Steemit Iron Chef 2018 Act 02 #02 : Invisible Spinach Faux Pond Soup ~ Original Photography ~ Original Cookery ~ Original Photo Essay and Discussion ABOUT Cookery ~

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What A Dish ~ Invisible Spinach Faux Pond Soup

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INGREDIENTS

Pureed Spinach In A Pouch
Home-Cut Kale and Lettuce Lily Pads
Floating Asparagus Downed-Wood Logs
Faux Zebra Mussel Shell Pasta
Faux Giant Planaria Pasta
A Bit Of Imagination

Addendum To Ingredients List

Poste-Post Accompanying Post:
Please see @ocrdu's post Pond Elixir
about an appropriate drink of accompaniment
to our marvelous pond soup

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Base Ingredient- The Box-O'-Spinach

The local Grocery Market Outlet store was selling this box of ready-made spinach puree some months back. I stopped to read the box in the aisle way, before tossing it into my cart, and was downright amazed. The base theory here is that parents can spoof their kids into eating spinach, by adding these packets to any meal. Just sneak them into anything the kids like to eat.

I think this is a universal problem for most families. At least it was in our house, years back. The same scenario played out, every evening, with only a differing vegetable on the plate. The parental units sitting around the table until 8:40 in the evening, doing everything earthly possible to get wee tykes to quit pushing our cold carrots or peas around the plate with a spoon, and actually EAT them. They tried everything, and every night, the same scenario played out to the same, tiring end.

Too bad they didn't make a wonder-product like THIS back in our day. Invisible spinach. Just dump a packet or three into whatever the kids like to eat, and viola, healthy, stealthy eating.

I don't have any kids, and the cats certainly don't want to eat spinach. Sneaky or non-sneaky, THAT'S not happening. But I like spinach. A lot.

Which brings us up to date in the world of making a meal for a Steemit contest. A quick, easy, no muss, no fuss way to craft a fine veggie soup, with very little effort. After all, it's nothing but pure, unadulterated spinach in a box. Think of boxed wine. Only created out of pureed vegetables, rather than fermented grapes. Without that fun, cooking buzz at the end.

) :

No Buzz!

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All Lined Up And Ready To Eat

Nine pouches. Seems like an odd number in a box. Usually these sorts of things come in packages of 10 or 12. Maybe the company had gazillions of boxes made, then found out later only nine would fit in a box. Seems like poor planning to me. Whatever the reason for an odd number of packets, it's simple fare for a soup base. So let's get started.

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But Where's The B-3 Unit In A Can

These little baggies remind me of the Military Surplus M.R.E.'s (Meals, Ready to Eat) we received while working on forest fires years back. Though we never saw any healthy spinach on the fire line. It was usually more exotic fare. Such as pre-packaged beans and weenies, or chicken fried steak with unknown red sauce. Or, if lucky, tenderloin patties with external, package-B, homemade, add-on grape jelly-sauce. Fine eats.

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Biology 101-The Backwater Ecosystem

Upon closer perusal, the contents of the packets reminded me a great deal of the pond-water experiments we performed in 8th grade Biology class. I'm sure you've all done this sort of activity, somewhere in the past. Hike on down to the local creek or pond, net and bucket-up some green algae and pond water, and take it back to the big, slate-topped lab table in class. Pull out the macro or microscope, plug it in, and view close-up and personal, all that is going on down in the sampled water below.

We often discovered all SORTS of weirdly cool things in our greenish water samples, that looked miraculously like whatever is in those soup packets above. Squiggly plants and creatures popped in and out of our 10 by 40x view on a regular basis. Funky oddities scooting around the scope such as algae, volvox and spirogyra, amoeba and paramecium, cross-eyed planaria, little rowing water bugs, and the occasional fat tadpole. Thinking back to these historical times, I decided it best to check these packets out, before going any further with my soup plans.

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The Trusty-Dusty Dissecting Scope

The bright photo lights worked great with the macro-scope, and I managed a much closer look into my soup base. Figured it couldn't hurt, to make sure this really IS a pouch of spinach, and not a pre-packaged box of viewable goop from The Sanderville Scientific Supply Company, Inc.

I can just hear it now.... "Excuse me, waiter, something just swam by in my soup! " No, we don't want ANYTHING wiggly and UN-planned, backstroking up and into the spoon in our soup base, before moving further on down the slopes of this soup creation.

