OT: The Official Soup, Bread, and Cheese Thread | Page 8 | The Boneyard

OT: The Official Soup, Bread, and Cheese Thread

You sound like my grandmother. We had garbage pickup once a week, and trash one day a week. Our garbage pail was always empty. Leftovers and scraps from one meal were used the next day. Wednesday was Sheppard's Pie - the best table scrap meal going.

Son of Robert said:
Soup for me is a labor of love. I save the discards of vegetable prep, nothing rotten ever, but more like ends of broccoli, carrots, onions etc., garlic bottoms, anything I think will lend flavor and nutrients. Put it in a zip lock bag, keep it in your freezer and continue to add to it. I add to this all bones from the table and freeze these also. Once you have two bags worth, good size bags, maybe 2qt or so x two you are ready to make a good stock. Simmer/boil on low for a day or so, more like two, adding water when necessary in a 7.5qt pot. Move it around as much as you want with a big spoon. Take your time, when you think you're done, most things in this pot are unidentifiable, you've cooked it down.

Strain this a couple of times thru a wire screen strainer regular width, allow to get chilled overnight, then remove top layer of fat which has congealed. You are ready to proceed. If it is bitter at all maybe from chicken bones add some sugar to taste, not much.

At this point based on the flavor of your stock decide what kind of soup you want to make. Select a meat, select your veggies, lentils or beans, rice or barley, potatoes, etc. Flavor your meat by sauteing it first. Add your beans and harder vegetables first, then later your quartered mushrooms, noodles etc.

Know your timing. Actually making the soup, the cooking of it, really on depends your slowest cooking ingredient but there are no exacts. The longer it cooks without making mush out of your veggies the better. Better flavors, better broth. If using beef to cook take your time til it's tender. Add any spices you think you might need. Don't F it up, it won't need much at all.

The stock is so vitamin and nutrient rich it is a blessing. Very healthy, liquid gold. Very flavorful. Good stock is a culinary delight.

There are only 3 ways to create flavor in soup. The stock, the ingredients you add, spices. Stock is the backbone, hard to get a really great soup without it.

You have to have a natural feel for how much of each ingredient you add, I don't use recipes. When finishing broth/water level should be about one inch from top. Plenty of soup to go around, freeze some for other days.

Delicious! Make it a little different each time. For vegetable soup use no bones or meat. Same principles.
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Deepster said:
Kreplach. Likely made with a bottom feeding Jew chicken.
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Time to disambiguate a bit:

Are you referring to a "bottom feeding Jew"-type of chicken or a "bottom feeding chicken" about whom your mother amusingly uses Jew rather than Jewish as an adjective?
 
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Any cottage cheese fans here? It's a staple for me and I've recently gotten hooked on a new brand, Muuna:

0085649100605_0_A1C1_0600.png
 
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billybud said:
Give me a good old fashioned grilled cheese...one actually grilled in butter on a flat grill, cheddar on slices of white bread.

Screw all of those artisanal, three cheese sandwiches, on over thick Ukranian sourdough, with a touch of hubris and priced accordingly.
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Screw hubris. Many sandwiches with better ingredients taste better.
 
8893 said:
Any cottage cheese fans here? It's a staple for me and I've recently gotten hooked on a new brand, Muuna:

0085649100605_0_A1C1_0600.png
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You should checkout cottage cheese and noodle recipes. Used to have that on occasion growing up. Another comfort food.
 
temery said:
You sound like my grandmother. We had garbage pickup once a week, and trash one day a week. Our garbage pail was always empty. Leftovers and scraps from one meal were used the next day. Wednesday was Sheppard's Pie - the best table scrap meal going.
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My father was born in 1928 and grew up during the Great Depression and the years shortly after, the 30's really. I'm actually just seeking flavor, but for that older generation, kitchen frugality was a real thing.
 
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Son of Robert said:
My father was born in 1928 and grew up during the Great Depression and the years shortly after, the 30's really. I'm actually just seeking flavor, but for that older generation, kitchen frugality was a real thing.
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In the making of good soup, frugality and flavor meet in the middle as allies.
 
8893 said:
It’s a very divisive food. It either disgusts you or you love it.
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I love it. Kind of the perfect food. Tastes great, fills me up, cheap, and great source of protein.
 
I made my suggested soup today, tastes as good as I remember. On cheese, it is versatile, available, equally desirable in salads, main dishes, sauces, and suprisingly even in desserts. One note, if you use cheese watch your salt.
 
For those not willing to make soup Costco has a pretty decent homemade chicken soup. I like it but it is heavy on the pepper. Maybe not high end restaurant quality but way above cans and boxes.
 
jibsey said:
For those not willing to make soup Costco has a pretty decent homemade chicken soup. I like it but it is heavy on the pepper. Maybe not high end restaurant quality but way above cans and boxes.
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Pretty believable, and it certainly tempted me earlier this week before I just went for the rotisserie chicken.

So here I am, half hour from neighborhood Soup Group, and I've got a stock about to boil and then simmer for a while. No, it's not for soup Group. I just like the idea that my labor today will end with my eating home made soup even if it's not mine.

All kidding aside, @Deepster's initial skepticism about restaurant soup has some merit. In addition to stripping off the meat to be added later, the rest of the Costco chicken - skin, bones, organs, gelatinous drippings, etc. - has gone into a stock pot with requisite water, and then I just added anything from the fridge or counter that I didn't want to deal with anymore: celery tops, carrot ends & peels, onion, crushed garlic, ginger root, unfirm limes & lemons, dill & parsley that wasn't going to get used for anything else, rose hips (got tired of looking at them with no sense of what they are for), salt and pepper.

Whatever emerges will get the treatment that @Son of Robert recommended, and I'll eventually add the chicken meat and some Costco frozen vegetables. I'm pretty certain it'll be good, and the refrigerator will be more manageable. I also have several Boneyard-recommended hot sauces, and some other tricks in reserve if I need 'em.
 
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Soups -- Gumbo -- Beef Barley Stew
Also, my wife makes an Andouille, bacon and chickpea soup that is outstanding.

Bread -- can't do a whole lot better than real, fresh sliced, heavy on the caraway seeds, Jewish rye.

Cheese -- I am not a big fan of any of the fancyazz cheeses. Give me some decent provolone or a big chunk of Monterey Jack and I'm happy. Although smoked buffalo milk mozzarella is great -- or at least I remember it as being great. Haven't had it in years.
 
My go-to soup is Rhode Island style clearbroth clam chowder

In terms of bread, nothing beats a dry, crusty, extra-well cooked loaf of Italian bastone bread.

I hate all cheese, so I won't weigh in on that part.
 
The Easter bread my family makes is really good, eggs make it yellow in color, it has a hive brown crust on it. Toasted with butter slabbed on it- yum!
Cheese festivals are fun things, a great one is in Shelburne VT in the summer. Over 50 different cheese makers with all the different kinds of cheeses they make, plus VT ciders and beers (some of them) and spirits like Whistle Pig whiskey, other foods galore, all at beautiful Shelburne Farm on Lake Champlain.
 
Skied Stowe yesterday. Had chili with Mac and Cheese for lunch at the Octagon.

10/10 for taste
0/10 for the stomach
 
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