Comments on: The Soup Kitchen

By: AnnJo

AnnJo — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 18:04:28 +0000

Another great tool for soup-making is an immersion blender.

By: valleycat1

valleycat1 — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 18:51:09 +0000

#23 – the enamel on the cast iron gives you the heating qualities of the cast iron but easier clean up of the inside with the enamel, & no rust issues if you need to let it soak.

I have a great Le Crueset small pot that we have used regularly for almost 40 years, but a few years ago bought a larger enameled cast iron stew pot at Target for a fraction of LC’s price & it’s working perfectly well.

By: cindy

cindy — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 15:12:34 +0000

Steven @#28, it is good to have the right amount of iron in the blood but there is some evidence, for men in particular, that iron can accumulate too much and cause heart problems. Like other metals, iron, over and above your daily needs, builds up in the body, and the only way to get rid of it is to lose some blood. So, if you give blood frequently it probably won’t be a problem and go ahead and cook spaghetti sauce in your iron pot.

By: kristine

kristine — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 07:51:18 +0000

em- I have the cast iron, not the enameled iron lodge.

By: Johanna

Johanna — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 01:12:48 +0000

In my experience, a good vegetable peeler is even more important than a good knife. I’ve gotten blisters and cuts on my hands from using poor quality peelers, but I don’t think I’ve ever actually injured myself with a dull knife (and I’ve used some pretty dull knives).

And compared to knives, peelers are cheap. I use a Chef’n Palm Peeler that goes for about $6.

By: Steven

Steven — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 00:49:22 +0000

Isn’t it good to have high iron concentration in your blood? I could be wrong, of course. I usually am. ;-)

By: em

em — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 00:41:27 +0000

@#16 Annjo and #20 kristine:in my experience with the 2 lodge enameled products i’ve had they are cheap and I’ve had the enamel come off on both of them. and krisine, Lodge cast iron enameled products are made in China! the rest of their stuff is made in America and I do like the quality of the rest of their stuff just not the enameled cast iron things.

By: ellie

ellie — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 23:44:56 +0000

Comment to #21 Kevin – For months I have visited Trent’s site only to read the comments – wish he would go back to the kind of writing he did a year or so ago.

By: cindy

cindy — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 20:26:39 +0000

Except you don’t want to cook with acidic ingredients like tomato in a plain cast iron pot because the iron will leach out. That’s okay in small doses but over time, you could be ingesting too much iron.

By: AmyG

AmyG — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 18:37:04 +0000

IMHO, a good chef’s knife and utility knife are far more important in soup preparation than the pot. Whether you use a $20 stockpot from Walmart or a pricey Le Creuset cast iron piece, you get comparable results for soup. Ever try to cut up a bunch of vegetables or a piece of meat with sub-par or dull cutlery? Definitely takes the joy out of DIY.

By: That Other Jean

That Other Jean — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 16:40:46 +0000

Explain to me the point of enameled cast iron, please, except to look pretty? Plain cast iron cooks great, lacks chemicals to leach into your food, is non-stick when it’s seasoned, and is easy to take care of. Not to mention it’s a minor fraction of the price of Le Creuset. If you’re just starting to cook (and if you’re not, you probably already know how to make soup), or you’re on a tight budget, or you want cookware that lasts, cast iron is great; expensive enameled French cast iron, not so much.

By: Priswell

Priswell — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 16:31:42 +0000

I have to put in a good word for the use of the pressure cooker. A rich tasting soup can be made in 15 minutes or so, after chopping the veggies.

By: kevin

kevin — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 16:31:05 +0000

This pointing out the need for a spoon to eat soup reminds me of his tip to shower daily in his tip-a-day book of frugal ideas. Alas, I bought that book when I was fairly new to this blog.

I don’t know that Trent is lazy, I just don’t think he has a talent for writing. (Neither do I, but then I don’t claim a “passion” for writing.) Of course you can’t deny the success of this blog. According to feedburner he has as many readers as Get Rich Slowly. I will never understand that.

(Of course I contribute to his success by visiting the site to read the comments. But I doubt that most of his readers are here for the comments.)

By: kristine

kristine — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 15:25:49 +0000

I second the Lodge recommendation. We have some le crueset we got as a gift, and Lodge. No discernable difference in performance at all. And Lodge is made in America- which I deeply appreciate when so many of our countrymen are struggling. We also have a le-cruest 5qt casserole knock-off in red from Marshalls that is fabulous and gorgeous.

