{"id":1239,"date":"2015-03-22T09:54:03","date_gmt":"2015-03-22T14:54:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/?p=1239"},"modified":"2015-11-06T11:16:07","modified_gmt":"2015-11-06T17:16:07","slug":"wearin-the-green-warm-spinach-salad-soup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/?p=1239","title":{"rendered":"Wearin&#8217; the Green: Warm Spinach Salad Soup"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0;float:none\"><iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fthesoupblog.com%2F%3Fp%3D1239&amp;layout=button_count&amp;show_faces=true&amp;action=like&amp;font=arial&amp;colorscheme=light&amp;width=450&amp;height=30\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowTransparency=\"true\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden; width: 450px; height: 30px;\"><\/iframe><\/div><div id=\"attachment_1240\" style=\"width: 407px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a rel=\"attachment wp-att-1240\" href=\"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/?attachment_id=1240\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1240\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1240\" title=\"Popeye Spinach Soup\" src=\"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Popeye-Spinach-Soup.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"397\" height=\"398\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Popeye-Spinach-Soup.jpg 397w, https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Popeye-Spinach-Soup-100x100.jpg 100w, https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Popeye-Spinach-Soup-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Popeye-Spinach-Soup-250x250.jpg 250w, https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Popeye-Spinach-Soup-50x50.jpg 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 397px) 100vw, 397px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1240\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Um, maybe you should stick with fresh spinach.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>If something works for me, I stick with it, even if it sometimes seems a little weird.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier in this culinary adventure I turned one of my favorite salads, the Caprese (<a title=\"Caprese Soup\" href=\"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/?p=863\">visit post<\/a>)\u2014a traditional Italian dish consisting of tomatoes, basil and mozzarella cheese\u2014into a soup.\u00a0 It turned out great.\u00a0 This time, with spring officially upon us, I went back to the cutting board and found inspiration in another of my favorite salads.<\/p>\n<p>Unlike the Caprese, my Warm Spinach Salad is rich and full enough to be served as a main course.\u00a0 Would it be able to make the transition from salad to soup bowl?\u00a0 I sure hoped so.<\/p>\n<p>My wife did not have such high hopes.<\/p>\n<p>When she brought the kids home from Chinese class that night and I described dinner to her, the dish that brought the gimace to her face wasn\u2019t the apple blueberry pie with green crust. (Happy belated St. Patrick\u2019s Day!)\u00a0 It was the spinach salad soup.<\/p>\n<p>Uh-oh, I thought.\u00a0 I\u2019m in for it now.<\/p>\n<p>The strange thing is my wife loves this salad.\u00a0 We\u2019ve been making it for years, in all seasons. \u00a0It\u2019s an especially popular choice for dining alfresco.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps that\u2019s what drove me to take this leap.\u00a0 Perhaps I was so eager for winter to be over that I decided to take our dinner outside, at least subconsciously.\u00a0 Make no mistake, we weren\u2019t about to set up shop on the patio, even though the 40\u00b0 weather felt almost summery compared to the freezing nights we\u2019d had up \u2018til then.<\/p>\n<p>Whatever my inspiration, by the time I saw the revulsion on my wife\u2019s face, the meal was already too far along to turn back.<\/p>\n<p>I had already saut\u00e9ed the mushrooms and onions in the olive oil.\u00a0 I\u2019d already fried up the bacon and whisked in the mustard and balsamic.\u00a0 I\u2019d already simmered the spinach in the stock.\u00a0 All that was left was to cut up the tomatoes, dice the avocado and add the goat cheese.<\/p>\n<p>So we went ahead.<\/p>\n<p>The key to the salad is to dot the spinach with crumbled goat cheese and then toss the warm mushroom dressing over the rest of the ingredients.\u00a0 The warmer part of the salad not only wilts the spinach slightly it also softens up the goat cheese to create small pockets of intense flavor in almost every bite.<\/p>\n<p>With the soup, I thought I could recreate the effect of the goat cheese by setting a round pat of the cheese on top of each serving so it would melt into the broth without\u00a0 dissolving.<\/p>\n<p>It worked perfectly.<\/p>\n<p>My wife was surprised by how good it was, especially the goat cheese taste in each spoonful.\u00a0 I have to admit that I was surprised too, although my concern was that the balsamic had made the soup too bitter. (That\u2019s how it smelled when I first added it.)<\/p>\n<p>Instead, the soup was a success all the way around.<\/p>\n<p>Well, almost.\u00a0 Although one daughter liked it, the other one didn\u2019t really give it a chance, because she \u201chates\u201d goat cheese and spinach.\u00a0 Apparently, the avocadoes, which she loves, weren\u2019t enough of an enticement.<\/p>\n<p>(Sigh)<\/p>\n<p>Everyone\u2019s a critic.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Spinach Salad Soup<br \/>\n<\/strong>(serves 6-8)<br \/>\n6 cups stock<br \/>\n8 oz. fresh spinach<br \/>\n\u00bc cup olive oil<br \/>\n6 oz. mushrooms, sliced<br \/>\n1 small onion, diced<br \/>\n4 slices bacon, chopped<br \/>\n1 T Dijon mustard<br \/>\n2 T balsamic vinegar<br \/>\n1 cup tomatoes (I used grapes, cherries would work too), halved<br \/>\n\u00bd avocado, diced<br \/>\nsalt &amp; pepper to taste<br \/>\n4 oz. goat cheese, cut into pats for garnish<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Add the stock to a 3-5 quart soup pot, bring to a boil      then reduce to a simmer, add the spinach, cover and continue with the next      step.<\/li>\n<li>Warm up the olive oil in a medium skillet, then add the      mushrooms and onion.\u00a0 Saut\u00e9 over      medium heat until the vegetables are soft.<\/li>\n<li>Add the bacon (or use veggie bacon for a meatless      alternative) and continue saut\u00e9ing until the bacon is cooked.<\/li>\n<li>Add the mustard and vinegar and whisk together the      ingredients in the skillet until they are well mixed.\u00a0 Add salt and pepper to adjust the      seasoning to your taste.\u00a0 If you      were making the salad, this would be your warm dressing.<\/li>\n<li>Add the dressing to the soup along with the tomatoes      and avocado and heat through for 5-10 minutes.<\/li>\n<li>After you ladle the soup into serving bowls, place a      pat of goat cheese in the center of each bowl and serve immediately. \u00a0I served it with herbed salmon and snap      peas.\u00a0 The green pie was for      dessert.<br \/>\n<strong>FYI: <\/strong>For best effect, don\u2019t stir the goat cheese into the soup.      Instead, trap a little bit of the cheese into each spoonful of soup.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><em>Image Credit: <\/em>\u201cStrong to the Finach\u201d borrowed from the public domain by the author.\u00a0 <strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>What other salads do you think would translate well into soups?\u00a0 Salad Ni\u00e7oise?\u00a0 Waldorf? Caesar?\u00a0 Only the Caesar actually fires my imagination, but who knows.\u00a0 Let me know what you think and what direction you would like to see the soup blog go in.\u00a0 Leave me a note, as ever, in the comments.<\/strong><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If something works for me, I stick with it, even if it sometimes seems a little weird. Earlier in this culinary adventure I turned one of my favorite salads, the Caprese (visit post)\u2014a traditional Italian dish consisting of tomatoes, basil and mozzarella cheese\u2014into a soup.\u00a0 It turned out great.\u00a0 This time, with spring officially upon [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,15,82,10,114,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-avocado","category-cheese","category-mushrooms","category-pork","category-spinach","category-tomatoes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1239"}],"version-history":[{"count":55,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1329,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1239\/revisions\/1329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}