Right. I've gotten mostly over the plague, but I’ve now been in the SUPER planning stages of two very important events in my life: friendship weekend including girls’ tapas night, and new couch day. These are equally important but very different and happen to fall on the same day. Suffice it to say, it’s taken a good bit of coordination on my part, not to mention there’s been some curveballs in the plan this week, mostly with friendship cancellations throughout the week. In any case, I hadn’t entirely planned tonight’s soup prior to the evening. I knew I had some Brussels sprouts that were slowly creeping up on an expiration date so that was the base plan of the soup. Part of it also came from a conversation I had recently with my dear friend Gina, who told me how she likes to cook her Brussels sprouts. I also incorporated my soup spreadsheet to show me how to make Lamb Stew (one of two recipes on my spreadsheet that has Brussels sprouts) and the cookbook that it comes from (The Best of Croatian Cooking - thanks Borders going out of business sale).
In the end here’s how it all went down:
Brussels Sprouts Beef Soup – from my brain
Ingredients:
- Brussels sprouts, about two cups? – check
- 1 clove garlic – check
- Onion – check
- Carrots – check
- Beef Stock – check
- Paprika – check
- Parsley – check
Step 1: Boil the Brussels sprouts until softened; remove from heat (I put them into the bowl I planned to use for soup); rinse the pot.
Step 2: Peel and smash the garlic, put into a saucepan with a little bit of oil. This comes from Gina’s recommendation.
Step 3: Cut the onion (your discretion here how much onion, roughly…a little bit) and cube it. Peel and cut some of the carrots into rough cubes. Or you could have done that a few days ago while making a different soup so you can just pop your pre-peeled and pre-cubed carrots into the pot. Ok so both the onion cubes and carrot cubes should be in the pot.
Step 4: Pour in some beef stock, roughly a cup and a half. Sprinkle in some paprika and some parsley. I think I probably used about a 1/8 of a teaspoon each. Who knows, not me.
Step 5: Simmer the soup pot.
Step 6: Heat the saucepan (the one you previously put oil and garlic into) while you slice the Brussels sprouts into halves. Then put the Brussels sprouts in the saucepan. Heat over medium for a bit until the Brussels sprouts are just starting to brown. Put half the Brussels sprouts on a plate to cool (so you can eat for breakfast) and the other half into the simmering soup pot. Take time to clean your saucepan, it’s quick.
Step 7: Continue to simmer soup, stirring occasionally, until the carrots are softened to your liking. Put your bowl (you already cleaned it after you used it for Brussels sprouts storage I’m sure) in the microwave for one minute to make sure it’s warm (and thus doesn’t cool your soup down).
Step 8: Put soup in bowl; wash pot.
Step 9: Consume!
I think I’d like to take this soup in the back and speak sweet nothings in its ear until it’s agreed to take me on a second date. I think that’s how that works right? No idea, but I think you get the point that it was DELICIOUS! Prepping the Brussels sprouts the way Gina told me, possibly sealed the deal. The only thing I might change would to be to flavor it a bit with salt and pepper. But honestly, it tasted like dreams and a fully planned weekend.
This foodsperiment gets a +7 for taste, a +6 for easy cleaning, and +5 for tomorrow’s breakfast! Happy Sperimenting!