Funny thing is, the only part that struck me as weird was the title. I expected to find out how they were participating in feeding the local hungry, and tips on feeding large amount of people in a cooperative kitchen-or starting one locally- which would make a great post this time of year!

By: littlepitcher

littlepitcher — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 13:06:43 +0000

I’m not a language Nazi, but this column reads like a seventh grade student’s slapdash assignment.
Thanks for the Lodge recommendation. Their plant is less than an hour from here and this region desperately needs more jobs. Soup cooks fine, though, in my secondhand Revere kettle.

By: deRuiter

deRuiter — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 10:45:58 +0000

Sorry, did not proof read my comment, mea culpa! Above, boil the shrimp SHELLS which you’ve shucked off the shrim which you are going to cook, and then BOIL THE SHRIMP SHELLS with a couple of vegetables and water. You can tell I don’t have a passion for writing, but I do like to eat well, so have passion for cooking from scratch. Cheaper that way too!

By: deRuiter

deRuiter — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 10:42:38 +0000

“boullion” is generally spelled bouillon which a person who ran spell check would know. “…have a ladel, as it…” Isn’t spell check a wonderful, easy to use tool? Now I personally would use a ladle and spell check if I were a person with a passion for writing and soup making, but that’s just me.
WHAT ABOUT A KNIFE TO CUT INGREDIENTS TO PROPER SIZE? Dicing onions with the spoon for stirring looks like a slow starter.
For an article on thrifty soup making this says nothing about making stock from scraps and things like the leftover turkey carcase or the end of the ham’s bone. The article does not mention a big container in the freezer into which odds and ends of cooked vegetables are added to save up enough for a vegetable soup. It doesn’t mention that the fish monger will often give you a meaty fish head for free if you are buying something else, and this makes a wonderful fish stock for the cost of an onion, carrot and the heat to cook the fish head with water. Cooking shrimp? Boil the stock with a couple of vegetables and have shrimp stock. Have a chicken for dinner? Pressure cook the bones and scraps for stock. I have a smaller pressure cooker for little lots like this, and a big one for doing the turkey carcase. Packaged bouillon is mostly salt and artificial flavor so it’s bad health wise and bad taste wise, but in an emergency…… Store your meat stock in the refrigerator with the layer of congealed fat on the top and it keeps fresh longer because of the airtight seal. Remove the congealed fat just before using the stock. Soup generally tastes much better the second day, so making it in advance, storing overnight in refrigerator results in even better tasting soup.
Like some soups made by those during the Second World War food shortages in Europe, this column was a bit thin.

By: AnnJo

AnnJo — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 04:38:02 +0000

@11, em, I’m a huge fan of enameled cast iron and the owner of both a Le Creuset dutch oven and a Lodge one. They both perform fine – equally fine as far as I can tell – but the latter costs about 20% of what the former does. Is the French version really five times better, or are we just being expected to pay for the French labor force’s eight weeks per year vacations?

I’m also the past owner of a Le Creuset casserole/braising pot, and let me tell you, it hurt badly when that thing was damaged beyond use and I realized that it would cost close to $300 to replace it (which is what led to the discovery of the Lodge alternative). As a matter of fact, I replaced it with the Lodge for a only few dollars more than I would have paid just in sales tax on the Le Creuset.

In the post Trent wrote justifying his purchase, he commented on the 101-year warranty Le Creuset offers. Well, the warranty does not cover damage from mis-use, and what are the odds that in 101 years or even 50 years, no one will distractedly turn the knob on high instead of low and walk away, or a helpful guest or visiting relative won’t take a steel-wool potscrubber to it while doing the dishes for you (which is what happened to mine)? As I learned when my Le Creuset was damaged, they cannot be re-enameled and the warranty is going to be useless under all the most common scenarios.

By: Vanessa

Vanessa — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 02:54:14 +0000

@cindy

Trent has said that he is focusing on his novel now, so he has whipped up a bunch of posts in advance so there will not be a break in posting. I think he said he’s written posts well into the new year. At least that what I think he said, someone else can clarify.

That might explain the quality of some of the posts lately.

By: Gretchen

Gretchen — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 02:08:37 +0000

I feel like a complete idiot after wondering what 12 people had to say about soup.

Cast iron is not worth it, imo, and if I were the kind of person that needed this basic of a series that’s certainly not the pot I would start off with.