Cool Summer Borscht (Barszcz) from "Polish Classic Recipes"

I fell in love with Polish food when I visited Krakow a few years ago. While there, I ate my weight in sausages, wild boar, Hunter's Stew, zapiekanka (Polish pizza), and, of course, pierogies.

So when I was offered review copies of two new books - Polish Classic Recipes and Polish Classic Desserts, by Laura & Peter Zeranski - of course I accepted. There aren't a ton of good Polish cookbooks on the market - particularly ones with photos of the dishes - and I thought it would be fun to recreate some of my favorite meals from my trip to Poland.

Salmorejo: A Spanish Soup Recipe in Sonnets

If you have not experienced the intense pleasure of perusing Trevor's haiku posts over at Sis Boom Blog I suggest you do so immediately.  They are quite brilliant, and he really outdid himself for National Haiku Day: He even rendered his entire recipe in haiku form.

To add to the fun, he encourages his readers to leave haiku comments. I am usually glad to oblige, but for Haiku Day I decided to do something a bit different and I left my comment as a sonnet. (Per Sherlock: "Of course I'm showing off. I am a show off. That's what we do.")

And so I thought - why keep my sonnets confined to Trevor's comment section, worthy outlet though  it is?  After all, coming up with some clever prose about every dish I make can feel  a bit ... forced sometimes.

And well, there's nothing contrived or forced about a sonnet recipe is there? I thank you in advance for your indulgence.

Cashew Butter & Bacon Soup {Inspired by Goober Peas & African Groundnut Stews}

This month's Creative Cooking Crew Challenge - hosted as ever by the lovely and talented Joan of Foodalogue and Lazaro of Lazaro Cooks - centers around four key ingredients: green apples, bacon, nut butter, and vinegar.  Participants have been tasked with creating any dish they like, using as many or as few ingredients as they please, as long as it  incorporates some version of these four components.

For good or ill, I will cheerfully turn just about anything into soup, and this challenge has done nothing to discourage this propensity of mine. Here I took inspiration from a Southern American dish, goober pea soup, a peanut-based soup eaten by the Confederate Army during the Civil War.  The ancestor of this dish is of course West African groundnut, or peanut stew. Goober is an African word for peanut, an example of the indelible imprint that African ingredients and foods, via the slave trade, made on the cuisine of the American South.

Creamy Chicken Soup with Parsnips, White Pepper, & Peas {to cure a bad mood}

I've been having one of those weeks. You know the kind - where everything and everyone conspires to  irritate, annoy, and infuriate.

But that's okay, because I have a secret weapon: soup. Yes, soup. We all know the restorative properties of chicken soup, and this version adds even more punch with the addition of a little cream and half and half and a sinus-clearing amount of white pepper.

Each slurp of this soup not only contributed to an increased sense of equanimity and well-being, it gave me strength to (figuratively) vanquish my annoying enemies.

Or maybe that was the booze?

Cheddar Cheese Soup with Haricots Verts, Mushrooms, & Cronions; A Green Bean Casserole Makeover

In honor of Thanksgiving, the theme for this month's 5 Star Makeover, hosted as ever by Natasha of 5 Star Foodie and Lazaro of Lazaro Cooks! is a holiday classic, the green bean casserole.

For those of you who did not grow up in the U.S., the green bean casserole is a staple of many American Thanksgiving celebrations, and generally consists of some variation of canned or frozen green beans, cream of mushroom soup, cheddar cheese or imitation cheese product, and bread crumbs or fried onions. It's a gloriously and unabashedly white trash dish, and it conforms perfectly to my late, much-missed mom's philosophy of cooking: Do as little as possible.

Icelandic Lamb Soup

We got back from Iceland late last week, and I already miss the stark landscapes, black lava fields, golden grass, slate gray sky, the buildings of Reykjavik  ... and, me being me, most of all I miss the food.

Rustic Tomato & Coconut Fish Soup

For this soup, I took inspiration from mtuza wa samaki, an incredibly spicy Kenyan fish dish with onions, tomatoes, vinegar and a bunch of Scotch bonnet peppers. I felt lazy about chopping things perfectly, so I am calling it "rustic."

