The Stars, Amazing - Day 246 - Haiku - On getting skunked for real, spiced cider, and great soup for cold nights

The stars, amazing
the temperature, freezing
the smell, eau de skunk

Ah, the joys of being skunked.

As I walked outside tonight into the starry cold, to make a quick trip to the store, the smell hit me at once, but just as clearly didn't originate on our place.

So I am grateful in the extreme, yet again, that it wasn't Lolo or one of our cats that got skunked.

I wasn't quite so lucky about ten days ago, when a skunk had been splattered on the highway to Cookeville, and I ran over part of it enroute to Lolo's vet in Franklin.

My car smelled of skunk for the rest of the day, but only on the outside of the car, and only on the driver's side. Inside, the car smelled fine, and by morning, the smell had dissipated almost entirely. I was really, really lucky.

Meanwhile, with all the cold weather we've been having, and are still expecting, two things are a given in my kitchen: a large pot of hot spiced apple cider, and a pot of thick, nourishing soup. There are some consolations to the cold.

For the apple cider, I use the same spices I've already written about for my spiced honey.

Pour one gallon of unfiltered apple cider into a large pot, add 1 teaspoon each of finely ground Ceylon cinnamon, black seed (nigella sativa), turmeric, and ginger, 1/2 teaspoon each of nutmeg, cloves, and black pepper, and a scant shake of chipotle chile and/or cayenne pepper (I use both), to taste. Stir well.

Add a tablespoon (three teaspoons, or about 15 grams) of extra virgin coconut oil, MCT oil and/or grassfed ghee, in order to make the turmeric, and all the other spices, more bioavailable. Bring to a simmer, then lower heat to warm, cover, and leave for at least an hour; you want it hot and steaming, but not bubbling.

The cider on my stove has been steaming for the past three days, and I just brought home more cider to add to the pot.

The soup currently on my stove is one of my favorites, and I typically make it fairly often, including several times over the course of the winter: the primary ingredients are white navy beans and chopped green chiles. Yum.

I always make my bean soups from scratch, as my mom taught me, and by necessity that includes always sorting the beans by hand. Beans are nearly always picked mechanically, and sometimes small clods of dirt or rocks make their way into the bags. A clod of dirt is a tad unpleasant to eat, but a rock could cause someone a chipped or broken tooth, so it pays to be cautious.

The method is very easy, simply cut a small corner of the bag off, and pour a few beans at a time in your hand, just enough that you can tell at a glance that what you have in your hand are, in fact, beans. Anything that looks like a rock or dirt should be discarded. If using bulk beans, use a small measuring cup to pour them into your hand to sort.

I used two pounds of navy beans for this pot of soup, and sorting the beans, from start to finish, took less than ten minutes. It is a quick and easy way to prevent harm to the teeth of anyone who eats the soup.

When using dried beans they are typically soaked, though when my mom cooked pinto beans, our family's favorite, she didn't bother with soaking them, but just started cooking. From starting to being able to eat them, for pinto beans, it takes roughly four hours before they are at their best, and the longer they cook, the better they get.

Navy beans are smaller, and cook more quickly, so I rarely soak them either, though this time I precooked them prior to adding the rest of the ingredients for the soup, and was surprised by how much more quickly the soup was ready.

For two pounds of navy beans, which came out to just over five cups, I added eight cups (one quart, or just under a liter) of water, brought them to a boil, and boiled them for an hour.

Do not add salt at this point, or your beans will not cook as well, and their final texture may be lacking, and somewhat chalky. For all beans, add salt at the end of cooking, not the beginning.

Once the beans had cooked for an hour, I drained them, added eight cups fresh water, and began assembling the other ingredients for the soup.

Please note that all further measurements are approximate, as I am an "a little of this and a little of that" sort of cook, so feel free to diverge from these measurements and add the rest of the ingredients to taste.

I add two large yellow onions, chopped medium fine, roughly a teaspoon (around five grams) of Italian Seasoning herbs, about the same amount of marjoram (which is included in Italian seasoning, but Marek is a marjoram freak), one teaspoon of granulated garlic, half a teaspoon each or turmeric, black seed and black pepper, and about a teaspoon each of MCT oil and grassfed ghee.

I also usually add a teaspoon or so of savory, which not only adds a lovely flavor, but makes it less likely that anyone will be stricken by gas after eating the beans. A delicious and practical addition.

Finally, add eight (or more) ounces of chopped green peppers, or to taste. My preference is to use Hatch green chiles, which are far and away the best green chiles on the planet, and the fact that my mom grew up in New Mexico obviously hasn't made me prejudiced in the slightest. ;-)

Failing that, any chopped green chiles will do, though for this particular soup I tend to use mild to medium-hot chiles, as it is the flavor I'm going for, rather than just the heat. And,in a pinch, I have used green chile salsa and even green enchilada sauce in place of chopped green chiles, both of which still came out quite tasty.

Again, don't add salt yet, but once the soup has been cooking for about another hour or so, when the beans are soft and have begun to create a thick broth, then start adding real salt (Himalayan, Celtic or another mined salt, such as Wieliczka salt), to taste.

Or, if you have access to a European market, you can get some Vegeta, which is a mixture of dehydrated vegetables and salt, and is typically what I use to flavor our soups, including this one. The Vegeta gives the soup a depth and dimension that the salt alone just can't match. I used about four or five teaspoons total.

If you can't find Vegeta, Maggi will work as well, and failing that, I've even used a good Tamari. This is a very forgiving soup and you can play with the ingredients to find what is most to your liking.

Once you have salted the soup according to your preferred method and ingredients, let it cook for another half an hour to an hour to allow the flavors to blend, and it is ready to serve. I typically add some Cholula hot sauce at the table, and maybe a little Slap Ya Mamma seasoning blend, and it is beyond delicious, and highly nutritious as well.

This will serve six to eight adults as a meal, or roughly double that, if used as a starter followed by additional courses. As a couple, we usually serve it once or twice, and then freeze the rest into individual portions. Enjoy.

I am dedicating this post to #gratitudelog, and to further this project, half the liquid proceeds earned from this post will be transferred to the author of the top post(s) chosen using this tag.

The photos above were taken by me from 2015 through 2019 with a succession of smartphones.

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art and flair courtesy of @PegasusPhysics