected by chemicals.

All you really need are a variety of vegetables (think variety, color, and nutrient-dense!) and good quality oxtails, not always easy to find in today's hurry-up, ready made "cuisine."  A good butcher should be able to fix you up, even if you have to call ahead, and of course we look for locally sourced, pastured, hormone-free, grass-fed beef if at all possible.

I had a couple of pounds on hand--we buy the good stuff from Moink,  The Local Pig in the City Market in Kansas City, or Barham Family Farm in Kearney (MO), but I know there are plenty of other sources out there.

I lightly brown the meat in an iron skillet to bring out the rich flavor, then put it in the crock pot with bone broth, beef broth (home made or commercial) or water, and add whatever vegetables I have on hand.

This time it was onions (always), garlic, carrots, turnips, celery, zucchini, and radishes (yes, radishes!  They are wonderful cooked), and a few greens (baby spinach?  Chard?)  Sometimes I have celeriac or parsnips, but above you see the basics. 

Cut in bite-size pieces and add to the pot. Make sure the liquid covers most of the ingredients, but not to worry, they will squish up (the zucchini sure did!) and cook down into the broth.

Add what herbs you like (we make an Italian seasoning mix), season to taste, and put the lid on the pot.  Set to high and come back later to a wonderful dinner!  (If you use an instant pot, that's good too, I just don't have one.)

 
Oxtails are so rich in collagen and protein that the broth will partly solidify or gel when cool.  This is GOOD.

This was soooo good I even had a bowl for breakfast the next morning AND dinner the next night.  And had leftovers to freeze for later.

Savory Squash Soup--again!

SAVORY SQUASH & SAUSAGE SOUP

I thought I'd done this version in the blog, but if I did I didn't label it....so by popular request, my sausage and squash soup, perfect for a wintry day!

butternut squash keeps well in the winter--this is the bulbous end with the seeds...

bubbling away on the stove...

You’ll need:

1/2 large sweet onion
a winter squash (we like butternut squash for this--and of course if you can get organic, all the better)
2 cloves of garlic
5-6 cups of soup stock or to cover well, preferably home made--I used some of my bone broth I hadn't gotten to yet, with chicken stock
breakfast sausage--about a lb.
1 T. butter or olive oil
dash of sea salt
a generous grating of fresh pepper
(We like Pepperman instead of those last two)
1/2 t. cumin
1/2 t. turmeric
Sprinkling of cayenne, to taste (I'm a wuus)

dollop of sour cream or plain lowfat yogurt, optional
dash of hot sauce, optional squared...

Peel and chop the onion into about ½" pieces, and brown lightly in the hot oil–
Add the garlic.

Brown and break up the sausage in another pan.

Slice, peel, and dice the squash.
Put in a stock pot with broth and stock, and cook on medium heat till the squash is soft.  Mash with a potato masher or use a blender or food processor.

Add the sautee'd onion  along with the meat and seasonings, and simmer a half hour or longer.
Serve with sour cream or yogurt and enjoy--perfect for a wintry evening!

You can tell this photo was taken when I was still eating bread. If gluten doesn't bother you, that's your choice!

And add a little hot sauce if you're like my husband...I'm the delicate little flower in the family!

Crawfish Bisque--it's soup season!

The Starving Artists Cook Crawfish Bisque!

NOTE: this is from our old LiveJournal version of Starving Artists, too...slowly moving things here!

I love the lobster bisque at Ventana’s Gourmet Grille http://www.tasteofmissouri.com/ventana/ *...but Ventana’s is closed on Mondays, as I wrote this, and for some reason Thursday is lobster bisque day). (If you’re ever in town, I recommend a visit! )

Anyway, what we had on hand was frozen crawfish meat. Joy of Cooking has a recipe for Crawfish Bisque, but it assumes you start with, well, mudbugs. Crawdads. Crayfish. Crawfish. Whatever! And the recipe reserves some of the critters to stuff for garnish.

I really wanted the taste of lobster or shrimp bisque, so decided to combine, expand, and experiment–as I usually do. (Who actually follows recipes unless you're baking?)  Crawfish is ever so much less expensive than lobster, by the way, unless you live by the sea, and it's very, very tasty!

