Maggie's Creamy Vegetarian Pepper Pot Soup

I have fun trading recipes, cooking tips n tricks, ingredients substitution, etc on twitter. One of my most wonderfullest twitter mates is named Maggie. She's a vegetabletarian but she also puts my meatiness recipes on her daily paper.

The other day (month!) we were chatting about soups and she said she'd send me her pepper pot soup recipe.

Of course I had to make it!

And of course I had to change it around a bit! Why? Cuz I didn't have all the ingredients at hand so I subbed a couple of items. I also changed the amounts a bit as I was only making it for myself.

She later told me that she herself had modified the original recipe from the person she received it from! Hey, all's fair in the kitchen mates!

Here is her original ingredient list plus directions:

PEPPER POT SOUP

2 Cups Water
2 Cups Veggie Stock
2 Good Sized Potatoes, Shredded
2 Medium Carrots, Shredded
2 Celery Stalks, Chopped fine
2 Medium Onions, Chopped fine
1 Green Pepper, Chopped fine
½ Cup All-Purpose Four
2 tsp Salt
½ tsp Pepper, fresh hand milled
1 Cup Water
6 Cups Milk

Mix first 7 ingredients together in a large saucepan. Bring to boil. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Mix flour, salt, pepper, and 1 Cup Water together in a small container until no lumps remain. Stir into the simmering soup to thicken it slightly. Add milk. Heat through. Check for seasoning.

Makes 12 ½ Cups

Not being one to take directions too well, I decided to make a few changes based upon why I had on hand. And remember, I was only wanting to end up with 6 to 8 cups. Here's what I came up with:

Maggie's Modified Vegetarian Pepper Pot Soup


1 Cup Water
2 Cups Veggie Stock
1 Good Sized Potato, Shredded
1 Medium Carrot, Shredded
1 Bok Choy, rough chopped, leaves included
1 Medium Onion, Chopped fine
1 Red Bell Pepper, Chopped fine
1 Handfull of fresh Rocket (the peppery kind)
A few fresh basil leaves, rough chopped.
A few fresh coriander leaves (cilantro to North Americans)
½ Cup All-Purpose Four
2 tsp Salt
½ tsp Pepper, fresh hand milled
1 Cup Water
2 Cups Milk





I mixed first 10 ingredients together in a large saucepan and brought it to a boil.

It was then covered and simmered for 30 minutes.


Then the flour, salt, pepper, and 1 Cup Water were whisked together and that slurry was stirred into the simmering soup as a thickener and a spicy-er.



The milk was added and the soup was brought back up to temperature.



I checked to see if it needed any more seasonings (like salt) and I added a pinch of sea salt.

And it of course looks great in a bowl!


I of course just had to make one little, itsy, bitsy, teeny, tiny final adjustment...


Fresh grated Parmesan!


The soup was very very tasty, I thoroughly enjoyed it. And you can all thank Maggie up in Canada for sending me the recipe!

Cassarole

This is a "blast from the past" recipe. It's from other blog before I hived off this here food blog. Which of course means it is full of some rather inane and silly comments from me.

You've been warned.

So here's the cassarole recipe in it's entirety from over 4 years ago.

*********************************************************************

A Cassarole (not the US style, please note)

This is another easy one, in fact you get TWO recipes with this --weeee, something
for free in this world: a toofer (you know, two for one... toofer... oh, never mind).

Extra bonus: No conversions needed!!! Woo-hoo! This one's for everyone**!

Have you noticed I'm starting you all out gently with recipes and cooking? Don't
worry, they get more fun and adventurous as time drags on. Ugh, can't believe
I just typed that line of crap...

What you need:

one roaster pot with a lid (them old black, enameled ones your mum had that she
got from her mum work the best)
a few of hunks of really cheap, tough beef (or pork, or lamb, or roo, or moose, or bear, or wombat, or sheep, or BUNYIP, or wooly mammoth, or smilodon, or sasquatch, or caribou, or whatever)
2 onions; rough chopped
4 carrots; rough chopped
6 spuds (potatoes) peeled (or not); rough chopped
salt


What you do:

Put the hunks, chunks, or pieces of cheap beef in the bottom of the roasting pot.

Add everything else, layering as you go (up, dummy) and lightly salting each layer.

At this point, your roaster should full be right to the top. Add water (H2O) till the
water (H2O) is about half to 2/3rds to the top.

Put the lid on (this step has a serious DUH-factor).

Cook in oven for 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 hours at 175 C (350 F).

Ummm, serve it up! You can make gravy with the juices if you'd like (damn, gotta do a gravy
making entry soon).

BONUS recipe: The next day, take all the leftovers and chuck them in the blender (add
more H2O (Water) if needed) and blend it till it's all liquified (I like that word: liquify It can mean so much to so few...). Heat it up and serve with fresh, homemade (homaid) bread (damn, gotta do a homaid (homemade) bread entry).

Do ya'll like my use of parenthesis? Comes from a programming background.

** I put a double asterisk so you'd notice. Don't worry you vegetarians, I've got several
coming up for you too so please stay tuned :)

*************************************************************************************

See? I was much more funny back then. And make some fresh bread to go along with this, you'll be happy.

