Still Here, Still Standing

 

I've been asked if I've stopped writing my blog. I guess the honest answer could be yes AND no. I haven't posted for two months. I haven't stopped completely but the posts do seem to get further and further apart. We seem to get busier and busier at the same time as we are moving slower and slower.

We had a full house for a good portion of my "missing in action" time. Grandchildren (and parents) were here at the farm during spring break. 

I've totally lost track of who was here when. There was a lot of coming and going. Lots of back and forth and lots of here and there. But everyone had some time here. Making "remember-ies" as Brother says. 

We had part of the family here for Easter. No new recipes this time. Just our favorites. This is pretty much the same menu that my mother always had for Easter. 

That long highway runs the other way, too. We made a couple of trips down their way. One to see Little Sister—who isn't so little now—in her high school musical. And one other trip to attend the Atlanta Master Chorale's jazz concert. 

They were back here for Little Sister's piano recital last weekend. (They live there, her piano teacher lives here, so zoom lessons work well for them.) In addition to seeing our family musicians, Daddy-O and I attended several concerts this spring. We got to see Samara Joy, an up and coming jazz singer, in concert and a few weeks later, we saw Yo-Yo Ma perform. Seeing him has been on my bucket list for years. I can check that one off now. 

And during this very busy season I have continued filling in for our church pianist. Lots of practice time at the piano. I had to set other things aside—like this blog—to keep up with that. Next week is my last Sunday to play. I am counting on a slower month of May. I'll let you know if that happens!

The flowers mixed in with the other photos? These are all in bloom in our yard now. I am not a gardener. Never have been. Never will be. But I love flowers. So I'm thankful for the old varieties that come back year after year without any help from me. 

Longevity Soup

Longevity Soup

Let's see, in the month since I last posted, I needed an antibiotic for something, a week later I had a severe reaction to the antibiotic and a side effect of the drug used to treat the reaction (it did help) is sleeplessness. I am now at an age that if I were involved in an incident, the news anchor would be reporting, "An elderly woman..." Everything I took to help a problem caused the next problem. I think that my age means my body handles these drugs differently than it did years ago. 

So when I saw this recipe pop on social media, the name caught my attention. Eating for longevity. Eating for independence. That should be our goal now. This recipe contains 9 superfoods. You can read all about the nutritional benefits here at Joy Bauer's website. She calls this a pot of goodness. 

Now, I've been a vegetable soup lover forever. Most of the time I don't use a recipe. I have tried some and found variations that I like. Couldn't hurt to try another one. So glad I did.

Oh my goodness! What a delicious recipe. Joy Bauer was right—a pot of goodness. And, despite the long list of ingredients, it was simple to make. It involves opening cans, some chopping and measuring a couple of spices. I already had celery washed and "de-stringed" in the refrigerator. And the recipe calls for "1 to 2 cups" or "2 to 3 handfuls." That says amounts aren't very specific, so I didn't measure any of the vegetables. Just a rough chop and toss some in. 

Peeling carrots would have taken time, but I didn't have any. I ordered carrots but they were left out of my delivery. (Did I mention I hit a deer and my car is in the shop? Needed to have groceries delivered.) Of course, you could leave them out, but the pot of soup looked like it needed that orange color. So I added some frozen mixed vegetables. No peeling. No slicing. Made the prep even easier.

This soup is one of the best soups I've made. It's well seasoned. It' has a creamy broth because you've pureed beans and broth. I forgot to remove the rosemary before I added the spinach. When I added that much extra green, I almost never found it! I had thought I'd share some of the soup but I couldn't share until I removed that rosemary. Putting a hard stem in your mouth is not a good surprise. I finally spied the last bit as I was putting the soup into a container. 

This is how I made it. I made small tweaks. My garlic cloves were huge so I only used 2 instead of 3. I subbed the mixed vegetables for fresh carrots. I also measured out 3 cups of broth and poured in the pot, then in that 4-cup measuring cup I added that last cup of broth and the beans and used an immersion blender to puree. Easier than washing the blender. Again, check out the original recipe for the options she offers. 