One thing I learned, though, was that it’s not such a good idea to fill the blender container 2/3 full of hot soup stock and turn it on high without a REALLY good grip on the lid...

Ever see a geyser? Volcano, maybe? Yes, I made “Crawfish Vesuvius”...

This recipe requires doing several different things at once, so my knight rode his white charger into the kitchen at my cry for help and cleaned up the mess on the counter...and under the microwave...and all over the blender...and his 7-day vitamin container...

With a SMILE. Bless the man!

I kept cooking...

ANYWAY...

Here are the basics!

1 lb. crawfish meat (tails, fresh caught, frozen, etc.) (or shrimp, or lobster) (We found crawfish tail meat at our local grocers and also at the little fish market out by the Missouri River. A buddy gets it at WalMart--it's not hard to find.)
(If you have to prepare your own, shell them and saute lightly with butter and finely chopped onion, then grind.)

1 ½ C. chicken or other soup stock (I had mostly veggie, with a bit of chicken flavor)

1 sweet onion, chopped

3-4 ribs celery and leaves, chopped

2 cloves garlic (the recipes didn’t call for garlic but I know us...)

1 bay leaf

Since this was crawfish, I added a bit of gumbo file herb–I had it on hand! Maybe ½ t.


Freshly ground peppercorns–we like the medley of several different kinds

A little sea salt...we try to cut down, so just a wee tad for us, thanks...

2 C. half and half, warmed

½ C. sour cream (optional. You can just use extra half and half or milk, or yogurt*)

1/4 C. sherry (I didn’t have this, so I used white wine. It was FINE.)

4 T. butter

1/4 C. chopped or grated onion

A goodly sprinkle of paprika, maybe a half teaspoon, more if you like (had smoked on hand, yum...)
Another sprinkle of nutmeg.

OK, so I may have made this a bit more complicated than it needed to be...work with me here!

Chop the onion and celery and put them into the soup stock with a couple of cloves of garlic, a bay leaf, the gumbo file, the pepper. Simmer, covered, for half an hour, then remove the bay leaf and puree in the blender.

CAREFULLY.
A little at a time.
Not on high speed.
Or if you do, KEEP THAT LID PRESSED DOWN TIGHT.

Meanwhile, melt the butter (or butter/canola mix, like we use) in a small skillet, and cook the finely chopped or grated onion till soft. Add the crawfish meat and keep stirring till it’s warm.

Warm the half and half, then stir it into the stock, along with the optional sour cream. (I just like sour cream!)

Put half of the crawfish and onion mixture in the blender, with half the warmed half and half, and whir. Carefully. With a tight lid.

Add to the pot of stock you’ve put back on the stove, and repeat with the other half. (You can use a hand grinder if you prefer, or a Cuisinart if you like high tech.)

Now, add the white wine or sherry, about a half teaspoon of paprika, and the nutmeg. Stir, and summer gently for a few more minutes...

Some recipes suggest adding flour or bread crumbs to thicken, but this was plenty thick enough. I think I had more meat than they normally use, and we avoid grains for health reasons.

Seriously good, seriously rich. This is not low-cal eating, here, folks...

We were at Costco last week and looked at their already prepared lobster bisque...and then remembered the taste of this. We weren't even tempted, we'll make our own!

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If you really do prefer having a more complete recipe to go buy, this book looks like a good possibility: Fine Kettles of Fish: A Treasury of Seafood Chowders, Bisques, Soups & Stews  It's IN there...

Roadfood: The Coast-to-Coast Guide to 700 of the Best Barbecue Joints, Lobster Shacks, Ice Cream Parlors, Highway Diners, and Much, Much More makes me want to hit the road in search of the perfect bisque...but ya know?  May have found it in our own kitchen!


* The Taste of Missouri site is the brainchild of my good friends and webmasters at morgansites.com--check it out! If you're in the area, I can recommend the places they've featured. And hey, you'll find my website and blog there, too! http://www.tasteofmissouri.com/

*  As noted you can substitute yogurt for the sour cream--whole milk yogurt is about 160 calories in a CUP, and 2 TABLESPOONS of sour cream is 60 calories--so 480 calories for a cup of sour cream.  More fat, too...and yogurt offers more calcium, so your choice!)

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The crawfish in the illustration was done years ago for one of my books--I don't even remember which one, now! It's watercolor on Fabriano cold pressed paper...

