Parmesan Rind Soup

Just getting ready for a ride and enjoying a bowl of one of my all-time-favourite soups, which I have adapted from this recipe for Tortellini in Parmesan Broth from Epicurious.com ...

Tortellini in Parmesan Broth

Gourmet | April 2006

This is an ideal recipe if you enjoy eating Parmigiano-Reggiano as much as I do - save those rinds! I keep mine in a plastic ziplock container in the freezer until I have four or five of them, then it is time to make soup. I begin by preparing two L. of stock - I generally use either 'Better Than Bouillon' turkey or chicken base. After the stock comes to a boil, thinly slice eight to ten cloves of garlic and add to stock, in addition to four or five bay leaves, and the cheese rinds. Cover soup pot and simmer for up to two hours.

While stock is simmering away, cook six (or so...) chorizo sausages over medium heat. Allow to cool, then slice and set aside. Mix a bit of water to pan scrapings and add to stock. Next wash a bunch of chard (rainbow chard works nicely), remove stems and chop coarsely, and set aside. With a slotted spoon remove rinds, bay leaves and garlic from simmering stock and then add the chorizo and chard. Lastly boil up a bunch of fresh pasta (two cups is fine), e.g. tortellini, for about three to five minutes, drain and then add to soup. You can add fresh chopped Italian parsley or cilantro to finish the soup, or not. As for garnish I like to top this soup with homemade croutons and more grated Parmigiano-Reggiano. Enjoy! And save those rinds!

Black Bean Soup with Cumin and Cilantro

Now, finally, something about soup! Soup can almost be considered the perfect food, if such a notion were possible. Many soup recipes require only a handful of ingredients, little in the way of specialty cooking equipment, and minimal time requirement. Most soups can be frozen for later enjoyment. Soup hydrates you. I could go on, but its time to get to it.

A couple of postings back I detailed my successful efforts to soak/simmer dried black beans for this soup recipe, from Epicurious.com:

Black Bean Soup with Cumin and Cilantro

Bon Appétit | February 2000

I already had most of the ingredients, and all I had to pick up was some cumin, cilantro, onions and garlic. Since this was my first go at this recipe I decided to hew closely to the recipe, and not to proportionately increase the yield.

One word about the stock I generally use. I should be making stock from scratch, and this year I do intend to use homemade as much as I can. If I don't have fresh stock at hand I use Better Than Bouillon brand soup stock paste. It has considerably less sodium (and much better taste) than cube or powder bouillon.

If you have a look at the recipe you will see it calls for 8 cups of vegetable stock, which equals about 1.9 L. so I rounded up to 2 L. of prepared stock. I used Better Than Bouillon turkey base, and my usual measure is one tablespoon per L. I obviously had pre-soaked and simmered my black beans beforehand, and did not cook them unprepared in the stock as the recipe instructs. After simmering for about an hour and a half I pureed the soup with an immersion blender. I am enjoying a bowl as I write this blog, and I can tell you that the soup is quite good, not terribly spicy, and that I will definitely make it again. And likely up the jalapeno measure to 1/3 of a cup. Oh one last thing: I omitted the lime wedges as garnish only because I forgot to pick up some fresh limes. A generous scoop of sour cream would also be a good idea for a garnish in this instance.

New FaceGen video

In the past year or so I have learned how to (more or less) use a pretty versatile piece of software called Camtasia Studio, from a company in Wisconsin called TechSmith. Camtasia Studio enables users to create fairly sophisticated video content at home, using screen captures, voiceovers, imported video footage, web cams etc. I use Camtasia Studio to produce 'how to' instructional videos for a company in Toronto called Singular Inversions, makers of FaceGen Modeller.

I have just finished the second such project for Singular Inversions, and I'd like to share it with you here:

Thanks to the Big Dog for being such a gracious model!

Other videos I have produced may be viewed at my YouTube channel.

Untitled black bean project no. 1

The other day while poking through my cupboards I discovered a bag of black beans. First question which came to mind was 'I wonder how long I've had these?' Then came 'what to do with them?' Make soup naturally. So I popped over to my computer and searched Epicurious.com for recipes with tagged with 'soup' & 'black bean'. And here's what I selected, which is now on deck for the next batch.

Black Bean Soup with Cumin and Cilantro

Bon Appétit | February 2000

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Black-Bean-Soup-with-Cumin-and-Cilantro-102984

Thing is I have never had much luck using dried beans or legumes in recipes before. I know there are different methods to prepare the dried versions for cooking. But no matter what means I have used in the past the result was always the same: crunchy.

So with that impressive track record I decided to try an experiment with the black beans recently emancipated. The recipe calls for 2 cups of dried black beans. I measured out 2 cups and placed them in a non-reactive bowl, and then filled with cold tap water, until the beans were covered to a depth of 2-3 cm. Over the next 24 hours I changed the water on several occasions, and rinsed the beans in a colander under running water, and replaced the water.

After a day of this I finally decided it was time to cook the beans. They were still definitely on the crunchy side. It was now or never. I strained and transferred the beans to my Ikea smaller soup pot (thanks Grant!) and filled with cold tap water, again to a depth of about 2-3 cm over the beans. I added 5 bay leaves, a pinch of salt, and a couple of sprigs of fresh rosemary, and turned the stove up to MAX for a boil. After boiling I simmered the beans uncovered for about 30 minutes, and then covered for another 1.5 hours, stirring occasionally.

The beans turned out perfectly.

