The
Full Tureen
By Kelly Kingsland, Deli Manager, from the October 2000 Newsletter
Well, here we are at the beginning of my favorite 10 months of the year again, and I've been thinking about soup.
Soup may actually be part of the reason that these colder months are my favorite, although there are many reasons. I do like to huddle up next to the stove on a cool evening and eat soup, and I love making soup at the Co-op. So when soup sales start to pick up again as the weather changes, I enjoy my work even more.
During the coldest months, we sell roughly 8 gallons of soup each day. Ultimately, we like to have 2 new soups per day. Generally, each cook makes one 2 to 4 gallon soup per shift. We try vary our selections and try to limit things like beans, dairy and nightshades to one of the tureens.
As with the creation of our salads, each cook has the freedom to choose their soup of the day within the perimeters of need. We often start our search by eliminating the possibilities.
We say: "let's see, we need a vegan, non-bean soup that isn't red." (We try to compliment colors, too).
From there we might talk to Lahde in produce to see what she'd like to see us take from her stock, or we traipse through our walk-in to see what's available. Hopefully by now we've started to get some ideas. If not, we resort to cookbooks.
For the most part however, and this is why I like soup so much, I like to just picture the end product and walk backwards towards it. If we have a lot of produce to use, or beans soaked, I picture a soup with those things in it. To me soup is like sewing with Polar Fleece. For those of you non-cooking, non-sewing readers, this means very forgiving. If you go slowly, and don't get too outrageous with your ingredients, your soup will turn out just fine.
Aside from customizing a soup to use just what you happen to have left over from another meal, there certainly is no intrinsic value in not following a recipe. Just about every cookbook you open has a wonderful selection of soup recipes to choose from. As I've mentioned before Jay Solomon's Vegetarian SOUP Cuisine is an awesome soup cookbook, and the "Moosewood" cookbooks also have a wonderful variety of great soup recipes.
So for the next 8 months we'll be cooking up soup like mad, and we encourage you to do the same. If you don't have the time or the inclination, let us do it for you. Our soups are hot and ready, and cost $1.29 per cup and $2.49 per bowl.
Here are two recipes for autumn warm-up soups.
Groundnut Stew
2 c chopped onion
2 T peanut oil
Saute for 10 minutes then add:
1/2 tsp. cayenne
1 tsp. garlic
Saute 5 more minutes then add:
2 c chopped cabbage
3 c chubed sweet potato
3 c tomato juice
1 c apple juice
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ginger
1 T cilantro
2 chopped tomatoes
Cook until sweet potatoes are soft, then add:
Potato Leek Soup
3 fist sized potatoes (scrubbed & chopped)
3 c cleaned, chopped leeks
1 stalk chopped celery
1 chopped carrot
Saute vegetables in 4 T butter and 3/4 tsp. salt
Add 1/2 c stock or water
Simmer until potatoes are tender, then remove from heat. Transfer to a blender or food processor and puree until smooth, adding 3 c milk and any herps desired (thyme, marjoram, basil, black pepper). Return to heat and serve when hot (do not boil).
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