Squash Soup! (or in this case, pumpkin...)

The weather gets nippy and we begin to crave soup, soup, and MORE soup. But different.

(NOTE:  this recipe was originally on our LiveJournal version of Starving Artists,  but since we just came into a free post-Halloween pumpkin, I'm making it that way.  clean out, cut up, and steam pumpkin till tender, just like the squash...)

This one is rich and delicious as well as different...I made it with a twist, this time. Chicken! (Yes, more things to do with a roast chicken, though this one was hickory smoked...somehow the thought of that lovely smoky flavor with this particular soup recipe just sounded right!)

As usual, we ate fresh hot chicken as soon as we got home with it–that hickory chicken smell was too tempting!–then J. pulled the meat off the bones for me and I boiled the bones for soup stock...again rescuing about another cup of meat in the process.

Alternatively, we use breakfast sausage, browned, which is luscious! 

This is delicious without meat, too, though, so if you prefer a vegetarian version just leave it out!   The squash itself is wonderfully good for you--check out the info here:  www.truestarhealth.com/Notes/2001002.html

You’ll need:

one large sweet onion
a winter squash (we like butternut squash for this--and of course if you can get organic, all the better)
1-2 cloves of garlic (or the jarred, minced stuff)
5-6 cups of soup stock, preferably home made
1 C. or so of diced chicken, unless you’re skipping meat
Or saute and crumble breakfast sausage--about a lb.
1 T. butter or olive oil (organic, if you can swing it!)
dash of sea salt
a generous grating of fresh pepper

and (optional) about a half bottle of hard cider
dollop of sour cream or plain lowfat yogurt, also optional
dash of hot sauce, optional squared...

Peel and chop the onion into about ½" pieces, and brown lightly in the hot oil–you can use the pot you’re going to cook the soup in, if you like. Add the garlic. Keep stirring while you slice and dice the squash...

It’s not easy to deal with (winter squash has a tough skin, which some of us could use!), so get the longest-necked butternut squash you can fine–the neck has no pith or seeds, just good eating that’s easiest to get at! Cut into rounds and peel, then dice. When you get to the body of the squash, scrape out the pith and seeds, then peel and dice the meat as normal.



(I’ve got a buddy who doesn’t waste a thing–he cleans the seeds, toasts them, and eats them for crunchy nutritious snacks. They’re REALLY good, but there aren’t a whole lot of seeds in a squash. Maybe if we do a pumpkin later...)

(And of course, we can put the leavings in the compost heap--we don't waste all THAT much...)

You can of course use any winter squash you prefer–acorn, turk’s head, whatever...this is just fairly simple, delicious, and almost always available at the store.

So. Dump in the soup stock, cider, and squash, along with the meat, and any seasonings, and simmer till the squash is soft.

Squish up as much of the squash if you can with a potato masher or big spoon (if I’m doing the vegetarian version I just toss it in the blender, but I don’t much care for puree’d meat. Reminds me of baby food...).

Serve with that optional dollop of sour cream or yogurt and an artful swirl of hot sauce and dive in! It will warm you from the inside out...

This is SO good, I made another version of it...we'll share it soon!

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Oh my–I wonder if there’s a similar recipe in this book!?

Harvest of Pumpkins and Squash

(And sorry, you can't actually look inside unless you hit the text link above--I just couldn't manage a different view of it!)

I love the picture of the pumpkin bowls on the front! (Guess our butternut squash would make pretty small bowls, though...)

I went looking for the soup tureen I remembered, which would be such fun to serve this in–shaped like a big pumpkin–and instead found Campbell Collection of Soup Tureens at Winterthur (Winterthur Book)! WOW. As someone in love with our history and with good food, this is terribly tempting...I still want to go to Winterthur, in Wilmington, Delaware! http://www.winterthur.org/

Wonder if they have reproduction tureens in their museum store? http://www.winterthur.org/visiting/museum_stores.asp?sub=museum_stores  (Sorry for the long link, I hope it holds!)

There is EVERYTHING on YouTube...here’s a recipe for organic butternut squash soup from the Hippy Gourmet! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsV8csQQKlk

What fun...

