March 30: National Turkey Neck Soup Day

Again, another food I have never had.  The closest I've ever come to turkey neck soup is watching a King Cobra feed on a turkey neck at the Cape Fear Serpentarium.  (Apparently, the snake is fooled into thinking that the turkey neck is another snake and so it chomps it down for dinner.)

I can't find anything about the history of turkey neck soup, but it seems to be an American dish that came about to make sure no part of the turkey was wasted. Fabulous Foodie points out it must be an American dish, since the turkey is an American bird.  (Sidenote: Benjamin Franklin pushed for the turkey to be the national bird of the USA.)   Foodimentary seems to have gathered up all available information about turkey neck soup, which isn't a whole lot. 

Looking around at recipes, it seems like you just make a stock using the turkey neck, then  you toss in whatever vegetables you want.   Want it kosher?  Try this recipe from Joy of Kosher that uses lentils, barley, and mushrooms.  This recipe from My Wooden Spoons is accompanied by a photographic record of the steps, but uses chicken neck.  (I'm not sure if it still counts as turkey neck soup at that point.)  Of the recipes I've found online, I think this one from Ingathered would be the one I'd follow.  Why?  It seems the least labor intensive and it uses wine.

I like recipes that use wine- they give me an excuse to buy wine without coming off as a lush.

February 4: Stuffed Mushroom Day and Homemade Soup Day

Stuffed Mushroom Day

The first time I had stuffed mushrooms, my friend had made them and, truth be told, they weren't very good.  I'm not sure what she did, but I remember politely eating one and then not eating any more because it was just too salty. 

Since then, I've had stuffed mushrooms a few times.  And, other than that unappealing first time, the time that sticks out most in my memory is when my friends had stuffed mushrooms at their wedding.  Those were a hit!  They were super delicious and even the non-vegetarians were snatching them up.  I can only imagine that it must have been hard for the catering staff to keep up with demand. 

I've made stuffed mushrooms a few times, and I never follow a recipe.  I usually just separate the stems from the caps and then chop up the stems.  To the chopped stems, I usually add chopped onions, chopped bell peppers, and chopped celery.  Then I finish the mixture by adding whatever mixture of herbs I have on hand that I think will go well together and either shredded cheese or bread crumbs.  The mixture is then stuffed back into the caps in heaping piles and baked in the oven at 400 under close watch for 15-20 minutes.

I'm always left with leftover stuffing and I always try to use it all up in other dishes, instead of just throwing it out.  This most recent time I was left with enough stuffing to add to biscuits and to stuff inside pastry dough, making a home version of a Hot Pocket.  (Or perhaps it's more of a mushroom calzone?)


Homemade Soup Day

As I've said before, homemade soup is awesome.  It's super cheap and easy (most of the time) so what's not to love?  Homemade soup would've been perfect today because it's was overcast and dreary most of the day, then finally opened up with rain.

So what would've I done if I had made soup today?  First, I would've tossed some broth into the crockpot.  (While not essential for homemade soup, crockpots are a great tool.)  Then, some carrots and kidney beans.  A bay leaf would be added, as would some peppercorns.  About an hour before I wanted to eat, I'd add some celery, onion, and cooked rice.

Mmm...maybe I'll make soup tomorrow.

January 21: Granola Bar Day & New England Clam Chowder Day

Granola Bar Day

Granola bars are awesome when you're hiking or camping.  Or when you find yourself stuck in a class or meeting and you start getting distracted by a growing hunger.  Whether you like crunchy granola bars or chewy granola, granola bars are handy little snacks.

Store-bought granola bars can sometimes have ingredients you weren't expecting, so always check the ingredient list.  You can always make your own granola bars, too.  In honor of Granola Bar Day, CDKitchen has a round up of granola bar recipes.  If you like a certain brand of granola bars, make sure to check the brand's website for coupons.

As for me, I do keep at least one box of granola bars handy and usually have one in my bag. 


