Chapter One

Hard Times, Old Times, Good Times Soup

Soups are the foundations of our good times, our hard times, and our old times cooking. They were the recipes our grandparents brought with them or learned to make from their neighbors. In hard times, these recipes provided inexpensive and hearty nutritious meals, and in good times and celebrations they became the traditions that were handed down to their children.

Sometimes they became comfort food. When a child or other family member is sick, a little chicken broth and pasta is as good as medicine. But these basic soups also become the basis of other dishes, such as sauces, stews and other main dishes.

There are some almost magic tricks involved in these recipes that we have learned through the years, The tricks involve some time and thinking, but very little money. For example, always buy chickens whole and cut them up yourself. This way you can cut the wing tips off and put them in the freezer, along with the necks and gizzards. You can bone the breasts, save the meat for Chicken Cutlets, and use the skin and bones in soup. Buy large packages of inexpensive chicken pieces on sale, and use them in soups and stews. If you get in the habit of not wasting anything, you can be thrifty and inventive at the same time.

These soups and sauces are healthy, as is most thrifty cooking, because they use beans and grains instead of meats as their main ingredients.

As you read these recipes, remember that most of the exact amounts have been eliminated and only proportions are suggested. Use what you have, donÕt feel that you have to go to the store to follow these recipes.

And be sure that you and those you cook with enjoy the act of cooking. We spend much of our weekend time, these days, in the kitchen, working together on not only the meals that are coming right up but also on the meals for the week to come. And, we enjoy it. We clean up together, we cut up together, we cook, we talk, and, on occasion, we touch. The soups that come out of this, we feel, have our joy of cooking as part of the taste and nutrition that we enjoy through the week.

Basic Soup in Two Acts

This is a basic soup that can be used for a main dish, a first course, or the foundation of another dish such as a sauce or a casserole. It has the benefit of low or no salt, no preservatives, your own fresh vegetables, and a wonderful aroma in the kitchen. It's a great way to involve the whole family in cooking because everyone can cut vegetables, add herbs, and stir. The soup needs some careful attention at first, but then will simmer along by itself, with little attention.

This is the basic generic recipe, a guide rather than a recipe: In a large 8-12 quart pot, put

Some meaty raw bones
The tough stringy parts of some raw vegetables, but not highly flavored ones like broccoli
Herbs for seasoning
Enough cold water to cover

Cook this for about two-three hours at a low bubbling simmer. Strain, chill overnight and remove the fat. This is the basic outline to which you can add whatever you want, whatever kinds of herbs or meat or vegetables you have. The vegetables can be dried up and stringy, it doesnÕt matter. It's a great way to clean out a refrigerator and not throw anything out.

For beef soup, use beef knuckles, beef neck bones, or ox tails. Last week, we found that our supermarket butcher had ÒBones for DogsÓ at ten cents a pound. We bought many pounds and stored most of them in our small freezer. For chicken soup, use chicken parts, gizzards or necks.

Act I, Day One:

This first day takes the meat and the tough parts of the vegetables, simmers them with herbs for several hours. This simmering gets all the flavor out of the ingredients and makes the rich broth.

Cut up some unpeeled onion. The peeling gives color to the soup. Cut up some celery, the core of a cabbage, regular or Chinese, carrots, parsley, and thoroughly cleaned leeks tops.
While you are cutting away and using the stringy, coarser parts of the vegetables for the first boiling of the soup, cut and save the lighter parts. In other words, cut the core from the cabbage for this first cooking of the soup and slice the cabbage for use the next day, when the broth is clear. Use the ends of the carrots here, the thick ends of the bok choy, and the green leek tops. Put the coarse tough parts of these vegetables in the water, save the cleaned tender parts in a plastic bag for tomorrow. At this point you can also add any other basic spices you want. We use two or three bay leaves.
The meat should be knuckles of beef, shanks or marrow bones. Put this meat and the vegetable pieces in a large kettle, an eight to twelve quart stockpot, of cold water, bring to a simmer and cook for two or three hours. A simmer is a gentle bubbling, not a full rolling boil. This keeps the meat from getting tough, and draws all the flavors out into your broth.

Don't add any salt at this time. If you must have salt, it should be added just before the soup is served or used for some other purpose. Simmer the soup but donÕt boil. This takes some watching, depending on your stove situation. Here is a great place to involve children, if you have any. They will learn to cook and help you at the same time.

I must admit that as a child, I was not too good at watching pots. I would let the potatoes boil dry too often, but I think I could have learned to be much more attentive if I had been working most of the time in the kitchen with others.

