Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Chocolate and Cabbage Soup

No, not together. But the chocolate would have made a great dessert following the cabbage soup I had for lunch today had it not been all eaten…


The chocolate in question was Ghirardelli Almond Milk Chocolate from the Foodbuzz Festival “swag bag.” For the past few days, it has been sitting next to my coffee maker, and every early afternoon, I enjoyed one square with a cup of coffee. Usually, I’m sitting at my desk, grading papers, and I desperately need something to get me through the next stack of papers. The chocolate is my little escape. So good, a little guilty pleasure, yet portion controlled.

I hadn’t eaten milk chocolate in a long time and probably wouldn’t have picked it up, but I ended up really enjoying it. Plus, Ghirardelli is our local, San Francisco chocolate company, so I feel a special bond with it, and when we play tourists we usually end up in the Ghirardelli store…

Well, today my little afternoon escape did not happen because hubby had eaten the rest of it last night! However, I wouldn’t have known because the package still sat in its usual spot. When I got ready to go to work early this morning, hubby appeared to be sleeping and then all of a sudden said, “I ate so much last night after you went to sleep.” I turned around and was very surprised that he was up. Then he said, “I ate the chocolate.” Slightly panicky, I replied, “Which chocolate? The package is still there.” He said, “I know. I was going to blog about it. That’s why I kept it.” Now, in all fairness, I did eat more than my share of the Foodbuzz goodies we got, so I really can’t blame hubby too much. But I REALLY missed my little sweet escape this afternoon… Sad smile

Now I did eat cabbage soup for lunch (for some reason hubby didn’t dig into the cabbage soup leftovers last night….). We have been getting a lot of cabbage in our CSA boxes. Often it’s a substitute for something they ran out of. Our delivery day is Friday, and they often run out of lettuce (which is a shame as I LOVE the fresh lettuce)… I have been using the cabbage in some stir fried veggies but was thinking of something new to make. So cabbage soup came to mind. It’s really a vegetable soup with cabbage. I made a ton, and I think we’ll have leftovers for the rest of the week…

Cabbage Soup


Ingredients
  • Olive oil
  • 1 cabbage, cut into bite-sized pieces
  • 1 pepper (the one I used was green, in the process of turning red, which I thought was very cool!), cut into bite-sized pieces
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 3 carrots, cut into circles
  • 6 – 7 stalks of celery, diced
  • Chopped tomatoes (I used Pomi)
  • 5 cups of liquid (water or vegetable stock, or a mixture of the both, which is what I used)
  • Salt
  • Pepper
  • Organic ketchup (I have a habit of adding a few tablespoons of organic ketchup to tomato-based soups and sauces. I guess it’s really just a sign of my ketchup addiction…Winking smile)
Directions
  1. Heat the olive oil and sauté the onions for a few minutes. Then add the pepper, celery, and carrots. Sauté the veggies for about 3 minutes.
  2. Add the chopped tomatoes and the liquid to the pot.
  3. Add the cabbage to the pot.
  4. Cook the soup for about 10 - 15 minutes, until the veggies are soft but not mushy.
  5. Season with salt, pepper, and ketchup! Smile 
  6. Enjoy! Smile


We all really enjoyed the soup. Hubby has been fighting off a sore throat and said the soup was really soothing. He got seconds and at one point said, “Who am I? I never used to like cabbage or vegetable soups!”

Questions: What’s your favorite chocolate? I usually like dark chocolate, but I think I may go back to milk chocolate once in a while after tasting the milk chocolate Ghirardelli chocolates… Do you like cabbage? What’s your favorite way to eat it? I need ideas for all the cabbage in my CSA boxes… I really like coleslaw but hubby doesn’t (yet). I think I’ll give it another try soon though… Any good coleslaw recipes I should be aware of? 

Be well,
Andrea