Meat-Free Monday suggestion: Cream of Broccoli soup

Sometimes soup is what I crave.

When it is coupled with toasted bread I am happy.

When we make it all from scratch with no preservatives I am especially happy!

On this particular day, I wanted a creamy soup. All we had in our pantry was one package of Ramen noodles. (It's the last one and once it's gone I doubt I'll ever buy it again.) My husband had made tortilla soup before, and I've made corn soup before, but those didn't really seem to satisfy my craving for a creamy soup.

So, we pulled out the trusty Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, and flipped to the Soups & Stews tab. In my 1989 version, there is a Cream of Vegetable Soup, followed by a chart. You choose which vegetable you want and the chart shows the seasonings to use with that particular veggie. The veggie choices range from broccoli to celery to acorn squash and pumpkin, carrots and mushroom, and even spinach. We had frozen broccoli on hand, so that's what we went with.

One 10-ounce package frozen cut broccoli
1 and 1/2 cups chicken broth
1 tablespoon margarine or butter
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon snipped thyme or 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme, crushed
1/8 teaspoon salt
dash pepper
1 cup milk or light cream

Thaw the frozen broccoli. In a blender container or food processor combine the cooked vegetable and 3/4 cup of the chicken broth. Cover and blend or process about 1 minute or till smooth. Set aside.

In a medium saucepan melt margarine (or butter). Stir in flour, thyme, salt and pepper. Add milk all at once. Cook and stir till slightly thickened and bubbly. Cook 1 minute more. Stir in broccoli mixture and remaining broth. Cook and stir till heated through. If necessary, stir in additional milk to make of desired consistency. Season to taste. Makes 3 or 4 side-dish servings (or 2 main dish servings).

It really was very easy to put together, and once it was done, it was delicious. My creamy soup craving was satisfied. I had made sourdough bread over the weekend, and we toasted a few slices to accompany the soup. That was extra yummy! (I probably should post another entry about baking sourdough bread. I have gotten much better at it, and it is my favorite bread to make. I think I just need to remember to take pictures of it before it is devoured! Hmmm. . . some time soon.)

Anyway, I was truly thrilled with this broccoli soup and sourdough bread because it was all home made. No preservatives, no chemical additives. And, it was meat-free! I know we used chicken broth and milk, so it wasn't vegan, but, it was still meat-free. What's not to feel good about?

Baking Bread - Sourdough

Moldy starter is not good.

I opened my jar of sourdough starter to prepare it for baking, and there was mold at the top of the jar! I contacted Linda at SourdoughBreads.com and she is so wonderful, she sent me another packet of starter right away. Thanks, Linda! You are great!

I tried to figure out why it got moldy, and I think it got "infected" by my doggie biscuits for Maggie. (That recipe and story coming soon.) The biscuits were on the counter, in a canister. I had baked them and let them cool overnight before putting them in the canister. I even had the canister left open slightly so if there was any moisture, they could dry out.

It did not work. They ended up getting moldy at the bottom. I set the jar of starter on the same counter, unknowingly putting it right next to floating mold spores! I would not be surprised if some mold spores floated right into my jar of starter. And, thus, INFECTION!

But, now I have activated my new sourdough starter. I have also thrown out the bad biscuits and cleaned everything! Hopefully I got it all and won't have another infection.

Have a fabulous shopping weekend - if you are shopping!

Baking Bread - Sourdough #2

I made sourdough - official San Francisco sourdough - previously. Although my first attempt was unsuccessful, my second attempt was not bad. But, my second attempt was using the same starter and baking method that came with the sourdough starter I purchased from SourdoughBreads.com and was baked the very next day. I consider it a "do-over".

The next time I baked sourdough bread was before Thanksgiving. I don't really know why. I think I wanted to have some bread on hand in case anyone wanted some with the meal. We ended up not having any at all with the Thanksgiving dinner!

I did a major no-no by the real sourdough standards and added commercial yeast. (Gasp!) I followed the recipe in the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook for sourdough bread. (There is also a recipe for creating the sourdough starter, but I just used my purchased starter.) I also was getting a little creative, and wanted to make some pretty rolls with the bread dough.

