Sunday, Muddy Sunday

Winter in the South is mostly cold and rain. I’m glad not to have to deal with snow, especially with the huge dumps everyone back home are dealing with.  The annoying part about so much rain is that the yard starts to turn to mush and mud.  A happy place for the rambunctious Pepper, she got herself all full of mud!  You should have seen how much I had to wash off of her.

I found this soup on Good Bite (.com) and made my version with what ingredients were available in my kitchen.

In the midst of chopping the sweet potato I heard, what I though was, rain. Shhhhh! Then a clank as if something heavy and half full hit the tile floor of the kitchen. To my surprise, Little Sister was busy cooking up something herself.

See why it sounded like rain – the rice gently pouring out of the container. And the bang was Little Sister dropping the container and watching it hit the floor. Little Sister is often milling around the kitchen, or around me rather, as breakfast, lunch or dinner is underway. I never shoo her out, unless I need to open the oven door, then she it picked up and placed safely in her high chair or distracted by something in the living room for the 30 seconds needed to complete my maneuver. I guess the latch on the rice container was hardly difficult for her to figure out!

Bokkie inspired the tag-along for the soup: salmon melts. Essentially the same idea as your typical tuna melt, only a can of wild salmon is swapped in for the tuna. Canned salmon, I thought would be uber-fishy, both in taste and smell, was not fishy at all. Actually, it’s less so than tuna. So there’s your encouragement for today – try canned wild salmon! Of course the best thing in the world would be a wild salmon, which you caught yourself and smoked – but that’s a whole other sandwich…

Sweet Potato & Black Bean Soup

Made after Julie Van Rosendaal’s Sausage, Black Bean, Sweet Potato Soup

• 1 good sized sweet potato, diced (the exact size is not the greatest concern – just make it all the SAME size)
• 1/2 yellow onion, diced
• pinch cumin seeds
• 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 link chorizo sausage
• 3 tbsp hot salsa
• 1 cup chicken stock
• 1 cup water, or enough to cover the potatoes
• 1/4 cup crushed tomatillo

The tomatillo adds some acidity to round out the flavours of the sweet potato, smoky cumin and spicy salsa.  If you don’t have them where you live, you can use a diced tomato and tablespoon of vinegar. 

The salsa I used it not a typical off-the-shelf sauce, this is a very thin, hot and smoky sauce made in one of the Mexican grocery stores here.  Hubby bought some with taco fixings as a quick weekday supper.  It would otherwise sit in the fridge waiting to be tossed in a few weeks, or when I’m really in my pack-rat mood, I will freeze the leftovers.  (There’s still about 3 small frozen containers of a similar style salsa in the freezer right now!)  By all means, adjust the amount of salsa to the level of heat you desire.

I started the soup by browning the chorizo, then removing it to work on the onion.  Once the onions are soft, add the cumin seeds to lightly warm them to release the oils.  Add the chorizo back in as well as everything except the black beans.  Bring the soup to a boil and simmer, covered, for 5-6 minutes.  Turn down the heat to low and add the beans, salt and pepper to taste.  Continue simmering for another minute or until the sweet potato pieces are tender (but not falling apart).

Salmon Melts

• 1 can wild caught salmon, drained
• 1 slice of red onion, diced fine
• 3 tbsp light mayonnaise
• shredded cheese of choice (I used a Mexican Blend, good cheddar would work too)
• salt and pepper

Mix the salmon, mayo, onion, salt and pepper in a bowl.  Turn on the broiler to low.  The platform of the open-faced sandwiches were slices of my olive-rosemary bread, lightly toasted under the broiler, just until stiff but not browned.  Then I buttered the toast, slathered on the salmon mixture, sprinkled with cheese and returned the pan under the broiler.  When the cheese melts, they are done!