Hot and Sour Soup

Flipping through Eat Well Feel Well, I decided to take on hot and sour soup last night. Well worth the prep time, and very different than what I'm used to cooking. I've never really tackled Asian dishes, but I'm loving it so far. Filled with garlic, jalapenos, shiitake mushrooms, cilantro, bok choy, pork, and toasted sesame oil, I have a feeling this will become one of my favorite comfort foods.

If only I had someone to share the leftovers with!

French Onion Soup

Last night I made French 3 Onion Soup with Gruyere from the book Eat Well Feel Well by Kendal Conrad. I would highly recommend this book for anyone who like Asian inspired recipes as well, it's got a ton. I'm going to try my hand at Tom Ka Soup next week if I can find kaffir limes and lemon grass.

I'm not going to post this recipe because I'm not that impressed with it. Although the soup was very good, it could have been amazing if not for the following:

It called for chicken stock instead of beef. They say to cook the onions for 20 minutes. This isn't incorrect, but after 20 minutes my onions were not caramelized, and properly caramelized onions are key. I went ahead and followed the recipe against my better judgment (a mistake I will not make again with soup). They also instruct you to cook the leeks, shallots, and garlic for only 1 minute before adding the broth. No bueno, they could have used a good browning. I added a little Swiss to my Gruyere to mix it up a little, I was not disappointed. I'll post the recipe once I perfect it for myself. It did look beautiful though!