I would say this method of adding some commercial yeast made my impatient side very happy. The bread was made in one day rather than two, and there were only a few hours between rises, as opposed to 4 or more. But, it wasn't very sour. Perhaps I should have left the starter at room temp to ferment overnight? Or was it adding the commercial yeast? Hmmm. . . I will have to try it again with fermenting overnight to see if it ends up more sour. Another experiment!

Another thing regarding the crust of the sourdough - we like the crust soft. Before the loaf or rolls went into the oven, I coated them with melted margarine. Halfway through the baking time, I took them out and coated them again. I have noticed that the back of my oven cooks hotter than the front of my oven. So, in order to have an even browning, halfway through the baking time, I turn whatever I'm baking 180 degrees. This turns out to be a convenient time to cover the loaf or rolls with the melted margarine. Then, at the end of baking, I coated them a final time with the melted margarine.

I divided the dough in half and made a loaf with one half and Cloverleaf rolls with the other half.


The rolls looked homemade, lopsided and different sized. The sourdough loaf was gorgeous by my previous standards!


And, like I stated before, they were not sour really, but they sure were good! Happily, they were devoured.

My next attempt (Sourdough #3) at baking sourdough bread will be to use the Kneadlessly Simple recipe, which also calls for adding commercial yeast. Check out the author, Nancy Baggett, and her book at her blog site.

Baking Bread - Sourdough #1

My husband and I love sourdough bread. In my quest to learn how to bake bread, of course, this was one we both wanted. It is much more involved than other breads. I won't say difficult, but, involved is accurate. Not one I would recommend for a first loaf ever baked. So, naturally, it was my second loaf ever.

This was the result of my first attempt to bake sourdough bread.

The inside was rubbery. It did not rise at all. I could still see the layers from the kneading and the rounding. It was not pretty! And, I would say, not edible! (Sorry the picture is not great, it was taken at around 11pm with the camera on my phone. I was sending it as a picture message to my husband, who wrote back to say, "It looks like the loaf exploded!")

I can understand why baking bread is intimidating or time-consuming. I was just way too impatient. I never thought I would learn patience from baking. But, it is a necessary skill, trait, virtue. . . whatever you want to call it, you need it, especially for baking sourdough.

So, I learned that real San Francisco sourdough is made from a particular type of wild yeast and lactobacillus that are naturally found in the San Francisco area. If the sourdough is not made with this combination, it is not San Francisco sourdough. I purchased my San Francisco sourdough starter from Linda at SourdoughBreads.com. She has a very reasonable and competitive price, and offers free technical support, which has been awesome for me.

The starter was easy to activate. Feeding it flour and water for 3 days and watching it grow and bubble was cool, like a science experiment! But, I had trouble getting the active sponge right for my first loaf - obviously. I thought it was supposed to ferment overnight and be very active (bubbly) in the morning. It wasn't very bubbly in the morning, but I used it anyway. (Impatience!)

I was bummed with the result, but I felt like I knew what I did wrong - not using an active sponge and being very, very impatient. After watching the starter for 3 days, I had a vague idea of when it was active. So, I thought I would skip the fermenting overnight part and just use the starter when it was very active.

I put my plan into action, and the second loaves were much more successful. (Sorry, no pictures! We ate them too fast!) I still wasn't real happy with them. I thought they were kind of doughy and too dense. But, we gobbled them up so they must not have been that bad.

One thing about baking sourdough with this starter is in order to keep the starter from getting huge and possibly taking over your kitchen, it is recommended to pour all but 1/4 cup down the drain before feeding with the 1 cup of flour and 1 cup of water.

It got to me after a while, just throwing this stuff down the drain. So, I poured the excess off into another bowl and thought I would figure out what to do with it later. I continued working with the 1/4 cup in the main bowl. When my husband saw the extra, he decided to make sourdough pancakes with it.

They were really fluffy! I guess the yeast made them rise a little when cooking. They were yummy, too. He made a bunch and we froze what we didn't eat that day. So, I think that's what we'll do when we bake sourdough bread now - make pancakes with the pour-off!

Sourdough #2 coming later . . .