Soup & Bread at the Hideout-February 17, 2016 5:30 p.m.

It's that time of year: LTH is participating in Soup & Bread 2016 at the Hideout (1354 West Wabansia Chicago IL 60642)--our night is Wednesday, February 17th from 5:30-8:00.

Soup & Bread is a free weekly community meal based at the Hideout, a bar and music venue in Chicago. Each week they round up a handful of chefs, caterers, musicians, writers, artists, and home cooks of every persuasion to donate pots of soup. We serve them up to all comers — along with fresh bread donated by Publican Quality Meats — until the pots run dry or the late-night jazz guys kick us out. It was designed to be an easy, low-key way to get folks out of the house and socializing in the dead of a dark Chicago winter — not to mention, when we started this up in 2009 our friends were losing their jobs left and right. At times these past few years it’s seemed the entire city could use a nice hot bowl of soup.

Toward that end, while the meal is free, we solicit pay-what-you-can donations each week that are donated in turn to a wide range of neighborhood food pantries and hunger relief agencies. Over the last six years, through events at the Hideout and out of town in Madison, New York City, Seattle, and beyond, we have raised more than $60,000 for Chicago-area food pantries as well as the Greater Chicago Food Depository (the central food bank serving the Chicago region), the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, and Western Washington’s Food Lifeline.

The theme this year is a bit tricky--the number "13"--and I must admit, I've tried to figure out what to do and asked around a bit and we haven't come up with anything. We aren't required to stick to the theme but I think they'd appreciate it. I will say that early polling suggested that LTH folks wanted to cook island related soups--so if anyone creative can figure out a way to combine those two concepts, we'd love to hear from you. For now, let's plan on coming up with island soups--which is a SUPER broad category itself--and we'll sort the rest out later. Mostly, we're focused on cooking great soup for a great cause. We also request that we have at least 1 Vegetarian and 1 Vegan entry--soups that are otherwise Veg but with optional meat add-ons are always welcome. Based on prior years, we recommend bringing 3-4 gallons of soup. Yes that sounds like a lot. Yes, it always gets eaten!

The hosts provide us with slow-cookers and serving utensils. You should plan to bring your soup already warm since heating a cold soup in the slow cookers can be very challenging. Also, our serving space is pretty tight so keep that in mind when planning your soup--there usually isn't a lot of room for multiple topping bowls, etc.

We need 7 Soup Chefs and unlimited bread and dessert volunteers. And, of course, people to come out and support our efforts! If you're interested, please sign up now and you can let us know what soup you'll be bringing later. And for those of you not wanting to cook, we'd love for you to mark your calendars and come EAT!!!

Answers to other FAQs you may have are here: http://soupandbread.net/soup-bread-2013-faq/

Participants:

Soup:
1. Boudreaulicious--Takgaejang (Korean Spicy Chicken soup--it has 13 ingredients!)
2. JeffB--Goat's Head Soup
3. BR--Clam chowder
4. laikom--Birria con consome
5. mbh--Red lentil, coconut curry --vegan
6. Cathy2--Hearty Rutabaga, Carrot and Turnip Soup-vegan
7. Ms. Ingie--Lucky Bean Soup--vegan


Bread/Dessert/Side:
1. dave148--dessert
2. Ronnie_Suburban--dessert
3. hellodali--dessert
4. justjoan--regular and vegan desserts
5. Cookie Monster--dessert
6. Izzy --dessert and Cole Slaw

I'll try to be there.

If so, I'll present something in line with Goat's Head Soup, which can be an island dish with 13ish connotations. Something along the lines of mannish water.

Soup, there it is! That's my way of saying that I'm in for a soup.

Thanks guys! And Jeff, that sounds delicious!!

I'm in for a soup spot! There are 13 islands of Galapagos, so the island/13 theme makes sense to me. Also if you push the 1 and 3 together, it makes a B, and there are a lot of islands that start with a B.

I knew I could rely on you to find some way to get this dubious theme in!!

I love this event, I'm in. I'll probably cover the vegetarian option, but I'll decide what I make later.

I will do vegan soup, which means I have no idea what that will be yet.

Dessert. Damn the vegans and vegetarians!

Thanks everyone!! Still a few soup spots left and unlimited dessert and eating slots !!!

