Is Soup Healthy?

                There is a health aura around soup. Often, when foods have a health aura, people are under the impression that there is no such thing as too much. Here are a few points to keep in mind to help you understand how soup can fit into your eating habits.

• Canned soups tend to be very high in sodium
• Homemade soups are often high in sodium—especially when powdered soup bases or soup bouillon cubes are used
• Flavoring your soup with herbs and spices and going light on the salt will yield a lower sodium soup
• Potato soup, butternut squash soup, bean/legume soup, and other soups with a starchy vegetable as the base will be higher in carbohydrates and have more calories than a soup made from only non-starchy vegetables
• A soup with beans, chickpeas, or other legumes will often be more filling, as it has a lot of fiber and some protein
• A soup that is only a broth will have close to zero calories, but it will not keep you satiated for long
• Cream soups can be high in calories because of the fat content of the butter and cream in them
• Adding croutons adds calories from carbohydrates and fat
• A soup that contains protein, vegetables, and a carbohydrate can be a full meal

                In the comments section, let me know what questions you have about nutrition for soups. 

Monkey Bread

                Today I will talk about something wonderful. And that is Monkey Bread. Basically, Monkey Bread is a yeast dough made into small balls that are rolled into a cinnamon-sugar mixture, piled in a pan, and drizzled with oil. When it is done baking, you have a delicious pull-apart, cinnamony yumminess.

                I made it for the first time when I was making challah a few months ago and had too much challah dough. You see, my freezer is quite small, so I do not have room to store the 8 challah that my 7-cup of flour recipe makes. So I turned half of the dough into challah, and the other half had to serve another purpose. I had been reading about Monkey Bread for a long time, and I thought it was time.

                Last night was actually my third attempt at Monkey Bread. I made my challah dough recipe, which is the first recipe in Shira Wiener and Ayelet Yifrach’s The Taste of Challah. It is recipe that produces an incredibly fluffy challah….maybe too fluffy as you will soon see. I left my braided challahs and prepared Monkey Bread on my counter to rise while I went to the supermarket. When I returned, my Monkey Bread was humongous! It had doubled in size, and some of the cinnamon-sugar rolled balls had rolled off of the loaf and onto the counter and floor! Once it was in the oven and rising a bit more from the heat, more cinnamon-sugar balls rolled off and landed on the bottom of the oven. (One of which is still there—it was too stuck to pry off while the oven was hot!) But it baked beautifully, and I have one report that it tastes good. My first hand report is upcoming—I had already brushed my teeth by the time it was ready, and who wants to brush their teeth twice in one evening??

humongous Monkey Bread after rising

you can see the runaway cinnamon-sugar balls on the counter, challah pan, and floor

What to do With Yogurt

• Mix in some frozen fruit (they get nice and juicy as they defrost)
• Spoon over oatmeal instead of adding milk
• Chop in your favorite fresh fruit or add fresh berries (mango, banana, strawberries, blueberries…)
• Add in ¼ cup nuts or seeds
• Use as base for a creamy salad dressing or dip
• Mix in fruit and freeze for a yummy cold treat
• Add to mac and cheese instead of adding extra cheese to add creaminess
• Use thick yogurt instead of cream cheese in frosting
• Add to a smoothie
• Swirl in a spoonful of nut butter
• Use instead of mayonnaise in egg salad or tuna fish
• Add ¼ cup raisins, dried cranberries, or your favorite dried fruit
• Sprinkle with some cinnamon or coconut flakes
• Serve with dry cereal such as Cheerios, Chex, or Grapenuts
• Add ½ cup dry oats and 1 cup milk and leave in fridge overnight for overnight oats
• Stir in some jelly or jam
• Drizzle with honey, syrup, or some sugar
• Add some applesauce or fruit compote
• Serve over warm pureed butternut squash
• Use as a spread on toast
• Eat it plain

Lots of Yogurt

                Because my small batch of yogurt was fairly successful, I was ready to try a larger run. I bought a gallon of 1% milk from my favorite National Wholesale Liquidators that sells milk for $3.00 usually. I had in the fridge Stop and Shop brand low fat yogurt that contained live and active bacterial cultures. And I was ready!

                This time, I heated my milk up in a crockpot. It took close to 4 hours for the milk to reach 185⁰F. Then, somewhat foolishly, I attempted to cool the milk by immersing it into a sink filled with cold water. Big mistake! Immediately, the crock developed a hairline crack. I quickly, (with the help of SP,) transferred the milk into 2 cooking dishes, and then let them cool on their own. Unfortunately, I let them cool to lower than 115⁰F, so I put them into the oven to warm them back to that temperature. In the meantime, I put about ½ cup of the yogurt to be used as the starter into a bowl. As soon as the milk was 115⁰F, I mixed about 1 cup milk into the yogurt, and then poured half the starter into each of the 2 cooking dished. I covered the dishes, then draped them with a blanket, and put 2 pots of boiling water on top to help maintain the warm temperature. I let the yogurt incubate for 8 hours. Then, I strained the yogurt for about 2 hours.

                I was intrigued that the yogurt from each of the dishes came out different than each other. The one in the shallow pan incubated at a lower temperature (likely due to the increased surface area it had to let heat escape.) That yogurt was a bit thinner, maybe a tad thinner than typical yogurt, but still definitely a yogurt consistency. The other one was much thicker, closer to Greek yogurt consistency. And both of the yogurts tasted like…yogurt! It was not too tart. It just tasted like plain yogurt. And none of the slightly grainy texture I had in my first one. It made about 4 quarts of yogurt, which means that it costed about $0.75 to make 1 quart of yogurt. I was pleased.  

Now, I have to find another method of heating my milk. I might get a large pot to be used for just this purpose. 

thicker yogurt before straining

thinner yogurt before straining

the yogurts straining!

thick yogurt after straining...it looks like yogurt, right?