You can obviously season it with whatever seasonings happens to tickle your taste buds that day, no worries.

Beef Soup

Sometimes even the simplest recipes can be the best. This is one of those times. You may not realise this, but I tend to cook without recipes. Now, I do have a very good idea of where I'm going with a dish, what food/herb/spices goes well with whatever, what technique works with what type of meat or veggie or fruit, etc. Around 75% of the time, it's turns out great and everyone enjoys it. Perhaps 20% it's a so-so, but plates and bowls are still empty. The remaining 5% is split between, "let's not have that again", and "HOLY SHIT! This is the best darned thing I've ever tasted! Whatever you did write it down so you don't forget cus we all want to have this every meal for the next century!!!"

This soup dish fell into the final category. *pat, pat, patting myself on back*

It involved a bit of leftover too. I'm very good with leftovers. If I was on Iron Chef and Chairman Kaga announced the theme ingredient of Leftovers, then I'd blow them all away! I'd even take them all on at once! Ha! It's gotten to the point where I actually plan for leftovers and have sorta figured out what I'll do with them for lunch the next day. Like this morning, for example. Had some leftover mashed spuds and some leftover sugared carrots. Hmmmmmm, add some bread crumbs, an egg, some seasonings, mix it all together and form into patties. Fry in leftover bacon fat. TaDa: great potato cakes!

Meat is also hard for me cus I've got to make it so my MIL can eat it (and like it too). Hmmmm, 80 yrs old, suffering from Crohn's Disease for the last 60 years (had 5 operations in her twenties and don't have much guts left), not many molars left, and her medications makes her taste buds have wild moods swings. For instance; she's loved lamb her whole life, then about a year ago she said she can't stand the taste of it no matter what is done. Sigh... Beef is even harder cus she loves the taste, but it has to be cooked very carefully for her so that's it's very tender. Needless to say, grilled steaks are out for her (but not for me!). Fish is no problem for her, but shellfish has to be cooked certain ways for her. Even chicken has to be cooked carefully for her... But at least I've gotten them to like spices! Keep in mind, these people used to have seizures if more than one small grind of pepper was put into 2 gallons of soup.

Now, since this post is titled Beef Soup, can you guess which type of land-based protein critter is to be used????? Yup, it's BEEF. All of our really tender good beef is very very very very expensive, so we buy cheap cuts and then I get creative.

To get the beef tender enough for her and for the onions to really "cook in" I knew I'd need to start this soup about lunchtime. Fortunately, it's like maybe 5 mins of work every couple of hours.

Here's what you need:

4 small, tough, cheap, possibly inedible, beef rump steaks
1 leftover baked potato
1 medium onion (rough chopped)
2 fresh carrots (diced)
lots of water
3 bay leaves
2 tbsp dried basil
2 tbsp dried oregano
lots of salt
1 to 2 tsp ground black pepper
bacon fat
2 potatoes (peeled and diced)
1/4 cup unbleached flour
one really big pot with a lid
a wok
wooden spoon for stirring
some sort of heat producing device, I recommend the side burner of your gas grill
fresh baked cobb for dunkers
bowls
spoons
serviettes (napkins to you US'ns)
table
chairs

Well, those last ten you can probably figure out on your own, I guess.

What you do:

Cube the beef. Try to trim off as much of the grisle and fat as you can. The cubes should be the size of small dice. Heat half (about 2 tbsp) the bacon fat in your big soup pot, and add the cubed beef in just BEFORE the bacon fat starts to smoke. Fry it up for a minute or two, turning frequently so all sides of the cubes are well browned. Yes, you'll have some stuff start to stick to your soup pot but don't worry.

Now add a couple of cups of water. Stir well while using your wooden spoon to scrap all the really good tasting bits off the bottom of the pot. Once that is done, fill the pot to 3/4 full and turn the heat down waaaaaaay low. Add the rough chopped onions, the bay leaves, basil, oregano, pepper, some salt (you can always add more later). 

Put the lid on it and go away for an hour. This may be a good time to take a nap :)

After an hour, top up the water level to 3/4 and give the broth a taste. Add more salt if needed and whatever other seasoning you think may help. Add the diced carrot it.

Put the lid on it and go away for another hour. Hmmmm, time for another nap perhaps?

Oh yeah: if you didn't make a fresh cobb pull-apart loaf of bread this morning, then you really should have started that BEFORE you took your FIRST nap.

After the next hour, skin the leftover roast spud and chop it up finely. Add to the soup, and top the water back up to 3/4 of the pot. Taste the broth, and adjust the seasonings. Dig out the 3 bay leaves and chuck em. Turn the heat off and let it sit for an hour COVERED.

After that third hour (and another nap???), heat the rest of the bacon fat (about 2 tbsp) in a wok and add the diced potato. Fry and toss for around two mins. Then sprinkle with the flour, stir it around, and add to the soup. Put the soup pot back on low heat for 30 mins.

Serve that sucker up in some LARGE bowls cus I can tell you everyone will want lots and lots. Fresh bread for dunkers!

This is really good, I'm not joking.