When the meat is done, take all of the meat and bones out of the soup and let them cool. If you are using different cuts or kinds of meat, this becomes an ongoing process. Chicken white meat gets done first and some of the tougher cuts of been are done much later. Watch, experiment, and learn. When the meat is cool, remove it from the bones and save it. Put the bones back in the soup and cook down for several hours. Again, simmer, don't boil.

Strain the soup through some cheesecloth, throw the bones away and bury the leftover vegetables in your compost heap. At this point, you can refrigerate the soup for the next dayÕs finishing. The fat will come to the surface as it chills and leaves a nice gelatinous broth behind.

Act Two, the next day:

Remove the fat, bring to a simmer and restrain the soup to get rid of the scum. To this nice clear broth, add the lighter parts of the vegetables the you have saved from Day One, the sliced cabbage, sliced carrots, the white part of the leeks and some sliced onions. You can also add another few springs of parsley and another bay leaf. Simmer this for another hour or two. This soup is a basic vegetable soup which you can vary in many ways.

Variation One

Simmer about a half cup of barley in a little water for fifteen minutes, add to the soup and cook for another hour. Add sliced mushrooms, and meat if you want.

Variation Two

Cook some small pasta, such as orzo, acini di pepe, or broken spaghetti, add the cooked pasta to the hot soup along with a sprinkle of fresh Parmesan.

Variation Three

You can add some cut up peeled tomatoes to the Act Two soup, it gives a little color and different taste.

Chicken Soup

Chicken soup is like the basic vegetable soup we just described. It is the soup that is supposed to do very special things for sick children and even sick adults. In hard times, it is important to substitute family and love for professional medicine when it is reasonable. Use chicken soup, tenderness, and concern as the first line of defense against the common cold and other normal ailments of children and the others you love. Save the doctor visits for the serious problems.

For basic chicken soup, do all of the same things suggested for the basic vegetable soup leaving out the beef bones and the tomatoes. For this soup you can use chicken pieces, gizzards, necks and backs. After the first day of cooking, strain the soup through a cloth. This leaves a nice clear broth. It also leaves behind some tasty tidbits of gizzards and chicken which can be used for salad, enchiladas, sandwiches, or just a quick meal.

The basic broth can be served alone, with noodles, or in a variety of other ways such as for enchilada sauce, risotto, gravies, or chicken pie. It can be frozen and saved for these recipes, too. Campbell's does not have a corner on the soup market, remember. And this kind of soup is better for you than any thing you can make with those salty bouillon cubes.

Pepper Pot Soup

How about a soup that has a little spiciness and a taste of Italy? You can buy Progresso, or you can make your own for less money and you can vary the recipe to make the soup in lots of different ways or even in the one way that you like best. For me, leave out the tripe, but I know lots of others, including Carolyn, who like tripe.

Put a little oil in the bottom of a heavy kettle.
Add some diced celery, onions, green pepper, leeks, and parsley.
Cook down slowly for fifteen minutes.
If you want to, add some diced, cleaned tripe or any other meat you like.
Cook for two hours, slowly.
Dice and add a large potato.
Make a roux of 2 tablespoons. butter and 2 tablespoons. flour, add to soup. Cook a few minutes and serve. You can add a shot of Madiera or sherry.

Mushroom Soup

This mushroom soup is a good times soup. It makes a wonderful first course for a holiday meal, or by itself with a salad and some good bread. This is the kind of soup that costs $5.00 a bowl in restaurants.

Make at least 6-8 cups of good chicken broth,a day or two before you make the mushroom soup.
In a heavy saucepan, cook a little minced onions in some butter. Cook until tender but not brown.
Add 3 tablespoons flour, and stir for 3 minutes without browning.
Off heat, pour in the boiling broth and blend thoroughly. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Stir in some parsley, one or two bay leaves, and some thyme.
Add the chopped stems from one pound fresh mushrooms. Cook this for at least twenty minutes, strain, pressing juice out of the stems. Return the soup to the saucepan, after you blend the stems and add them to thicken and heighten the mushroom taste.
Melt two tablespoons of butter in a separate saucepan, toss thinly sliced caps from the pound of mushrooms, salt and one teaspoon lemon juice, cook five minutes.
Pour the mushrooms and their juices into the soup, simmer for ten minutes. At this point you can set this aside and finish later.
Beat 2 egg yolks and 1/2 cup whipping cream in a three quart mixing bowl. Then beat in hot soup by the spoonful until a cup has been added. Gradually stir in the rest. Correct the seasoning.
Return the soup to the pan and stir, but DO NOT let the soup come near a simmer. You will have a curdled mess if you do! Serve this in a tureen or individual bowls.

