Adventures in Soup and Spiralizing

Tomorrow I will complete my first week as a vegetarian – no cravings or desire for any kind of meat or fish so far so good.

For those of you who live in the Midwest you know it's soup weather, which brings me to my first veggie adventure. I'd been hungry for forest mushroom soup so I headed off to the local big box grocer for supplies. I was surprised at the cost of dried mushrooms and came home empty handed (from a mushroom perspective that is) I couldn't bring myself to spend that kind of money for soup. 

During dinner my husband mentioned the little Asian market near our house might have dried mushrooms so I headed over there and OMG I was overwhelmed. An entire isle of dried mushrooms to choose from and at a fraction of the cost – I was in mushroom heaven. I ended up purchasing 7.5 ounces of dried shitake mushrooms for less than 1 ounce at the big box grocery store – I know it's supply, demand and profit margins – go figure.

I came home and spent the next hour chopping, mincing, sautéing and simmering to result in what I'd say is the best forest mushroom soup I've ever made.  The broth was a rich and flavorful vegetable broth base with garlic, a little butter, salt, pepper and white wine. To that I added carrots, onions, 4 kinds of mushrooms (baby portabella, white, shitake and black mushrooms) and let the pot simmer until I couldn't stand to wait any longer – and of course the veggies and mushrooms were cooked.  

My second cooking adventure resulted from a Christmas gift from my husband Dan. A few years ago our friend Leila mentioned that they had a Spiralizer and being the dutiful techie that I am I immediately did a Google search. I was fascinated by all the veggies you could twirl and spin around it that gadget to make noodles; carrots, butternut squash, zucchini, turnips, potatoes the sky seemed to be the limit. Yet for whatever reason I never got around to buying one until one showed up under my tree this year and I've been spiralizing ever since. :-)

I found this great website called Inspiralized, with lots of good information, short videos and recipes oh the delicious recipes, my bookmark collection grows every day. After browsing the collection for what seemed like forever I settled on the butternut squash noodles with caramelized onions, shredded brussel sprouts, and toasted walnuts adding my own spin with cauliflower and some goat cheese instead of Parmesan it was delicious!

So what's next -  check back next week to find out. I'll give you a hint tho, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie spices and maple syrup. 

Stay warm and thanks for stopping by!