What the HELL?! Soup

Hang on to your hats, True Believers. This one went weird, even for me.

After yesterday’s escapade, I had four cups of thin but flavorful stock with 4oz of cubed ham in it. It was destined for soup. That is after all, what I do. But the rest of the ingredient list was…lacking. I had:
2# of potatoes
1 gal of frozen zucchini

The potatoes were looking at me funny, so they deserved whatever happened. The zucchini (from August 2020?!), I had to dig that out of ice buildup in the freezer. I said part of this project was to empty that freezer. While the stock warmed, I diced up the potatoes. Those went in first, about the time the stock came to a boil. Then I dropped in the zucchini. Frozen, it suppressed the boiling for awhile and added a lot more liquid. I lowered the heat and let it warm for some time. Soon the entire place smelled like zucchini. That was a problem. I was not fond of zucchini, except as sweet breads.

To address it, I again doused the soup with Barbecue of the Americas. The taste improved, but the earthiness of the zucchini still overpowered everything else. So I cast about for anything else to add. I ended up with:
1 cup of frozen, leftover sauerkraut
1/2 cup frozen, leftover turkey gravy

Huh.

I was not fond of kraut either, except with brats. The gravy could be taken or left. What the Hell…both went into the pot. I left it over low heat for a few more hours, only interrupting with an occasional vigorous stir. I ended up with a little more body from the gravy, some break down of the zucchini, and some tang from the kraut. That tang masked the zucchini and brought out the potato. The result tasted much improved. In this case, two wrongs made a right. I called it a success and pulled it off the stove to cool for storage.

And that’s how I ended up with zucchini-potato-sauerkraut-ham soup.

Advertisement