Grade: Caribbean Vegetable Soup

• Flavor
• Texture
• Cooking ease
• Price
• Estimated healthiness
• Creativity of the recipe
• Completeness 

Out of 70 points.

Flavor: 10/10. My job of replacing ingredients because I couldn't find that one thing turned out very well, and I hope the thing I replaced tastes like what I used (does that make sense? :P ). So much was going on. It's fruity, fun, playful, and would go well at a summertime party with fruity-alcomaholic drinks and some Caribbean music. It definitely merits the wearing of bathing suits while eating.

Texture: 10/10. What is not right about this thing? I love full, hearty soups. I learned some time back that hearty doesn't necessarily mean meaty, or heavy, or thick; it can be busy, or full. The Caribbean soup seems to take everything awesome and stick them together. It goes against what we seem to think of Caribbean as, but I'm thinking it makes sense. They probably sleep on banana trees (I jest; that wouldn't make any sense, but we have to import them from far away which isn't fair. Our deal locally is berries, pears and apples, really; we don't get neat fruits like bananas.)

Cooking ease: 8/10. DEAR GOD I CHOPPED EVERYTHING. I chopped ahead of time, thinking I'd need to, and although I was correct I didn't have enough bowls to put everything in. I had bowls everywhere, and I still had more to chop. And when I dumped in the first wave of food, I had to continue chopping. By the time I had everything in and cleaned up, it was close to done. And, my dears, it smelled AMAZING. Fruit soup = very large win. I think this and Apple soup may be my two favorites. Just.. get used to chopping.

Price: 9/10. Melons and plantains and so on and so forth do add up and I get that. Some of these you may have already (e.g. bananas, carrots and squash; everyone has squash when it's in season). Some may not, but that's okay. It's very filling and it's not a sinful food; you can have seconds and be okay with it.

Estimated healthiness: 9.5/10. If you're diabetic, this isn't for you due to the glycemic index of the fruits, plus the potassium in things like the bananas/plantains that are included in the recipe. But for the average person, I highly recommend eating more fruits and veggies -- like any future RD should -- but that doesn't mean in the conventional sense. You can team this up with other things like bread, meats and cheeses if you're creative, and save it for later for when you're too lazy to cook up some smoothies or head out to the store for more fresh fruit. It freezes well but takes freaking forever to microwave. The butternut squash soup, 5 ladel-fulls, took about 5 minutes; this one, same amount, could take 8-10, so keep in mind that warming it back up may be a challenge but it's worth it.

Creativity: 10/10. I don't know whether people in the Caribbean would agree -- if this is really something they'd eat in the first place -- but over here it's freaking brilliant. I would have never put those things together, or replaced that one thing with the melon and the squash like Magz the Food Scientist suggested, but it came out extremely well. It's colorful, bright, happy, and busy, and it's filling. It's just plain the best soup ever.

Completeness: 10/10. What the heck else could you PUT in this thing? It's not a gumbo. You don't necessarily need things like okra or sausage, but you could, I guess. The okra would be bland when eaten with the rest of the very sweet fruits and things, but the sausage would hold it's own. However, the fattiness from the animal meat would make the texture change, and I can't predict how that'd work out. I'm not sure I'd be okay with making this soup greasy. It works so well all on it's own. The only thing I could say, really, is to add some leafy greens, perhaps. But that's pushing it, and that's all I can really think of.

Grade: 66.5/70 = a strong A. And I agree, whole-heartedly. I recommend getting what you can at local markets to enhance the flavor, but I know some of that (e.g. bananas) won't be available here in the States like that. Do remember it's supposed to be chunky, with bite-sized things floating around. There's not enough room for floating juices; there should be enough so you can freeze it and not ruin the solids.

As always, enjoy cooking!

Analysis: Indian Beef and Berry

• Flavor
• Texture
• Cooking ease
• Price
• Estimated healthiness
• Creativity of the recipe
• Completeness 

Out of 70 points.

Flavor: 9.8/10. I did it: I put something other than .0 or .5. Why? Because it was..well, it's amazingly good, but it's weird. It's really weird. Not as in, "I'm not sure I could eat that!" weird, but more like, "my tongue doesn't know how to translate this.." weird. I recommend it to expand your dietary-and-tasteful horizons. It's certainly not bad by any means!

