Tag Archives: soup

Pureed Tomato Soup with Gouda Cheese

Mmmhmmmm…. someone couldn’t resist the temptation of giving the Vitamix a whirl tonight. Luckily no episodes of cyclone explosions of tomato soup on the ceiling, backsplash or floor. I’ll give it to Mr. B, he had a fun list of ingredients that made for a very delicious pureed tomato soup. He also won me over with the cheesiest toasted cheese sandwich on ezekiel bread too! That’s my guy, he knows the way to my heart. Speaking of hearts he also picked me up conversation hearts <3! Remember these little guys? Did anyone else think these were gone for good? Don't worry, I included the VERY difficult recipe if you'd like to enjoy a nice bowl of our tomato soup with gouda cheese tonight. It's VERY difficult. Don't say that I didn't warn you. [shashin type="photo" id="10098" size="large" columns="max" order="user" position="center"] [shashin type="photo" id="10099" size="large" columns="max" order="user" position="center"] Pureed Tomato Soup with Gouda Cheese

Ingredients

1 Jar roasted red peppers
1 Can of crushed tomatoes
1 Qt gallon of Whole milk (Organic)
6 Sun-dried tomatoes
1 Tsp Oregano
1 Tsp Basil
1 Jar of your favorite marinara sauce (We love Paul Newman’s Organic or Favatas)
8 Slices of smoked gouda cheese

Instructions

Combine all ingredients in your blender or food immersion mixer, minus the cheese. Blend until thoroughly combined. pour into a pot on your stove top and heat, slowly add in the smoked gouda cheese.

I could live on toasted cheese! It reminds me of being a kid, What about you?
What is your favorite soup to accompany a toasted cheese sandwich?

PS: What’s up with Dumb Starbucks in LA? Personally i’d give the seasonal “Wuppy Duppy Latte” a go. Perhaps a franchise opportunity for South Korea? Asia loves their coffee shops and trademark infringement… what’s that?

Backpackbees

Cold Snap

It’s too cold! These words are all to familiar here in South Korea as of late. It’s basically replaced the common greeting of a simple “hello” or “hi” to your neighbors or acquaintances. We are experiencing quite the cold snap again, so much so that it literally burns my little ear lobes if I’m outside, and they are exposed to long. That little taste of almost Spring like temperatures the last week seem like such distant memories now. How’s the weather where you are?

Luckily we’ve got heated floors to warm our chilled bones up when we are out at a restaurant or even while snuggled up at home. Speaking of restaurants, Mr. B and I enjoyed a really nice dinner Thursday night this past week with some good friends. We ate huge bowls of Bibimbop, and sipped on Hobakjuk, a delicious Korean Pumpkin Porridge. Mmmmm the Hobakjuk was so velvety smooth! I believe I’ll attempt to make it rather soon (perfect cold weather comfort food). Stay tuned…

In Need Of Antidote for Too Many Christmas Cookies

After one to many Christmas cookies, a nice hearty soup was in order for we Bees. With our recent trip home, I knew just the antidote!

Chicken corn soup with rivels!

Have you ever tried chicken corn soup with rivels before? It’s absolutely wonderful!

Rivels? Scratching your head yet? No, no, these are not little bugs or anything crazy like that. Think of rivels as a homemade pasta. Little, perfect, delicious, little pasta’s.

In Central PA, typically we eat this soup towards the end of summer with freshly picked ears of corn. Oh how I just adore fresh sweet corn! We Bees were truly spoiled because my family would always kindly share the corn from their fields with us too. Sigh…

Speaking of family, I skyped with my grandparents this weekend and had to tell them what a proud little baker I was with my chicken corn soup accomplishments. I mean we are talking about homemade chicken stock folks! That’s serious stuff in my book, or maybe just serious time? Nevertheless, well worth it in the end! Anyways, it turns out my grandparents were cooking the soup the following day as well. Guess you can take the Bees out of Pennsylvania, but you’ll never take Pennsylvania out of the Bees.

Run Around

So far its been a crazy busy week, I cannot believe that we are already on day three of our visit home. I knew once we’d get home the hands on the clock would just spin forward ever so quickly. Today we did all sorts of fun little things. We baked raisin cookies, strolled around Giant, and grabbed a bite to eat at Panera Bread.

After baking cookies, we decided to go for a stroll around Giant. Yes, we are really odd and have enjoyed “strolling” around Wal-Mart, Target, Sam’s Club, Heimbach’s, and no trip would be complete without including our local Giant grocery store. Hmmm maybe we can squeeze in a Wegmans too?

Goodness, endless amounts of decisions and options. The experience was almost overwhelming! I found myself wanting to read every single item in the Organic section. It’s incredible how much we take for granted with the endless amounts of selections and sales on food in the US. We are so lucky to be able to just purchase endless amount of stuff. In the end it always leaves me with the thoughts of, do we really need all of this stuff?

We’ve been Panera Bread enthusiast for quite sometime now. The smell of freshly baked bread, the delicious soups, the free wifi, the bakery-cafe atmosphere. We were absolutely delighted to see that they had opened in our hometown while we had been away. I knew we’d have to stop in and grab some lunch sometime while running around. Today just happened to be that day!

Have you ever ate at Panera Bread? What is your favorite thing to order? I think mine is now the Vegetarian garden vegetable with pesto. In the mood for soup? You’ve got to try it out!

