a win and a soupletter! (a newsletter about soup)
leftovers? who knew!?
Well, well, well… After five episodes, it finally happened. I won! As always, if you don’t want to read about my WIN, skip to the bottom for literally the easiest, most delicious soup recipe of! all! time! (Using leftovers!)
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Also, very quickly, this is where I will say… After some gentle nudging from friends, I’ve added a paid option for this newsletter. It takes a good amount of time to write this thing and to test the recipes, and it even costs money (if you can imagine!) to buy the ingredients to test the recipes. If you’d be down to pay $5 a month, I’d love you forever. If you want to pay more, I will not stop you! If you’re like, no, I’d rather just still not pay, that’s also cool! But yeah, if you want to, here’s where! (Also, if you don’t want to pay, or also if you do, maybe just send this to some friends who want to get some cool recipes!)
Now that that’s over with… I won! Well, first, I lost. Then I won. Honestly, I wish you all could have seen the judging for my polenta X spaghetti squash X beef bolognese in full. I didn’t fight with Jamie, per se, but we did have a little back and forth!
Basically, I didn’t just want to pretend vegetables were pasta and make zoodles (or just spaghetti squash!). I probably talked for too long about how I hate when people pretend zoodles are pasta. I don’t think it’s a good substitute! Sue me! Now, if I want a zoodle, and I’ve had some delicious zoodles before, then give me zoodles. But pasta they are not.
Jamie felt like I wasn’t listening to the proverbial ~guest~ in this challenge and instead was focusing too much on what I would want to eat. Which is probably true and fair. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out my pasta substitute situation and not nearly enough time creating a delicious bolognese. When Jamie pulled that piece of tomato out of my sauce, my heart almost fell out of my butt. BUT! Jack did say that although the dish wasn’t a success, it was a great V1 of an idea. And that really sent my heart back up my butt, and into the place it’s supposed to be!
I took every challenge seriously, but because we knew we couldn’t be eliminated for the Task challenges, I was just like… Let’s have FUN with food! Let’s get weird! There are already a million recipes telling you to use zoodles or just spaghetti squash in place of pasta. What hasn’t been done? Sometimes you take a big swing, and you miss. (Look at me making a sports reference!) But I really did have a good time playing with food this week.
Then the basket swap heard around the world. When I tell you we were gagged. Gagged! I don’t know that they explained it in the episode, but we had to use three leftovers from the fridge and could only pick five items from the pantry. And after the swap, we couldn’t go back to the pantry! So whatever was in the basket was all we could use. Madness! AND we had to use all three leftovers in our basket in our final dish, which is how I ended up making a hardboiled egg and lime aioli. She’s still having fun with food!
The rest you pretty much saw. When Jamie told me the soup was delicious, and I let out that 🤘woo! 🤘 it was maybe one of the greatest releases I’ve ever experienced in my life. And I am not being hyperbolic! I hope it looks like we are all having fun in that kitchen, because we really, really are. But it’s also more stressful than you can imagine—hopes, dreams, wishes, literally $100,000. There is a lot to lose, and I’d maybe started to feel like I couldn’t do it. Well, guess what bitch! I can! (Me yelling at myself.)
There’s a new challenge just around the corner, and a new fresh hell awaits! I’m going to eat some soup and bask in the glory of this win until you all get to see me make a fool out of myself once again this Friday. Only on Amazon Freevee!
A very good and easy soup!
Sorry in advance, this isn’t the leftovers soup I made during the episode. Mostly because I’m not going to ask anyone to go out and buy a 7 layer dip to turn into a soup. Also, because this one is just so good and so easy. It’s a slightly updated version of one my mom used to make. Hers had parmesan cheese and parsley, not ginger and soy sauce. Sorry, mom!
The key leftover here is rice. There’s a really good chance you’ve got some in your fridge right now. This is, in my opinion, one of the best uses for it. Make it! Have fun! As always, tag me if you do, or else!
A very good and easy soup: ingredients
4 cups of chicken broth: If you want this to be vegetarian, you can 100% use veggie stock. If you happen to be the kind of person who makes your own broth or stock, one, I love you, I’m obsessed with you, and you are my family now. Two, this is a very good time to use it because there’s not a lot else going on in here. If you don’t, or you don’t have some already made, your favorite storebought variety will do. Or not even your favorite. The one I used isn’t my favorite, and it still turned out great!
2 tbs soy sauce: You can also use tamari or coconut aminos or something similar here if you want this to be gluten-free (Hi, Brooke!)
5 or 6 scallions: Or fewer GIANT ones, as you see pictured above. These are so crazy!
~2 inches of ginger: You can use more if you like, I like! But two should do you just fine.
4 eggs: Nothing to say here, just use four eggs
2 cups leftover rice: My rice is blue because it is from this Thai restaurant that has blue rice, but yours can be literally any leftover rice you have. It will probably not be blue!
Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper
A very good and easy soup: method
You can literally probably get this done in under 10 minutes, but as you are not on a cooking competition show, there’s no need to rush!
Start by bringing your four cups of broth/stock to a boil in a large-ish, deep-ish pot with the lid on. This is important! You want it to have room!
While your broth comes to a boil, prep your aromatics. Slice your scallions, removing the root but using all the whites and greens. If, for some reason, you don’t like the entire scallion, don’t use the parts you don’t like, but I like them all!
Next, slice your ginger into thin little coins. Notice I’m not asking you to peel it. I don’t peel my ginger. Sue me! If you would like to peel your ginger first, you can absolutely do that.
If your broth is boiling at this point, drop your ginger and two tablespoons of soy sauce in. Season with salt and pepper. Cover and reduce to a simmer. You want to give the ginger about five minutes or so to soften just a little and to perfume the broth.
Next, beat four eggs in a bowl and season with salt and pepper (season all your elements all the time, always!).
After about five minutes of simmering, drop in your rice and bring it back to a boil, beating up the rice a little bit with your spoon just to release some of the starch. It’ll help make the soup a little thick. Once it starts to boil, pull the heat back to a simmer. Here’s where things get interesting!
Using your spoon, stir the soup vigorously in one direction to create a little whirlpool. Then, slowly stream in the beaten egg mixture. If you don’t get this right, it’s not the end of the world, but the swirling broth will help create nicer, thinner strands of egg. Again, not the end of the world if you just slowly pour the eggs in! Don’t stress! It’s soup!
The eggs will basically immediately cook here, and it’s done. Drop in 75% of the scallions and reserve some for garnish if you’d like to try and make it look pretty in your bowl.
At this point, it’s soup time, baby! I topped mine with a drizzle of sesame oil. If you want a little more spice, stirring in some chili oil or Sambal would be amazing. Have some chili crisp? A nice vinegar? Go for it!
Ok, that’s all love you bye!