Edamame Soup

As much as my roommates and I are cornbread people, we are perhaps equally soup people. Out of the five days we cooked this week, no less than three of us made soup. It is May. Yes, it's been cooling down on the weekends (enough that weather.com issued a SEVERE WEATHER ALERT for my area; I thought we were going to have freak tornadoes or something, but it turns out the temperature's just going to be in the fifties/sixties during the day and maybe in the low-ish forties at night; so I guess we'd all better hole up in our basements and prepare for the apocalypse, jeez). But not necessarily during the week, where it's been in the high seventies most of the time, if not higher. In a normal, non-soup-fanatical household, we probably wouldn't be eating soup three times in one mid-May week. But we are determined to eat as much soup as we can before the mere thought of doing so in the summer heat burns us up from the inside out.

We've even been scarfing down the leftovers. Maybe we have issues, but I'm okay with that, as long as we get to keep eating soup.

This edamame soup was my contribution this week. Somewhere between potato leek soup and cream of zucchini soup, it was surprisingly scrumptious, and very high in protein – because, if you didn't know, edamame beans are soybeans! I topped my soup with a slurry of extra virgin olive oil and sesame oil, and a pinch of caramelized onions.

Corn Cheese Chowder

I know it's May, but we're supposed to get rain this weekend, so hopefully soup isn't entirely inappropriate. Because this soup is one of my favorite soups, and is the reason why I always keep at least one can of creamed corn in my cupboards at all times, just in case. This is the soup that I will whip up as a lazy Saturday night dinner, or an I'm-so-hungry-I'm-losing-brainpower lunch after class.

Now, I'm used to making it with American cheese, but American cheese freaks some people out, so feel free to substitute some freshly-grated cheddar.

If you use cornstarch instead of flour, this should be gluten-free.

Chicken (or Vegetarian) Tagine

Oh dear. I made this two Thursdays ago, but never posted it. Oops!

It is, however, the Most Delicious Thing Ever, so perhaps I can be forgiven. I had to bask, you see.

...Right.

If the photos don't make it look like the Most Delicious Thing Ever, well, that's because I couldn't get a proper photo on Thursday, and had to wait till Friday to drag the not-quite-sorry leftovers upstairs and subject them to a photoshoot.

Please note that you can make this vegetarian if you so choose – or you can make a part of it vegetarian, like I did, especially if the vegetarian in question will eat chicken broth. (But if not, just use vegetable broth!) You can also make it gluten-free by substituting cornstarch for the flour.




Many more pictures if you read more...

Rosemary Crackers

Thursday night is my night to cook for my roommates. I peruse food blogs the week or weekend prior, hungrily scrounging for something to feed them. Nothing is too elaborate or too simple; I'm willing to try anything.

Tonight, I made a double batch of Garlic Soup, based on this recipe, a salad (with added pears and thawed, once-frozen strawberries that, combined with balsamic vinegar and olive oil made a kind of sweet vinaigrette), and Rosemary Crackers.

The soup turned out pretty well (it uses French bread to make it creamier, instead of using a lot of cream), and the salad was delicious (we ate the entire thing). The pictures didn't turn out so wonderful, since it was already dark, and my camera sadly couldn't work its magic.

Maybe it's just because I baked them earlier in the day, when I could set them on my windowsill in full sunlight, but I feel that the Rosemary Crackers were something special. So that's what I'm going to share tonight.