Story Soup

My pal Jean once said, cooking is always a story. This week I made my favorite sauteed broccoli with garlic. While I was cooking I set up a pot of white rice to be ready at the same time. I remembered the rice bag instructions which I never follow: do not rinse. The broccoli was delicious and the rice came out gummy. I felt ridiculous and angry. I realized that the rice was even more gummy because at the last minute I cooked it in leftover steaming water from my boiled dinner the night before. It was the concentrated liquid from potatoes, cabbage and carrots cooked in the pressure cooker. I told a friend about my gummy rice mishap and she said, make congee. So the next morning I took out a big pot and threw in the gummy rice and more water and a few chicken bouillon cubes. Then I decided to add all of the cooked vegetables from the leftover boiled dinner. I added ginger root and garlic. Then I added more carrots and freshly chopped onions and the last half of raw cabbage. I was about to overflow the pot. I transferred it all to a larger one and simmered it. We ate it for supper late last night. The cabbage was aldente and the soup was bland and ugly. It was boring and I was grumpy. "You can throw it away," my husband offered. I had two large containers of it. Today while swimming I told myself a good and experienced cook knows how to invent on the fly and solve problems. I thought of some ideas for salvaging these perfectly good vegetables. The trick was to not make the soup even larger by trying to save it or we'll be eating it for the rest of our lives. When I came home from the pool I pureed the soup with some sprinkles of Adobo. I poured myself a bowl and warmed it up. It was a colorful delicious vegetable porridge but it needed fat. I added a tablespoon of peanut butter and warmed it up. It was fantastic. It became West African. The peanut flavor spoke to the aldente cabbage and sweet carrots. I was so happy because I saved the soup and found a story. I can't wait to have some more for supper.