I don’t mean to be cocky, but the chili I made the other night really was the best ever. While beef is usually my protein of choice for this purpose, here in Israel it’s expensive. So I decided to give leaner, cheaper turkey chili a whirl and watched as they freshly ground the turkey breast for me at the shuk. It turned out well. Continue reading “Best Ever Turkey Chili”
Tag: Soup
Sweet Potato Soup with Attitude
I love sweet potatoes, and I love the idea of sweet potato soup but too often it ends up being bland or overly sweet. Sometimes its a little too much like baby food, or there’s too much cream to thicken it up. I was sick all last week and so of course I wanted soup. But I also didn’t want to make something that was overly involved or complicated; I was sick after all and it was a nasty virus. So I decided to make sweet potato soup, but with attitude. Continue reading “Sweet Potato Soup with Attitude”
Curry and Spice and Everything Nice
I have been making a lot of soup lately. Way more than usual. It’s just so good, so easy, and it’s usually even better the next day. I often make soup on Sunday and Tuesday afternoons, before Hebrew class from 5-8pm. That way I have something warm and tasty to come home to. I’ve made chicken, mushroom, cauliflower, tortilla, you name it. This time I wanted something a little different. Continue reading “Curry and Spice and Everything Nice”
The Roast Chicken That Keeps on Giving
You don’t need me to tell you about the simple pleasures of roast chicken, or how economical it is to buy the whole chicken and cut up the parts yourself. But I just made what was perhaps the best roast chicken of my roast chicken-making career, and I need to share. The secret is in the butter. Put strategically placed pats of butter under the skin, then rub the whole chicken in butter. Get some garlic and herbs in there too, and roast alongside potatoes for a one pan meal that takes about an hour to make (depending on the size of the bird and the idiosyncrasies of then oven). Continue reading “The Roast Chicken That Keeps on Giving”
Curried Cauliflower Soup
And we’re back! Our computer crashed, or rather had a shelf crash into it, and so I’ve been on a bit of a forced computer hiatus. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do. And so we pick up where I left off.
Chicken Tortilla Soup
When I used to work near Union Square I would occasionally treat myself to the tortilla soup at City Bakery when it was available in the colder months. It was something I enjoyed immensely but never considered making. Although I am in the desert, I’m also on the tail end of a cold and I was craving a hot bowl of soup. And I appear to be on some kind of Mexican kick. Of course Tortilla Soup is an invention of the American Southwest, but it does incorporate Mexican ingredients that are fortunately also abundant in Israel: tomatoes, chiles, onions, and chicken.
Homemade Chicken Stock
I know I should have been making my own stock all along. But it took moving to Israel, where all they have are overly salty bouillon cubes and soup mixes to light a fire under me. I was going to make soup, so why not start with the broth? I found a recipe for Quickest Chicken Stock in Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything that looked unbelievably simple. And it was. Continue reading “Homemade Chicken Stock”