Chicken Soup with Fire Roasted Tomatoes, Fish Peppers, & Lime

I will spare you the whole (seemingly) obligatory preamble about how there's an autumn chill in the air and it's got me thinking cozy thoughts about soup and blankets and roaring fires and blah, blah, blah.  Besides, there is no weather that is inhospitable to even the hottest of soups, in my humble opinion. This one, for instance, is inspired by a caldo de pavo that I had at a Yucatecan restaurant, Coox Hanal,  on a warm day in Mexico City. It featured one of the things I love so much about many Mexican dishes: the unabashed use of limes.

Chilled Three Pepper Soup with Yogurt, Lime, Cilantro, & Tortilla Strips for the 5 Star Makeover Chilled Soup Challenge

I cannot tell a lie: I was not thrilled when I found out the theme of this month's Five Star Makeover Challenge, hosted as ever by the lovely and talented Natasha of Five Star Foodie and Lazaro of Lazaro Cooks!. Chilled soups. If you'll pardon the expresion, I have never really warmed to them.

Oh, they're fine for a few bites. But I always think that with just a few tweaks, even the best of them would be better as something else. Fruity chilled soup? That would make a lovely smoothie. Gazpacho? Great as a Bloody Mary base. Cold vegetable soup? Just right for a dip or sauce.

Sopa Azteca: Another Post About Soup

Here I am, back from Mexico City: exhausted, a little bit flu-ey, besieged by a hacking cough, nearly voiceless, and desperately behind in just about every aspect of my life. Typical post-vacation scenario.

Yes, it was amazing and beautiful and delicious and hectic and kind of overwhelming and wonderful. I have so many thoughts to gather and photos to look at and memories to replay that I am just not up to tackling my first recap post yet, though there will be many forthcoming, I assure you.

So instead, I bring you soup.

Spicy Chicken and Rice Mulligatawny Soup

I've been absent from the food blog world for the past couple of weeks (Did you miss me? Please say yes!) and the reason is twofold: I took a much-needed hiatus from technology when I went to New Orleans, and then, shortly after I got back, I got full-on walloped by an evil, nasty head cold.

Enter this soup. I needed something warm, healing, and spicy, and so I used a mulligatawny recipe from my favorite new cookbook, Rice & Curry: Sri Lankan Home Cooking, as a base, and tweaked it just enough so that it reminded me of a South Asian version of chicken and rice soup.

Fresh Corn Velouté with Pancetta & Thyme for French Fridays (or Thursdays) with Dorie, and the Mushroom Giveaway Winner

I haven't done anything remotely resembling a French Fridays with Dorie recipe since I fiddled with her cola and jam spareribs recipe back in June and came up with my spicy tequila and peach habanero chutney ribs, and here I am posting this corn soup - which bears little resemblance to hers - nearly a week late. Some prodigal daughter I am!

Ah well, I am not going to make excuses or apologize. Today is my birthday, and I can do whatever I want. In fact, the older I get, the more I tend to do exactly what I please on any given day, don't you?

Nontraditional Naengmyeon: Spicy Cold Korean Noodles and the Gonchu Giveaway Winner

Necessity has driven us all to do it at some point in our cooking careers, but I am really not a fan of that whole "kitchen sink" school of making dinner. You know, that thing where you just sort of take every little odd and end in your fridge and throw it in a pot and call it Kitchen Sink Pasta or Kitchen Sink Soup or Kitchen Kink Surprise.

Kitchen Sink Mess is more like it.

That said, I did have to employ a bit of that approach here, as I wanted cold Korean noodles (like the ones I had at the Korean American Festival) but I was not equipped to make the real, authentic thing - my most egregious substitution in this dish is Japanese soba noodles instead of Korean buckwheat noodles. I think it worked, though, because I stuck to a theme and didn't just toss any random thing into the pot. This is truly a simple and refreshing dish with huge flavor, and it was just the thing Poppa Trix and I needed on a sweltering hot night.

Fresh Pea, Yogurt & Tarragon Soup Garnished with Crispy Paprika Tofu Croutons and Garlic Tahini Sauce

Usually in my posts I try to regale you (I do not say "bore you") with some sort of thematically-appropriate story or other (note I do not say "tall tale") that ties in with the featured dish or recipe. I take that extra step to show you just how much I care.

