A few days ago I was rummaging in my freezer for some vegetables (I have a chest freezer full of summer bounty out in the mud room) and I noticed the bulging gallon bag full of corn kernels. It reminded me that I should make some corn soup, and when I friend came over for lunch yesterday, this is what I served. I adapted the recipe from a long out of print cookbook A Celebration of Soups by Robert Ackart, which you can find used. I also used this cookbook for the recipe for cabbage soup, which I posted here. This is a simple recipe enriched with butter and milk, lovely for a winter day. I like to leave the kernels whole, but you can puree them if you prefer a smooth soup.
3 Tbs butter
1 large onion, chopped
4 Tbs flour
3 cups water
1/2 teas white pepper
3 cups fresh corn kernels or 20 oz frozen
2 cups milk or half and half (I use low fat milk)
- Heat the butter and onion in a large saucepan, cooking the onion till translucent.
- Stir in the flour and cook over gentle heat for a few minutes.
- Gradually add the water, stirring constantly till the mixture is thickened and smooth; stir in the pepper.
- Add the corn kernels and simmer, covered, for 15 minutes. If desired, puree in food processor.
- Stir in the milk or cream, salt to taste.
This sounds absolutely delicious! I'm always searching for good soup recipes, as soup is really my "thing." Can't get enough of it, even on hot days!
ReplyDeleteJust a quick frozen garden vegetable question: Is there a way to keep summer squash and zucchini from becoming mushy after thawing it out? I have a large amount of squash frozen, but I can only use it in soups and stocks because the texture is just so wimpy and doesn't hold up for anything else. Any suggestions?
Only a couple of vegetables from the freezer have a similar texture to fresh: peas, and various greens; others are just soft, no way around it. With green beans, the taste is so good (I grow a pole bean, Northeaster) that I don't mind the lack of crispness, with zucchini, I cook it in such a way as the softness is a feature. So, I'll make a stew by sauteeing onions, then adding tomatoes and cooking the sauce for a few minutes; then I add some frozen zucchini and cook it in the sauce till very soft, a half hour or more, and eat it over rice. This works nicely with green beans too; it's a middle eastern and mediterranean way of cooking vegetables.
ReplyDeleteAnother way of doing zucchini is a family recipe: saute onions in a good amount of butter, then add the zucchini and cook, covered, for a while till very soft, then remove the cover and cook till liquid is cooked down. It becomes almost a creamy concoction and is quite delicious.
The soup sounds (and looks) delicious, but what I really love is the interplay between the blue texture on the rim of the bowl and the criss-crosses on the napkins. The color and the weight of the design elements are almost identical.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you like the still life setup, Linda. I have quite a lot of stuff collected during the years when I had a small photography business, selling notecards and framed prints of still life, with an antique theme. I even worked with American Greetings for a short while, doing photos for them.
ReplyDeleteHi, Altoon,
ReplyDeleteafter perusing your recipe label, I think your next book should be a cookbook using your blog archives!
yummy.
Donna, glad you enjoy the recipe posts. Since I use recipes from many published cookbooks, and only some are my own, I don't think I can publish them as a cookbook. Just think of me as an recipe aggregator.
ReplyDelete