Black beans

Sunday at Deer Lake Park

Map 1: Burnaby Bike Route Map

Map 2: Burnaby Parks Brochure

Map 3: Burnaby Bike Route Map

Last Sunday, after Trevor bailed on our planned hike up to Lynn Peak, Miranda and I decided to meet at Sperling Burnaby-Lake Station on the Central Valley Greenway and ride towards Deer Lake, via the Lakes Bikeway (marked 'LB' on Map 1).

Miranda suggested south, and south seemed a logical choice of direction - it was one of those really dramatic sky days, with steady layers of grey clouds pushing up against the North Shore by a steady breeze from the south. A strange direction for wind in the Fraser Valley/Metro Vancouver, where wind usually comes from either the west or the east. Towards the south (New West) all was white blue and bright - nothing like the sun and the promise of a patio to beckon you - hail Sol Invictus!!

After crossing the Trans Canada astride Kensington south (watch for glass in the margins) we tucked into Deer Lake Park and cycled along side the lake on a great boardwalk trail (see map 3). I was dumb-founded. Aside from one concert performance (R.E.M., 2008 - Accelerate Tour) I had never really spent any time at Deer Lake. It was fantastically beautiful (a bit buggy in some areas, but bugs do love water). The park's terrain is basically a small east-west oriented valley - flat around Deer Lake and along the line of Beaver Creek, but as soon as you start to move away from either it can get challenging. At the southwest corner of Deer Lake we headed south briefly, and then towards the northwest, exiting the park at the corner of Royal Oak and Deer Lake Parkway.

From Deer Lake we continued northwesterly on the Deer Lake Parkway Urban Trail (marked DLPUT on Map 3), then north at the Willingdon Urban Trail (marked WUT on Map 3). We switched to a short northwesterly connector at Sanderson and then turned north and followed the Gilmore Way Urban Trail / Sea To River Bikeway (marked GWUT and S2RB on Map 3), crossing the Trans Canada again, and then turned east at the Central Valley Greenway (marked CVG on Map 3) until returning to out starting point, Sperling Burnaby-Lake Station.

There was hardly a car in sight through this section. Great Sunday riding! Thanks to Miranda for the snacks and the company!

On a related note - salmonberries (aka Rubus spectabilis) are now starting to come out in force, and their range of colours is impressive. Look for small five-point purple flowers. I quite enjoy their mildly tart flavour. I think they like it a bit on the dampish side of conditions.

Maps

Burnaby Bike Route Map

http://www.city.burnaby.bc.ca/__shared/assets/Trails_and_Cycling_-_Cycling_Map2930.pdf

Burnaby Parks Brochure

http://www.city.burnaby.bc.ca/__shared/assets/Parks___Trail_Brochure_20094957.pdf

References

E-flora BC

http://linnet.geog.ubc.ca/

Rubus spectabilis

http://linnet.geog.ubc.ca/Atlas/Atlas.aspx?sciname=Rubus+spectabilis

New Bike Route: 'Northwest Burnaby Loop'

Burrard Inlet, Burnaby (detail)

Northwest Burnaby Loop

Trying to get back into decent riding shape with a 'long ride' (qualification: at least one and a half hours) every other day. I personally try to avoid riding in vehicle traffic as much as possible in Metro Vancouver. One of my favourite routes is the 'Central Valley Greenway/B.C. Parkway Loop' for the reason that aside from a stretch along Winston (just north of Burnaby Lake) there is very little traffic to contend with. Not much at all.

So with that in mind I set out solo yesterday to set up a new route, one with little exposure to heavy traffic. I started at Victoria and Broadway, heading southeast along Grandview with a moderate breeze from the east. At Slocan I turned north and followed it up a short steep section to Broadway and crossed at the light. I continued north along Slocan until turning right at Union/Frances. Now I was on an easterly bearing for a long section, passing over the Trans Canada Highway, crossing Boundary into Burnaby, and then up a second steep section immediately east of Boundary. Note that at the 'top' of this steep section the route turns north for a few blocks, at Ingleton, and then resumes bearing east along Frances. I now followed Frances all the way until Fell Avenue (Fell is about halfway between Holdom and Willingdon). At Fell I turned north, now heading directly towards the nearby Burrard Inlet. After a short distance (about four blocks) I turned and began to follow the Trans Canada Trail back towards Vancouver, through the Capitol Hill Conservation Area, alongside Penzance Drive, across Confederation Park, past McGill Park, and finally reaching Montrose Park and cycling beneath the Iron Workers Memorial Bridge via Yale Street. Fantastic riding! From the bridge I linked up to Wall Street alongside Bridgeway, which skirts the southern edge of New Brighton Park before it reaches Wall Street proper. At Kaslo I turned south and returned back to the start point via Slocan and Grandview.

Elapsed time was approximately an hour and a half, but in my defense I'd like to point out that I ride a hard-tail mountain bike (Kona Cinder Cone), with knobby tires. And the route has a few hilly sections which are quite challenging….

Thanks to John, James and Miranda for the rides last week.

Welcome to Soup Manifesto!

Welcome to Soup Manifesto!

Herein I will write about making soup, cycling in and around Vancouver. And other subjects will be featured. I have interests in archaeology, history, hiking, books, and living in Vancouver. I consider myself to be quite fortunate to be living in this city despite how much it costs to live here. That raises another subject I will address in this blog, namely being as self-sufficient as possible. What exactly do I mean by that? To me it means finally learning how to make bread. Even ice-cream. And chicken pot pies, so that means learning how to make pastry, something I have long wanted to do.