Pop's Salmon Soup

I learned about this salmon soup from my father who didn't think he was too good a cook but who raised me and my brothers to big, strapping men. Pop reached adulthood during the depression and he knew how squeeze a penny. It is a traditional chowder, one that is hearty, thrifty and tasty, especially on a cold night. Tuna, clams, and almost any other fish works as well as salmon, and you can stretch the soup with more potatoes. You can also use lo-fat milk, for less fat.

Chop a large onion, saute in a little olive oil.
Add two potatoes (if you only have one, that's ok, too) , diced and unpeeled (the skin is good for you) with a large can of salmon.
Add milk to cover, pepper, and a little salt. Cook until the potatoes are done, salt to taste.

You can also add a can of kernel corn or even a package of frozen corn. If you can afford the fat calories, float a pat of butter on the top when you serve it. This is simple, cheap, relatively quick and very good. Comfort food, folks.

Depression Soup

We didn't learn about depression soup from our parents or grandparents, but rather found the recipe in a student newspaper at the University of Chicago. When I told my Italian grandmother about it, she said that she had used it often during her hard times. It is a great soup for when you are feeling poor, or when you are. It is also a great diet soup. Some people claim that it takes more calories to digest this soup than there are calories in the soup, or maybe it's just that the soup is really high fiber/low fat.

Soak about a cup of any variety of dry beans overnight. These beans were an addition to the original recipe, but we liked it because it thickens the soup and makes it heartier without adding meat.
Slice in big chunks a large head of cabbage, Put the soaked beans and the cabbage with some sliced carrots, two or more large, quartered onions, a bay leaf, a handful of parsley, peppercorns and some cut up celery in a large pot.
Cover with water ( or some other liquid like chicken stock or even a mixture of beer and water), season with salt and cook for several hours.
If you become suddenly rich, or even if you just feel rich, add a package of chicken parts or any leftover cooked chicken. This gives flavor without breaking your pocketbook, and it is the only ingredient that will add some fat to the soup.
Cook any kind of pasta, broken spaghetti, pastina, elbows, even bowties, in a separate pot.
When the pasta is done, ladle into bowls, put a little grated cheese over the pasta and add the soup. If you are dieting, add a low fat cheese such as Parmesan or Swiss or leave the cheese our entirely.

Calabacitas Soup

Calabacita is the Spanish name for any summer squash. In this recipe you can use zucchini, yellow or crook neck squash, or probably even eggplant. This is another high fiber, low fat soup that tastes good and is good for you. We like this one especially when our summer zucchini plant is producing more zucchini than we can give away. At times we have had to give away the recipe with our extra zucchini.

Saute some chopped squash and onions in butter or olive oil in a large saucepan.
Add chopped peeled tomatoes, cook a minute.
Add chicken stock to cover, some cooked chicken, fresh, frozen or canned corn, a little coriander or oregano, and chopped green chili.
Add salt and pepper and simmer over low heat for 20 minutes.

If you can afford the calories, you can fry up some strips of fried corn tortillas (donÕt use bagged corn chips here) and float them on top of the soup. A little grated Monterey Jack cheese on top is also good We often also add diced raw onions and red chili sauce.

Eight Bean Soup

We got the first version of this recipe with a jar full of mixed beans as a Christmas gift some years ago. Since then, we have made up our own collections of beans and given them with the this recipe to our friends. One of the best things about this soup is that you can change the way it tastes by changing the beans or the proportions of the beans in the mixture.

Try to find a store that sells beans in bulk. The same store may very well have bulk spices and herbs. We have found that buying beans, herbs, and spices is fun and it saves us a lot of money. Of course, if you buy things in bulk, you will need to save containers to store your beans and spices. We used to save glass peanut butter jars, but these days most peanut butter comes in plastic. Plastic works for storage but somehow doesnÕt seem to be good as glass. You can save other kinds of glass jars, mayonnaise, jelly and jam, pickles, or sauerkraut, or you can buy Mason or Ball jars at most supermarkets.