Texture: 9/10. It goes onto the tongue well and the fats from the beef make it nice and smooth; the berries are soft and compliant by the time you get to them, but that's offset by the resistance the meat gives when you bite into it. It's all very balanced (I'd remove some salt, but you guys know me and salt by now).

Cooking ease: 9.5/10. You brown beef. You add things. You cook. This isn't rocket science, guys, and it comes out very well. If you're a habitual cook -- just know how things go and when and where -- it may throw you off to add berries to something other than a dessert or alcoholic beverage. I found myself confused about lightly squishing them to add to a soup, and it gives it a weird color. If you can get past that, you're in the clear.

Price: 9/10. Meat's going up. I'm trying to avoid it for multiple reasons -- none of them are largely due to humanitarian reasons, but they're somewhere in there in the scheme of things. The amount of protein one takes in a day, on average, can be multiple times more than one needs. We're oversaturated with it, and a lot of people think it's good because it offsets carb. intake. I could go on, but, really, this soup is a meal in itself, and so, really, the price isn't so bad. Have some bread with it (omgcarbs!") and enjoy yourself.

Estimated healthiness: 9/10. I don't really advocate the eating of beef for health reasons as much as I would fish and chicken, but there's balances to everything and I understand that. There's this whole agricultural and logical and humanitarian side to the meat and veggie issue, and that's your decision. But I still vote for the weak link to colon cancer due to eating animal meats; try to replace that with some veggies or the occasional granola bar or something. This soup, for me, would be my beef for the week. You heard me.

Creativity: 10/10. Someone pulled off a recipe called 'Indian beef and berry.' Let's look at that again and knock off some useless words, shall we? INDIAN BEEF. I know, I know, it's racist to say that an Indian would never eat beef, but you shut up. It's not common, still, and it goes against the American view of the Indian diet. I'm just sayin', it's bold; adding berries makes it creative. It's impressive and I'm glad I chose it.

Completeness: 9/10. I feel like Indian Beef and Berry needs to have some space filled up with something like little green onions, garlic, or tofu, or something. I love the texture of tofu, by the way, which is why I mention it sometimes. The flavor means nothing to me. But you see what I'm getting at. It's beef and berries and liquid. I like more complicated soups, myself, but if you're into the see-through deal that a lot of Asian soups really embrace, then this is definitely in your zone.

65.3/70 is a mid-range A, which definitely reflects how I feel about the soup. I would give it a shot sometime, especially if you come across a thing of beef you're just not sure you know what to do with. If you're tired of the norm, then get on it and try this.

Grade: Roasted Red Pepper Soup

• Flavor
• Texture
• Cooking ease
• Price
• Estimated healthiness
• Creativity of the recipe
• Completeness 

Out of 70 points.

I know, I know, this is late. Somehow it escaped me. I have plenty of time (75 minutes) to do analysis', so why not?

Flavor: 8/10. I had qualms with the abrasiveness/bitter flavor of the soup, but that likely could have been due to my own addition of peppers and not the ones I'd bought from TJ's. I think it was a bit one-sided, though, and needed something else. I would highly suggest this with a sandwich -- perhaps grilled cheese, or ham -- to let the flavors mix. I'm not usually big into adding meats to soups (I will, and I have no qualms with it, but I try to find healthy alternatives and then have my meat on the side), but I feel like a protein would be a fantastic addition. Even tofu.

Texture: 10/10 Brilliant! It's thick, it's creamy, it's smooth, and it feels like substance all at the same time. You feel like you can spoon that into your mouth all day no matter what.

Cooking ease: 6/10. Roasting peppers is a royal pain in the ass when you likely have other things going on in the kitchen, especially when there are so many to roast. Try to find very large bell peppers to negate the need to have so many if you need a large pot. If not, and if you have the time, then this isn't so bad -- but if you're like me and you also want to do cupcakes, icing and perhaps even a little cleaning up before eating the soup, then you're locked onto the stove (in my case, toaster oven) until it's done. And it's hot. I did burn myself. Stupid stove.

Price: 8.5/10 Fantastic, actually. Peppers, when they're the main course and not much else is needed, aren't so bad to pay for. Granted, TJ's ones aren't so cheap, but they're brilliantly flavored, so I was willing to pay the price for them (I have in the past). I don't want to be babied from my other, cheaper soups, though. In the long run, it's worth the price and it still makes the price-per-bowl very, very reasonable. (The way I see it, if I can be cheaper than Panera I've done something. I'm better than them anyway.)

