Dear Soup Development Team:
New York Times food critic Mark Bittman was at the University of Toronto last week promoting his new book “Food Matters – A Guide to Conscious Eating”, and I was lucky enough to get a seat in the packed audience. He was on stage with CBC’s Matt Galloway for an hour-long discussion, with topics ranging from eco-eating to our overconsumption of meat. I know most of you are desensitized to the piles of statistics on the Western diet, however one crazy stat worth mentioning is that 7% of American’s calories come from soda (although, 7% of my diet probably comes from Canadian Club, and another 7% comes from red wine, so I can’t say much here).
One interesting take-away I got from the talk was his argument that you should really only be shopping around the perimeter of the supermarket, as the stuff in the middle is basically processed derivatives of the outside. This would follow that you should only really be buying about 10% of what a supermarket sells.
Below is a simple vegetable soup with some pearled barley in it. You can add whatever vegetables and spices you want, but the below can serve as a simple framework for timing and ingredients.
Single Ladies (Put a Carrot in it)
Start by making a simple vegetable broth:
Put in a soup pan, bring to a boil and then simmer for 30 minutes:
3 litres of ice cold water (or however big your pot is)
2 carrots, roughly chopped
2 celery ribs, roughly chopped
1 yellow onion, quartered
1 bay leaf
1 dried clove
remove all vegetables, bay leaf and clove and discard. Then add and cook on medium for 20 minutes:
2 cups carrots, diced
2 cups of celery, diced
1/2 cup yellow onion, diced
1 cup pearled barley
Add, cook for another 5 minutes:
1/2 cup roughly chopped or crushed canned tomatoes
Sea salt and pepper to taste
Serve
You could also add some small pasta the same time you add the veggies and barley
Bittman in the News
A good book review of Bittmans book is here.
Track of the Week
This weeks track is “Vegetables” by The Beach Boys. You know you love it.
Cheers,
Jayro
“made from scratch”
