#4 Get Good at Making Soup

It is 1:01am, and I have just finished making not one, but TWO glorious batches of soup! Yup, Steph the TaskMaster came out to play today - I went to the gym, grocery shopped, went to a two hour training for work in Newton, and cleaned the house a little bit. I never get that much done in one day, ever! Of course, I owe my productivity completely to the fact that it was Field Trip Day at work, which meant that instead of working 1:30-6:00, I worked 8:00-1:00 (and got to see Under the Sea in IMAX 3D at the Aquarium, which was, despite having a crying Kindergartener in my lap for all 45 minutes of it, pretty sweet). But anyway, I was feeling totally (and unusually) driven when I got home tonight, and decided to embark on my soup-making mission full force.

These soups are both really simple and quick to make (and I am pretty sure they are tasty, but won't have a second opinion until tomorrow, but... you can trust me I think, right?) so I am about to cover both soup recipes in detail, because I think you should make them both. SO PAY ATTENTION. TAKE NOTES. Are you ready? Good, here I go.

Soup #1
Hot and Sour Soup with Shrimp (from myrecipes)

Step 1: Combine 3 cups of chicken broth, 1/2 cup sliced mushrooms, 1 tbsp soy sauce and 1 small can of sliced bamboo shoots. Boil. Then, reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes.

Looks like this:



Step 2: Run 1 1/2 lbs of medium, frozen, de-veined, ezpeel shrimp (mouthful!) under cold water to defrost and peel away skin / creepy crawly legs / tail. Chop 8oz of drained, firm tofu into cubes.





After Step 1 has simmered for 5 minutes, add shrimp, tofu, 2 1/2 tbsp lemon juice and 1 tsp of white pepper. Boil. Cook for 2 minutes, or until shrimpys are cooked (you'll know because they'll turn pink!)

Step 3: In a bowl, stir together 2 tbsp water and 1 tbsp corn starch. Add to pot, whisking constantly for 1 minute.

Step 4: Beat one egg white in a bowl (actually you should've done this earlier guys, sorry). Drizzle slowly into pot, stirring constantly. Then remove from heat. Add 1/4 tsp chili oil (a little goes a long way) and a handful of chopped green onions.

And... you're done! See, told you that was easy! The hardest part was shopping for ingredients and that's only because I am a complete loser when it comes to finding stuff in the grocery store (so don't ever ask me to go on Supermarket Sweep with you just because I am outlandishly heroic at every other television game show, because I won't even let you set yourself up for failure like that, I'll just say no. Consider yourself warned.). The soup:



I'll post the other soup tomorrow. It is (drum roll) Peanut and Squash Soup, which sounds both disgusting and like my two favorite things ran into one another, bumped heads and accidentally fell into a pot of boiling chicken broth - but, I promise, it's tasty.

I think I said that I needed to make like 5 soups to consider this item completed... and that I've only posted one so far. But, I'm giving this a CHECK anyhow, because I am in charge here and can do that and it turns out that soups are actually pretttttty easy to make, and I'm already like the bomb.com at it. Go me!