Daring Cooks - September 2011 - Stock to Soup to Consomme

Peta, of the blog Peta Eats, was our lovely hostess for the Daring Cook’s September 2011 challenge, “Stock to Soup to Consommé”. We were taught the meaning between the three dishes, how to make a crystal clear Consommé if we so chose to do so, and encouraged to share our own delicious soup recipes!

I'm the kinda girl who saves chicken carcasses...I'll admit it. I come from a long line of soup makers, what can I say? So when this challenge came up, it was pretty easy to figure out what I was going to do. I rescued some of the bones from the freezer, threw in some celery, onions, a full bunch of parsley, a tablespoon or so of peppercorns, thyme and rosemary, turned the burner on and away we went. I found the key was to fill my pot with bones, tuck in the veggies (sauteed in another pan until soft), sprinkle the seasonings, and then add cold water to the top of the pot.  I let it cook for 4 hours, then strained it.  I used about half of it in the soup and I still have half left over to try and turn into consomme this week (I know, I'm late, but the consomme wasn't mandatory!)

Bubble...bubble...

I was really happy to have my fat-separator measuring cup to help get the fat out of the stock before I used it (apparently there was a lot of skin and fat in with the bones that I froze).

A handy tool

The broth itself was rich and satisfying, with a lot more flavour than I would have expected considering it was just bones and veggies.  I had to add quite a bit of salt to the soup, but it wasn't lacking for depth of flavour otherwise.



Chicken Florentine Soup

• 2 whole chicken breasts
• 8 cups chicken stock
• 2 bay leaves
• Salt to taste
• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• 3 carrots, chopped
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 28-ounce can tomatoes, undrained
• Freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 1 Tablespoon dried basil
• 2 bunches spinach, washed, stems removed and chopped
• 1 cup small dried GF pasta (or you could use rice or quinoa, if you prefer)

Poach chicken breasts in stock until fully cooked, then chop up in little pieces.  Reserve stock.

In the bottom of your soup pot, saute carrots and onions in the olive oil until soft.  Add garlic and saute for a further 2 minutes, being careful not to burn it.  

Add tomatoes, stock, bay leaves, basil, salt, pepper and pasta (I used GF orzo, but you can use pretty much any small GF noodle). Cook until the noodles are al dente.  Add chicken, and chopped up spinach.  As soon as the spinach is wilted, adjust the seasoning if necessary, and serve the soup!

The finished product!

Daring Cooks - August 2011 - Appam and Curry

Appam, Sri Lankan Lamb Curry, and Carrots with Tropical Flavors

Toasting the spices...mmmmmm!

Mary, who writes the delicious blog, Mary Mary Culinary was our August Daring Cooks’ host. Mary chose to show us how delicious South Indian cuisine is! She challenged us to make Appam and another South Indian/Sri Lankan dish to go with the warm flat bread.


For starters I got very, very excited about the chance to make a gluten-free flatbread. My hubby realized he has a significant sensitivity to wheat almost a year ago now, so there's been little-to-no bread baking around here, and no naan (which I love!)


Secondly, I love curry...pretty much all curry (Indian, Thai, white-trash...you name it).  So all-in-all, I was pretty happy about the challenge for August. Within 2 days of it being posted online, I decided THAT WOULD BE THE NIGHT.


Unfortunately, I decided about 10:00 in the morning.  What I didn't recognize was that the second stage of the appam recipe involved letting the batter stand for 8 - 12 hours.  (I know, I know...I should have read it all the way through, but I just got so excited...).  So instead, the raw rice got only 2 hours to soak, and then the batter got maybe another 6 to ferment.  It made for a much thicker batter than it should have been, and as a result, the appam were...well, GLUEY.  Yuck. I will have to try this again when I have the right amount of time, because I think, cooked correctly, they could have been quite tasty.






As for the curries, I made the Sri Lankan lamb curry.  It was just delicious, although a bit of a pain as the only lamb stew meat you can get around here is BONE-IN, great for flavour but a whole lotta work if you actually want to EAT it. I thought the curry was delicious, but my husband and son thought the curry was actually too mild for their tastes (personally, I think the fact they wanted theirs on rice was at fault.  Everyone knows rice neutralizes about half of the flavour of things!)


The run-away surprise hit of the dinner, though, was the "Carrorts with Tropical Flavors" side dish that was offered. You would think it was just a carrot salad, but it was SO much more than that, with the creaminess from the coconut milk and the savoriness and depth from the curry leaves and the shallots.  Mmmmm...needless to say we made it again for company the same week and we will make it again often in the future!