Rosie's Recipes #1: Mushroom Sauerkraut Soup

 Okay, so here's something new.

When I was in college a little more than two decades ago, my grandfather wrote and published a cookbook. In the years that have followed, I have only made two recipes from the book, and they were both made while I was in college. One turned out pretty well, the other...not so much. I ended up throwing away a soup pot because of it.

I don't remember ever cooking, or even wanting to cook, while I was growing up. I started in college when I got my own apartment and my first cookbook, the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book. since then, I've really enjoyed it. Before Covid, every Sunday would be Cocktail & Cooking day. I'd fix a cocktail from a bartender's guide I've had since college, and my sister would come over and I'd fix a meal from a Rachel Ray cookbook.

Now I'm riffing on my Cocktail & Cooking. Once a week on a day when my kids are at their mom's, I'll be fixing a recipe from my grandpa's cookbook. I'm going to record it, and I'm going to do a write-up here, and we'll see what happens. Generally, I'll get right to the recipe and cooking. I hate all of the cooking blogs with all the random and needless "chatter" beforehand (which is exactly what I've done here). But this should be it for that. From now on, the only thing I'll be talking about in these will be the food.

So...here we go!

First up are the ingredients. The only thing I adjusted is the amount of onions. I'm not a huge fan, and I really think a little goes a long way, so I cut the quantity down from four onions to two. Since no type of onion was specified, I used what I had on hand and what WAS specified for a recipe I'll make later in the week: one yellow onion and one red onion.

With the mushrooms, I used a store-bought package of pre-sliced white button mushrooms. I already had these in the fridge from a meal from the previous week that I never made.

One problem I tend to constantly run into is not reading all of the instructions ahead of time. Had I done that this time, I would have cubed the spareribs before putting them in the put and covering them with water. Sigh.

When I first got the cookbook, my dad said it would be interesting to see how these recipes turned out since Grandpa never really measured anything out. He also probably didn't do much copy editing for this book, because there are two ingredients listed that are never mentioned past the ingredient list: the sugar and the vinegar. I ended up combining it with the gravy that was being made with the skillet drippings, flour, and water. 

I enjoy having an adult beverage when I cook. I bought a bartender's guide while in college...or maybe it was when I was in my first post-college apartment before I got married...that I use to make random mixed drinks. It has forced me to try different drinks with different, and sometimes weird, liqueurs. The drink this time around was called a One Ireland. It was basically minty whiskey ice cream float. It wasn't great.

I made some white bread while the soup was constantly simmering. The recipe I used was from the aforementioned BH&G cook book. My timing was a little off in the preparation of the two things, but luckily this was just soup, and it just simmered for about an hour or so extra while the bread was in the oven.

Final thoughts? The bread was delicious, and I can't remember the last time I had warm, fresh-baked bread. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the soup. There was a sweetness I wasn't expecting, despite dumping in half-a-cup of sugar. I'd say that, if you actually want to taste some celery or mushrooms, toss some more in. I was basically tasting nothing but sauerkraut and super-tender spareribs. That's not a complaint at all, but it really seemed like the celery and mushrooms were unnecessary (and would really require a change in the name of the soup).

Here's a video I made. It's not good. I've learned some things, though. Mainly...nobody wants to see me talking about cooking. I'll play around with it for next time. We'll see what ends up working.