Estimated healthiness: 9.5/10. The cream throws it off, but peppers are a great source of vitamin C and (I think) A. The different colors mean there are different phenols -- that basically means they're, as a whole, healthier. I'd recommend looking up the whole color-in-veggie thing; carotene is in carrots, for instance, and I've seen some good things from it.

Creativity: 9/10. I never considered roasting peppers and cooking them in a soup -- I always consider peppers for things like garnish, addition for flavor, or, if roasting, stuffing peppers. Hispanic dishes have stuffed poblanos all the time, and I think a lot of people think of them when they think of roasted pepper meals -- that, or putting roasted pepper on chicken. But as a main staple of the food? I don't think that comes up nearly as much.

Completeness: 8.5/10. I still say it needs a protein of some sort, to offset some of the negative flavors. That may just be me, but.. again, this is my grade, so what I say goes. And I say bring on the cheese! (Actually, some sharp cheese with some nuts of one's choosing would be fantastic. I shall do that next time! :D )

Total: 8.5/10, so a B. Not bad. Like I said, it needs work, and I'm very interested in doing this again for round two. We all know about round two, right?

Grade: summer tomato soup

I have to start off by describing my bias with tomatoes. My mother thinks I'm insane (I sometimes like them now, but not as much as she'd like. I'm okay with them being on a sandwich, and I love spaghetti sauces and ketchups, but I'm not a fan of fresh tomato or Bruschetta. I suppose it's all in how it's cooked, how much salt is in it, so on and so forth.) That means that my grading scale here might be a little skewed, but I'll do my best.

The guys, by the way, said it was good. I think they may be scared to say otherwise; I know I didn't finish my bowl, and neither did one or two of the others. No big deal; more for me to freeze!

• Flavor
• Texture
• Cooking ease
• Price
• Estimated healthiness
• Creativity of the recipe
• Completeness 

Out of 70 points.

Flavor: 9/10. Despite not liking it, it was incredibly different from Campbell's. I cheated: I didn't strain, but I mixed everything together with a stick blender. Hey, I didn't get all those tomatoes just to toss out half of the meat! It left it with a very tomato heavy flavor, but not necessarily the flat acidity I keep running into. It was like a cross between spaghetti sauce and bruschetta; with the seasonings there, it took away the edge I don't usually like tasting in tomatoes, meaning it was palatable. 

Texture: 9/10. Great for dipping sandwiches into (I made grilled cheese). It stuck to it like a charm, and due to its thickness, it didn't drip off right away. It didn't feel grainy or clumpy due to the stick blender, but there were enough small chunks (I don't blend well if I don't have to) that it gave it substance.

Cooking ease: 10/10. Come on, you pretty much simmer tomatoes for a half hour. The annoying part (which isn't that annoying, really) is chopping carrots. Don't like that? Get a food processor. This soup gives a great opportunity for people to add the spices they like, if they don't like or prefer the ones suggested, without fear of ruining the final product.

64.5/70 gives it a 92. Not my favorite, but I didn't grade this purely off of flavor. Obviously, others will get different results if grading this soup, and I challenge people to constantly see if they agree with me. =)

Price: 10/10. If you buy tomatoes and carrots as a singular option, not bagged, if given the chance, and you don't end up spending a ton due to extra left overs. The recipe is even nice enough to give you a weight requirement for the tomatoes, so you don't have to worry about size. And, if anything, that means you can use canned tomatoes if you wanted, because they have weights listed on the label. We've all bought onions, no big deal there, and a lot of people who tend to cook have the seasonings they need/want at hand. Price is minimal, and I like that.

