Rainy Day Soup

I don’t know of any more fitting way for Seattle to kick-off its entrance into the new year than to present our first Monday back with unending depressing showers and bleak grey skies. It is near impossible to drag oneself out of bed, even more impossible to drag oneself into the office, and then when I get home from soul-killing boredom at work, the last thing I want to do is cook an elaborate and lengthy sort of meal. I want comfort food, man. And not too many dirty dishes when I’m done with it.

That said, there is little better than soup and bread on these days. I have as many variations to my rainy day soup as one can think of, as it is largely composed of the same tomato stock base and whatever not-too-sad vegetables I have in my pantry, fridge, or freezer.



Tonight's soup ended up, well, less soup with quinoa, and more quinoa with soup. Yet was still mighty tasty and met with great approval with Husband. Note that when I make soup, I MAKE SOUP, so if you want less than 4 solid quarts, halve or quarter the recipe.

1/2 yellow onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 1/2 zucchini (small-medium)
1 1/2 yellow squash
1 tbl olive oil (for cooking onion and zucchini in pot)
32 oz chicken stock (a whole box, basically)**
4 cups water**
1 can tomato paste
approx. 2 tsp dried basil
approx. 2 tsp dried oregano
2 dried bay leaves
2 cups quinoa, rinsed

Finely chop onion, and smash garlic using a garlic press. Heat olive oil on medium-high in a 5 quart pot, and once heated, add onions and garlic to pan. While onion softens, cut yellow squash and zucchini into coins, then cut into halves or quarters to make 1/2 inch pieces. Add to pan and cook until slightly softened.

Pour in chicken broth, water, and can of tomato paste. Stir until tomato paste mixes into broth. Add basil, oregano, salt, pepper to taste- my measurements are approximate. I generally just add the basil etc a little at a time and taste along the way. Add bay leaves.

**If you do not have that much chicken stock on hand, or are a vegetarian, I have made this soup with just water and tomato paste in a pinch, and vegetable stock. If the stock adds too much salt to your soup, you can add less stock, and more water. It's really very flexible.



Now, quinoa is tricky in that two cups dried quinoa to 4 quarts liquid seems pretty reasonable. However, when the soup is left to simmer, that quinoa cooks up nice and soft, and my soup ended up thick with quinoa grain. So my suggestion is to only put a cup in. Add this after herbs and such, and let the soup simmer on medium for about a 20 minutes to a half-hour, or until quinoa is cooked. The broth will darken to a deeper red, and thicken up.

While I waited for the soup to finish cooking, I whipped up a batch of these to dip in the soup. ('Member I mentioned bread? Oh yes.) They are light and fluffy and buttery. I made them with whole milk instead of heavy cream, and they still turned out great (see comments, she suggests not to substitute milk for the cream, but in a pinch it works).

BTW, this soup reheats wonderfully for a next day lunch. So when you wake up to yet another gross Seattle morning tomorrow, at least you have something to look forward to...