Hiking, and hot soup for a hot day?
I went for a lovely hike yesterday. I was in the Three Sisters Wilderness, surrounded by huge snowy volcanoes and lava flows. I slipped and slid my way up through a snowfield only to reach a mars-like crumble of red debris at the top of the mountain. The views were incredible. I took tons of pictures, planning to stitch them together into a panorama, which definitely would have been impressive.
Then I got home and my camera stopped working. No matter what I do or what batteries I use, it won’t turn on, and I can’t get my pictures off! So I guess you will just have to believe me: I hiked Black Crater, and I finally got that wham-bang view of Oregon’s mountains. I was looking straight at North Sister in all of its icy glory, and in the other direction was Mount Washington, which my housemate was climbing and I was just a little bit glad not to be with her… it looked rather technical.
(How are there pictures of the soup? I have two cameras. One is so nice that I’m afraid to take it hiking, but I guess it’s my only camera now, so maybe it will get to go on some adventures after all… scary thought!)
The hike itself was quick – four miles up, 2500 or so feet of elevation gain, and I did it in an hour without even running. There was a lot of snow – sometimes I had no idea where the trail was going, and just sort of trusted that I’d find it on the other side. And I always did. I found myself wishing I had brought my skis, just for the pure fun of it – but sliding down the mountain on my feet worked pretty well too.
There’s so much snow here in Oregon still that hiking is a bit difficult; many of the mountains that I would love to be climbing are still too snowy, and I don’t really have any experience in the snow. So I’m stuck on the smaller ones, which isn’t so bad. I’m just getting a taste of what’s to come when the snow melts.
When I got home, I whipped up some soup for dinner out of Deborah Madison’s Vegetable Soups cookbook. It might be in the 80′s here, but soup still sounded good, and I made a spicy one because hot weather calls for hotter food. (The soup wasn’t really that spicy. Just a little bit.) I’m thrilled to have leftovers for dinners this week – this is good stuff! And look how pretty! It’s a breeze to make and the final bowl is layered: chopped tomato on the bottom, with soup spooned over the top, then dumplings, sliced avocado, a lime wedge, and a simple cilantro salsa. It means that leftovers don’t even feel like leftovers, because you’re still assembling fresh components to go with the soup! Madison is a genius and the book is filled with soups that aren’t just a pot of soup.
I took a shortcut and used chicken broth from the store as part of the broth instead of making it completely from scratch, but I’m sure the soup would have been even better if I hadn’t had a pint of leftover broth in the fridge that I felt I had to finish up. Even if you do use premade broth, you can easily transform it into the tasty concoction recommended by Madison – so if you’re short on time, it’s a good fallback plan.
Make it, and I promise you will enjoy it as much as I did.
Summer Squash in Spicy Tomato Broth
Adapted from Vegetable Soups by Deborah Madison
1. The Broth.
2-3 cups chicken stock
1 large onion, sliced
1 zucchini, sliced
two medium-sized tomatoes, chopped
6 cloves of garlic, in large pieces
3/4 cup chopped cilantro
two large leaves of chard
a handful of lentils
a dash of anise seed
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 jalapeno pepper, chopped in half, seeds included
2 teaspoons salt
some ground pepper
Put everything in a LARGE pot with a quart of water and let it come to a boil. Simmer for half an hour or so, until everything is cooked through and the zucchini is soft enough to eat. Find the two halves of the jalapeno and fish them out into the compost. Divide the broth in half; save half in the freezer for a future soup-making experiment, and put the other half back on the stove to simmer.
2. The Salsa.
1 cup chopped cilantro
1 jalapeno pepper, seeds removed and chopped finely
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
Chop the cilantro and the pepper as finely as you can, and then combine everything in a small bowl. Let it sit so the juices can mingle and the oil can absorb some flavor.
3. The Dumpings.
1/2 cup masa flour
1/2 cup white flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon ground chipotle pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon dried oregano
3/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
2 tablespoons olive oil, plus some for the frying pan
Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix together with a fork. Grate the cheese on top and mix again. In a separate bowl, combine the wet ingredients, then pour them over the dry ingredients and stir to combine. The consistency should be somewhat like drop biscuits. In a frying pan (preferably cast iron), heat up 1/4 inch of oil until it shimmers. While it’s heating, roll out marble- to golf ball-sized balls of dumpling dough. I was able to get 16 out of the batter. When the oil is ready, place the dumplings in the frying pan and cook for a minute or so on each side, until golden. If the dumplings start to stick to the bottom of the pan, do what you can, and perhaps take them out – you are also going to cook them in the soup, so the frying is only to give them a nice crispy texture.
4. The Soup.
Half of the stock made in part 1
2 yellow summer squashes, sliced
3 scallions, white and half of the green parts, sliced
the dumplings
2 to 3 tomatoes, diced
1 avocado
1 lime
the salsa
The broth should still be simmering. Add the squash and scallions, and bring it back to a boil; cook for five to ten minutes, or until the squash is significantly softened up. Then add the dumplings. Let them sit on top, half-submerged, and cook another five minutes. While they are cooking, place the diced tomato in the bowls (this serves four to six to eight depending on appetites). When the soup is ready, ladle it over the tomatoes. Place avocado slices and cilantro salsa on top, along with a wedge of lime.
