Recipe #26:Sherried Tomato Soup

Recipe: Sherried Tomato Soup
Source: The Pioneer Woman Cooks
Time: 20 minutes
Ease: 2
Taste: 1
Leftover Value: 0--we did not save leftovers
Down the Drain or Keep in the Strainer: Down the Drain!

I'm a little excited today.  When I got home from work, I plotted out the remaining recipes of The Pioneer Woman Cooks for my cookbook challenge.  It looks like I'll be going right up to December 24th, unless I find a surge of energy or a bucket-full of time--can you say, snow day?*

*Don't moan.  You know the first one is always the best.

Speaking of snow days, this recipe is usually a great go to for a wintery day.

If my rating didn't already tip you off, I'm going to warn you ahead of time--I did NOT like this recipe.  However, if I got you excited about a new tomato soup recipe and you have not yet tried the creamy tomato soup recipe that I posted last January, do yourself a favor and make that immediately.

This recipe seemed too good to be true.  It seemed too effortless to be as incredible as the writings of Pioneer Woman made it to be.

But I believed her.

No, that's not true.

Every time I saw this recipe in the book, I avoided it.  

That was before this gosh darn challenge.

So there I was, bound to make the recipe exactly as directed even though my instincts said, SOMETHING IS WRONG!

PW says that using the sherry is optional.

But I'm not sure how that works in a recipe titled Sherried Tomato Soup.

It's a bit contradictory, right?

I've never had sherry before, so I gave it a little taste when I opened it.  While the sweetness made itself instantly apparent, I didn't mind the flavor.

However, after only a few spoonfuls of my soup, I was ready to swear sherry off for the rest of my life.  It completely overpowered any other flavors in the soup, making my dinner taste more like a strange dessert than dinner.

Even the glory of heavy cream couldn't fix it.

I let it simmer a little longer than called for in hopes that the soup would at least thicken a little, but it was hopeless.  In the end I was left with a bowl of sweet tomato flavored water.*

*In case you haven't caught on, that's a bad thing.

The only thing that made it worthwhile was this:

When Hubby and I were out to dinner at The Salt Creek Grille in Princeton a few months ago, he ordered tomato soup with grilled cheese bites in it.  Not only were the grilled cheese bites a fantastic touch, but the soup was amazing.

Not at all like this one.

Cheese, Princeton, and Dragons

I usually am the sucker for anything new and exciting.  Hubby downplays new flavors and limited edition concoctions, in fact, he basically avoids them.  Therefore, I was floored when he pulled me into a cheese store we had never visited in Palmer Square (Princeton) because of their sign outside.

Perhaps it wasn't exactly new in the limited edition sense, but it was certainly new to us.  

Fancy grilled cheese sparks our interest the same way that fancy hot dogs do.

We like them.

Link to: Hubby in LA

We like them a lot.

Hot dogs in Baltimore, Maryland

After staring, then drooling, at the sign for about five minutes, we walked into the store: Olsson's aka Cheese Heaven.

Immediately, the man behind the counter, who I can only assume to be the owner, asked me how I like my cheese.  

Sharp.

Extra sharp?

Oh yes, extra sharp.

As soon as he knew my preference, I was taken on a tour of what seemed to be every sharp cheddar cheese in existence.  I was given a healthy sampling of each as well as a little history behind some of them.  Hubby had to cut into my sharp cheese party by asking the man about the Red Dragon cheese we had seen on the sign outside.  Technically, it could have been included, except I had been experiencing strictly sharp cheddar cheeses that had robust and distinct flavors, but no additional flavors such as what the Red Dragon offers.  The Red Dragon cheese is a cheddar base with mustard seeds and ale mixed in.  

Translation: AMAZING.

I found the cheese to be a little softer than the typical cheddar cheese and discovered on Olsson's website that the creaminess comes from the ale.  It is absolutely incredible.  Added to a grilled cheese sandwich it is mind blowing. 

We had dinner reservations around the corner and though it was tempting, we resisted ordering a sampling of their different grilled cheese sandwiches that they make in the store.  Instead we bought some of the Red Dragon and the Fontina cheese Olsson's uses on 'The Dragon" grilled cheese so that we could recreate our own at home.  We also ordered a hunk of a seven-year-old super sharp cheddar cheese.