Doenjang Jjigae 된장찌개

The past few days we can really feel the days are getting shorter now. The mornings are darker and the evenings after work the sun is setting much earlier. Soon it will be time to turn the clocks back in the states. Luckily these shorter days here are still fairly mild temperature wise. We are able to get away with a light fleece or light scarf and sweater while being out and about.

Today we got home from our touristy weekend and decided that we needed to warm our souls. What better way than to make some soup! Soup is just so comforting in the fall and winter months. Did we mention this soup is not just any soup… Hands down its one of our all time favorite Korean soups. Think of this soup as Korean comfort in a bowl.

Doenjang Jjigae 된장찌개

We simply cannot help ourselves, we see this savory little number on any menu and ordering it becomes a MUST!

It’s sweet, its spicy, it’s just perfect, not to mention it’s incredibly good for you too.

We’ve been told that most foreigners are turned off by the smell and sight of the traditional soup. We really must be an exception to the rule.

So what is the soup made of? Mom, Dad, are you ready for this? Fermented Korean soybean paste.

Doenjang Jjigae –Korean Soy Bean Paste Stew
Adapted from Tofoodwithluv
Ingredients
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 strips of dried seaweed (kelp)
2 tbsp Korean soy bean paste (doenjang)
2-3 tsp Korean chilli pepper powder (gochugaru)
6  Dried anchovy
5 Cups rice water broth (from the water used to rinse rice, ssal ddeum mul, and use for stew)
1/2 Green onion, thinly sliced
1 Green chilli pepper, sliced
1 Large zucchini, diced
1 small packet tofu diced into cubes
1 pack of enokitake mushrooms

Lets Get Cooking!
Toast the anchovies in your black bowl, Rinse your rice, making sure to save the milky rice water, that you plan to eat as a side with your soup. Add the broth/water to the anchovies, throw in the seaweed and bring to a boil. Boil about 3 minutes. Take out the seaweed and anchovies, discard them. Next mash and stir in the soybean paste into the simmering broth. Add in your chili powder. Cover and bring to a  boil on medium to high heat for 5 minutes. Add onion, chilli peppers and zucchini, boil for 8-10 minutes. Add mushrooms, tofu in the last 2 minutes. Serve immediately with steamed rice.

ENJOY YOUR DOENJANG JJIGAE!

Souper-Sunday

We cut our weekend trip short due to homework and the new typhoon that’s threatening the Korean coastline again. The bright side of it all is, we made record time getting home, dealt with little to no traffic on the roads, we enjoyed sushi for lunch, and I was able to make a big ol’ pot of  copy cat Olive Garden  Pasta e Fagioli Soup and bread sticks. perfect meal for this very mild September Sunday. (Enter happy tummy dance now!)

Dont worry, I’ll share! I think your going to love it! I’ve adapted some online recipes/Pins to our own little concoction, Mr. B approved!

Copycat Olive Garden Pasta e Fagioli Soup

Makes plenty to enjoy and share too!

INGREDIENTS:

1lb ground turkey

1 small onion, chopped

A handful of baby carrots, or one large carrot, chopped, whatever you have on hand works

2 tall stalks celery, chopped

2 minced garlic cloves

28oz can crushed tomatoes

15oz can tomato sauce

15 oz can of vegetable broth

15oz can beef broth

15oz can light red kidney beans (include liquid)

15oz can great northern beans (include liquid)

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 teaspoon dried basil

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

Salt and pepper to taste

The  rind off of a nice chuck of Parmesan cheese

1 1/2 cup ditalini pasta

Lets get cooking!

Start by browning our ground turkey in a large stock pot over medium-high heat. Cook until meat is no longer pink. Next add in your onions, carrots, celery, and garlic, feel free to season with salt & pepper. Sauté for 10 minutes, stir the mixture occasionally. Now, add in everything left, but the pasta. Simmer for 1 hour stirring occasionally as needed.

When the soup has 15 minutes left to simmer, start cooking your pasta, it’s better for it to be a bit under cooked too. Once done, drain water out and add to your soup and simmer for another 10 more minutes.

Next, on to the breadsticks!

Copycat Olive Garden Bread-sticks

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/2 cups warm water

1 packet active dry yeast

4 1/4 cups all purpose flour

2 Tbsp. Melted unsalted butter

2 Tbsp. White Sugar

1 Tbsp. Salt

Let’s get cooking!

In a bowl, dissolve the sugar & yeast in warm water, let it sit for 10 minutes, covered. Mixture will be frothy.

In separate bowl, combine the flour and salt. Pour in the yeast mixture. Add the melted butter. Mix all the ingredients with paddle, hook, or by hand.

Next, knead dough until dough is smooth. Watch out not to over-knead!

Spray cookie sheet. Pull apart dough and shape into your bread-stick strips. Cover dough and let sit in a warm place for about 45 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400F or 200C, once heated, pop those prepared bread-sticks in the oven.

While bread-sticks are baking, microwave a stick of unsalted butter, 2 teaspoons garlic powder and 1 teaspoons salt.

After bread sticks have cooked for 6 or 7 minutes, brush the bread sticks with half the butter mixture. Then continue to bake. Bake for 5-8 more minutes.

Once you remove bread from the oven, gently turn over the bread-sticks and brush with butter mixture.

Freshly baked bread, the aroma, sooo nice!