soup

[elvendoll]

it's cold enough to almost be craving soup, which then lead to the thought of 'i should learn how to cook soups' - and then i remembered why it is that i don't.
like a good russian jew, i need to have bread and sour cream for soups and ever since i moved away from brighton center, that's been the problem.
my first year in boston, i was living in brighton center and there was daniel's bakery right on my way home from the bus stop, and i could stop in there and get really yummy bread on my way home. and there was a convenience store for sour cream, too. my grandmother used to make soup for me, put it into ziplock bags and freeze them, so i'd come back from visits to NJ with coolerfulls of homemade, nukable at any time soup and had easy access to good bread and sour cream.
now, there's no place that has good enough bread convenient enough. in fact, there are no stores that are directly on my commute. and i have a problem with sour cream, where i buy some, don't use enough of it before it goes bad, and then feel too guilty to buy more for months. so, if i learned how to make soups now, it'd just be an effort in futility because while i might make the soup, i won't have the bread/sour cream combination often enough to justify making large vats of soup and would end up even deeper in my sour cream/guilt cycle.

Comments

[dot_fennel]

I have a few basic food items I go through this with. I wish I had a better solution than buying nothing but hummus.

[elvendoll.livejournal.com]

come to think of it, i also have the same cycle with potatoes - but i think those are the only two food items like that for me, which leaves me with a few non-hummus options.

[goat.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, in a few weeks I could be convinced to make some bread.

I haven't done it in a long time, but I used to make some really good bread.

And for the record, while I can't cook, I can bake so long as I'm not rushed.

[elvendoll.livejournal.com]

mmm... fresh bread...

i've never gotten into baking because i'm not a fan of 25+ minute prep times or post-baking-cleaning, but i will certainly enjoy the smells and ovenwarmth of your baking : )

[piratedan.livejournal.com]

Sorry. Don't get it. My Great-Grandmother used to make the best soup & kneidlach (the web seems to like my guess at the spelling) and there was never any sour cream involved. Also, if you keep it in the cold part of the fridge, sour cream lasts for quite some time. Come on, it's already gone sour!

Note, my friend BJ once tried to make soup & kneidlach for passover. He used his grandmother's recipe. It at least as close to my Great-Grandmother's as my Grandmother's is. It would have been spooky if it hadn't been so yummy.

I made a "soup" (more like the bastard child of soup and stew) the other day. While some fresh bread would have gone smashingly well with it, I didn't miss it too much.

Damnit. Now I want blintzes, curse you.

[elvendoll.livejournal.com]

well, i wouldn't put sour cream into an animal-broth based soup, but since i don't eat creatures that had legs, the soups i tend to eat are vegetable/vegetarian ones - and the idea of eating borscht or mushroom soup makes my tongue want to curl into itself.

i think i might try experimenting with just which parts of our fridge are coldest, and see how long sour cream will last.

Damnit. Now I want blintzes, curse you.

*curtsey*

does this mean you could be talked into helping with blintzekrieg next year?

[dreams-of-wings.livejournal.com]

The trick about sour cream is to buy just a little tub of it and use as much as you can in one go, so if you do have to throw it out later 'cause its turned green you aren't actually throwing that much away.

Does the Co-op in Central not have good bread? I would think it would.

Soup is also good for feeding to other people - there's something very homey and comforting about soup always.

[veek.livejournal.com]

I was just gonna say: other people! Perhaps you could invite a few friends over every N-interval (week? two weeks?), on a weeknight, for soup. Make them bring the bread & sour cream. Bingo, party; and no leftover dairy. Or, for that matter, soup. :)

[elvendoll.livejournal.com]

actually, i've been itching to host a pot luck for a while now, but haven't been convinced that there would be enough interest.

once goat moves in, maybe i'll see if that's something she'd be interested in co-hosting...

[elvendoll.livejournal.com]

I haven't looked there for bread! Generally, I don't shop there nearly enough because they don't carry some of the name-brand pre-packaged foods I can't live without, so I only go there if I'm all set on those & am just looking for veggies.

Soup is also good for feeding to other people - there's something very homey and comforting about soup always.

well, it's warm, and it's liquid and it's food : )
i tend to crave soup most when my taste buds want a break from tea but i'm still under-hydrated...

[kittypie.livejournal.com]

i had some borscht that my grandma made today without sour cream (the horror!) and i thought of you. hehe.

one suggestion i have to you in terms of substitutions is plain yogurt (full fat, good quality kind). it is really good in vegetable soups, but its definitely more of an acquired taste than sour cream.

you can also just wean yourself off of the idea that you have to have sour cream in your soups and try out some different recipies (epicurious.com has tons of stuff) based on your favorite vegetables. cream is another suggestion - it sort of mimics the creaminess associated w/ sour cream (for obvious reasons) that we russians love so much - and adds a real richness to the soups. i've made some fantastic broccoli/cheese and cream of mushroom before from epicurious and also last fall i made some great pumpkin and squash soups. mmm.

so yeah, i would try these things if i were you. if you add noodles and beans and stuffs into your soups, enough to give them heartiness, you might not miss the sour cream. then again, it's really up to your taste. you should definitely broaden your taste buds though, imho ;)

[elvendoll.livejournal.com]

hrmm... i might try yogurt, but i'm not sure it would solve my 'dairy product going bad' problem.

also, last winter, i started getting boxed 'cream of X' soups at trader joe's and putting potatoes in them for substance - i had totally forgotten about that while making that post. time to stock up on soups and potatoes.

and now i'm craving borscht : /