Here's what I loved about this little cheese shop that you could easily walk past and completely miss out on all the deliciousness hidden inside: they want you to sample before you buy.  I wish I could do that everywhere.  There were tons of different jams at the counter.  The wild strawberry caught my eye, probably because of the gold medal winner tag hanging off of it.

I grabbed a jar and placed it beside my cheese to purchase, but the owner still insisted that I try a sample first.  It tasted like someone had just pureed strawberries behind the counter.  Sweet, satisfying, and absolutely fabulous.

I planned to make my own sourdough bread for our grilled cheeses, but hadn't anticipated the length it was going to take me, so we went with store bought.  

I baked the bacon in the oven which is my new favorite thing to do.  It takes some playing around based on the type of bacon, but typically in a 400 degree oven I'll bake bacon on a rimmed pan lined with aluminum foil for seven minutes, then flip it and bake it for seven more minutes.

Grilled cheese just might have become my new mission in life.  It is such a simple meal, but one with the potential to be gussied up and transformed from the nothing-left-in-the-fridge-weeknight-family-dinner type of meal into a let's-serve-this-to-a-party-of-dinner-guests masterpiece.

First Times, Daniel, and Tomato Soup

Recipe: Easy Creamy Tomato Soup
Source: http://southernfood.about.com/od/soupandstew/r/bl60708b.htm
Time: 30 minutes total
Ease: 4
Taste: 8
Leftover Value: 5
Down the Drain or Keep in the Strainer: Keep it in the Strainer!

My church recently began what is known as a Daniel Fast.  It isn't really a "fast" per the terms of a typical biblical "fast" which involves giving up food for a decided amount of time in order to pray and seek the Lord.  I would define it as a diet, one based on the scripture Daniel 10:3 where Daniel did not eat any "delicacies", meat, or wine in order to seek vision from the Lord.  Here are the basic guidelines:

I had personally been interested in starting 2014 with more veggies in my diet.  Not necessarily eating differently, just adding more of the green stuff to the things I usually eat.

Knowing my body, or my belly, as I do I knew the traditional Daniel Fast was not going to happen.  Hubby and I tried it before and I failed miserably.  (Miserably meaning it's amazing we are both still alive today after the crazy personality disorder I suffer when attempting to eat like a rabbit for more than eight hours straight).

This time around, while Hubby tried to follow the diet to the guidelines, I decided I would go vegetarian for the time of the fast and also try to avoid anything with preservatives (basically, food items that have been overly preserved and have a list of ingredients ten feet long on their label).

Aside from my breakfast of an apple and peanut butter and the yummy salads I managed to tempt myself with at lunch time, my first dinner was the only meal I actually enjoyed.

First, I have to admit something that may seem impossible, inconceivable, and improbable, but it's the truth.

I have never had tomato soup.

There, my secret is out.

Get over your shock before I go on.

Since Hubby was away in LA (again!) it was okay for me to make something that met my vegetarian guidelines without interfering with his Daniel Fast ones.  My brother, Jonathan, comes over every Monday for dinner and usually picks out the recipe we use.  He brought over a recipe book he made at school and picked out "English Muffin Grilled Cheese".  I thought tomato soup would be a perfect addition, considering I always hear of people combining the two.

Now, I know these guys have preservatives.  I've dealt with it, I hope you can too.  In case you missed these English muffins during Thanksgiving, I'm sorry.  There was also a Pumpkin Spice bagel too which I also have stashed in my freezer.

This was the only type of English muffin I had on hand, but regardless, I could only speculate that it would pair perfectly with my tomato soup, and I was so glad that I did.

  
Once you have a grilled cheese on an English muffin, your life will never be the same again.  Ordinary bread won't live up to what you've experienced in an English muffin grilled cheese.

The soup was ridiculously easy.  However, I did make a few changes/additions.  I do not like, nor did I have any, celery.  I replaced it with diced carrots.  Everything else remained the same, except when I told Jonathan I was making tomato soup he asked if it would have noodles in it.  Of course, to make Jonathan happy, we had noodles in it and from now on there will always be noodles in it.  I used whole wheat penne, but I think in the future I will use an even tinier pasta like orzo.

For a first ever experience with tomato soup, it was divine.  I loved everything about it, including the noodles, but more importantly the blend of delight that occurred when I dipped my English muffin grilled cheese in it.

The only note I would make is that the next day it didn't taste quite as wonderful.  It was still good, but not the thrill I received the night before.*

*This statement, of course, comes from a leftovers snob.  My apologies.