Cooking with 1 1/2 hands: Soup

After Sunday's experiment cooking with Dear Husband, I knew that would not be tenable long term until the fingers on my left hand heal.

 So I decided to tap into my experimentalist side. What can I do in the kitchen? Lift things with my right hand if they are balanced or light enough. Hold light things in my left. I could cook anything that could be cooked on a cookie sheet in the oven, or anything that could cook slowly in the few pots that wont move on my stove.

The epiphany occurred when I realized I could brown things in the oven, on the cookie sheet, instead of in a frying pan. Not the most efficient, but it works, and thats all I need at the moment.

So today I set out to make a minestrone-type soup. Lately, I've been wanting soup, despite never really liking soup before. I now deeply regret not liking soup when I lived in NJ, the land of delicatessens and their marvelous homemade soup. No one makes soup in NC, even if its cold.

Step 1: Accept help from the grocery store.

Yes, that is store bought, prepackaged mirepoix. I ditched the celery, because I never liked the taste of celery. I normally avoid these things like the plague, but right now chopping isn't in my tool kit.

Step 2: Brown ground beef on a baking tray. Parchment paper makes clean up one-hand friendly.

Browning ground beef in the oven works shockingly well. If I ever need to do large batch browning, this is my new method.

Sweat veggies in heavy bottomed pan, add beef stock, diced tomatoes, spices, and add in the ground beef. Let simmer for however long you like. Bam, a filling, satisfying soup.

I can't say that this is how I will cook soup from now on. And I honestly hope to never have to cook one handed again after this period is over, but its nice to know I'm not totally helpless and can work around it. Now, just need to keep this inventive streak going...