Soup to go, please
Synopsis: Today my team got an interesting challenge – make a soup to use up all of the spare vegetables and stock from the fridge. This is something that every chef will face, whether in a professional kitchen or at home: the use-it-today-or-chuck-it dilemma. How can you creatively incorporate new ingredients into some of your traditional dishes? This is a great chance to expand your horizons as a chef.
Today’s result? A medley of vegetable soup containing yellow squash, acorn squash (though you would never know it), carrots, onion, celery, and diced tomato. We had pork stock that we needed to use, so we made that the base of the soup. We sauteed the vegetables first and then added the stock, simmering until done. I finished it with fresh rosemary and garlic salt. Why? Because I like garlic and rosemary. So eat it.
Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much from it, but it came out very nice! So here’s my challenge to you: don’t let anything go bad in your fridge for the next week. Go now and take an inventory of everything that you have, and how close it is to going bad. (If there is something that’s already gone bad, hang your head in shame and throw it away). Now think of a rough menu of dishes that you can make over the next week. Utilize ALL of the produce, meats, dairy, and anything else that would go bad in that time frame. Obviously, start with the stuff that’s closest to meeting its maker, and work your way back from there.
You may be surprised at the results! Combinations that never occurred to you before can turn out to be very tasty. (And some won’t. That’s cooking). Try it! And I want to see what you come up with – email me or leave a comment with your uniquely delicious (or uniquely horrible) dishes from this challenge!