And of course I have things there too...how-to slideshows for artists, mostly, here: http://au.youtube.com/user/KateJosTube

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As always, we'd love to hear what you think--going for that Five Chef's Hat rating, y'know...

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For the artists out there...the illustration was done on hot press Fabriano watercolor paper, with burnt sienna ink and mostly Kremer Pigments watercolors.  I blotted the wash while still wet to give some definition to the shape of the squash...

Minestrone!

Minestrone! Who Knew?!

A recipe from our old Starving Artists on Live Journal--from 2010!  It sounds good, even though it is more a wintry soup.

We’ve been cleaning house and digging through the mess that’s our storage room, allowing me to FINALLY get at my old bookcase. It’s been with me since I lived on our farm–as well as most of the books in it. What fun! Like meeting up with old friends...

I was delighted to find not only the original 1954 compilation of my favorite cooking author of all time, M.F.K. Fisher (The Art of Eating, now out in a 50th Anniversary edition) but the original 1942 war-years How to Cook a Wolf. I LOVED that book when I first discovered it in the 70's. (And hang in there, I'll be mentioning it more in coming articles!)

Fisher writes with humor, courage, and common sense, and not a trace of self-pity for hard times and making do. (Both books are in better condition than many new books, and just as timely.)

What to do when the wolf’s at the door? (A feeling some of us know rather well, at times...)

COOK IT, of course!

So what does that have to do with minestrone? It’s a hearty peasant soup, and inexpensive to make, but I always thought I didn’t care for that particular dish. I’ve tried it in numerous places, and my response was generally a resounding "MEH."

Her recipe DID sound good, though, and I had most of the ingredients on hand, since it just calls for bits of this and that...and it was a gray, cold winter day just begging for a hot bowl of soup...

She says you can add beans (white or navy-style) OR NOT, and add pasta OR NOT, so since the minestrones I’ve tried always had both, I decided to give the OR NOT recipe a shot.

Oh. My.

It was HEAVENLY.

I’d just made a stir-fry, and had scraps of outer cabbage leaves, onion, carrot, celery tops and more left...rather than waste it, I started a soup stock. We had about a cup of organic tomato/squash soup left in the fridge, so I threw that in, too...plus a spoonful of the Beef Base I’ve talked about here before.

Sooooooooo...we had a head start. When I drained out the vegetables, the resulting stock was already pretty luscious. That was the deciding factor–minestrone it was!

And here it is...tweaked to my own kitchen, of course:

The Basics

½ lb. good bacon (we use nitrite and nitrate-free stuff) or a piece of salt pork diced or leftover fat ham.
1 small onion or ½ large one, chopped
1 stalk chopped celery
2 C. Tomatoes, diced (OR 1 can of those gorgeous all-natural fire-roasted diced tomatoes)
--
1 handful chopped parsley, if fresh or 1 T. Dried
1 t. oregano
1 t. sweet basil
or a nice shake of Tuscan Sunset, from Penzey’s Spices, yum, or your favorite Italian herb mixture
(I had some of our homegrown parsley to throw in--I'd chopped and frozen it last fall...)

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Sauté the meat to render out a bit of fat; crumble bacon and set aside, and put the vegetables in the meat fat to glaze and soften.

Add the tomatoes and their juice to a big saucepan or stockpot, and add the vegetables and crumbled bacon/salt pork/ham.

Fisher says to stir in 2-3 quarts of water, but if you’ve got a good soup stock, as I did, add that instead. I added a can of all natural beef stock, too. Simmer, while you:

Put the below veggies through a vegetable grinder, Cuisinart, or just chop them with a sharp knife, which is what I did. I’m not big on noise, and I like to sit and chop...

1 more big onion (or two, we like onion, too!)
1 potato, skins and all, or a couple of small, tender young red ones, which I did
1-2 cloves garlic (Of COURSE I used 2. Big ones!)
½ small cabbage
3 carrots, if you like them–I do, J doesn’t, much, so I just used the half cup of chopped ones we had on hand
2-3 more stalks of celery

handful of spinach, if you have it
handful of green beans, ditto

(I had neither, so I didn’t add them...)

(And no, I don't know why this is in two stages...Fisher said to do it, so I did!)

