Bearshorty's musings

I'm just home now so that makes me super lazy - I mostly watched Netflix ('Orange is New Black' Season 2 - I didn't binge too much and I did love the Season - and more "Brothers and Sisters"), read (still on "Dresden Files"), and go for a walk. I do miss going to work and having a schedule, and talking to more humans but at the same time, I'm very glad to be home now since walking is not so easy anymore and I get tired.

My Mom came over on Tuesday and Thursday, since my Dad was commuting to work and she got the car for a day. And I had a doctor check-up on Tuesday that she wanted to go to because of ultrasound - the baby is weighing 4lb 15oz already. Bear put together the baby dresser/changing table so my Mom and I organized everything on Thursday. And with her compulsion for super neatness since also tackled my closets on Tuesday and made me throw out a lot of things like an old vacuum cleaner - we are getting a new one, it is time. I'm not too messy but my Mom needs everything on a very high level of neatness. Still it is nice to have most things organized. Now Bear just needs to put together the crib we got in IKEA on Sunday. We also got a crib mattress, a toy organizer and a few toys/books. My parents came with us since they wanted to buy the crib for us. It was a fun morning even with my silly head being all squishy.

On Monday, I was finally able to make another soup, since I'm finally home all the time and not staying in a parental house half the week. when Mom came over on Tuesday, she brought some kholodnik soup (it is summer cold version of borsch) but I wanted to make butternut squash soup again for a while, so I went with it.

Soup Project 2014: Soup 10 - Butternut Squash Soup

Ingredients

1 butternut squash (pealed and cut up into small squares)
1 onion (chopped)
2 carrots (peeled and cut into small pieces)
a little olive oil
salt, pepper, nutmeg to taste (optional)
dill or parsley
a dollop of sour cream

Directions

1. I use a pan first and then transfer it all into a pot but it could be just made in a pot. Pour olive oil to cover the bottom and add onion to fry for about 5 minutes, until golden.

2. Add squash and carrots. Stir. Add a little water. Cover. Let it fry/stream for about 40 minutes, stirring occasionally.

3. Boil water separately (I have an electric tea-pot).

4. Transfer veggies after 40 minutes to a pot or if already using the pot, add boiling water to the preferred consistency.

5. Mix with a blender. Add more water if needed. Let it boil just for a bit.

6. To a bowl of soup, add a little sour cream, and some dill or parsley. Enjoy.


My Mom told me how to make this soup since she saw it on TV. Last time I made it I had no blender and I just mushed everything but that is not the same. It is much better with a blender - I have one of those inverted ones that you stick right in a pot - I love it. I didn't make a lot of the soup - only for a couple of days but it was definitely delicious.

Soup Project 2014: Soup 8 - Cabbage Soup

I had a lot of cabbage in the fridge so I googled cabbage soup. I used this soup from allrecipes.com as a base.

I added one large carrot, one potato, two stalks of celery, some oregano and basil and I used less olive oil. I used one bullion cube and since the store didn't have stewed tomatoes, I used a can of pured/cut up tomatoes. And I used a whole onion instead of 1/2 onion.

The soup itself is pretty easy to make and a good use of cabbage but I think I realized that I'm not a big fan of tomatoes in the soup. So it is not my favorite soup. Bear liked it enough - it reminded him of borsch - his favorite so far. But next time I would probably skip the tomatoes, all more potatoes and perhaps make it with beef, which really sounds like a traditional Russian cabbage soup called schi.


On a different note, I really hate daylight savings time - it is such a useless thing that has been proven not to do much good, and yet we still do this. My body will have getting up tomorrow at its usual time of 6:50. It will feel like 5:50 and I'm already not sleeping that well.

Soup Project 2014: Soup 6 - Borsch

I wanted to make borsch for the longest time. It is a classic Russian soup and a staple since my childhood, whether warm in a winter with beef or cold in the summer without beef with egg and fresh cucumbers (so good). But for some reason it was always intimidating to me. I started the soup project with an intention to finally master it. And it is actually pretty easy. I called my Mom and asked how she makes it - there are so many version but I always loved my grandmother's and my Mom's the best. (I didn't like my Aunt's). She doesn't like recipes and thinks I should have just absorbed by osmosis but I got her to tell me the basics. Lately, she's been doing borsch without meat, but I wanted a classic version with beef. (It's pretty the same, just beef has to boil for 1.5 hours first before veggies. It just veggie versions, just boil water and dump all veggies for 30 minutes. My Mom loves to add celery and whatever veggies are around, but I'm not a fan of celery. Vary the veggies and their number based on preference - beet is a must.

Ingredients

1 chunk of beef, still frozen (again I just have a bunch in the freezer)
1 large beet, peeled and shredded
1 onion, chopped
1 leak, cleaned and chopped
2 potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1 inch pieces
1 large carrot, sliced
some sauerkraut (I use the Russian version, from the local store, so it is not quite the same as the American one. I don't add a lot. I didn't measure it).
salt to taste
sour cream
a dash of dill

Directions

1. Take a small pot, put the chunk of frozen beef in cold water. Boil. Once the water has boiled, pour out the water and put the beef in a large pot (I use my biggest pot to make soup for the week). Cover with fresh cold water to 3/4 of the pot, bring to boil, and then lower the heat. The meat should boil by itself in a pot for about an hour and a half overall after you take it out of the freezer. Meanwhile, chop and prep all the veggies. Skip this step if just making vegetarian version and just boil water instead.

