Homemade soup: Easy to make, nutritious to enjoy

I've modified this recipe. For one thing, I've increased the amount of cauliflower used. Click on the link to see the new recipe: Elegant soup for about a dollar.

I'm not overly fond of cauliflower. I don't dislike it but it is not in my usual veggie rotation. Still, I found the idea of making a thick, creamy cauliflower soup without resorting to heavy cream appealing. And it gave me a chance to use my newest toy: A Cuisinart blender.

I've come to believe that it is almost impossible to make a poor soup at home. The canned stuff is just so boring, the makers seem to rely on salt to kick up the flavour. Homemade soups seem almost magically in comparison.

Judy and I had this soup the other evening. It was good. I can see making a big batch a day in advance and serving it to guests at the next holiday dinner.

Cauliflower Soup

2 teaspoons olive oil
1 small, chopped onion
1 chopped celery stalk
12 oz. chicken stock or vegetable stock
6 oz. 1% milk
10 oz. cauliflower florets
1 bay leaf
1 sprig of thyme
a little nutmeg to taste (just a few pinches)
2 tablespoons of chopped chives
pinch of freshly grated pepper - I like black for the flavour and colour

• Put olive oil in a deep fry pan and place over medium heat. Add the chopped onion and chopped celery. Cook until celery beginning to soften and onion looks translucent. Do not brown.
• Add chicken or vegetable stock, milk, cauliflower florets, bay leaf and sprig of thyme. Heat until simmering and then place a lid over the pan. Simmer for about 25 minutes or until cauliflower is tender. When done, remove from heat and let cool.
• Remove the bay leaf and the thyme sprig and pour the soup into a power blender. Blend until smooth.
• Pour the soup into a medium sized pot and reheat. Do not boil. Let soup quietly simmer until the right degree of thickness is obtained. Stir in the nutmeg and let simmer for another couple of minutes. All this reheating and thickening should not take more than 30 minutes. If it is not thick enough, I understand adding a small amount of potato flakes should quickly thicken this soup without damaging the flavour.
• Serve with sprinkles of  chopped chives and a couple of passes of the pepper mill. These add a little flavour and some much needed colour.

The next time I make this, I'm adding a clove of crushed garlic to the finely chopped onion and celery. I may oven roast a small number of cauliflower florets in a little olive oil. When the florets are almost done, I'll sprinkle on a little Parmesan cheese and return all to the oven until the cheese is just melted. I'll add these flavoured florets to the soup moments before serving. I think some little bursts of concentrated flavour hiding and floating in the soup might add extra presence.

I'd try this soup straight the first time, though, and leave the tarting up with roasted cheese-flavoured florets to later.

Just asking for a basic level of journalistic integrity

I went to a breakfast this morning in London, Ontario. The monthly social event is attended by those who once worked for the media in town but who have now, for whatever reason, found themselves put out to pasture.

It is always fun catching up on the latest media rumours, but this morning was a little more interesting than usual. I learned that Joe Warmington, the award-winning Toronto Sun columnist, wrote a story and posted it to the Internet before the event had occurred. Oops!

According to Now, a weekly news and entertainment tabloid serving Toronto, The Toronto Sun declared Rob Ford's appearance on the Jimmy Kimmel show a "victory for Ford" even before the writer, Joe Warmington could have seen the program. The Ford segment was taped at approximately 9:40 p.m. Eastern Standard Time but the date stamp on Warmington's first report was 9:13 p.m.

In talking about a program he couldn't possibly have seen, Warmington said the Toronto mayor's appearance "was vintage Rob Ford."

The Now report goes on to say that Canada.com's Marc Weisblott first tweeted out the column at 10:31 ("Joe Warmington reviews a show before it airs"). Fifteen minutes later, amid suggestions from those in studio that the appearance had been a disaster, the Sun pulled it down. (It has disappeared as well from Google's cache.)

One exchange that hasn't gone missing is the Twitter tweets between National Post columnist Bruce Arthur and Toronto Sun staffer Cynthia McLeod.

In the ensuing conversation I thought the responses by Alex Colangelo and Stan the Man Chan were among the best. Colangelo offered, "So I guess perfection is waiting for an event to occur before writing about it?" Stan clarified the problem that McLeod seemed unable to fathom: "No one's asking for perfection. We're just asking for a basic level of journalistic integrity."

Seeking solutions to the housing crisis

Streetscape from Hong Kong shows dense residential does not have to be boring.

 
This is an intro to a link to a New York Times piece on the housing crisis facing cities around the globe. I really liked some of the stuff the writer said.

As someone who attended many of the ReThink London meetings, I believe cities may well lack  the fortitude to deal head-on with the numerous problems encountered trying to supply decent, while also affordable, housing.

Housing policy can be very tricky to get right. “Success is going to be in the eye of the beholder,” says Eric Belsky, the managing director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard. “If success means building more homes at greater densities, you’ll end up with some neighbors not happy . .  .

Personally, I find the London, Ontario, solution of embracing sprawl to be totally unacceptable. That said, I feel quite alone in my opposition. Oh, lots of folk talk the end-the-sprawl talk but they fail to walk the end-the-sprawl walk.

Here is the link to Rent Too High? Move to Singapore. Read it, let it make you think and don't get hung up on statements like the following: "It seems the only solution would be to level all of, say, North Brooklyn and put up monolithic prefab tower blocks. But New Yorkers don’t want to live in Singapore." (And there is no demand to emulate Singapore housing in either London, Ontario, or New York, New York.)