Estimated healthiness: 9.5/10. For a ikck in the right direction, add a few chopped and bite-sized fresh, uncooked, tomatoes into the finished product. Why? Because there are health benefits in both cooked and raw tomatoes. One has lycopene, which we've all been having heart attacks about until the acai berry took over (thank you, Dr. Oz, we really needed that..) I can't remember the specifics Here is a link to the benefits of cooked tomatoes and here is a link leaning toward the health benefits of raw tomatoes. A combination of both is the way to go. Cooking kills one benefit, but improves the other, so long as you don't scorch it. So, stick a fresh tomato or two in the whole pot before serving.
 Aside from the tomatoes, they've been finding more and more reason to be choosy and interested in seasoning use. Pepper, herbs, and even salt (if you manage your intake and use it when it's most beneficial) have all shown signs of healthiness from one thing or the other. I'm not going to find links on this, that's your deal (there would be way too many).
Also, oils that are liquid at room temperature are generally healthier than those that are solids -- I'm sure we've all heard this a million times, but that means a lot more than it sounds. You can get a little crazy with the olive oil, and aside from the fat content (which, by the way, isn't going to harm you or add fat cells to your liver; fat-causing-fat is a complete fallacy, but it can ruin your arteries and heart health.) Olive oil helps fight the problems people keep having with heart and artery health, much like things like walnuts are found to do.

Creativity: 6/10. It's tomato soup. It's nothing new. Grinding up the tomatoes rather than straining was a good touch (thank you, thank you) but wasn't in the original recipe. I think the creativity of tomato soup has to do with what you choose as a main course; this is definitely not a main course, but a higher-dollar dipping sauce. Still, it was good, just not new. And you can't really alter much without turning it into something else (tomato soup is, well, tomato soup.)

Completeness: 10/10. Much to offset the creativity, this soup is done. Finito, finished, never needing anything else -- in my opinion. It is tomato soup, and it is complete! Not much else can be said about this.

Soup grader: Butternut Squash Bisque

This will be the most recent post each time. It will be updated after recipes are posted. The categories will be:

• Flavor
• Texture
• Cooking ease
• Price
• Estimated healthiness
• Creativity of the recipe
• Completeness 

Out of 70 points.

Flavor: 9/10. It's subtle, not sweet, and addictive. The more you eat the more you want. I'm not patting myself too hard on the back here by saying it came out really well. Maybe I just chose a good squash, who knows, but good grief it was good.

Texture: 10/10. I used a stick blender to pulverize everything into a nice, smooth soup. It worked well, and saved me a mess of a food processor. I'm not grading this on the cleanup, obviously, but the cook time on the stove was just right for smoothing out the veggies.

Cooking ease: 9/10. Ever cut up a butternut squash? It sucks. I cut myself twice: once with a potato peeler, which is just my own stupidity, and once with a knife. Be sure to have a very sharp knife -- a veggie knife, you know, one of those hulks of a straight blade -- and put your weight into it. Then again, I'm small, so that may be the problem, but it was definitely good for my upper arms.

Price: 10/10. I think I collectively  spent about 20 bucks, and that's after buying a Costco-sized thing of butter. I ran out of butter, and it was called for. This doesn't yield as much as the apple soup (perhaps about 10-12 full breakfast bowls) but it doesn't call for as much to put in it, either.

Estimated healthiness: 8.5/10. Butternut squash is incredibly good for you. If you nix out the cream and salt, this soup is definitely amazing. Pepper, paprika and potato are all good for you in their own way. Downside is, I think there's a lack of fiber (we're all stuck on this fiber craze) and healthy fats, but I could be wrong. This is why I'll analyze it sometime later.

Creativity: 8.5/10. It's butternut squash soup. GREAT fall dinner. Goes with a lot of things, or as a main course. Not everyone has eaten it -- not all my friends had really even heard of that squash, so it definitely has the appeal of seeming like a snazzy soup. It has a unique flavor, which adds to the appeal. It's not as exotic as Berry Soup, or Apple, but it is a good American staple that we can't overlook.

Completeness: 10/10. I can't imagine adding anything else to it. It would make it seem commercialized if I did (like sweetening or salting it down). Leave it as is, it's perfectly fine.

Total: 65/70 (93%). Loved this. It was fast, people loved eating it, and I had very little to clean up. Lots of chopping, but what soup isn't?

Soup grader: Apple

This will be the most recent post each time. It will be updated after recipes are posted. The categories will be:

• Flavor
• Texture
• Cooking ease
• Price
• Estimated healthiness
• Creativity of the recipe
• Completeness 

Out of 70 points.

