Recipe: seafood sausage gumbo

Let me preface this by saying that Heather donated a chicken from Earth Fare she said she'd never eat. I can't see why, but that means she used it as a buy in for this soup.
This soup is not cheap. So don't be angsty about my charging a buy-in. I've been pretty lenient this semester.
So, I am boiling the bird. Why? Because it was frozen. But I'll use that stock in with the gumbo. I can't see how that'd hurt anything. I do intend to de bone the bird, and if you choose to do the same thing then kudos -- it's a better soup, I think, when you go through the process like this. I know I love my turkey stock and I still have some left in the freezer.


As one can see from the recipe, this one is going to take me a lot longer. The roux will be 20-40 minutes; the shrimp shells simmer for 20; part 7 is 20 minutes; 8 is about 40-45. I'm sure I can multi-task, but some of that is a consistent bout of attention (see: the roux, which I'm scared I'll end up burning but such is how things go sometimes). I can definitely see this taking two hours. On the upside, my house should be quite warm. I'm also doing peppermint-brownies since it's so close to Christmas (a week!!)   =)



It says it serves 10-12 - if you add a whole chicken this won't be the case anymore :P

3 lbs raw shrimp, in shell (yes, I'm boiling the shells with the water that the chicken's in right now.)
1.5 quarts water
4 onions, 2 quarters
4 bay leaves
3/4 cup veggie oil
1 cup all purpose flour
5 tb butter
2 green bell peppers
4 celery stalks
1.5 pounds polish or andouille sausage (we actually have some jimmy dean links that were on sale, so just about whatever sausage should work)
3 cups fresh okra (in my case, frozen, since it's December)
3 garlic cloves
1/2 ts thyme leaves
2 ts salt
Black pepper and white pepper
1 ts cayenne pepper
2 tb red pepper sauce
2 cups chopped plum tomatoes (or a sweet tomato of your choice)
1 pound fresh crab meat
boiled rice for serving

1: Peel and devein the shrimp. Keep the heads and shells. Cover and chill  the shrimp while you make the sauce.

2: Place the shrimp heads and shells in a saucepan with the water, quartered onion and one of the bay leaves and let it boil. Partly cover the top and let it simmer for 20 minutes. Strain and set it all aside.

3: To make a Cajun roux, heat the oil in a heavy bottomed skillet. When the oil is hot, add the flour, a little at a time, and blend into a smooth paste.

4: Cook over medium low heat, stirring constantly for 25-40 minutes until the roux reaches the color of peanut butter. Remove the pan from the heat and continue stirring until the roux stops cooking and cools down.

5: Melt the butter in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan. Finely chop the remaining onions and add to the pan with the peppers and celery. Cook over medium-low heat for 6-8 minutes until the onions are soft, stirring occasionally.

6: Add the sausage, stir well, and cook for 5 minutes longer. Add the okra and garlic, stir, and cook until the okra stops producing white 'threads'.

7: Add the remaining bay leaves, thyme, salt, peppers, and make sure it's to taste. Stir well and then stir in 1.5 quarts of the shrimp stock and the plum tomatoes. Bring to a boil, partly cover the pan, lower the heat and let it simmer for about 20 minutes.

8: Whisk in the Cajun roux. Raise the heat and bring it to a boil, whisking well. Lower the heat again and simmer, uncovered, for 40-45 minutes,

9: Stir in the shrimp and crab meat. Cook for at least 3-4 minutes or until the shrimp turn pink.

10: To serve, put a mound of hot, boiled rice in each serving bowl and ladle the gumbo over, making sure everyone gets a little of everything. =)

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?

Recipe: Thai Chicken and Noodle

I loosely followed a recipe Kevin wanted -- he doesn't like coconut though, and to those that like coconut it's that which makes the soup.

My ingredients were as follows:

• 5 chicken thighs
• 4 garlic cloves (we love garlic)
• About a tablespoon and a half of cayenne powder
• About a tablespoon of powdered tumeric
• A couple/few chile-type peppers of choice (to keep up with your preference of heat; I used garden ones, myself)
• 8 cups of chicken broth (hot)
• About 3 cups of water
• Roughly 2 tablespoons olive oil
• A bunch of fresh cilantro
• A box of noodles (I used a whole box of spaghetti noodles)
• About a quarter cup, or more, of coconut 
• A cup of green onion or scallions
• A huge squirt of lemon juice, to taste (or lime if you want)
• Thyme leaves
• 4 big fork fulls of crunchy peanut butter (I'm NOT measuring peanut butter.. it's not worth it)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup of shredded carrot
• 1-1and1/4 cup cream coconut (I didn't have this available today.)

