Tiny House Creature #10
Happy-Go-Lucky Keeling Soup!
We got a winter CSA share! Big thanks to my friend Lindsay for telling me about Featherstone Farm. We picked up our first share this week and I know these bi-weekly pickups will be a bright spot in my winter.
This week we got one vegetable I had never tried before: scarlet turnips. The farm recommends roasting them, which I will definitely try, but I also put one in this roasted vegetable soup - this week’s non-recipe recipe!
I knew I wanted to talk soup tips this week, and then one of my favorite recipe developers, Sohla El-Waylly, was on NPR LifeKit talking about soup too and it just made me double-excited for soup chat. Soup is the most forgiving, flexible, and fun thing you can cook. I know, big statement, but it’s true. It's the perfect way to use up wilty things, old stuff, and anything that you’re stumped on how to use.
The key to soup making: taste constantly. You can adjust for almost anything, so just keep tasting until it is exactly what you want. Generally, I taste 3-5 times before I finish a soup.
Today is all about puréed vegetable soups. Let’s get into it. Here is the equation:
For this delicious batch I used:
Celery, garlic, and an apple for my aromatics.
Butter and olive oil for fat.
A homemade veggie bouillon cube in water for the liquid.
Navy beans.
Buttercup squash, sweet potatoes, carrots, scarlet turnips, and onions for my roasting veggies.
Homemade chili oil to swirl on top.
Here is the super simple how-to:
Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Drain your beans, chop all your aromatics (veggies that won’t be roasted), and *chunk* all your roasting veggies. No need to chop these small, 1-2” inch pieces are fine.
Coat your roasting veggies in olive oil and a pinch or two of salt. Spread them on a lined baking sheet and roast for 25-35 minutes until you have some char on the outsides and the insides are soft when you squeeze them. Toss halfway through roasting.
Put your chosen fat in your soup pot and add your aromatics, sauté until they’ve wilted and become semi-translucent. If you’re adding dried herbs or spices, do that now.
Dump all the roasted veggies into the pot along with your stock/water and beans. Let it simmer away for 15-20 minutes. Taste your stock and adjust the seasoning.
There are two ways to purée: immersion blender or blender-blender. An immersion blender is great for convenience but will result in a less creamy soup. A regular blender will make a smoother soup but will take more time and create more dishes. Choose your own adventure. Taste after blending, and adjust seasoning. ***if you use a regular blender, only fill it halfway, and be sure to remove the middle stopper in your lid to avoid soup explosions.
Once blended, allow the soup to simmer for 10-15 minutes for flavors to mingle. Taste a final time to check for salt, spice, and acid. This is a great time to add vinegar, citrus, or a favorite hot sauce.
Top with a fancy oil, a dollop of dairy, or something crunchy, and serve with good bread. Here’s a list of some soup topping ideas.
Your challenge: make this COMPLETELY your own! Swap in your favorite veggies, add in spices you love, top it with something delicious — then tell me about it!
Best Costco Purchase of the Year
Dried mushrooms are a HUGE way I add flavor when I cook. I make broths and vegetarian fish sauce with them; they go into my homemade bouillon, and I rehydrate them to add to soups, stews, and stir-fries.
These mushrooms are AWESOME. They rehydrate quickly (which means they haven’t been sitting on a shelf for eternity), the mix is super versatile, and they are a very reasonable price, even compared to our local Asian market. If you’re a Costco member, snag them next time you’re shopping. If you’re not a Costco member, tag along with a friend next time they go.
I gave in and got a kneeling chair and I don’t regret it.
In my neverending quest to make my office a place I actually want to be, I got a kneeling chair. I was first introduced to these chairs during a meditation course and honestly, I always thought they were chairs just for meditation! I was excited to find out people use them at their desks every day. I didn’t necessarily want to be that person who got the weird ergo chair, but… here we are. This is what I love about it:
It’s basically impossible to slouch. If you do manage to get slouchy, you feel it almost immediately. My posture has been better and my hips feel less crunched.
I can move around more freely. I can rock forward and back and change my leg position. I can even turn the whole thing around to sit backward at a different angle.
I fit under my desk! I’m very tall, but because my knees angle down in this chair, I can actually scoot all the way up to the edge of my desk, which is great for drawing.
It’s pretty cute. I got a lovely green color and the look is very clean and minimal.
There are many versions of kneeling chairs online, so do your research before purchasing. I think the two big things to consider are: 1) Do you want rocking or stable? 2) Do you want one big knee rest or two separate? Do you already have an ergo chair? Tell me in the comments which one and what you love about it.
Happy-Go-Lucky
Last week we got to see David Sedaris live, and he was absolutely amazing. I had just finished his latest book, Happy-Go-Lucky, and was fully prepared to hear stories from the book over again - they me laugh out loud the first time, and I was sure they would again.
But David came on stage, wearing his culottes and dress-like blazer, and said he was completely sick of reading from Happy-Go-Lucky (and every other book he’s written). Instead, he read unpublished essays and diary entries; some from just a week or two ago. He often started an essay with something like, “Well, this really needs to be edited for language, but… here we go” and would proceed to swear at least a dozen times during an essay that he was testing out for CBS Sunday Morning.
Before the show, he met a woman in the book signing line who told him she had recently graduated from Hamline University’s creative writing program. He asked her if she wanted to open for him and she said yes. She had 20 minutes to prepare and shared a story about her fictional “wandering womb” that had the audience laughing the whole way through.
I left this show so inspired by David as an artist, and sad that I’ve already read all of his books - I want to read them all again for the first time. All this to say, you should really read Happy-Go-Lucky. Better yet, listen to the audiobook. The audiobook is a mix of live readings and formal recording sessions, and getting to hear David’s pauses and tone of voice really amps up the humor. It is the perfect sunshiny read for a gloomy late autumn day.
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