Soup/Stew

Okay, gumbo takes time and patience, especially if you make the effort to prepare a nice, dark roux. On the plus side, you can make it a day ahead and heat it when your guests arrive, leaving you free to mingle, chat, and have a great time with your friends. In addition, it feeds a whole lot of hungry people, and if you are very, very lucky you’ll have leftovers for lunch the next day. (Sometimes I squirrel away a little in the refrigerator for insurance.) Serve with long-grain rice and some crusty bread.

This cold soup is yet another use for the exploding basil in my garden. I created it for a backyard party that Country Living photographed for a summertime issue. There’s something special and a little bit elegant about starting an alfresco party meal with soup. Texas summers are so hot that I always like to offer something refreshing right off the bat. The gorgeous green color of this soup is set off beautifully by stark white serving bowls.

This is a recipe payoff from having made the Stewed Cauliflower, Butternut Squash, and Tomatoes (page 55), beefed up with the addition of white beans, crunchy croutons, fresh thyme, and cheese. The soup is a beautiful orange color and tastes of cream, even though it has no such thing in it.

My brother Michael once told me the two questions I should ask anyone who claims to make real (i.e., Texasstyle) chili. Question one: What kind of beans do you put in it? Question two: What kind of tomatoes do you use? Both are trick questions, of course, because the answer to both is none. There are no beans and no tomatoes in real Texas chili. The full name is “chili con carne,” and that’s what it means: chile peppers with meat, and very little else. When done right, it’s a beautiful thing. With only one kind of chile and at least 6 hours of simmering, it’s got the round flavors and slow-burning heat that define a “bowl o’ red.” If you want something hotter, add up to 1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper, or to taste. I usually make at least two servings, because after eating the first one (with saltines, grated Cheddar cheese, chopped onions, and, okay, even pinto beans as long as they’re on the side), I love the second serving on a hot dog or burger, or as part of enchiladas (page 64).

One of the smartest things you can do when cooking for one is make large quantities of pasta sauce to freeze and then defrost and adapt into quick weeknight meals. Such sauces can go well beyond a simple marinara. When I asked the queen of Italian cooking in America, Lidia Bastianich, for her favorite approaches to such a thing, she quickly came to me with this hearty vegetable stew that can do triple, quadruple, even quintuple duty: Use a cup of it to dress pasta, of course, but also spoon it onto charred bread for bruschetta, use it as a base on which to nestle grilled fish or chicken, or try one of the companion recipes: Baked Egg in Fall Vegetables (page 33) or Fall Vegetable Soup with White Beans (page 58). I couldn’t resist putting my stamp on this recipe: I did what I do with many tomato sauces and splashed in some fish sauce to deepen the flavor.

This is like a taco in soup form. It is not a traditional tortilla soup, but a black bean backdrop for a double or triple hit of corn (stock, tortillas, and fresh kernels), plus just-cooked shrimp. Like a taco, it’s hearty and satisfying without being fussy, and once you have the black bean soup base (page 52) ready and waiting, it’s a snap to put together.

Scallops are a solo cook’s friend because, like shrimp, they come in easy-to-manage amounts, cook quickly, and take well to all sorts of preparations. Here, they help bulk up black bean soup into a meal. Look for “dry-packed” scallops, which are shipped without the extra water and additives that dull the flavor of wet-packed scallops, making them sweeter and easier to get a nice crust on. If you can find them, you don’t need to rinse and pat them dry.

This elegant soup has a depth of flavor, brightened by orange and layered with smoked paprika, that would make it right at home as a dinner party starter. For yourself, pair it with a side salad and a big piece of crusty bread, and it’s dinner tonight, while you plan the party for another day.

I got the idea from Lidia Bastianich to make soup bases that pack a lot of flavor on the weekend, then freeze them and thaw them as needed, adding various ingredients on the fly to take them in different directions. I like to concentrate the base, which saves freezer space, and then thin it out when I make a finished soup. Before you thin it out (and jazz it up) for the final soup, this base may remind you of a certain fluffy Thanksgiving side dish (minus the mini-marshmallows, thankfully), but there are some key differences. Besides the lack of cream or sugar, the most important one is the cooking method: Rather than boiling peeled cubes of sweet potato, I like to roast them, concentrating the complex flavor, which is highlighted by subtle hints of thyme and curry. This makes an especially vibrant backdrop to such treatments as Sweet Potato Soup with Chorizo, Chickpeas, and Kale (page 43). There are many other possibilities. You can sprinkle ground chipotle or pimenton (smoked Spanish paprika) for heat and/or smoke, or add toasted pecans, yogurt (or sour cream or crème fraîche), and other sausages or cured meats.

Turn the Sweet Potato Soup Base into a meal with spicy chorizo, hearty chickpeas, and vibrant green kale. This makes a truly beautiful bowl of soup. If you’d rather keep this soup vegetarian, try the grain-based chorizo substitute from Field Roast, one of the first meat substitutes I’ve actually liked. It’s available in natural food stores in almost every state and through www.fieldroast.com.

During the winter months I recommend using canned tomatoes, but in the summer, don’t miss the chance to use vine-ripened fresh tomatoes.