Soup!

So, I've recently decided that I'm going to get motivated about cooking again, starting with soup. Here are a few yummy sounding one's I think I'll try:

1: Butter Nut Squash and Carrot Soup

(minus the yogurt, bleck)

(Makes 4 to 6 servings)

1/2 medium butternut squash, peeled chopped into 1-inch pieces
3 large carrots, peeled and chopped into 1-inch pieces
1 onion, peeled and chopped into 1-inch pieces
2 Tbsp. olive oil
salt and pepper
1 Tbsp. garam masala
1 cup of hot water or so
1/4 cup heavy cream, or to taste
1/2 cup Greek yogurt
1/2 lemon, juiced
1 tsp. cumin
2 Tbsp. chopped cilantro

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Place the chopped squash, carrots, and onions in a baking pan. Drizzle with olive oil, garam masala and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast for 15 to 20 minutes, shaking the pan a few times to keep them from sticking. Remove from the oven when tender and caramelized. (Brown spots are fine and add flavor.) Place the vegetables in a blender and add 1/2 cup hot water. Puree, adding an additional 1/2 cup water to get a smooth consistency. Add the cream and puree until blended. Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper. At this point, you can serve the soup as-is, or if you are not eating until later on, you can refrigerate it and re-heat it in a pot on the stove.

In a small bowl, combine the yogurt, lemon juice, cumin, and add salt to taste. Pour the hot soup into bowls and top each one with a spoonful of yogurt and some chopped cilantro. 

2:  Creamy Asparagus Soup with Mushrooms and Gruyere Croutes

A little white rice is all it takes to make this soup thick and creamy. The trick is in pureeing the soup so that the rice becomes silky smooth. We like to use a blender for the job; you may prefer a food processor.

Yield: 4

Ingredients

• 6 1/2  tablespoons  olive oil
• 10  ounce  shiitake mushrooms, stems removed and caps sliced thin, or 1/2 pound regular white mushrooms including the stems, sliced
• 2 1/4  teaspoons  salt
• 1/4  teaspoon  fresh-ground black pepper
• 1  large onion, chopped
• 1  quart water
• 1  quart canned low-sodium chicken broth or homemade stock
• 1/3  cup  long-grain rice
• 2  pounds  asparagus, tough ends snapped off and discarded, spears cut into 1-inch pieces
• 16 1/2-  inch slices baguette
• 1/4  pound  Gruyère, shredded

Preparation

1. In a large pot, heat 2 tablespoons of the oil over moderately high heat. Add the mushrooms, 1/4 teaspoon of the salt, and the pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until the mushrooms are golden, about 5 minutes. Remove the mushrooms from the pot and set aside. Reduce the heat to moderately low and add another 1 1/2 tablespoons of the oil to the pot. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until translucent, about 5 minutes.

2. Add the water, broth, rice, and the remaining 2 teaspoons of salt to the pot. Bring to a boil. Continue boiling for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the asparagus. Cook until the asparagus is tender, about 5 minutes.

3. In a blender or food processor, puree the soup until completely smooth. Return the soup to the pot and stir in the reserved mushrooms.

4. Meanwhile, heat the broiler. Put the bread on a baking sheet and brush both sides of the bread with the remaining 3 tablespoons of oil. Broil the bread until brown, about 2 minutes. Turn and top with the Gruyère. Broil until the cheese melts, about 2 minutes longer.

5. Reheat the soup if necessary. Serve topped with the Gruyère croûtes.

Wine Recommendation: The wines of southern Italy, long ignored by wine lovers, are now recognized as among the most interesting the country has to offer. A full-bodied wine such as a white Greco di Tufo, an earthy, honeyed delight, will be terrific here.

