The Barry Table

It's about food, sure, but just like Barry tables across Chicago and around the country, this is also a place to share ideas, make plans for family reunions and boast about recent accomplishments, food-related or not.
Showing posts with label soup. Show all posts
Showing posts with label soup. Show all posts

Friday, February 20, 2009

Degreased bean skin knots ("yuba guitars")


We had nothing to eat. And we were tired. And it was cold outside and we didn't feel like going out. But it was only five p.m. on a Friday and soup sounded better than delivery Thai food, so I decided to see what I could put together.

Okay, we did have food. Five old potatoes with sprouts, two onions, two carrots, half a green pepper, six small colored peppers and three hot finger peppers. If you cut all that up and saute it for 10 minutes, add a box of vegetable broth and two more of water, simmer for 20 minutes, then chop and add a couple of zucchini, you've got yourself some pretty fine soup.

What about some protein? Rummage in the cabinet and find . . . degreased bean skin knots! Also known as yuba guitars, of course. Throw a handful of them in about five minutes before serving, and add the last of the cilantro, now that's soup. Served with frozen alu paratha (indian potato bread), a fine Friday evening meal.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Just a Tuesday evening with Tricia

Hello Barrys (and fans of the blog),

Whenever I am home for breaks I enjoy catching up with my good friend Tricia. This break, all she has been talking about is The Barry Table (she is it's number one fan) and how she longs for the good food while at school.
We were chatting away about life and food when we realized that it was approaching 9pm and neither of us had eaten dinner! I know that my mother would be horrified if I skipped a precious meal, so quickly we began going through her fridge.
"How about sandwiches?" I asked (of course).
"Great!"
So we pulled out the lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, onions, several fancy mustards, two kinds of hummus, mushrooms, carrots (?), and a variety of nice cheese. I have to admit, I was getting pretty excited seeing all of these great ingredients come out.
"Uh, we might be low on bread..." Tricia said sadly holding up one end piece in a bread bag. "But I have been wanting make some!"
"Okay!"
So we put the sandwiches on hold and pulled out the computer, to look up a bread recipes, and Tricia's bread maker to (duh) make bread. While piling in the ingredients we realized that making bread in a bread maker takes 3+ hours, so we wouldn't have our dear sandwiches until about 12:45am.
This was no good.
Back to the fridge, and ah, glory, english muffins!
We ended up eating fried egg (with mushrooms) sandwiches on toasted english muffins. The sandwiches had orange pepper, tomato, red onion, lettuce, and garlic chili pepper cheddar cheese (slightly melted, to add a gooey warm goodness that complimented the fried egg nicely).
Mustard was tough decision because Tricia had a wide spectrum of mustard types, from sweet to spicy. Organic whole grain from france went on Tricia's sandwich and organic dijon from Whole Foods for me (both of which Tricia kindly pointed out earned the USDA organic seal of approval).
While I was perfecting the art of the fried egg Tricia took the anitiative to make ours a well rounded meal and busted out her organic roasted red pepper and tomato soup. She chose to heat it up in the microwave, adding salt, pepper, and parsely at precisily the right moment in the heating process. Her specialty.

We chowed down on our fantastic meal while listening to the bread machine continue to knead our precious whole wheat bread, now not needed for sandwiches.

After a few more hours of chatting we enjoyed a nice snack of warm whole wheat bread with seedless red raspberry butter (not organic!) and tazo red apple tea at 12:45am.

















Monday, December 24, 2007

Back in the Sunshine State




Merry Christmas Eve!
I arrived back in Sarasota, FL yesterday, on a thankfully uneventful, and un-delayed flight. After Freddy was through seeing his psychiatric patients, we had a relaxing day of grocery shopping, watching The Planet Earth (a gift from Kevin and Carolyn), cooking, and gardening. Freddy made a Red and Green Winter Soup, loaded with kale (and I LOVE kale). Our garden feels truly complete now, with the addition of our new watering can, T-Runk. Tomorrow's Christmas dinner menu consists of left over soup, crab cakes, zucchini bread, and a mixed green salad straight from our lanai garden. We miss all you Barry's, but I have to admit I couldn't be happier in the warm Florida humidity.