Thanks, Jen, for getting this on the books and organized. As in previous years, I'll bring a dessert.

=R=

HI,

Very likely I will bring this soup for the vegan offering: Hearty rutabaga, carrot and turnip soup.

I don't have to really worry about offering beans and rice to complete proteins or any soy product which almost tastes and looks like meat, right?

Regards,

I'm in for a sweet treat of some sort.

Cathy2 wrote:HI,

Very likely I will bring this soup for the vegan offering: Hearty rutabaga, carrot and turnip soup.

I don't have to really worry about offering beans and rice to complete proteins or any soy product which almost tastes and looks like meat, right?

Regards,

No. No you don't. At least you wouldn't if it was up to me.

pairs4life wrote:No. No you don't. At least you wouldn't if it was up to me.

I made it this afternoon, because I had a rutabaga leftover from Thanksgiving. This soup was quite good without it tasting like a lot of root vegetables. Maybe the tomato took some edge off. A small amount was pureed to offer a creaminess, instead of vegetables sinking in water.

For myself, I did add some yogurt for the tang, though it did not need it. I just like yogurt and sour cream.

Regards,

We're not even required to bring a vegan soup at all--but experience has shown that 1-2 veg options is appreciated. And while we're at it, we only have 7 slots this year--the 8th now goes to the Local Foods folks who are doing something every week. If anyone thinks they may come late, I would maybe have you do a 1/2 order and someone else do the other half. But, otherwise, we only need one more entry.

Thanks to everyone who has volunteered so far!

i thought i'd replied, but i dont see my post....anyway, i'm in for desserts; regular, and vegan.

Thanks so much Joan!

I will make Lucky Bean Soup - It has black-eyed peas in it. Figure we need some good luck to go up against the number 13. (Bonus - 13 ingredients listed)

I will be attending and bringing dessert.

I will bring desserts.
And if you would like coleslaw, I would be pleased to make some to go with the meal.
Just Joan and I had a wonderful slaw at Same Day café in Logan Square!!!!! I will try to
duplicate it. They may have used jicama. It was lovely.

Cathy2 wrote:I will do vegan soup, which means I have no idea what that will be yet.

You can follow your regular soups but use a vegetarian stock instead of chicken/beef. I have done that many times and most people have not noticed.

I think she meant that she hadn't decided on what to make

Thanks Cookie Monster and Izzy for your contributions! Izzy, you are welcome to make slaw--whatever you like!

I just saw that Ms. Ingie is bringing a bean soup--is that vegetarian? I ask because we already have 1 Vegan for sure and another likely veg entry--and I think, based on prior years' experience, that we don't want to go too heavy on the veg only options. While some definitely appreciate it, typically, the meatier soups are the most popular. Just my experience.

We are now full for soups--but we welcome all dessert/salad contributions.

On December 14th, I already settled on what I was making. I already tried it to find it was quite delicious.

Cathy2 wrote:HI,

Very likely I will bring this soup for the vegan offering: Hearty rutabaga, carrot and turnip soup.

I don't have to really worry about offering beans and rice to complete proteins or any soy product which almost tastes and looks like meat, right?

Regards,

JeffB, I was leaning towards making a West Indies/Barbados version of Pepper Pot, which features a beef stock, salt pork and salt beef, collard greens, allspice, cinnamon, hot peppers . . . you get the idea.

But I'm concerned this may be too similar to your Goat's Head Soup. Please let me know if it is and I'll be happy to make something else.

Fairly different from the mannish water I was thinking of doing. Not an issue.

JeffB wrote:Fairly different from the mannish water I was thinking of doing. Not an issue.

Great - thanks! So that's what I'm planning, though later inspirations and grocery shopping might cause me to change directions.

BR wrote:

JeffB wrote:Fairly different from the mannish water I was thinking of doing. Not an issue.

Great - thanks! So that's what I'm planning, though later inspirations and grocery shopping might cause me to change directions.

sounds good--just keep me posted.

If anyone else wants to update or let us know what you're bringing, that would be great. I'm waiting to hear if Ms. Ingie's entry is veg or not--if it isn't, then we're ok with one more veg entry--if it is, then I'd say that the remaining soups can be whatever you want though we don't have to have any other vegetarian options.

Mine is vegan, so I can make something else if you prefer.