3:  Spicy Chicken Vegetable Soup
(I'm altering this one a bit to be more like a wholesome spicy chicken and veggie soup)

1 qt Homemade Chicken Stock (you can use store bought but why?)
1 28 Oz can of crushed tomatoes
1/2 Cup diced onion and diced celery
3 Cloves of garlic
1 Cup each broccoli, cauliflower, carrot, potato
1 1/2 Cup raw kale
1/2 c Each frozen green beans and corn
2 T Cumin
1 T Smoked Paprika
1 T Chipotle chili powder (more if you dare)
3/4 lb Chicken breast meat cut small
Salt and pepper to taste
In your largest stock pot sweat the onion and celery until soft. Add garlic and cook for another minute. Poor in chicken stock and tomatoes. Add spices. Start adding veggies hardest first. Potatoes and carrots. Give them about a ten minute head start then add broccoli, cauliflower, green beans and corn. Let all of this simmer until vegetation is nearly done. Add kale and cook for another five minutes. Five minutes before dinner add chicken. Be careful not to over cook it.
I like to serve this with a dollop of sour cream and saltines. It is also very nice with a squeeze of lemon. I am not above adding a couple of shots of hot sauce at the table either. The sky is the limit with this soup.

4:  Creole Onion Soup

(Probably going to use the usual Gruyer, parm, and perhaps a sharp cheddar, not sure yet_

• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup flour
• 8 cups thinly sliced onions
• 1 1/2 tsp. salt
• 4 bay leaves
• 1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
• 1/2 tsp. dried thyme
• 1/2 tsp. dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp. dried basil
• 2 tbsp. chopped garlic
• 2 qts. chicken broth
• 2 cups cubed French bread, lightly toasted
• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 tbsp. Rustic Rub (see Rustic Rub recipe)
• 1/2 cup grated white medium-sharp cheddar
• 1/2 cup yellow medium-sharp cheddar 1/2 fresh grated parmesan cheese

 

Method

In a large saucepan over medium heat, combine the vegetable oil and flour. Stirring slowly and constantly for about 10 minutes, make a blond roux, the color of sandpaper. Add the onions, salt, bay leaves, cayenne, thyme, oregano, and basil. Stirring often, cook for about 10 minutes, or until the onions are golden. Add the garlic and cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Add the broth and stir to blend well into the roux mixture. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook, uncovered, stirring occasionally, about 1 hour. Remove bay leaves. In a bowl, toss the bread cubes with the olive oil and the Rub. When ready to serve, add the cheeses to the soup, about 1/2 cup at a time, stirring until completely melted. Serve in soup cups or bowls and top with the croutons.

5:  Creamy Potato Soup

Ingredients
• 2  cups  thinly sliced onions or leeks
• 1  Tbsp.  olive oil
• 2  cups  milk
• 3  Tbsp.  all-purpose flour
• 1  lb.  Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and sliced
• 4  cups  reduced-sodium chicken broth
• 8  oz.  Swiss-style cheese such as Gruyére or baby Swiss, shredded
•    Snipped fresh herbs
• 2  oz.  baby Swiss cheese, thinly sliced (optional)

Directions
1. In 4-quart Dutch oven cook onions in hot oil over medium heat for 5 to 10 minutes or until tender. Whisk together milk and flour; add to onions. Cook and stir 5 minutes.
2. Add potatoes and chicken broth. Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Cover and cook for 20 minutes or until potatoes are tender. Remove from heat; cool slightly.
3. Puree soup, half at a time, in blender. Return to Dutch oven; add shredded cheese. Cook and stir over medium heat just until cheese is melted. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Sprinkle fresh herbs; garnish with sliced cheese. Serve at once. Makes 8 (1 cup) servings.

The Artists Mourns his Mary Jane

This was a poetry assignment that I had to do. I'm posting it bc I'm pretty please overall with the outcome. Also, I think this one may very well make or break me in my professor's eyes, either it's brilliant or I too the grotesque too far. Oh, and did I mention I have a dirty mouth. Bless my poem, lets hope it gets the grade I'm aiming for.

The Artist Mourns his Mary Jane

The record player spins the music beautifully, the rasp

perforating the choking parlor air, the wrenching cackle

a ghost among beating hearts. He sing’s softly.

Baby it’s been so long, that even the roses’ hips

are turning me on. Baby it’s been so long.

I’m up real close now, baby, can you hear

me? Hear these words: This man was built to fuck

and lie then take what’s done to mossy grave

for worms and dirt to be my judge. But cunt,

you gulped the blood I fed, you dirty thing. You

let those creatures, hooves and black wings

create her, let her damned head fall from your legs

and wail. Mother of our child, you’re just a body, rotting

now, alone. While I, the one they curse, will watch your

delicate mouth yawn, your face awakening in her crib.

How can I forgive you that?

