A Conversation With the Chef: The Cupboards Were Bare

We had crummies in our tummies this week at our house. Two days before I was due to go grocery shopping, the cupboards were bare. Two meals were left on my meal list: pizza and enchiladas verdes. Not exactly suitable for crummy tummies.

I challenged myself to cook without shopping, I paged through a few cook books, found nothing, and this is what we ate. I used some of the beef broth I worked so hard to prepare. I would have loved something green to put in the soup, and maybe rice noodles would have tasted better than spaghetti noodles, but we all enjoyed our dinner. I typed up all the ingredients I'd thrown together, just so I will remember, and once typed, it's so easy to share. Here's a very, very basic "Asian Inspired Carrot Soup," or Soup Suitable for Crummy Tummies (if you don't have ingredients for chicken).

1 onion, sliced

5 carrots, sliced on a diagonal

2 garlic cloves

Olive oil

6 cups beef broth

1 inch handful of noodles, broken into 1 inch pieces

Soy sauce (or Tamari)

Small dash of crushed red peppers

Salt and pepper (my broth wasn't salted at all)

Fresh parsley, if you have it

            Saute onion, carrots and garlic in olive oil until tender. Add broth and bring to a boil. Then add noodles, cook until soft. Add enough soy sauce to season the soup and give it a nice dark color. Stir in parsley at the end.