Cover a mixture of eight or ten different kinds of dry beans, Great Northern,limas, lentils, red, pinto, split green, etc. with two inches of water, soak overnight.
Drain the water and replace with fresh water or chicken broth,
Add chopped onion, chopped celery,sliced carrots,canned or fresh peeled tomatoes, some leftover ham or lamb if you want, a bay leaf and some chopped parsley,a can of beer and some chopped green chili if you like.
Cover and cook until tender, several hours. You could do it the day before you want to serve it.
Add little salt and pepper and cook another thirty minutes. This soup is delicious and good with hot flour tortillas. You can also add cooked rice for a complete protein. Also a possibility is cooked small pasta. Alternate the seasonings.

This soup good in the winter, and also in the summer with a salad and crackers. It is a wonderful variation soup

Variation #1:

Make the soup with cubed potatoes, then add some shredded cabbage, and frozen limas. You could also add some posole, or caldillo for another kind of combination. Use whatever leftover vegetables you have, too.

Variation #2:

Put some bok choy, chopped, in the soup while it cooks,ladle over hot rice.

Variation #3:

Put some escarole or endive, make small meatballs if you want, add Parmesan and serve over cooked noodles.

Variation #4:

Add a can of tomatoes, a little chili powder and hot pepper sauce, and a little lemon juice for a zippier sort of taste.

You get the idea? You could live on this soup in a depression. ItÕs cheap, easy, and endlessly varied. It beats take-out, and you can make it in an evening and cook enough for several meals. This soup also freezes well so you can make a bunch some weekend and bring it out of the freezer for several meals over several weeks. And, it makes a fine hard times and good times gift that is inexpensive and gives love and concern. Mix a variety of dried beans, put them in a glass bowl or other gift container, and put the recipe on a card.

Lentil Soup

Lentil soup is just another form of the bean soup just described, but it is also a special soup. Legend has it that lentil soup may be one of the oldest cooked foods around. Perhaps it was a bunch of lentils that some stone age cook threw into a clay pot along with the left over meat of a mastodon. What ever the truth of this claim, lentil soup tastes wonderful even if it does not look like a gourmet dish.

Take one package of lentils, wash.
Put in a saucepan, add enough water to cover the lentils by about two inches. We use Grandma's rule of thumb to get the right amount of liquid in the pot. Stick your thumb into the water, resting it on the lentils. Add water until it comes to the place where your thumb meets your hand, That's enough water.
Throw into the pot some sliced onion, celery and chopped parsley.
Add about a quarter cup of olive oil for each pound of dry lentils, and a little oregano, and a leftover lamb or ham bone if you have it.
Cook for a couple of hours. You can put more fresh chopped parsley. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve this with rice and you have a complete meal.

Variation One:

Replace the regular brown lentils in this recipe with pink lentils for a soup that tastes about the same but looks very fancy. The soup can also be made with split peas, same process, same proportions. Split pea soup has a very different texture but it is also very good. Any of these can be made with no meat or with a ham or other pork bone, lamb bones, or beef bones.

Variation Two:

One of our sons uses a can of chopped green chili to vary the seasonings. This son also cooks chocolate pudding in a wok, which was his only pot for a long time.

Gazpacho

Here is a cold soup that is great when your (or your neighbor's) tomatoes finally come in and youÕre tired of plain tomato salads.

Put in a blender a little chopped garlic, equal portions (about a half a cup) of green pepper, onion, celery, and cucumber, peeled and chopped,, about four very ripe tomatoes,quartered equal amounts of olive oil, wine vinegar and tomato paste (about three Tablespoons), a little cumin and tabasco to taste, a can of V-8 juice, some fresh or canned green chili, chopped.
While this is blending, add about a cup of ice water to make the soup to the right consistency.

Gazpacho is basically a cold liquid salad, and like any salad, benefits from creative additions from your garden. Use what you have and find the right mixture for yourself and your family. Different herbs such as coriander and basil and parsley would be interesting additions also.

Blend in several batches if necessary. Garnish with a basil leaf, serve in cups. You can also serve hot bread or crackers.

Caldillo

New Mexican Green Chili Soup

Some like it hot, and those who do love this soup. It's a soupy stew, or a stewy soup, whatever you want. It needs bread, in some form or other, to cut the blast from the furnace. Bread can be flour tortillas, rolls, Mexican pan, or Italian or French bread.

In a little oil in a Dutch oven, saute some pork meat, bones, or ground beef or turkey with some minced garlic and chopped onion.
Add some diced potatoes, stir for a minute and add a can of beer or some chicken broth and enough water to cover.
Add some shredded fresh green chili, or chopped canned, salt and pepper, and some ground cumin, and a little oregano.
Simmer, covered, until the potatoes are tender.

Caldillo is a great spicy soup, served with hot flour tortillas or bread. Good in the winter to warm you up, or in the summer to cool you off.

