November SRC Assignment: Sopas!

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Its getting cold here. Like really cold (well, at least for Arizona standards). Friday it rained the whole day and the rain brought with it a cold wave. Temperatures dropped to below zero Celsius (still not used to reading temperature in Farenheit) and its just beginning November.

Cold also means that its time to take the soup bowls out. Besides the heater, blankets, jackets, scarves and boots!

So while deciding on what recipe to make for this month’s SRC from Gay’s blog- A Scientist in the Kitchen– her Filipino Sopas recipe caught my attention.

Sopas traditionally consists of boiling chicken or pork bones with salt and pepper. Once you get good tasting broth flavor, elbow macaroni is added which you cook till al dente. When the pasta is almost done, vegetables are added usually chopped carrots and cabbage. Once done, season with salt and pepper to taste and add a cup of milk to make it really creamy, and it is ready to serve.

I did tweak the recipe to what I had on hand and since it is the Indian festival season and V’s family doesn’t eat meat on certain days during the festival of Diwali, I made it completely vegetarian. I used vegetarian broth instead of chicken broth and since I had some mushrooms that and some frozen mixed vegetables is what I added to the sopas. And since I was out of elbow macroni, I added broken pieces of lasagna sheets (as that was the only pasta I had in my kitchen).

Traditional or not, both V and I really liked the sopas and I loved how easy it was to put together. Do give it a try.

5.0 from 2 reviews
Filipino Sopas
 
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This recipe is adapted from Gay's blog: A Scientist in the Kitchen. I have written the changes I made in brackets.
Cuisine: Filipino
Serves: 2
Ingredients
  • meat broth-chicken, beef, pork (I used a can of vegetable broth)
  • elbow macaroni (I used 4 sheets of lasagna broken into small pieces)
  • chopped vegetables- carrots, cabbage, mushroom, asparagus… anything goes ( I used mushrooms and few mixed frozen vegetables)
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • a cup of milk ( I used ¼ cup of milk)
  • Herbs- oregano, basil and celery salt
Instructions
  1. In a saucepan, heat a little oil. Add the mushrooms and stir fry on high. When soft, add the broth and bring to a boil. Add the elbow macaroni (other pasta shapes will do like farfalle, rigatoni and penne – but this would not really be a Filipino dish). Add dried herbs such as oregano, basil, thyme, rosemary).
  2. The elbow macaroni is cooked till al dente. Just taste the macaroni a few minutes after boiling. When macaroni is almost done, added the chopped vegetables. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
  3. Turn off fire and add the milk.
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October Secret Recipe Club

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By the time this post goes live, I will have finished my One Week Raw Diet and most definitely will be feasting on some hot, cooked food. I plan to make dhoklas for my breakfast and in all probability that is what I will be eating the time this post goes live.

It definitely was a difficult week, with the dinner time being the toughest but honestly not as difficult as I thought it would be. I was sure I would quit by Day 3 or Day 4, and my body would be really weak, and would have a constant headache. The last time I went on a diet (quite a few years back) was when I tried the GM diet. By Day 4 of the GM diet, I had a headache and decided it wasn’t worth it and quit with a bowl of Maggi in my hand.

This diet, though, has been different. I did not feel weak at all. My skin improved- I had my periods when I started so I had the occasional pimple before that but I could feel my skin more bright than usual. I have lost about 5 pounds since the start of this month- which includes the one week of the gluten free sugar free diet and then one week I went raw. It might not seem much, but I was never going for anything drastic. My goal is to lose about 5-6 kgs (10-12 pounds) by the end of this month. I will be continuing on my gluten and sugar free diet till end October, with Halloween being the day I quit. I will talk more about how my raw diet went and share any other information that could be helpful to someone planning to do the same. But all that will be in another post. Today I will be sharing this lemon yogurt cake, which is neither raw, nor gluten free, nor is it sugar free, but if what I have heard about it is true, its one cake recipe you would want to try.

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Buffalo chicken pizza

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If you love pizzas, you will love this buffalo chicken pizza. Homemade buffalo rub, spiced up sauce on a ranch slathered thin crust pizza.

Buffalo Chicken Pizza

Update April 2020: The original recipe went live in September 2012. I updated the post with some more recent pictures and a printable recipe. The post now has the old photos and the new ones both.


This is the first time I am posting with Group B for the Secret Recipe Club.

I had to change my SRC group from A to B since Group A’s posting day clashes with the Recipe Swap’s posting day, ever since the Recipe Swap started posting the first Monday of the month. I loved Group A and the bloggers I had got to know, but I am sure Group B will be as much fun. Atleast, the first month has been. 🙂

For my first Group B assignment I got Ashley’s Kitchen Meets Girl.

When I read this in her “about me” section I could so relate to her:

Interestingly enough, I didn’t grow up with an interest in cooking […] I don’t know how or when, but somewhere along the line, that changed.  Look at me—I’m writing a food blog.  Craziness.

Since I was traveling for the last two weeks and also because the mail with my assignment probably went to my spam folder, I only got to know my Group B assignment a week before the reveal date. But one look at Ashley’s blog and I knew I wouldn’t pass up this opportunity of cooking through her recipes.

 

I bookmarked quite a few of her recipes but finally chose her buffalo chicken pizza to try.

Someone who reads this space regularly would probably know our little town hardly has any options of eating out. There is a motel which serves american and mexican food. There is another restaurant where we hardly go to because it doesn’t have any vegetarian options. There is the chinese place from where I have eaten twice and have got food poisoning both times. There is the bowling alley that serves food, but besides their grilled chicken sandwich I am not a fan of the food (and believe me I am not a picky eater when it’s someone else who has cooked the food). There is a new place that has opened and though the food is good, the service is horrible- with mixed up orders, a long wait and servers not aware of their whole menu.

And well, don’t get me started on the Pizza. It’s not bad and generally the only option we have when we (actually I) don’t feel like cooking, but it’s not the best either. There is no thin crust!  Just the the thick crust variety of pizza, which I am not a fan of.

So when I saw Ashley’s buffalo chicken pizza recipe it was a great push for me to take off my lazy pants and make my favorite Pizza dough recipe from Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. And the idea of having Buffalo chicken as the topping sounded divine!

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