aj12754's Reviews
9 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 9Sort by: Title 
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Soup of the Day (Williams-Sonoma): 365 Recipes for Every Day of the Year
By Kate McMillan, Chuck Williams, Kate Spears, Erin Kunkel
Weldon Owen - 2012
Chickpea porcini and farro soup : page 39
I agree with soupereasy's comments about this soup.
I substituted cremini mushrooms for porcini, because that's what I had on hand. I also used chicken broth instead of water or vegetable broth, and I used canned chickpeas rather than starting with dried.
The flavor was fine although I kind of wonder about the addition of farro which added bulk but didn't seem to make much difference flavor-wise.
It is a thick soup, healthy, but it's not the kind of thing I'd make again, even though the individual components (mushrooms, chickpeas and farro) are among my favorite ingredients to cook with.
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Roasted Red Pepper & Tomato Soup : page 221
I ended up doctoring this when I realized I hadn't carefully read the recipe and didn't have time to roast the red peppers. So I decided -- since I have been playing with Indian spices lately -- to add smokiness with spices instead. I added about a tsp. each of ground cumin and ground coriander and 1/2 tsp. of turmeric to the sauteing onion and garlic. I used my hand blender and ended up with a fairly chunky soup. Instead of adding heavy cream I added sour cream and chopped cilantro, and it ended up being pretty good overall. The leftovers were used as a sauce for an Indian-spiced baked fish.
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Smoked Trout Chowder : page 30
If I'd just been rating on flavor this might have been a four but I think the recipe is a little wonky in the measurement department. I prefer fairly precise measurements for things like fennel where there can be a good bit of size variation in your selection in the produce department.
This recipe gives a weight measurement for the fennel prior to chopping off the stalks and coring it. I just don't find it all that useful to give a pre-trimming and chopping weight measurement. There is no weight or volume measurement at all for the one onion (no size specified) the recipe calls for. And 8 oz. seemed to be an awful lot of smoked trout for four cups of fluid. I used a six ounce package and that was more than enough. That said, this was pretty tasty and very quick.
I made two modifications -- I used all chicken stock rather than a mix of clam juice and stock, and I used half and half rather than heavy cream.
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Sweet Onion Soup w/Blue Cheese Toasts : page 123
Kind of underwhelming -- nothing really wrong with it, but not very exciting either.
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Tomato Soup with Smoked Paprika & Bacon : page 274
Like a lot of the recipes in this cookbook, I think this soup needs some tweaking to get a good result.
I made a half-recipe and, since I was using some left-over crumbled bacon from another recipe, I sauteed my onions and garlic/ in butter instead of the bacon fat/butter combo the recipe called for. After these are sauteed, the canned tomatoes are added, with no additional liquid or seasoning, and they are simmered for 20 minutes. At this point the soup is cooled slightly and pureed, then the smoked paprika, S&P, and heavy cream (I used half and half) are added and the soup is reheated.
I found the soup to thick to be really appetizing so I added about 12 oz. of water. I also thought the late addition of the paprika made that flavor pretty overbearing. I doubt I would make this again, but if I did, I'd add the paprika to the sauteing onions and let it really meld with them and the tomatoes over the longer cooking time.
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Turnip, Apple & Potato Soup : page 229
My rating is based on my result which was compromised by the fact that I had to juggle some of the proportions since I had fewer turnips than the recipe called for. So I made a half recipe and found the soup to be slightly too sweet for my taste -- I needed a few more turnips for my taste ... but still a good soup. I served this as an appetizer, followed by steak sandwiches and the flavors worked well together.
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Tuscan Farro & Bean Soup : page 202
Hearty and healthy, delicious to boot. Can be on the table in under an hour.
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This was very quick with a nice depth of flavor achieved in a relatively short cooking time.
I do make one small change in technique to deepen the flavor when the cooking time is fairly short as it is here, adding the spices (cumin and smoked paprika) to the onions and other veggies as they are sauteed, rather than adding them later with the tomatoes and broth as the recipe directs.
Would be just as good without the spinach. Very good healthy eating even with the ancient lentils I pulled out from the back of the pantry.
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Wild Rice Soup with Bacon : page 61
This was a very easy soup but needs a lead time of about 90 minutes since the rice has to cook an hour. I cut the amount of bacon (8 slices) in half since I didn't want one flavor to dominate the soup, and I was glad i did. I also chopped the bacon before cooking rather than breaking up the bacon after cooking (just personal preference). The soup is finished with a little heavy cream but I used half and half since we like slightly thinner soups. Both of really liked the taste and texture of this soup.
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