1. Heat half your oil in a frying pan, if you're like me and you have all your chicken frozen. Put the frying pan on medium or so, add the chicken and let it simmer with the lid. Chop things up in the process.
2. When the chicken is about cooked, add as much thyme as you'd like. I was liberal; I have a lot of thyme left over. Dump some salt and/or pepper onto it, keeping in mind that it's going to compete with about 10 cups of fluid as well as other things..
3. Heat the rest of the oil in your soup pan. Golden up the garlic. Then, add the chicken, with spices, and let it fry for a couple minutes.
4. Sprinkle the creamed coconut into the hot chicken stock and stir until it dissolves. Or, just add both in with the chicken, I doubt it matters and it saves a pan. Up to you. Add the lemon/lime juice, peanut butter and noodles (it says thread egg noodles. I obviously used spaghetti. PF Changs uses spaghetti type noodles, too, so don't judge me.)
5. Add the shredded carrot, and just about everything else other than scallions/green onion, and the cilantro. Cover the pan and simmer for 15 minutes.
6. In a dry pan, heat the shredded coconut and the cut up peppers until the coconut browns lightly. Make up some bowls, add this coconut mixture, and eat it -- immediately. It's FANTASTIC with the coconut!

Hope this works

I'm on an old computer in the school's kitchen, so I'm not sure how well this will publish, if at all.

I ran through the estimated serving sizes / proportions of potato-to-squash from the soup I made last week. It means I also found the location of the 'low sodium vegetable broth' option, which was eluding me in the program I've been using. Hello, improvement!

Basically what this means is I have an idea of what went where. I think I have my amounts about as close as I can get - four potatoes and about 4 pounds of squash equal a lot. 

This is what I found, as a general idea:

• Serving size: 414 grams or about 14-15 ounces (a filling amount)
• Calories per serving: 2.5g
• Saturated fat: 1.5g
• Trans fatty acids: 0
• Cholesterol: 5mg
• Sodium: 150mg
• Carbs: 32g
• Fiber: 5g
• Sugars: 9g
• Protein: 3g
• Vitamin A: about 500%
• C: 70%
• Calcium: 10%
• Iron: 10%

I think, for a craving food, this is pretty good. I would grade this soup, but it needed something to offset a tangy, almost bitter flavor I was receiving. More potatoes? No pepper? I love the pepper flavor, though. So I'm not ready for that just yet.
It's obvious significance lies in the Vitamin A, in my opinion. It has a perk of having very few calories, saturated fats (an obsession now with people due to Clinton's weight loss), low sodium, healthy carbs, decent amount of healthy fiber, a small amount of protein, and some calcium and iron.

According to a site from Harvard, Vitamin A is related in not just eye sight, but in bone remodelling, white blood cell activity and the ability to grow and regenerate new cells. There are definitely downsides to having a deficiency in A, but according to the site there are a couple things related with overdose, as well, so if you take a supplement, this soup may be something you'd want in moderation (much like any other food high in X-nutrient). The things related with overdose are hip-fractures and pregnancy problems, but they weren't specified exactly as to why. Too much of a good thing is bad, which is all I know right this minute (which can also apply to Vitamin C, which people uselessly consume the living heck out of. It doesn't make your colds go away. Sorry, dears!)


Anyway, this Sunday is Indian Beef and Berry soup, a thing of which I don't have the recipe for right this minute. That's what my trip to the store tomorrow evening will entail. I'm looking forward to it -- it's leaning in a cultural direction I don't head to very often, and the only reason I ever really do is if I pull out some curry just to mix things up once in a while. An India-inspired soup sounds exciting, so I'll be sure to have photos up again this week (and they won't be phone photos this time, which apparently make my red pepper soup look like it's infested with ghosts. It's not, but I still wouldn't eat too much of it. Habaneros. Yikes.)

For anyone who reads, feel free to comment. I'm not trying to push people into it, but I think I may come across as a bit judgemental or overly Type-A personality. Typing gives me time to breath and actually decide what to say, so I'm generally nicer through here than in real life (I think). I'm just excitable -- I promise, I'm still approachable! =)

On a note of commenting, I will be needing a project for sometime next year (roughly 2-3 weeks into the month of January). I'm thinking of something that primarily utilizes baking; for the summer, I want something that primarily utilizes the crock-pot or the grill outside, hence why I'm saying to continue to use my stove. It helps warm my house up through the winter, but that's not welcome come May or so. If anyone ever comes up with any ideas, or has a recipe suggestion for me to look over and work on, I definitely welcome it. If you want me to test taste your favorite meal, then lower the salt or fat content in some way, I'm willing to give it my best shot. It's great for preparing for my career, so we'd both be winning out in that situation. Just a thought!! This Monday and Tuesday are also days I have break, and I may be willing to do a mini-experiment at home.. Hint hint.