LONGEVITY SOUP

2 (15-oz) cans small white beans, drained & rinsed (I used navy beans)

4 cups low-sodium chicken broth, divided  

1 onion, finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced 

2 ribs celery, chopped

About 1/2 cup frozen mixed vegetables (instead of the carrots)

1 to 2 cups broccoli florets, chopped

1 to 2 cups cauliflower florets, chopped

2 cups canned crushed tomatoes (a 15-oz can)

1 (14.5 oz) can stewed tomatoes

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 teaspoon dried basil

2 fresh rosemary sprigs

1 teaspoon kosher salt, or to taste

2 to 3 handfuls fresh spinach, roughly chopped

Ground black pepper, to taste 

In a blender, combine 1 can of drained beans and 1 cup of broth and puree until smooth. Set aside.

Generously coat of pot with cooking spray and warm over medium heat. Add the onion, and garlic and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the celery, 3 cups of broth, frozen mixed vegetables, broccoli, cauliflower, crushed tomatoes, stewed tomatoes, oregano, basil, the 2nd can of beans and rosemary.

Stir. Bring to a boil, Reduce heat and simmer about 25 minutes uncovered.

REMOVE the rosemary. Add the pureed beans and spinach. Simmer another 10 minutes, until spinach wilts. 

This is a long list of ingredients and sometimes I stop looking when I see this kind of list. But it took me about 15 minutes to have everything in the pot. Don't let the ingredient list scare you off. It's worth the chopping.

Fun note:  After I had made the soup, eaten lunch, cleaned up the kitchen, our doorbell rang. It was the grocery delivery driver. He discovered that the carrots were left out my order and drove back to bring them. 

 

Easiest Soup Ever

Spicy Black Bean Soup

We made it through Christmas and New Year's and all the meals that holidays and visiting families need. I was lucky that the daughters and sons-in-law did much of the cooking. But after the holidays I felt like I needed a food vacation. We enjoyed so many good meals and desserts and snacks. It was definitely time to back away from the table.

I also have craved some days that don't require cooking. Daddy-O is the best. He never complains if I don't cook or if I what I cook is not his favorite. Like so many of us, deciding what to cook is harder than the actual cooking. On Tuesday I opened the freezer door to see what I could find. A pack of chicken street taco fell out. Literally. Fell out at my feet. It was Tuesday—taco Tuesday! That was the easiest dinner decision ever. And it was as delicious as when we had it over the holidays. Glad we froze the extra chicken

Tonight nothing fell out of the freezer. But I had a recipe I had saved from NY Times Cooking. Many of their recipes are more involved than I want to make now. Or, they call for ingredients that are harder to find in my small town grocery store. This recipe, however, looked easy and I had the ingredients on hand. I wasn't sure if Daddy-O would like tonight's supper, but it's cold and staying home sounded better than going out.  

Such an easy recipe. There is no chopping. No browning. Just dump it all in the pot. Can't get easier. You can see I made cheese quesadillas with tortillas left from Tuesday's chicken street tacos. Perfect combination.

Turns out he did like it. Soup was perfect for the cold evening. I'm giving you the recipe exactly like I made it. The NY Times version made twice this much. But the recipe called for 4 cans, 2 cans, etc, so it was easy to cut it in half. We both had a bowl of soup for dinner and enough left for a small bowl each lunch tomorrow. I always think it's hard to make a small amount of soup. But this was perfect for the two of us. 

Enough chatter. Here's the recipe. 

SPICY BLACK BEAN SOUP    makes 3-4 servings

2 (15-oz) cans black beans

1 (roughly 16-oz) jar mild salsa verde

1 (4-oz) can chopped green chilies (I used only 2/3 of the can)

1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa

1 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon garlic powder

In a 3-qt pot bring all ingredients to a boil. Cover, reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until beans are soft enough to mash easily, about 10 minutes.

Use an immersion blender or potato masher to smash the beans to your desired consistency. (I used a potato masher and left about half the beans whole.)

Serve with toppings such as sour cream, tortilla chips, avocado, etc. 

Notice that I didn't use all of the green chilies and it was plenty spicy enough for us. Make it suit your family.