New England Clam Chowder Day

I'm not a huge fan of heavy, creamy soups.  I prefer my soups to be light and broth-based, so I don't eat New England Clam Chowder very often.  Clam chowder can be hit or miss- some people make it too salty.  New England Clam Chowder is good when paired with crackers.  Food Network has a highly rated recipe of New England Clam Chowder.  Epicurious has a New England Clam Chowder recipe that uses bacon.  AllRecipes also has a recipe that uses bacon. I guess bacon makes it really taste good - just look at the number of reviews and the average rating!

Well, if you have a bowl of New England Clam Chowder today, not only are you celebrating the day, you're also celebrating National Soup Month!

National Wheat Bread Month, National Soup Month, National Bread Machine Baking Month

I've been keeping up with the daily food celebrations, but I can't help but feel I'm lacking on the month and week food celebrations.  I just don't blog as much as I anticipated.  I did manage to make a dinner this week that touched on multiple food month celebrations.  Let's take a look at the dinner.

First, bread made in the bread machine!  There!  That knocks out National Bread Machine Baking Month.  Wait!  It was a 50-50 wheat bread... there's National Wheat Bread Month!  Sweet! And since it's been cold and rainy, soup is the perfect thing to warm me up.  (National Soup Month!)

The bread was made following the "Fifty-Fifty Whole Wheat Bread" recipe from More Bread Machine Magic by Linda Rehberg and Lois Conway.  Not only was it a hit with wheat-bread-loving me, the roomie liked it, too, and the recipe was officially labeled a "Yay!" recipe.  (We tend to sort new recipes as "yay," "needs a little tweaking," "meh," and "ew, never again.")  The bread was so tasty, it only lasted a few days, so I didn't get as many pictures of it as I had hoped.  In fact, that's the last piece there with dinner.  It was had as toast with jam, butter, or honey, used to make cheese toast, and used in a sandwich.  I did add a little more water than the recipe called for, as the bread machine seemed like it was struggling.  Pictures of the bread at the start of the cycle and at the end:

The majority of my soups these days are made from scratch.  Soup's just so easy to make.  In fact, Grist called soup a "packaged food you never need to buy again."  If you're scared to jump right in and start making soups completely from scratch, you can always buy a soup mix and toss it in the crock pot.  Crock pots make soup making easy - just toss in some veggies, some liquid (broth, water, milk) and just let the crock pot cook away.  Looking for a recipe?  Whole Foods recently tweeted a link to Heart Greens Soup.

Truthfully, there's always a day or two when I didn't start up the crockpot, I have no leftover soup in the freezer, I'm lazy, or I'm hungry and I want to eat IMMEDIATELY.  For those days, I do turn to packaged soup.  For some people, sodium is a concern but some packaged soups are low in sodium - you just have to hunt through all the labels.  If you're worried that soup in cans can expose you to BPAs, there's always soup in boxes or paper containers from soup counters.  The soup pictured here became mine because my roomie didn't like it.  She felt the onion flavor was too strong (she doesn't like onions) but I thought it was just fine.  If my basil plants hadn't succumbed to the cold, I would've added a little basil to the bowl, if only for color.

Then, because I felt the dinner needed more vegetables and something green, I added some leftover broccoli raab.  (Remember, make half your plate fruits and vegetables!) This broccoli raab was cooked in a saute pan with some garlic and almond slivers.  If you like broccoli, you'd probably like broccoli raab.  If you can't find it in the grocery store, it may be hiding under a different name, but it basically looks like broccoli if it was stretched and had smaller florets.

National Soup Month

Definitely cold enough for soup today.  Using some daikon, bonito flakes, shiitake mushrooms, collards, and some miso paste, I threw together a a quick soup.  Not a traditional miso soup by a long shot, but it was tasty.  And hot.  That was the important part - it warmed me up.

I've also been thumbing through The International Soup book.  Many, many tasty looking soups in that book.  There's a lentil soup in there I may just have to try.

National Soup Month, courtesy of Whole Foods

I haven't really been doing as much as I thought I would be for the "month" foods.  I'll get some up soon, but in the meantime, Whole Foods has a blog entry in honor of National Soup Month.  It's going to be cold enough this weekend that all I'll probably want will be soup, so I'll probably really truly celebrate it this weekend.  Actually, it'll be cold enough to celebrate both National Soup Month and National Hot Tea Month!