Happy cooking!

Finished Product: Roasted Red Pepper

I put all the hot peppers in it, cooked it and ground it up.
Also, I said *all* the peppers. It's really hot, so, unless you like it that way, don't do that.
I wish my bigger pot wasn't cream-colored. It drowns out the pretty color. Still, I think it looks fantastic.

Creamy roasted red pepper soup.

Small sized orange habanero

 I promised myself I would add more pictures. This is my first attempt at making this a little more than my rambling on and on about food (now, you can see the food!)
This is a habanero. I was fortunate enough to grow them in my back yard this year. I had many more that were bigger than this, but at this time of year it's hard to grow them big (at least, for me).

Hot peppers on a large plate

 I had about 4-5 of those small-ish habaneros, two jalapenos, and a mix that I can't differentiate between tabasco, cayenne and something else I forgot the name of (I bought the plants and forgot to tag them, so this whole summer I've been asking people if they remembered the name of that last plant. We didn't. Oh, well, too bad. Still yummy!)
I plan on doing something very similar to these as to the recipe for the bell peppers. On top of the bells, I had about 5 or 6 green bells from out back, which were about enough, each, to fill maybe a 1/3 measuring cup. I'm supposed to make hot pepper oil out of them, for winter use, but I can't keep myself from eating them. Oops.
I'm not done making food. I still have a little while (someone's bringing my onions. This meal isn't free for them, despite their disappointment). But, I've already roasted all the peppers and I plan on doing a small-scale soup for the hot ones. That way, if people want, they can add a little hot pepper soup to their soup, allowing for an increase in heat. Every pepper I used is organically grown -- the hot ones are from my own yard -- so I'm looking forward to how this will turn out!









Oh, and then we get to have dessert!

Strawberry cupcakes

 These are strawberry cupcakes with buttercream icing (whip two sticks of butter like mad, add 3 cups of powdered sugar, spritz it with salt, spritz it more with vanilla, and add cream until you're happy with the consistency.) I wanted to play with the cream. I preferred the flavor with more cream, but it ruined the whole spreading concept. I don't care what they look like -- those babies are kickin' some serious strawberry-cream tush!

Roasted Red Pepper

Sometimes, my recipe book (The Soup Bible, by Debra Mayhew) has its own description of the soup just above the ingredients. I don't usually include it, because I am here to say what I want to say, not what the editor threw in. In this case, however, it's probably much more accurately written than I can pull off:
Broiling intensifies the flavor of sweet red and yellow bell peppers and helps preserve the stunning color of this delicious soup.

I'm all about colors in foods. For instance, given the chance, people will largely turn down blue foods. Why? Because there's only something like 2-4 naturally occurring blue fruits and things in the world ( see this for some psychology on food colors ). I'm not cooking a blue soup right now, but I'm willing to in the future. I'd love to see how much of it the guys will actually eat.

Anyway, on to the soup!!

It says it serves 4. I'm going to post my alterations to it after I alter it, specifically because that wouldn't nearly be enough to feed 8 people. I mean, unless it's like the Apple Soup and completely lies to me.

Ingredients
3 red bell peppers
1 yellow bell pepper
1 onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
3 cups vegetable stock
1 tablespoon all purpose flour
Salt and pepper
Diced red and yellow peppers for garnish

1: Heat the broiler. Cut the peppers in half and remove the stems, cores, pith and seeds. Line a broiler pan with the peppers, skin side up, on a single layer on the foil. Broil until the skins are black and blistered.
2: Transfer the peppers to a plastic bag and leave until cool. Peel off the skins (I'm not) and discard. Roughly chop what remains.
3: Put the onion, garlic, and 2/3 cup of the stock in a large saucepan. Boil for about five minutes until the stock reduces in volume. Lower the heat and stir until the onion and garlic are soft and just beginning to color.
4: Sprinkle the flour over the onion. Gradually stir in the remaining stock. Add the chopped roast peppers and bring to a boil. Cover the saucepan and simmer for five more minutes.
5: Leave the soup to cool slightly, then puree in a food processor (stick blender) until smooth. Season to taste with salt and black pepper. Return it to the pan (makes the stick blender look a lot more convenient, doesn't it?) and reheat until piping hot.
6: Ladle into four soup bowls and garnish each with a sprinkling of diced peppers.*

*If you prefer, garnish the soup with a swirl of plain yogurt instead of diced peppers.