What could happen is Fart Soup.

Quick Minestrone Soup

Friday night, continued: After a furious search of Food.com and Epicurious.com, I found a recipe that used all the veggies that were about to go bad. And no meat that wasn’t defrosted! Just beans. It was called “Quick Minestrone Soup.” Hubby makes a minestrone that I just love. How would mine compare?

A side note: I learned something new: if you plug a bunch of ingredients into either of those Web sites with “and” between them (as in zucchini and broccoli and pepper), it will return recipes that contain them.

So, I set out to tackle “Quick Minestrone Soup.” As I re-read the recipe and began preparing the ingredients, I realized it was a mistake. But it was too late to go back. Hubby was on his way home. He had promised to call me as he was leaving work, but instead he called me from down the street. Eeek!

Problem No. 1: The recipe called for frozen mixed vegetables. I planned to use fresh.

Good thing, later to become a bad thing: The recipe also let me use up some of the kale sitting in my refrigerator.

Problem No. 2: I had 32 ounces of chicken broth in a box. The recipe called for 42 ounces. I panicked first – there was no time to hit the store. But then I remembered – in the freezer, neatly labeled (What – you don’t use a label maker to label all of your leftovers?), was an indeterminate amount of leftover chicken broth from something I cannot remember. I dove into the freezer, distressingly filled with unlabeled leftovers (must talk to Hubby about that). I popped it into the microwave. However much it was, that’s how much I was going to use.

Who buys 19-oz. cans of beans?

Problem No. 3: This recipe called for a 19-oz. can of white beans. I have never seen a 19-oz. can of beans. Why do so many recipes call for a 19-oz. can of beans? Because I am telling you this: the only cans of beans I have ever bought were 15 ouncers. Well, I had only one can of white beans, and it was 15 ounces, and I used it.

Emboldened by the substitutions I had already made, I bravely brushed aside the recipe’s call for “petite” diced tomatoes and went with the regular ones which I had.

Next step was to cut the vegetables. Wow – there were a lot of them. I looked at the Cuisinart. I considered using it. It would be faster than doing it by hand, right? I thought about it, but I was too scared of it. I have never used it without Hubby’s supervision. It has very large blades and can get pretty wild. (I promise to write more about our kitchen tools in another post soon.) I picked up my large French Chef’s knife and went to work.

I never knew broccoli could be so wily. Little bits of it flew everywhere as I chopped. Repeatedly, random pieces jumped to the floor. I just through them away, wondering, “Does this mean I need to mop my floor now?” Whatever, by this time I was just a furious chopping maniac, blind to the fact that my recipe was way off track.

How it became Fart Soup

Somewhere along the way, things just got worse. I burned the tips of my fingers on the handles of my stockpot (Damn you, Calphalon, for not making those handles cool 10 years ago!), but I barely noticed. I overheated the oil and my garlic turned a dark brown almost as soon as it went into the pot, not after the three minutes the recipe told me it would take to become “golden.” The recipe said to heat the oil over “moderately high heat.” What the hell is that? It told me the oil need to be “hot but not smoking” and I think it was smoking. Things continued downhill. I was supposed to add kale to the garlic and cook it up, but instead I added broth, which I then had to pour out. Nonetheless, the kale seemed to cook up pretty nicely. I started to calm down, after a bit of cussing.

I continued forward bravely. The recipe called for mashing half the can of beans before putting all the beans into the pot. I did this, then threw the can of beans in the garbage. Then went back and fished out the can of beans and put it into recycling and scrubbed my hands. The pot of vegetables in chicken broth looked really beautiful – the kale and broccoli a bright shade of green, the pepper a brilliant red, the zucchini looking hearty. I started to get excited.

I was almost done cooking the soup when I realized I was supposed to have added water to it about 15 minutes previously. By this time, Hubby was home, and after consultation with him, I decided to add about half the recommended amount of water. The whole thing, by this time, looked sad and wilted, much like I was beginning to feel.

I put the soup into a bowl, and we tasted. Yuck! It was limp vegetables in watery broth, almost no flavor. Now, in defense of the recipe, I had deviated willingly and unwillingly (including leaving out salt and using low-sodium everything). But we deemed it inedible.

Dishes created for the food we didn’t eat:

• 1 large colander
• 1 piece of a food measuring scale used to weigh the kale
• 1 measuring cup
• 1 vegetable scrubber
• 1 French chef’s knife
• 1 fork
• 1 cutting board
• 1 large slotted spoon
• 1 tablespoon
• 1 very large bowl
• 1 one-cup measuring cup
• 1 little spice holder
• 1 teaspon
• 1 spoon rest
• 1 gigantic stockpot

I left the soup out to cool, because putting it hot into the fridge would have ruined my remaining food. When we returned from dinner across the street (pad thai and a dragon roll), the whole house smelled like farts. Since the dog was with us, we knew where it came from: the soup. I had managed to make Fart Soup!

In conclusion, I probably shouldn’t have drunk the wine before I started cooking.

P.S. The wine is delicious. I highly recommend it, although I can’t tell you what to eat it with.