Meatball Soup

This is a variation on Beef Soup, with meatballs instead of pieces of meat. You can make the meatballs with ground turkey, or ground beef, and it can be stretched to serve many people with a little meat if you use more bread in the meatball recipe. Like the loaves and the fishes, meatballs can feed the multitudes.

Make meatballs from GrandmaÕs Meatball recipe,and make them tiny, brown them in a little oil, put aside on a paper towel to drain.
In separate kettle, brown chopped onion, chopped mushrooms, thyme or oregano. Add some chopped carrots, a can of stewed tomatoes, some beef broth, and half as much red wine, some chunks of zucchini and chopped celery too, if you have it.
Simmer the soup for a while, my grandfather used to say Òuntil it's pretty good,Ó then add meatballs. Stir in a package of frozen peas.

Onion Soup

This onion soup is an elegant soup, and it is easier to make than most people think.. It takes some watching in the first half hour or so, but after the onions are done it can simmer with little attention. With a loaf of bread and a salad, itÕs a fine lunch. As a first course, it can add to any meal.

You need to have about two quarts of homemade beef broth at a simmer on the stove when you start the soup. This should be made the day before, and the fat taken off the top, and strained so it is clear.
In a heavy saucepan, heat about three tablespoons of butter and one tablespoon of oil, cook about five cups of thinly sliced onions, covered, for fifteen minutes.
Add a little sugar, raise the heat to moderate and cook without browning the onions for about a half hour, stirring very often. The sugar helps the onions brown to a golden color.
Sprinkle in about 3 tablespoons flour, and stir for three minutes.
Off heat blend in the hot broth, add about a half a cup of dry vermouth and season to taste.
Simmer uncovered for about 40 minutes.

Serve this onion soup in heavy individual bowls with a round of toasted French bread, sprinkled with Parmesan. Or serve from a tureen over the bread in bowls.

Turkey Soup

When you cook a turkey, after you have picked all the bits of meat to make sandwiches, turkey salad, or burritos,

put all the turkey bones, skin, leftover stuffing, gravy (if there is any leftover) some chopped onion, chopped celery, and whatever other things you have left in a large heavy stockpot. Some mashed white potatoes are fine, but sweet potatoes donÕt do as well.
Cook all this for several hours and strain, add salt and pepper to taste. You can now put other vegetables or pieces of cooked turkey, or barley or pasta if you want, or eat it plain like broth.

Either way, your Holiday Turkey has served you well to the very last tidbit. This soup also freezes well, in case you tire of turkey in the winter and want some nice broth in the spring.

Posole

Posole is a New Mexican soup, usually made for Christmas Eve. We used to get this only when we visited the Denver branch of the Fink family where they made it to be eaten after Christmas midnight mass. But, we love good times and good food and could not limit this wonderful soup to a once in a while thing. We have made it in the middle of the summer, and our guests polished off twelve quarts of it. So don't save it for the holidays.

Wash a package of frozen or dry hominy kernals in cold water and soak overnight. If you can only get canned hominy, it will do but it isn't as good. Drain and rinse canned hominy but do not soak it.
The next day, drain off all liquid and put the clean, soaked, drained hominy in a large kettle, and simmer for about two hours. You can simmer in all water or half water and half homemade unsalted chicken broth. We often add a bottle of beer to give it a little kick.
To this hominy soup add some Meat.. This can be pork necks, pigs feet, pork ribs, cubed pork roast, or chunks of beef.
Add Sliced onions and seasonings. Seasonings include one or two dry red chili pods, ground cumin, oregano, salt, plenty of chopped garlic, some canned, frozen, or fresh roasted green chili.
Simmer until the meat is done. Don't over cook the hominy, it will get soggy.
Serve with red or green chili sauce on the side with a bowl of cut up chopped raw onions for people to add to taste. A wedge of lemon is good, too.

Variation

This variation is called Menudo. It is Posole with tripe added. Just clean the tripe, cut it into two-inch pieces, parboil for about fifteen minutes, drain and rinse. Add the tripe to the posole and cook for another half hour. For people who like posole but not menudo, you can have two pots on the stove, and they can try either one.

Both plain posole and menudo are great Good Times dish, served from a crockpot or on the stove, your guests can make it as spicy as they like and serve themselves. It's cheap and hearty, and can be served alone or with a platter of Carne Adovada or an enchilada casserole.

The Hard Times, Old Times, Good Times Cooking Book

by Carolyn and Jack Fink