Soup? Succulent!

The other day I decided that what I needed was a nice pot of soup simmering, to ward off the icicles forming outside my kitchen window. Realizing that it was rather late to be starting a batch of conventional soup, I decided to see what I could whip up quickly that would satisfy that urge, so I looked in my cupboard and in my refrigerator.

There were several cans of a good commercial chicken stock on the shelf, and in the refrigerator I found two bags of coleslaw mix. This is just a mixture of slivered cabbage, and grated carrots. I also had a small bowl of home made meatless tomato sauce from a previous pasta meal. So, I simply heated the chicken stock to a simmer, added the coleslaw mix and a few large spoonfuls of sauce. With a dash of garlic powder {not garlic salt!}, and a shake of crushed red pepper flakes, the next step was to bring the mixture to a boil, reduce the temperature to medium-low, and allow this to bubble gently until the cabbage was tender, and the flavors had developed. About forty five minutes later, the soup was ready. {If you are feeding vegetarians you may use vegetable stock or vegetable bouillon cubes. This is the way I make the soup for my vegetarian daughter.}

In the meantime I decided to make some garlic toasts the way my mother made them. The ingredients were handy so I began by slicing a loaf of less than fresh Italian bread into large chunks, and placed them on a baking sheet. The next step was to "revive" the bread a bit by splashing them very sparingly with water. Do not soak the bread. Next I brushed each piece with olive oil, a little on each side is good, sprinkled them liberally with garlic powder, and crushed black pepper. These went into a very hot oven , maybe 425-450 degrees for about fifteen minutes. Keep an eye on them, and remove them from the oven when they are as brown as you would like. I happen to like them to be very crisp and brown, so I bake them for at least the fifteen minutes, sometimes a little longer.

For supper that night we had wonderful Winter Vegetable Soup, Rosarias Garlic Toasts, a glass of good red wine, and for dessert we enjoyed sliced strawberries sprinkled with Balsamic vinegar. Fruit with vinegar? That's another story!