{"id":702,"date":"2014-09-10T16:42:25","date_gmt":"2014-09-10T21:42:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pcandres.com\/?p=659"},"modified":"2015-11-06T15:02:31","modified_gmt":"2015-11-06T21:02:31","slug":"it%e2%80%99s-all-you-know-what-to-me-greek-vegetable-soup-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/?p=702","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s All You-Know-What To Me: Greek Vegetable 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%3D702&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_701\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/The-SoupThief1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-701\" class=\"wp-image-701\" src=\"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/The-SoupThief1.jpg\" alt=\"Eat Your Heart Out, Edith Hamilton!\" width=\"300\" height=\"430\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/The-SoupThief1.jpg 345w, https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/The-SoupThief1-104x150.jpg 104w, https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/The-SoupThief1-209x300.jpg 209w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-701\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Eat Your Heart Out, Edith Hamilton!<\/p><\/div>\n<p>After a summer\u2019s worth of Olympian games, my youngest is finally finishing up the Percy Jackson series.*\u00a0 To celebrate I decided to take The \u00a0Soup Blog Greek\u2026<\/p>\n<p>again.\u00a0 And no, this isn\u2019t a re-run.<\/p>\n<p>Remember <a href=\"..\/?p=339\">Spanakopita Soup<\/a>?\u00a0 Good stuff, huh?\u00a0 Well this recipe is even fresher, though more \u201cof the people,\u201d not so overpowering and \u201cin your face.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s the Athens to that soup\u2019s Sparta.<\/p>\n<p>Not that I\u2019m all that thrilled with Athens right now and that whole government by the masses thing they gave us.\u00a0 As Churchill said, \u201cDemocracy is the worst form of government, except all those other forms.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Their soup, on the other hand, I am quite thrilled with, especially this one.<\/p>\n<p>It started out as the Greek counterpart to my <a href=\"..\/?p=464\">Caprese Soup<\/a> with fresh tomatoes making what may be their final appearance of the summer.\u00a0 The tomatoes starred alongside cucumbers and oregano, which took the place normally occupied by the Caprese\u2019s basil.\u00a0 Then I garnished the soup with crumbled feta cheese which would take the place of the mozzarella, but since I\u2019ve got a few readers who don\u2019t eat dairy, I decided to make that optional.<\/p>\n<p>I also made the feta optional because it really changed the nature of the soup. It was still really good but it was also a lot more provocative.\u00a0 Not that stirring feta cheese into a pot of soup is an act of aggression or anything, but, because I\u2019m the only one in my family who actually likes the stuff, it wasn\u2019t terribly diplomatic either.<\/p>\n<p>Without the feta, the soup is more rustic, mild-mannered, and governable.\u00a0 It\u2019s more accessible too.<\/p>\n<p>Either way, the family focus group gave it a total of six thumbs up (I didn\u2019t vote), the only complaint being that I had taken it off the stove too soon and it had gotten cold.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, if my kids actually had the godlike powers they\u2019ve been pretending to have all summer, they could have warmed the soup back up with a quick lightning bolt, or used Athena\u2019s wits to figure out how to reheat their bowls with starlight.\u00a0 They could even have appealed to Hestia, goddess of the hearth, to make it all better.<\/p>\n<p>In the end, though, it was just Mom and Dad, arguing about whose job it was to put the soup back on the stove.<\/p>\n<p>Not a Peloponnesian War or anything.\u00a0 Just the kind of lively debate you have in any healthy democracy, or marriage.<\/p>\n<p>Hera be praised.<\/p>\n<p>*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For those of you who haven\u2019t heard of these books, they\u2019re a lot of fun.\u00a0 The conceit is that the Greek gods are alive and well, living on the 600<sup>th<\/sup> floor of the Empire State Building.\u00a0 Since Mount Olympus represents the heart of Western Civilization, it moves with center of Western culture.\u00a0 Greece, Rome, \u2026 New York.\u00a0 Make sense?\u00a0 The main characters are teenaged children of the gods and contemporary mortals.\u00a0 They\u2019re called half-bloods or demigods.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rickriordan.com\/\">Rick Riordan<\/a> is the author.\u00a0 Check the books out <a href=\"http:\/\/www.percyjacksonbooks.com\/\">here<\/a>.\u00a0 Not literally.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t a library, people.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Greek Vegetable Soup<br \/>\n<\/strong>(serves 8-12)<br \/>\n1 \u00bd lbs, cucumbers, sliced thin<br \/>\n1 \u00bd lbs, tomatoes, sliced thin<br \/>\n6 cups vegetable stock<br \/>\n2 T chopped oregano leaves, (6 T if using fresh)<br \/>\nSalt &amp; pepper, to taste<br \/>\n6-8 ounces, Feta cheese, crumbled (optional)<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Slice cukes and tomatoes and place in a pot with stock and oregano and seasonings.<\/li>\n<li>Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer for 20-30 minutes.<\/li>\n<li>Stir in feta cheese, or not, and serve warm (do not let it get cold or your children will learn to worship elsewhere.)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><em>Image Credit: The author\u2019s creative alteration of a well-known book jacket design.\u00a0 Note the tomato and the cucumber sword.\u00a0 Any questions, Shepard Fairey?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Greeks get a lot of credit in Western Civilization simply because they got there first.\u00a0 I\u2019m happy to give them their due when it comes to food.\u00a0 Just not pi.\u00a0 What do you think? \u00a0I\u2019ll be reading <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">and<\/span> responding.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After a summer\u2019s worth of Olympian games, my youngest is finally finishing up the Percy Jackson series.*\u00a0 To celebrate I decided to take The \u00a0Soup Blog Greek\u2026 again.\u00a0 And no, this isn\u2019t a re-run. Remember Spanakopita Soup?\u00a0 Good stuff, huh?\u00a0 Well this recipe is even fresher, though more \u201cof the people,\u201d not so overpowering and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,57,64,30,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cheese","category-cucumber","category-herbs","category-tomatoes","category-vegetarian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702","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=702"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2245,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702\/revisions\/2245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}