Hearty Homemade Ministrone Soup

Key to making a hearty ministrone soup is:

• lots of veggies
• tomato base (you can make it or buy pasta tomato sauce/ marinara sauce)
• little pasta or rice for carbs
• beans (cannelini or other beans) for protein

Recipe:
You can really adjust this based on your needs and taste but here is the general outline

• Cut your veggies, whatever you have in the fridge frozen or otherwise. you could use for example: 1 potato, 1 cup frozen corn, 1 cup spinach, 1 head brocolli, 1 cup beans, red or green peppers, etc.
  
• Make Miropoix, [50% onions, 25% Carrots, 25% Celery] first, may be with 1 large onion, 1 celery, 4 carrots all chopped in a chunky way and sauted in EVOO (extra virgin olive oil) after adding some garlic for flavoring
• Then sautee the veggies adding a batch at a time as the veggies cook. Put hard veggies first (like beans, potato etc.) and then the softer ones (spinach, corn).
• Add seasoning (italian seasoning 2-3 tsp or oregano or parsley etc.). it is good to have oregano in the mix so you get a punchy souplike flavor
• Add some water (1-2 cups) and then the pasta. Pasta needs about 5-10 mins to cook. Other carbs could take less time. But they are cooking with the veggies and later with tomatos when the sauce is added.
• Then add tomato sauce. You could use marinara sauce like the one above or any other tomato or tomato basil sauce. You can use up leftover sauces in the fridge as well. Add as needed, for example 1 jar full of sauce will be good. You could also make yours with tomato paste and raw tomatos.
  
• Leave it to set in and cook for about 20 minutes in medium to high heat. Stir occasionally so it doesnt burn.
  
• You could top it with some fresh tomatoes and fresh herbs like basil.
  

You get a hearty soup that will be a meal in itself. You can have it with toasted and crusty bread like sourdough, ciabatta, pugliese, etc.

Making Indian Filter Coffee in the US

If you go about making authentic Indian Filter coffee in the US, you are sure to stumble into some roadblocks. I have searched the net many times to get practical and specific advice but with no luck. So far, i have tried the Coffee Makers, French Press, etc. None of them come with the same flavor as making coffee with the Filter brought from India.


I was told that the nearest approximation can be achieved by using Columbian coffee (Columbian Supremo from Costco or Columbian Narino Supremo from Starbucks, etc.) and grinding the beans to "Turkish" setting. There are also blends available from Wholefoods (Cauveri, Mysore, etc.)

The problem as i found out is not so much in the beans. The columbian coffees are darker roasts than the ones you find in south india. I grew up drinking Narasu's coffee, specifically the Peaberry blend (PB) as in here: (narasu's coffee website)


Narasu's PB blend is made from Peaberry's which are much more expensive (as only a fraction of the coffee plant output apparently yields pea sized berries and the rest are bigger berries). But the Columbian beans will do reasonably well. Kumud Groceries in Cupertino was actually selling this same coffee for $5.99 for about 1/2 a pound, which is actually a bargain.

The only problem is they often run out of stock and if you are a coffee lover you will know that once coffee is roasted it starts losing flavor from then on, even if the coffee is sealed airtight. Powdered coffee loses flavor even faster.

So as i was saying, the problem is not in the beans, it is in the grind.
Rule #1: do not use the coffee grinder in the store if you expect any reasonable drink out of the coffee you are buying.

The store grinders often are used for flavored coffees despite having separate grinders. The actual grind almost always do not match the setting in the grinder. So if you use them, and you will have one of the 2 results:
o Decoction doesn't percolate. All the water stays up in the top compartment.
o Docoction runs through very quickly resulting in watery coffee with no strength.

The following procedure worked for me:
o Buy columbian beans or something else with a lighter roast.
o In Peet's coffee grind it in the 3 setting (1 point finer than the grind they use for espresso which is 4)
o In Starbucks grind it in the same setting as espresso or ask them 1 level finer than that.

Turkish grind makes the coffee into superpowder. This will not work well in the Filter.

I am continuing to experiment with the coffees and the grinds. I am planning to buy a Burr grinder and will blog my future Indian Coffee experience.