Flavor: 10/10. I want to consume it's children at an extremely fast rate. I want a never-ending supply of this stuff. If I had to make a soup or meal or anything ever again, it'd be this.
Texture: 7/10 It was slightly odd, due to all the carby-food floating around. If you're not careful, and over-cook the apples, then little chunks float in it. I get the impression that perhaps it should be smoother, and the apples a little less dilapidated, but I might be wrong.

Cooking ease: 9/10. You chop things up (with soup, this is expected) and although it's a lot, it's nothing that's difficult to cut through. It's time consuming, and I used bowls to hold my ingredients until I needed them. If anything, it's the repetition that gets the average cook, but all in all it's really not that bad.

Price: 7/10. For soup, it's a lot (I spent upwards of 40 dollars). However, I do have a lot of leftovers. Like I said in the recipe, I'd assume I have anywhere from 12-15 bowls, not servings, to hand to people just from this recipe alone. 40 divided by 12 makes it about 3.30 a bowl. You go to a nice restaurant and get this soup, and see if it comes out to 3.30. Or anything less than 8-10 dollars. I brought down the score just because to follow the recipe it's a lot, and there's not much you can do about it unless you commonly buy those ingredients anyway. I had no leftovers, though -- my household consumes food like their parents were vacuum cleaners.

Estimated healthiness: 7.5/10. Eh, with the cream and the salt and the sugar, which are all bound to happen, it's not amazing. And the vegetables are largely starchy, fast-energy-source type foods. There's little protein, few good fats. I used olive oil, so at least there's that; and whole wheat, which worked out fine for me. May explain the texture.. I could be very wrong on how healthy it is. And one could definitely skew the recipe to have no milk, low sodium, with maybe an extra bell pepper (great for certain vitamins), etc. But I'm not grading this on what it could be.

Creativity of the recipe: 10/10. How many people legitimately say they ate apple soup? Butternut squash, maybe, is the next runner up on 'uncommon ingredient', but it isn't even that, really. Apples tend to go into things like jams, jellies, pies, cakes, butters.. I never hear of soup. And, they combined it with celery, peppers, tomatoes -- all good ingredients that most people don't think of adding to apples. I approve.

Completeness: 8.5/10. I say this because I feel like a lot of things are either interchangeable or you can add more. I was dying to add butternut squash to it, but it didn't call for it and I wanted to play by the rules. Parsnips would work; so would potatoes. Hot peppers would work, as well, if you're into spicy. And then there's all the possible fruits. I do think, however, it's amazingly tasty as the recipe says, hence why I didn't bring the score down too much.

Apple soup gets a B (59/70 = 84%). It might not be your thing, but it's a great 'I want something different' recipe. It is a steep price for one cooking go-around if you're tight on cash, but the long-run savings is ridiculous so long as you have a freezer. The texture brought it down, but that definitely could be because of the cook. I recommend this soup to everyone who likes food, or to cook, or to store food for a while, or what-have-you. It's super easy (add ingredient, wait a while, add the rest, wait some more) which means you can get different things done while it's cooking. Personally, I'd give it an A, but I'm trying to be objective.

Soup 2: Butternut Squash Bisque

This is oh-my-gosh easy to do, unless you hate cutting up butternut squashes. It doesn't yield as much as the Apple Soup (fed seven people, had maybe three or four bowls left, I think; they all had FULL bowls, too, though.)
This also has a lot less cream and other milk products in it, and no added sugar, so I'd *assume* it's healthier for you. I haven't run things down about that yet, though. I will! Eventually...

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons butter
2 small onions, minced (or one medium onion? :P )
3 cups peeled, seeded, cubed butternut squash
1 1/4 quarts chicken stock (low sodium)
1 1/2 cups cubed potatoes (used Idaho; think I'd prefer Red ones)
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 cup whipping cream
1 1/2 tablespoons snipped fresh chives, plus a few whole chives for garnish
salt and ground black pepper

Instructions:

1. Chop all the things up.
2. Melt the butter in your soup pot, then add the onions and cook them until they're soft.
3. Add the squash, stock, potatoes and paprika and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to low, cover the pan and simmer for about 35 minutes -- until all the veggies are soft.
4. Pour the soup into a food processor or blender (or do what I did and use a stick blender, therefore making clean-up so much easier!) and nullify all solids. Return the pan to the stove. Stir in the cream, pepper and salt and reheat slowly.
5. Stir in the chopped chives just before serving. Garnish each with a few whole chives, if that's your thing.