Cooking with Kyle: Episode 1

So a couple days ago I decided to try and get a little creative in the kitchen, which was likely a bad idea because I don't typically cook. Like... at all. But when I got underway I decided to record the process so I could share it with the world, because what else is cooking good for if not being a conceited bastard about it?

All jokes aside let's start on my first dish. This was pretty much inspired by (and more or less stolen) from Panera Bread. I looked up the recipe online and more or less followed it but did a few things on my own. The end result was bread and cheddar broccoli soup.

For my bread I chose a French Baguette. Say what you want of the french, they make some good bread. The typical fashion of Panera is to use bread bowls, but I had my own ideas.

Here the poor bread victim is already hacked into pieces by the cruel... me.

I cut the Baguette in half, only to surmise that even in half it was too long for the knife I was going to use to hollow it out with. (The far left one) So I skimmed a bit more off.

The bane of any respectable toddler: vegetables.

Some of the other "prep work" as they call it in the biz, other than assembling other ingredients I didn't take pictures of because they were boring, involved dicing up the the stuff that would eventually go in the soup. I didn't use any particular method here, I just kind of hacked at the broccoli from four different angles. The recipe called for a half-pound of the green stuff. I used a head of broccoli, which is more or less a half-pound, but even then it seemed a bit much so I tossed some excess into the trash.

The carrots are supposed to be julienned, which is a fancy chef cut, for you uncultured savages. But I was working with baby carrots, and trying to julienne baby carrots is like trying to balance on a wet twig whilst in stilts.  So, I just hacked at them from four different angles. The recipe called for a cup of the orange stuff, but again, cutting baby carrots kind of sucks, so in the end I got maybe close to 3/4 of that before throwing my knife into the wall. (Not really guys calm down.) 

Pictured in the far right is shredded mild cheddar cheese. The recipe called for sharp, but honestly I just bought the stuff that I thought was supposed to go in while I was shopping before looking up the recipe. I also just don't care, and neither should you. Recipe wanted a cup, I went a little over, because I like cheese.

Would you eat this? I wouldn't.

Skip a few steps and we've reached the picture above. This was after throwing in roughly 2 tablespoons of butter and 1/4 a cup of flour in a pot, mixing for 5 minutes, and then putting in a cup of milk. The recipe wanted half-&-half but as usual, I just didn't care. Milk is where it's at. It really doesn't matter. Also you're supposed to put in onions which should have been cooked in another pan. But I didn't have onions, and even if I did, I probably would have left them out to avoid cleaning another pan. Who needs onions anyway?

15 minutes later, my concoction is looking no closer to being edible.

This photos was taken at some point after adding a cup of chicken stock. Chicken stock is a fairly gross substance, both in appearance and in matter of being acquired. It is also the only component making this recipe unfriendly to vegetarians. However it provides the soup with much of it's flavor.

I tried pretty hard to avoid making dirty jokes about this.

While the soup was simmering (and at one point overflowing) I hollowed out my bread. I just sorta stuck my knife in there and wiggled it around until stuff came out. (I said I TRIED). This was easier than I expected, and the piece of bread on the cutting board is not all that I cut out (I ate the rest).

Now we're talking.

After the chicken broth and other stuff had simmered for 20 minutes, I put in the veggies. This photo was taken ANOTHER 20 minutes after that, after the soup cooked on low heat. By this point my stomach was a cavernous maw of  rumbling spite. For spices there is a pinch or three of salt as well as pepper, and some amount of oregano.

I call it gloop-in-a-tube.

And here we have a finished product. The idea was to mimic the typical bread bowl, but instead put it in a roll so that you could hold it and one hand and just take bites off the top like a bread popsicle, getting soup and bread in a harmonious mixture. Unfortunately whenever I took a bite the bread condensed and the soup had nowhere to go but up and out (and onto my pants). So instead I ate it like a push pop, squeezing with my hand to push goop out of the stick and into my mouth (oh god I'm so sorry). And then just I just bit and ripping of the newly empty piece of bread near the top. It worked just as well, creating an easy to eat handheld bread bowl.

The portions I used could easily feed three people, so I had some leftovers. While I was eating my delicious soup and bread combo, the leftover soup had cooled and half-hardened into a pasty substance. Being the quick-thinking culinary deviant that I am, I decided to use it as a spread, and put it on some sliced (un-hollowed)  pieces of my baguette. (Remember that extra piece I cut off in the beginning? I'm actually just a genius at planning ahead).  I ate this just like cheese and crackers, and the soup is just as good after hardening a bit. It definitely tastes better warm though, so if you have leftovers don't be afraid to microwave them the next day.

In the end, this was a huge success, even though really my only original ideas were putting the soup in a baguette instead of a bowl, and on sliced bread. If I would change anything next time it would be to try and keep the walls of the bread a little bit thicker, because the soup-to-bread ratio was a little off. Also I was afraid the thin walls would burst at any moment and thoroughly ruin my day.

And there you have it, I hope you enjoyed my cooking process and was inspired to make this dish yourself. There are probably several recipes online just Google it and pick one you like. (I picked the second link because the e first was a to Panera's catering service.)