Soon Dubu Jjigae (Korean Soft Tofu Soup)

At first I wanted to make a portabello mushroom and cabbage soup because I just happen to have those things and I wanted soup. It somehow evolved to watching Maangchi make this Soon Dubu Jjigae, and then I wanted it so badly!

Spicy Italian Sausage & Lentil Soup

I was talking to the Chopping Block about lentil soup earlier and how we find it rather bland. So I decided to try to liven this soup up with some spice and lots and lots of meat. Okay, so maybe this is more like a hearty sausage soup with a dash of lentils, but whatever, it's all good. I made this soup twice, once with some Italian sausages from the butcher and once with some pre-cooked sausages from the deli aisle. I recommend the butcher stuff. The photo above was with the pre-cooked stuff.

Potato-less New England Clam Chowder

You know what I hate? Potatoes in my clam chowder. Seriously! I always feel like I'm getting ripped off when I get a bowl full of potatoes with one or two clams, and because of that, I started to hate potatoes in my chowder. That delicious starchy vegetable has become a bane in my side, so I decided to get rid of it completely. You heard me right. Blasphemy.

Oxtail Stew

"Have you ever had oxtails? Most people I know haven't even heard of them, which is really quite a shame. Think braised beef short ribs, but with even more flavor, and you'll get a sense of why those of us who eat oxtail get dreamy eyed when we think about them. Yes oxtails come from a steer's tail, a well exercised muscle, marbled with fat. The segments are vertebrae so they have lots of iron-rich marrow as well. My father, who grew up during the Depression, remembers oxtails as being food for people with little money, because they could be had so cheap. You could get them for pennies a pound. These days, they're somewhat hard to come by and no longer cheap (though you can sometimes get a good deal on them at Costco and Asian markets). As with most tough cuts, oxtail are best slow cooked for several hours. They tend to be fatty, so we like to cook them a day ahead, so we can chill them overnight and scrape off the fat from the top the next day." - Simply Recipes

The above is an excerpt from Simply Recipes' Oxtail Stew recipe. It's a little similar to the one in this recipe, and I thought it was a good introduction to oxtails if you've never heard of them. I decided that I wanted to have some of my mom's cooking, so I called her up for her oxtail stew, which is one of her staple recipes. While I was on the phone with her she told me how Gandalf likes to sleep with her, aw! And Gandalf stole my mom's fish while she was cooking, and my mom had to chase her around the house to get it back. My sister says Gandalf also stole her chicken. In case you forgot who Gandalf is, she's this little kitty cat. Anyways, less cats more food!

Penang Assam Laksa

Nur, my Southeast Asian food go-to person, sent me this penang laksa recipe to try out. According to Nur, it's authentic! How do I know it's authentic? It contains strange sounding ingredients. Let's take a break from my streak of dessert making and go into some real food.

Laksa is a sort of spicy noodle soup and it comes in several types. There's curry laksa and assam laksa. Curry laksa is self-explanatory. Assam laksa is a sour fish base laksa.

Butternut Squash Soup

I love squashes! Yes, I do. My favorite was the Vietnamese squash soup when I was little. For some reasons, there hasn't been anymore squash soups lately. So I'm off to try and make some sort of squash soup for myself. Butternut squash was on sale and cheap, so what am I do to?