She didn’t say to do this, but since I had the skillet handy, I sautéd the rest of the veggies before adding them to the soup pot...seemed to make them richer tasting. A nut-sized chunk of butter (I always wanted to say that! NOT a peanut. More an English walnut in the shell...) added to the pan gave me enough fat to fry them in, too.

Er, “sauté’” Forget I said fry...just lightly browned and softened...

I popped them in the pot and let it simmer 45 minutes or so, with a lid...no salt needed, actually, but I added a quick grinding of sea salt to my bowl...

If you’ve got other leftover veggies, throw them in too...I think almost anything but parsnips (which I love but might be a little too sweet) would work, here...leftover squash? Sure. Bell peppers? Why not. I had three little limp green onions left from our enchiladas the other night–I cut them into rounds and into the pot they went!

When the soup was done we ladled into gorgeous handmade bowls we got for Christmas, made by Jeff Walker, a local potter http://www.bestofmissourihands.com/jeffwalker.htm . (If you’re in the neighborhood, you can find it in Excelsior Springs, MO, at Willow Springs Mercantile, because I didn’t do it justice, it was full of soup!)

We topped it with a small handful–er, all right, a generous handful–of leftover pizza cheese and the grated Asiago, Parmesan, Romano mixture we love, and let it melt.  Nothing else was necessary, though you might like a small salad...

Thank you, M.F.K. Fisher! I didn’t exactly use her recipe, but I learned that Minestrone can be REALLY GOOD.

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The painting is watercolor on Fabriano soft press watercolor paper, with just a touch of ink here and there...I got  to use the gorgeous new brushes recommended by my dear friend Laura Frankstone in this post: laurelines.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/12/what-i-loved-in-... I am SO pleased with them! As she says, they hold lots of paint and have killer points...they just DANCE!

**You can find more on these brushes, as well as M.F.K. Fisher's lovely The Art of Eating, in my Amazon store, here: http://astore.amazon.com/httpcathyjohi-20 --and yes, I do earn a tiny commission on anything you buy from my store or anything else you choose while you're there!  I ONLY put things in my store that I personally own or love, nobody sends me things to review or other freebies, so you know I'm honest about it!

Buffalo Chicken Soup!

Y'know, it's much faster taking photos...honest, I WILL do sketches again when I catch my breath!  Meanwhile, here's Joseph's delicious

 

Buffalo Chicken Soup

 

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup butter
• 3 stalks celery, diced
• 1 small onion, diced
• 1/4 cup tapioca or arrowroot flour
• 3/4 cup milk or cream
• 3 cups chicken broth
• 1 teaspoon Better Than Bullion Chicken Flavor
• 2 boneless chicken breasts or 4 boneless thighs, cut in bite size chunks
• 1/4 C. of your favorite hot sauce, more or less...we use Cholula
• 1 1/2 cups shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
• salt and pepper to taste
• Bleu cheese/gorgonzola crumbles

Directions

You can start with cooked chicken breasts, (if you do, skip this step) but it’s even better if you start with raw. Melt a tablespoon of the butter in a large pot over medium heat, sprinkle the chicken chunks with salt & pepper, and sauté them until just done. Once done, set them aside. This leaves nice chicken gooey bits in the pot – leave them there, add the rest of the butter to the pot, add the celery and onion and cook over medium-high heat until tender. 

This part is kind of tricky – sprinkle the flour and fully coat the onion & celery, ensuring all the butter is absorbed. Then slowly stir the milk into the mixture, stirring briskly with a fork as though you were making gravy. It’s easy for this to turn lumpy if you’re not careful.

Add the bouillon and stir until it’s dissolved, then slowly add the chicken broth, stirring constantly.

Cube the chicken and add it to the pot along with the buffalo wing sauce, and cheddar cheese. Reduce heat to low, stirring occasionally. Allow the soup to simmer until the cheese has melted completely, but do not allow to boil. 

Serve with a sprinkling of bleu cheese crumbles on top.

While this is just spicy enough for Kate, I usually add a little more wing sauce or Cholula Hot Sauce (which can be done after it’s been served) to liven it up a bit. [Hey, it was PLENTY lively.  Yum...]

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And yep, I had to have it with a nice green salad...yum...

Fresh and crunchy, with celery hearts, romaine lettuce, onion, cherry tomatoes, and  fresh basil--with extra virgin olive oil and a splash of red wine vinegar...luscious!