**Not only am I mildly concerned I'm borderline plagiarizing, maybe (I include song lyrics) But I also swear, a, um, a bit....If this becomes an issue, I'm reverting back to the prompt he wrote for the basis of the poem, which, in my head, necessitates both fuck and cunt. Or at least I'm a solid percent sure that it does. 

...

well this is the last of it for me today. I'm beat and ready for sleep. :)

"I feel"

This is as much of an advance on my emotional state right now that I can give. I feel. I feel. I feel. Not good. No, that is not say I feel okay, could be better, but really, I'm unsettled.

Yes, unsettled. Tonight, like seldom time before, I have been exposed to the shame that accompanies being an American. Common to these past encounters, I have been shown the bleak side, the side swept beneath the hall rug, of American life. I feel ashamed to claim this country, these people, in this instance, as something that is mine. And I think back to every country song commemorating America for all the freedom. Freedom yes, of course. Freedom, the rancid fallacy that managed somehow to sneak past everybodys' noses. That inhibits most, and is claimed by all. America the land of the free, America, my country. Because nobody feels, they just make choices.

It's the pointed debates held, that place America up against to so many poor, suffering, horrid, violent, etc. countries, just to make the States marketable to a group of people who have never really been asked to think for themselves, that make me care. Do we really stop to think poor thoughts upon ourselves? Don' answer yes, don't you dare answer yes, because we don't. I'm admitting I don't and it disgusts me. I couldn't stare this country's problems straight in the face if I were dead and in the grave.  But it doesn't make them less real, less apparent to every soul out there who's living it, who knows because that's every day in their world.

We sit in front of television sets watching CNN, MSNBS, and we think we get it. We think that yes, yes, this is our time, our turn to think for ourselves. Stand up on our own two feet and show the world we know what the fuck we're talking about. Right. And have our kool-aide too. It is a thought beyond hope and depression that I, along with faces I'll never see, will never know, I mean really know, that they ever made a choice of their own volition. I'll never know that it was me, and not some book I read that helped me, or some musician that inspired me, or some class that tested me, a man or a woman who put an idea in my head. Refute me, get in my face, and look me dead in the eye and tell me I'm wrong. Stay out of the dark all you want, but I'm there, awake, and it's the only time I can say that I enjoy being alone, so go ahead, don't believe. That is, at the heart of the root, what it is to be a human being in this tamed and cultivated land. You can't always believe what you're told. This is America.

I hate being able to feel my insides cleanse me. The intensity literally feels like waves up, and down and out. The hands invisible, knead me, ready me. Me, I'm irrelevant to this bodily process. I haven't contributed anything of use,so why shouldn't I appreciate the bloodshed? It makes me a woman. This pains supposed to be my pride at my age, isn't it? It makes me a woman. Whose will tell me I am the woman I say I'm not? Who will call me woman, knowingly aware that woman is what I am?  Not even I have words to make me woman, so who? Who will make a woman out of me?

Welcome

Taking a sick day today. I feel like the days just go by and by, and bye, and I'm not worrying about me, until days like today happen when I'm woken up every two hours by an expansive pounding in my skull, lightening bolt spasms between my hips, and completely random painful numbness in my left arm. So I take a day.

I lay around watching movies, waiting for some fraction of the pain to go away, or at least to clear out my head. These are the days that I couldn't focus on some taxing activity if I tried. I down pain meds, I'm no absolute warrior here, and huddle up in bed. No driving, no class, no nothing. I am rendered completely vegetational and useless.

I try to sleep but my body won't let me, each centralization of pain calling my attentions on them all at once. It's like a tug of war, my body is the plain. I wonder what to do in a life where you feel like you don't have the allowance to go about as you please. When did all these unspoken rules start dictating all the seconds that compile my weeks?

The doorbell rings again and again, but I don't bother to answer. I'm in such a level of distaste for my uselessness today that I render getting up not worth it. So I'll finally stop trying to get some rest, or just relax and join the cycle again, doing work, waking up and so on. I'll write papers and poems that I'm not pleased or proud to write just to meet the deadlines and hole up about how useless deadlines feel to me. I'm too nervous and worrisome, too self obsessed and selfless. Ultimately,  I'll get upset because there are too many days filled with too many expectations that I have no capacity to meet.