When it comes to housing, Singapore and Hong Kong are guideposts and not final destinations.

Eating healthy despite being miles from home

Lunch in St. Jacobs: A delicious stir-fry on a bed of Basmati rice.

Today was a meatless day. No beef, no chicken, no fish -- nothing but veggies. Today was also escape-to-St. Jacobs day. St. Jacobs is a small town about an hour from London. At one time, it was famous for its Mennonite shops.

Then a couple of small malls moved to town and it became a shopping magnet. The town paved the land behind main street and put in parking for the tour buses filled with visiting shoppers. But times have changed. Many of the once popular mall shops have disappeared. For instance, Dansk -- a once popular retail destination -- has closed all its factory outlet stores.

With the downtown mall emptying of stores, the small mall has now been converted to another use. But the town still has Mennonites and, even without the presence of lots of out-of-town retail, it may be able to return to its small town retail roots.

The little stores my wife and I visited were filled with great stuff, much of it locally made. We picked up a loaf of freshly baked sour dough bread in the local bakery and for lunch we enjoyed a non-chain restaurant meal.

I must confess, I miss the Dansk store. But I don't miss McDonald's, Wendy's, et al. My meatless day lunch was great. So far, Dr. Spence has been right: Meatless days can be absolutely delightful.

Leftovers

Leftovers don't have to be second best. Tonight we had left over ratatouille. Judy punched it up with, what else, some other leftovers.

She added roasted red peppers and canned artichoke hearts. It was delicious. (Before Judy served this, she added a sprinkle of Parmesan but it hid the look of the dish. You will have to use your imagination.)

For a ratatouille recipe, just cruise the Internet. There are lots of recipes posted. And if you make too much, punch it up the next day and enjoy it all over again. Weight Watchers rates this dinner as a five and my heart doctor would call this a wonderful Mediterranean dish. Lose weight and possibly arterial plaque all at the same time.

What a great idea. Pass the red wine, please.

Is the CPP Investment Portfolio Struggling?

Maybe my headline is a little too strong -- and maybe not. A financial expert by the name of Mark McQueen has strong feelings about the running of our Canada Pension Plan (CPP). His feelings are not good.

I started thinking about how the CPP is managed after hearing some comments made on the CBC morning news show with Heather Hiscox. The comments seemed to be throw-away filler and not thoughtful insights.

I've followed McQueen online as well as on BNN and he makes a good case for concern. I decided to see if he has published anything recently on the CPP. I found an online post from February of this year (2014): CPP Investment Board’s External Private Equity Managers Continue to Drag Returns.

McQueen tells us: "The CPP Investment Board reports that our hand-picked team produced $1.8 billion of negative value add over four fiscal years . . . " Go to McQueen's post on his Wellington Financial blog for the whole story or at least as much of the story as McQueen is able to report. You see the CPP Investment Board is terribly secretive about its investments and returns. Much of the financial date provided to the Canadian public is intentionally useless, according to McQueen.

CBC's Hiscox needs to widen her reach when it comes to connecting with folk in the business world and in the financial arena. She should stop with the almost daily fawning over Kevin O'Leary and move on. I nominate Mark McQueen as an on-air financial expert willing, and more than able, to point the news organization in the direction of some newsworthy stuff.

Random testing vs. fasting for cholesterol tests

I got a call this afternoon. It was the nurse at my family doctor's office. She told me my doctor wanted me to have some blood work done and soon. No need to fast, I was told, just get to the lab for some cholesterol tests and others. I went immediately.

In the past, I've puzzled over the fasting instructions that have always been part of having these tests. Would there be any to be gained in having test numbers reflective of cholesterol levels occurring after a meal rather than after 8 to 12 hours of fasting? Once I mistakenly had a little coffee before going to the lab. The lab staff insisted I put the test off for a day. Just how damaging can a few sips of coffee be to one's numbers, I wondered.

Today at the lab, I asked a technician about the change from fasting to random testing. She told me she could see advantages and disadvantages in both. She thought it best not to adhere to either approach in all situations. She herself has cholesterol problems she confessed. In her case, it was genetically caused. For her, she knew it was best to have both fasting and random testing done.

I googled the question and learned:

If nonfasting lipid profiles for cardiovascular risk prediction were used, it would simplify clinical care for patients worldwide. Because only minimal, and clinically unimportant, changes in levels of lipids, lipoproteins, and apolipoproteins have been noted in response to normal food intake in the general population and because nonfasting levels predict cardiovascular events, fasting may not be necessary before determining lipid profiles for predicting cardiovascular risk.

For more on this, read: Fasting and Nonfasting Lipid Levels in the American Heart Association publication Circulation.

Personally, I feel more comfortable having my cardiovascular risks calculated from random tests. First, I am not part of the general populace. I have known cardiovascular problems. The average person doesn't have an ICD hidden in their chest and hardwired to their heart. The average person doesn't have a history of relatively frequent TIAs. The average person doesn't have plaque building up in the carotid artery. How the average person's lipid profile changes, or doesn't, after a meal may not be relevant in my case. I'll leave that to my doctors.

My lipid profile, created from years of blood work done in the morning after a night of fasting, has developed some solid numbers. It will be interesting to see what profile modifications will ensue now that my tests are being based on blood work taken randomly.