2. After beef was boiling for an hour and a half, add all the vegetables at once (the consistency of the soup is up to you. Add more veggies for thicker soups). Stir it a bit. Add salt to taste.

3. Let it boil on low heat for 30-40 minutes.

4. Take the beef out and cut it up in small pieces. It should be clearly fully cooked. Put back in the pot.

5. Pour into a bowl. Add a table spoon of sour cream and a little washed dill for taste. A piece of black bread will also go well.


I accidentally dumped more salt than I was planning on and I was afraid the soup was ruined. But it was a big pot so disaster was averted. In fact, it came out quite good and tasty so I consider my first venture into borsch a success. Yay!


It really feels like Sunday since it is a holiday and we were home. We even went grocery shopping today. I also finished re-reading Equiano's autobiography for class and graded a few papers. And we watched biathlon with dinner. Go, Belarus! While I do cheer for US quite often, I also root for the country of my birth and they are doing quite well.

Soup Project 2014: Soup 4 - Potato Leek Soup

I knew I wanted to make a Potato Leek soup so I was looking at various online recipes yesterday. After many searches and dismissals of some due to heavy cream or too much butter, I found a couple that served as a base. I took the basic ingredients and cooking times etc, but basically did things my own way. Two recipes served as a base: this one and this one .

Here is what I came up with.

Ingredients

1 onion - chopped
1 leek - washed thoroughly and chopped (I actually like the dark green parts of leeks)
1 clove of garlic - chopped
3 Tbsp of butter
6-7 potatoes - washed, peeled and cut into smaller portions
5 cups of water
2 chicken bouillon cubes
dash of nutmeg
sour cream to taste

Directions

In a pan, melt butter on medium heat and stir in onions, leaks and garlic until tender - about 5-8 minutes. Meanwhile take the peeled and cut up potatoes and put them in a pot with 5 cups of water.

Once onions and leaks are done, add them to to pot, turn on the heat to medium-high and bring the pot to boil.

When the pot starts to boil, add chicken bouillon cubes (I didn't add any salt because these things are super salty). Stir and lower the heat.

Simmer for 20-30 minutes, until potatoes are tender. Add a dash of nutmeg or any preferred spices.

Mix with a blender. Serve. Add a large spoon of sour cream to the served portion.


Overall, I liked the end result. My favorite soup is still the bean soup but this was interesting.

Most of my day was pretty mild. After weird and realistic dreams and conquering my migraine, I mostly read my book today, went grocery shopping with Bear, cooked dinner of soup, drumsticks and oven roasted potatoes. Now I'm reading the textbook for Global History for tomorrow with its definitions of Empire, Imperialism and Colonialism. I'd rather just finish my fiction book already, but alas duty calls.

Soup Project 2014: Soup 2 - Creamy Sweet Potato Soup

Ingredients

2 Tbsp canola oil
1 large sweet onion, sliced
2 tsp ground cumin
3 sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 1/2 qt chicken broth (I used water)
1 3/4 cup plain yogurt
2 Tbsp chopped parsley or cilantro
1/4 cup toasted pumpkin seeds

Directions
1. In a soup pot heat oil. Add onions and cumin and saute 3-4 minutes. Add potatoes and chicken broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer soup 20-25 minutes.
2. Puree soup with 1 1/2 cup of yogurt and parsley. Serve each portion of soup with a dollop of remaining yogurt and sprinkled pumpkin seeds.

Thoughts on Soup:
My mother-in-law gave me this recipe a while ago and now that I have my blender I could finally try it out. And it is pretty simple, which I like. This came out pretty well. It will last for a while too. I do think next time I'll make it, I'll use 5 cups of water instead of 6 to make it thicker. I did use water instead of chicken stock, since I don't have any chicken stock and water is just fine. I also added sour cream into a bowl at the end instead of more yogurt since I like sour cream in soup like this. And I didn't have pumpkin seeds. I did love the parsley; it added a great flavor. I do have to say I love my new blender - you just stick it in a pot and it purees super quickly.



Other than making the soup today for lunch, I made myself a delicious salad since parsley smelled so good when I was cooking. And for dinner I made lo main noodles with stir fried onion and peppers (red, yellow and orange) and I make some steak. Original plan was to make broccoli for home cooked beef and broccoli lo main, by the broccoli didn't look that good - I think it was in the fridge too long. Still it all came out nice.

Bear and I also watched a new episode of "Community" after dinner and now I'm continuing my "Pride and Prejudice" rewatch.

"Supernatural" episodes I watched today S2E16 Roadkill and S2E17 Heart - were really good. I'm really enjoying Season 2.