The cycle of soup

The soups section in the supermarket seems to take up more and more of the aisle each year. Chefs have often, and often loudly, decried the American habit of thinking soup comes out of a can to the tune of "Umm, umm, good!" Some such as Wolfgang Puck have decided to add their soups to the mix. The varieties now are more numerous, but something about canning still doesn't do much for soups.

More cooks could become better soup makers if they just set aside their cookbooks once in a while and think about the cycle of soup.

First, you make a broth or stock. Take those trimmings that you would have thrown out, skin and tendons of meat, or the carrots, celery, tomatoes and onions slightly past their prime, and cover them with water and a little salt, add a bay leaf and a few peppercorns, and simmer for several hours. Strain and then you can toss the cooked remains into the garbage or compost. For meat liquids, put in the fridge or freezer until the fat congeals at the top, then throw that out, too.

If you're not ready to use it, put it in a container marked with the date and contents.

When you're ready, you can get creative. Use leftovers in your fridge if you can. If your broth is strong enough, a little vinegar on a cup or less of leftover pasta salad will be absorbed and add to the flavor of your soup. Or maybe you have a cup of leftover rice; add it to 2 cups of chicken broth, bring to a boil with the rice, then stir a little of it into a cup containing a beaten egg and the juice of a lemon. Turn the soup down to a simmer. Gentle stir the contents of the cup into the hot soup.

Experiment. If you like a combination of spices in a dish, chances are you will like it in a soup with similar ingredients. Just be aware that as a soup cooks, water evaporates, so the spices will intensify, and not all at the same rate. Chilies can be a lot hotter in soups, as can pepper. Basil may disappear (that's why it's good to add fresh basil just before serving). Lemon can brighten a bean soup; sherry can make it richer.

If you're lucky and you like soup, you may never have to throw out any leftovers again.

Want to waste not? Tips to use leftovers

Making a great pot of chili last night, my thoughts wandered to recipe cooking vs. instinctual cooking. Most everyone, who has basic cooking skills and instructions that make sense, can cook from a recipe and have a dish that turns out well. (Of course, everyone who conveys a recipe hopes the instructions make sense, but you'd be surprised at how many don't, even ones that make it into a cookbook.) But the instinctual cook uses his or her senses on how a dish should be and goes on to make it unique. The advantage to this method is that one can use what is at hand, the freshest produce and most inexpensive meats, even bits and pieces of previous dinners, commonly derided as "leftovers."

The dishes that lend themselves most easily to this are melanges, and almost every cuisine has one or two of them. My standbys are chili, jambalaya, gumbo, spaghetti, curry and soups (five options can get most anyone through a week; if you have others, please let me know).

For the chili, I started with a pound of ground turkey and a tablespoon of olive oil. Turkey is bland, but much like tofu, it picks up the flavors around it. I season it as it's cooking with garlic, onions, cumin and oregano. And of course, chili.

I prefer straight chili. Prepared chili powder is OK, but it's a combination of chilies, cumin, oregano, salt and sometimes other spices, and you don't know how old the other spices are that go into it, since the smell of chili overwhelms the others. I use ancho powder if I'm in a hurry; otherwise, I like to use dried whole chilies (a combination depending on how hot I want it) stemmed and seeded, soaked in a little boiled water for 45 minutes, then puréed.

If I'm preparing a bowl of red, I add a can of beer and stop right there. But turkey doesn't hold up nearly as well as beef for that. So my turkey chili is what the sainted Frank X. Tolbert would refer to as "a rather tasty vegetable stew." (Those were the fighting words that led to the first chili cookoff, which gave birth to a cultural phenomenon that will continue this year in Terlingua, TX, Nov. 5-7.)

I added a 28-ounce can of diced tomatoes, then found in the refrigerator the following: 1 eggplant, which I had sliced and salted in preparation to sauté, but had a change of plans; 1 1/2 yellow bell peppers, which had been charred and the skins removed; a lonely carrot; a half cup of refried black beans. I rinsed the eggplant slices, trimmed the skins off them, then chopped them and the peppers coarsely before adding them and the beans to the pot. I peeled the carrot and shredded it into the pot. Then everything cooked for about three hours. The texture, no doubt thanks to the refried beans, was just right; usually if the chili is a little soupy at the end, I add a little masa harina to thicken the stew.

One taste and you, too, would know why it drives me crazy when people say they'd rather eat fast food than leftovers.

Now, no discussion on chili would be complete without a little travelogue on Texas, so here's one on Big Bend National Park, which will give you a little taste of Terlingua country.

No leftovers left behind

Good for designer and writer Erik Trinidad, who revamps fast-food meals to look like they'd be at home in a fine restaurant. That's his Chicken McNugget Confit at right, from www.fancyfastfood.com.

His tagline on the site: “Yeah, it’s still bad for you — but see how good it can look.”

But I'd like to see some of Trinidad's energy to go into making leftovers look good. Think of all the food that's wasted every day in this country that, with a little imagination and care, could have an encore worthy of applause.

Until he takes up the gauntlet, let me provide a few hints for using leftovers:

• Don't use the microwave for reheating everything. While vegetables are very good reheated that way, it's not as good for any food containing oil or fat (they heat really quickly) and it's a disaster for anything with bread or Parmesan cheese.
• Use a container appropriate to the size of the food. The original dish may have been fine in a 4-quart casserole, but if you only have a serving or two left over, dish it into something smaller.
• Think of something fresh to add to the leftovers and make it into a whole new dish. Or add a salad.
• If all else fails, cover it with shedded cheese. It will melt quickly, and pleases most everyone, except dairy-intolerant, vegans or dieters.

Tonight I had some carnitas and plain rice to use up. I put the rice in a covered casserole dish and sprinkled it with water; sautéed some sliced crimini mushrooms and whole baby onions and scattered them over it; then topped it off with the carnitas. I covered the dish and put it in a 425 degree oven for 10 minutes, removed the lid and let the carnitas brown a little for another 10 minutes. I served it with a salad of sliced tomatoes dressed with pesto, green onions and basil ribbons, and a loaf of crusty whole wheat bread. Not once were the words "Leftovers again?" uttered.

In praise of soup

Soup, real soup, not someone's idea of soup that comes out of a can, is both comforting and economical. With a little care, mostly in attention to spices and making sure the elements are not overcooked so that they arrive on the palate in a goopy mess, you can transform yesterday's gourmet news from history into a new beginning. To begin, think about the spices that were used in preparation of your leftover vegetables and meats. Many vegetables can be neutralized by rinsing, but the spices usually cook into the meats, so if you're using meat, take your cue from whatever spices were used on it. For a winter soup, make it more hardy than brothy. Leftover couscous or pasta can effectively thicken your soup, but take care that it doesn't settle in at the bottom of the pot and stick. To make it special, put something fresh in: A handful of kale ribbons, a grilled chicken breast, or a sprinkling of arugula on top when it's served. If you do a puréed vegetable soup, add a drizzle of whipped yogurt or a dollop of aioli, a grating of ginger or lemon peel. Sometimes a little touch can raise a homey soup to a dinner worth coming home to. And don't forget some hot, crusty bread to go along with it!