And so I certainly hope that you won't think my affections for you have waned when you discover that I have no witty, arresting, or amusing anecdote to accompany this soup. No musings about my childhood, major life milestones, gut-wrenching confessions, or elegant epiphanies lie ahead. I am not about to shamefully confess that as a young girl I had a shocking hatred of peas, and that somehow this recipe turned me around, changing my life forever.

It's just soup. That is all.

Bacon & Egg Purse Soup: Crepe-Wrapped Bacon Meatballs in a Star Anise and Ginger-Scented Broth

When the creative and talented Natasha of 5 Star Foodie Culinary Adventures invited me to join the 5 Star Makeover cooking group she and Lazaro of Lazaro Cooks! were forming, I was totally on board.  I love to put my thinking cap on in the kitchen, after all, and the group's first directive - come up with a gourmet interpretation of the classic bacon and eggs combo - is both playful and challenging. Good stuff!

Rosemary & Garlic Tomato Soup with Cheesy Focaccine

Poppa Trix has declared that January is Soup Month in the Trix household, and he's not kidding. So far this month, I've posted a roast chestnut and butternut squash veloute, Paris mushroom soup for French Fridays with Dorie, and now this - which, by the way, I've made twice. You don't even know about the pumpkin and yogurt soup I whipped up (but forgot to write down what went into it), or the fact that I made garlic cream soup (Knoblauchcremesuppe)  for lunch the other day from an instant Knorr's soup packet from Austria.

It's a sickness, I'm telling you.

Paris Mushroom Soup for French Fridays with Dorie

Even though I don't believe in making resolutions, I did make a New Year's decision to join in on the fun over at French Fridays with Dorie, inspired in part (and I believe unbeknownst to her!) by the indefatigable Mardi of Eat Live Travel Write. Each Friday, members of the group post a predetermined dish from the fan-tabulous Dorie Greenspan book Around My French Table.  I know, I know - as if I don't have enough to do ... but something about the discipline of the project (not to mention the recipes) really appeals to me. It's so easy to get caught up always trying to create that "new now next" recipe, that cooking from an actual book - not a blog, not a Web site - feels quite comforting and almost old fashioned. Of course, we'll see how well I keep this up once culinary school starts back up, but my intentions are good!

Roasted Chestnut & Butternut Squash Velouté

I think I have culinary Stockholm Syndrome. One of the things I had to prepare for my final last semester was a mushroom velouté, and now I can't seem to stop myself from making different versions of the same thing ... over and over and over.

Eh, I don't really mind.  I am not ready to jump on the January New Year's resolution salad bandwagon just yet. Sure, I'd love to lose a pound (or three) but ... I simply cannot bring myself to care all that much. At least, not enough to give up rib-sticking foods in the middle of winter. So, for now,  I'll just suck it up and do some extra time on the treadmill so that I can continue to slurp on hearty, mostly-healthy things (and wash it down with wine of course). May I humbly suggest that you do the same?

Beans & Cornbread (had a fight ... but don't you worry, it worked out allright!)

Beans and Cornbread had a fight
Beans knocked Cornbread outta sight
Cornbread said,  "Now that’s alright, meet me on the corner tomorrow night"
I'll be ready, I'll be ready tomorrow night
I'll be ready, I'll be ready tomorrow night
I'll be ready, I'll be ready tomorrow night 

 --Louis Jordan, "Beans 'n Cornbread" 

In the famous Louis Jordan song I quote above, beans and cornbread start out fighting, but by the end of the song, they become best of friends and realize that they go together like "hot cakes and molasses," "strawberries and shortcake," and "sour cream and biscuits." Silly beans and cornbread! I knew it all along.

Creamy Zucchini, Garlic & Chive Soup - or Zucchinicremesuppe - Austrian Style

Before I visited Vienna, the last thing I would have associated with the schnitzel-loving city was,  of all things, excellent  vegetable soups.  But in restaurant after restaurant, I had some of the best cream soups of my life, from karotten (carrot) to knoblauch (garlic) to brokkoli to zucchini.