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A View Like No Other

I didn't find anything stirring in the pond water soup base. The batch looked like any regular old spinach puree through a dissecting scope to me. I tried to photograph it for you, but the camera wouldn't focus correctly through the eyepiece. So, this is the best I could do. Sorry, but you'll have to take my word for it--no critters swimming around in our individually bagged, Box-O' Soup base.

But What About The REST Of The Soup

It was at this point in time of soup creation, that I realized I hadn't thought out any further beyond my cool box of bags of vegetables. Let's face it, no one except maybe Popeye would get all jazzed up over a bowl of pureed spinach. I was in a cooks quandary. What to put with my bags of spinach, to make a decent soup?

Though dis-heartening at first, my dilemma was soon put to rest. While mulling over the back of the spinach box, I settled upon a brilliant idea. The recipe suggestions on the back of the box said it all...

Heavy Soup Brilliance Is Born

This whole stealth vegetable thing put my initial idea into place. After all, if the box says it's possible, it MUST be. Can't See Spaghetti. Hmm.

The first plan I hatched, was an invisible soup. One you can't see. Put the concoction into a clear bowl, and it would throw everyone off. "Where's the soup?" But once I poured the puree in, it was FAR from invisible. Went quickly from small packets to a very large BOWL of pond water. So much for advertising.

Step By Step By Step

As the saying goes--"If life gives you algae water, make yourself a pond." Why not pond soup? Emulate a standard pond in the bowl, as best you can starting at 10:30 in the night, hours before the soup-post is due. Just have to create some pond creatures, for realism in the soup. Edgy, seat of the pants jollywogging at it's best.

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Faux Planaria Pasta On The Left -/- Faux Zebra Mussel Pasta On The Right

Thinking back to the 8th grade once again-while rummaging around in the pantry- I came up with some decent pond creatures. The 'planaria' pasta were left over from a previous Iron Chef Design Dish: Spaghetti Vegetaria à la Monochromatica

As for the small shell pasta, these reminded me of Zebra Mussels, that are becoming a huge problem in many freshwater lakes around the country. Perfect for my soup. Cute little planaria and Zebra Mussel pastas to add to my pond.

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Both pastas got so excited to be included in my soup, they instantly started mating on my cutting board. PG Pond Soup at the very least, bordering on a gentle R (unless I can break them up...)

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D.I.Y. Lilly Pad Kit

No pond-based soup is complete without some lily pads floating about on the top. Standard kale and lettuce from the garden worked well as a raw material for my pads. Cutting them out with an old syrup bottle cap, made lily pad creation a kitchen-cooks dream.

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Perfect Ovoid Pads Every Time

I think they look quite nifty.

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Downed-Wood Logs Of Asparagus

No pond is complete without some floating wood for our friends the turtle, frog and shore bird-to sit upon in the warm sun. What to make a log from? Finally landed upon asparagus shoots. Cooked them a bit, to make them LESS like wood when eaten. And yet they still float pretty well in the soup.

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Invisible Spinach Faux Pond Soup

Proof of creation and ownership. I tried the soup. It was edible. If not a bit strong toward the side of spinach. I think the idea here is to add the puree to several MORE ingredients, to mask the really strong spinach flavor. I'm sure a bunch of sriracha would work, but I don't really like hot things. So, more tweaking is needed.

Possibly a fake sausage or real pork or chicken sausage would add to the flavor. Or some smoked ham. But let's face it, my pond soup does LOOK pretty darn cool. If that counts for anything in the world of high cookery...

~ Finto ~

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Thanks for stopping in and viewing my new creation--Faux Pond Soup. If you have any thoughts about ecological idea-based dishes, how to make different water creatures out of highly edible ingredients, different themes for soup besides a pond, or anything else this post reminds you of, please feel free to comment away in the spaces below. I'd love to hear from you.

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This weeks Steemit Iron Chef Post can be seen here: Spinach

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Please UPVOTE, COMMENT and FOLLOW if you enjoy my works.

And go to @ddschteinn -- There's a whole lot more...

_{Posted: 06/15/2018 @ 03:45}

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Excerpts From Late-Night Conversations With A Mechanical Cat

Fact Number 77