Cuisine de Misere. Take One: Garlic Soup

The French are famous for a lot of things but also notable for being frugal. In a French kitchen nothing goes to waste.  Maybe it's my New England upbringing or maybe it's because most of my adult life I've been on my own but this characteristic resonates with me, especially now.  I love the idea of not wasting anything.  And there has never been a better time to resurrect that French ancestral  cooking of hard times know as Cuisine de Misere.   The French, like the Italians and so many others, have suffered through periods of restrictions and want.  CdM elevates cooking into an art form of turning little or nothing into something a bit wonderful. Think Stone Soup and Loaves and Fishes for the home cook.

Today I'm making garlic soup.  Two large bulbs of garlic roasted with some onions carmelized in bacon fat from this morning's breakfast, chicken broth made from the bones of our store-bought broiled chicken, left over whipped cream from a family cookout this weekend [unthinkable but true] and grated cheese.   And a squeeze of lemon in each bowl.  Oh, left over greens from the Natick Farm from Tuesday for a salad and voila!  Dinner for way under $10. 

Garlic of course is good for just about anything.   Nature's panacea.  This recipe is good enough to serve for pleasure alone.

Loved by all especially the 6 year old.  Truth is, think Chris, being a guys's guy, would rather sink his teeth into some big-agra beef but lovingly applauds my efforts.