Minestrone

As noted in earlier jottings, one of my honey's kitchen things is making soup - comfort food - during the frosty months. Of course, it has to be good for you. So, my first pick is minestrone laden with fresh veggies in home made chicken stock.

When we married in the 70's, I brought to the table my collection of cookbooks, including the Time/Life books published in the '60's called Foods of The World. I recently raved about the flan recipe from this series.

I've never been a soup maker, so my sweety fills the gap nicely with a delicious bunch of soups, minestrone and borscht. The minestrone recipe is generous enough for us empty nesters to enjoy for several meals.....and like a good boeuf bourguinon, the flavors get better with time.

Note: she ignores all the stuff about slicing or dicing and lets the food processor do it ... only difference is aethestics.

If you do not have/make your own chicken stock get a box of low sodium stock, place the contents in a pot, along with a handful of chopped onion, chopped celery and carrots. Bring to a boil and simmer for 30 min. Voila! Homemade chicken stock.

And toss the green can of parmesan. Pop for Regianno Parmesano and grate your own. The difference is worth it.

Click the heading to get this delicious soup.

Soups

Starting early December my sweetie begins to talk about comfort foods such as soups. She makes some pretty fine soups, too. Unfortunately, her presence in the kitchen making soups is sooooo seasonal. Soups like minestrone and borscht need to be enjoyed more than once a year.

She also has a hankerin' for chili. Her kind of chili. Beans and hamburger in a watery mess has never been something that I wanted to wrap a fork/spoon around. That is until now. In Sunday's edition of our local fish wrapper, Sanford D'Amato - Milwaukee's James Beard award winner - published his version of chili in the Entree section. She spied this article but demurred from putting it together.

Yesterday, while she was busy being an artist, I looked at the ingredients and found no hamburger. The beans were black beans.... not laden with tomatoes. And clearly no elbow macaroni or spaghetti, which seems to be a Wisconsin favorite. Thought this would be something I might like.

Well, that is an understatement. As Sandy says, "Once you try this chili, you'll never grab for a can again." Right on target. This recipe takes just a little longer to make because the boneless chuck is cut into ¼ to ½ inch cubes. But the labor is worth the few extra minutes.

My forager could not locate achiote paste, one of the ingredients. As Sandy notes, go to the Mexican market for this. The paste and the poblano pepper will become a staple in our larder for our comfort-foods-months.

Click the title for the recipe.