Mezcal-spiked onion soup with Asiago

My Italian friend taught me how to make a simple onion soup.  We used beer (Sierra Nevada Pale Ale) because we didn't have white wine, and the result was delicious with no detectable beer taste.  This time, I had neither, so I used mezcal, as I'd just seen an article in LA Weekly about fancy and interesting new cocktails.  The picture includes a brand in my cupboard, and I love onion soup, so I went for it.  I used 12 white or sweet onions, though my friend recommends cippolini as the best-tasting.

I put them in a giant pasta pot with plenty of olive oil and a bit of good vegetable broth, cooking them down on medium heat until everything was soft and releasing water, about 30 minutes.

Then I added about 1/2 cup of mezcal and a little boiling water.  I cooked this down on high heat for quite a while, stirring occasionally, but in the end I had more liquid than when my friend made it.  The mezcal left a unique smoky flavor, very nice with a little butter, fresh ground pepper, and grated Asiago.  You could use Parmesan.

Beef stew with u choi

I feel comfortable leaving a pot in the oven on low during my training up the street. Browned grass fed stew pieces in grapeseed oil, removed from heat, cooked onions and garlic. Varied textures from long cooked u choi and Southern greens in butter cooked fresh while the soup heated. Vary your veggies too.

Easy Soup - Fennel Beef with Yellow Squash

Brown your meat in hot olive oil with a little butter, season it up, pull it out. Grass fed grass finished beef.


Scraping up bits, sautee your onions garlic fennel bulb, cored and sliced, and celery.



Add the rest of your vegetables, go nuts here, tomato, broth, water, bring to a boil and simmer for about an hour. Gets better the next day.

Turkey Soup with Collards

Stock from my buttery turkey bones + tons of garlic, onion and turmeric. Ribbons of collards, some turkey breast hunks. Red pepper flakes.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

cooking with Mom

We got this lentil soup recipe from an Indian cookbook we can't remember. First you sautee white onion and garlic in butter and add two cans of tomato, watching out for MSG ingredients. Then comes the spices - turmeric, garam masala and cumin. Lemon juice, two cups of veg stock, one cup of lentils and one cup of coconut milk rounds it out. Bring to a boil and simmer uncovered for 30 min. We couldn't find red lentils so we used regular brown. We also pureed the soup at the end and it was fabulous.

Cauliflower Soup

I love cauliflower for its health benefits, low price, and lack of impact on blood sugar. You don't have to buy organic because the properties of the plant itself make it resistant to bugs; therefore farmers don't spray it much. Cauliflower takes well to spices like turmeric, cumin, ground coriander - an Indian curry blend. If you want to make soup, it is best to steam it. People who don't like it that much will often change their minds if you serve it roasted until it gets crispy brown edges.