A recipe for soup season

Sometimes I’m intending to make dinner, and then life gets in the way and someone else takes over and does it for me. That someone is often Jackson, and this time, he not only made the meal but answered my questions about how he felt like it went. Will you be surprised that this is another New York Times recipe I have no memory of ever having eaten before? No, you will not.

Hello it’s me, Jackson, I didn’t take any notes while making this soup but I did take pics and also I’m going to answer these good framing questions.

What did you think of it beforehand?

Well I thought it sounded good right off rip, it was cold out and “Swiss Chard and Potato Soup” sounded hearty but also a little new and also it sounded delicious. So I was excited to eat it and then Kate was working on something so I was like, damn, I could get excited to make this too.

How did the making of it go?

I am not good with instructions or recipes, a lot of times I read the list of ingredients twice and do a really light skim of the instructions and then just sorta go from there but that is not the point of this so I both tried to follow the recipe but I didn’t really read any of the steps until I needed to do them so it was kind of a surprise as I went a few times.

Like, okay, I chop up the bacon and it goes in the pot, I’ve done that, gonna get this bacon all crispy...but I cook it in water??? What!!! So it gets cooked but not crispy? Wow, okay, are we allowed to do that? I guess so.

Then, okay, what’s next: onions and garlic time. But first I have to take the bacon out, put that to the side, cooked but not crispy (????) and then in goes the garlic and onions. Garlic tangent:

When garlic is purple like this? That’s good as hell to me. I don’t even know if that’s quality or just a type but that always feels nice and fancy to me. When I saw this garlic at the co-op (co-op plug! Co-ops own, I read this book and now love co-ops and am annoying about grocery stores. Join me!), I immediately grabbed a bunch and in my head was like “they got the good garlic here” even though I have no idea if that’s true.

Okay so the garlic and onions cook in the normal way I’m used to, getting nice and soft with some color in the oil, and then the potatoes go in, cubed, with 8 cups of water. I did not measure the water, I figured this would be fine but later we will find out, maybe it wasn’t fine??? Potato tangent:

Carefully peeling potatoes is sucker shit and only for french restaurants making fancy french fries. Everyone else? No. What’s the problem. A little skin is probably good for you. I don’t know.

Okay, surprise number two for me because I didn’t read the recipe first: I thought the damn potatoes were going to live in the soup as chunks. But no. You cook them, pull them out, mash those mothers up like mashed potatoes and then put them back in the soup, so it’s like thick with potato taste. Wild stuff. Remember this for later too. Here’s me mashing them if you like to look at that:

Okay, so surprise number three. Looking at the ingredients I was like: eggs? Whoa. What are these going to be for? Better not read and find out.

Turns out you poach them and put them on the top, that ended up being really good so I was glad that was in the recipe. But I poached these dudes in the microwave! Haha how bout that??? Two mugs, filled with water, egg in each, 60 seconds in the microwave each. Bang. Perfectly poached eggs. Very powerful stuff. [Editor’s note: Will never be poaching on the stove again, look at these babies.]

Okay what else. The rest was pretty straightforward. Oh check this out, I got this cilantro and at the co-op the lady look at it and was like, “I should have you half off on this, it doesn’t look good” which was really cool of them and the cilantro was good.

Okay, so, threw all the rest in, the chickpeas, the bacon, the chard [Ed. Note: We actually used collards, because that’s what the store had], some olive oil. Alright baby we got a soup goin’. Critique time! I think I put too much water in and I think it should have been a little thicker. But still a success. If you ask me.

What did you think of it while eating it?

This was really good!! We ate it with toast and the poached egg kicked it up a notch. If it was a little thicker that would have been good but hey what are ya gonna do? Measure the water? No. [Ed. Note: I also maybe would have browned all the vegetables and then added the water for more flavor.]

One thing I liked was that while it was a very good hearty soup for winter it’s also really healthy!!! Lots of greens and not a lot of bad stuff. In summation, health is wealth.

Would you make it again (or have me make it again)?

Yes, I would make this or Kate could make it or we could also make it together. Also you could make it. :)

KATE [and JACKSON]

P.S. READER MAIL: According to Ryan, my fears about pounding chicken would be completely abated if I got a tool for pounding. He writes: “no need to pound just get one of these! like $6 at yr local kitchen supply.”

A solution for my complaints? Can you imagine??