Soup days

Cool weather and mountain cedar...it's January in San Antonio!!! My favorite time for cooking. Friday night, I made a cajun shrimp boil - wow! my first time doing that and it was really good. Still room for improvement starting with not using the crab/shrimp boil bag I used....not enough 'stuff' on the food and could be a little spicier. I really want the recipe for the remoulade they serve at the boiling pot [I think that's the name] in Rockport Tx

It's been a fun weekend at my house...Saturday was car tinkering day. The El Camino my son drives is running like ca-ca!!! so the guys popped the hood and did all kind of old-fashioned guy things to it, some of which actually helped. Meanwhile, my son replaced the brake pads on my car - how cool is that!!! after being married to a man who couldn't change a freaking light bulb, it's good that J is learning all kinds of cool stuff - new ceiling fans - up, new commode - installed, back porch - roofed, his room - still a mess! Can you tell I'm a proud mama!!!

Saturday night was pho and spring rolls at Pho Cong Ly - not being Vietnamese and not having visited there, I don't know if it's authentic - but it sure is good!!!

Sunday I saw Giarda making a bean soup on FoodTV that I would never make, but at least it got the wheels turning in my brain and I threw together a really good pot of bean soup with canned white beans and tomato, and left over grilled pork chops, a little chili powder, cumin, garlic, onion, carrot - your basic soup veggies....and then tossed in a handful of barley. It was really good. {so good that I had it for breakfast this morning!!!}

But the very best was last night - I was driving home in yucky drizzle and fog, wondering what to do for dinner....and the pieces fell together in my head like a marching band in formation!! Mushrooms, mushroom stock, a roux, onion, garlic, celery, sherry [okay, so the band was not in perfect order!!!

So here's how it went: HEB [I hate the Schertz HEB BTW; I'm an idiot for driving past 2 awesome stores at Blanco and DeZavala, but it wasn't in my head until I was almost home!!] Picked up shitaki, baby bella, and white mushrooms, WHAT no mushroom stock grumble, so better than bouillion mushroom stock concentrate, a 'como batard' [again, the other 2 stores have much better bread selection, HEB are you reading this!!!!]

Recipe {finally}
Shitaki mushrooms - .1 # [should have gotten more]
Baby bella mushrooms 0.3#
White mushrooms - 0.4#
1/2 of a large onion - fine dice
2 stalks celery - fine dice
Smart Balance, olive oil
1/4 c flour
1/8 c dry sherry
Milk [I used skim, but I'm sure whole milk or cream or half/half would make this deadly good]

3 pans on the stove [I'm doing a rachel ray!]; sauteed rough chopped mushrooms in olive oil in my big "green pan", seasoned with Herbes de provence [I used too much]; sauteed onion and celery in olive oil and a little smart balance, heating milk over low heat with a big dollop of the mushroom concentrate. Made a roux in the onion/celery pan and cooked until just starting to get golden, added in enough milk to make it like a sauce, took the boat motor/hand blender and pulverized most of the veggies [note, blender is probably much better tool for this] added milk to the rigth consistency, added mushrooms and hand blendered again - NOT a necessary step, wouldn't do it again. Adjusted seasonings with a little salt and white pepper, added sherry and served with very lightly toasted bread.

No pictures! this was not a pretty dish and I was too hungry to dress it up for a photo shoot. Definitely a do-over!