You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Soups’ category.
I love a good cheddar potato soup in the winter. Just-right-thick and creamy, warm and filling, it’s a winter meal in itself. I used to make this recipe:
Cheddar Potato Soup
6 potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 carrot, peeled and chopped
3 stalks celery, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1/2 cup margarine
4 cups milk
2 tablespoons vegetarian “chicken” soup base
8 ounces Velveeta
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/2 cup milk
Boil potatoes and carrot in water for 15 minutes, drain. Saute celery and onion in margarine for about 10 minutes. Add 4 cups milk to drained potatoes, season to taste. Add onion and celery mixture to potato mixture and stir in soup base. Heat slowly and add cheese. Cook until cheese is melted, stirring constantly. Dissolve cornstarch in 1/2 cup milk and add to soup. Cook until thickened.
Ew. Yes, we actually ate that way. But I make it better better (yummier and more nutritious) now. I made little changes, like scrubbing instead of peeling the vegetables so as not to lose the nutrients just under the skin; medium changes like using REAL chicken stock and REAL cheese; and big changes like using real fat instead of plastic margarine. Sauteeing the veggies in bacon fat gives a nutritional boost and a huge difference in the flavor of the ending product. Here’s how I make my soup now:
Better Cheddar Potato Soup
6 organic potatoes, scrubbed and diced
3 organic carrots, scrubbed and diced
3 stalks organic celery, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1/4 cup bacon fat or schmaltz
4 cups homemade chicken stock
8 ounces raw cheddar cheese, grated
1 tablespoon arrowroot powder
1/2 cup milk
sea salt, pepper and smoked paprika to taste
Saute onion, celery and carrot in water for 5 minutes. Add stock and potatoes to pan, bring to a boil and skim any foam off the top. Cook about 20 minutes, testing potatoes for doneness occasionally. Add cheese, but don’t worry if it turns into a stringy mess as it melts, the next step will fix that. Dissolve arrowroot in 1/2 cup milk and add to soup. Cook until thickened, stirring constantly. Season with real sea salt, pepper and smoked paprika. Now, that’s good!
This post is part of Real Food Wednesdays, hosted by Kelly the Kitchen Kop.
Shopping List by LexnGer, on Flickr
I don’t plan to do this every week, but I wanted to post my menu plans for this week. Sometimes in the middle of winter it can be hard to come up with ideas. I hope there’s inspiration here for someone!
Breakfasts
- Smoked Salmon Omelette with Shallots and Hollandaise sauce
- Porridge (soaked the night before, with a pantry full of choices for toppings: nuts, seeds, dried fruit, a couple chocolate chips, etc.)
- UFOs (also called egg in a hole, depending on your part of the country)
- Scrambled eggs with bacon and toast
- Fried eggs on torn up bread
Lunches
- Bologna sandwiches (my meat farmer makes the yummiest bologna!)
- Chicken breast chunks (marinated overnight in a combination of citrus juices), brushed with butter and baked, with homemade ranch dip
- Crab dip (from Nourishing Traditions) poured over toast
- Pasta with jarred tomatoes, kale and olives
- Quesadillas
- Salmon spread (from Nourishing Traditions) on sourdough crackers
Dinners
- Stir fried bison steak and cabbage on udon noodles, green salad
- Squash and Sun dried tomato soup (from Nourishing Traditions), hamburgers and broccoli
- Carrot salad (from Nourishing Traditions), Roasted chicken, sauteed parsnips
- Dr. Connelly’s soup (from Nourishing Traditions), Seared Pork Tenderloin medallions with apple cider pan sauce, brussels sprouts with cream and bacon
- Baked Salmon with Egg Mustard sauce (from Nourishing Traditions), frozen peas, a salad of sliced oranges and fennel bulb
- Clean-out-the-fridge meal with Sweet potato dollars served with leftover sauces from the week for dipping
It’s pretty easy to turn all this low-carb by just skipping the bread and crackers when they are offered. The two roasted chickens midweek will find their way into the slow cooker for stock, and the leftover meat will be put aside for a meal next week.
I find it easy in the wintertime to have soups frequently. Summer is a much more salad-friendly time of year. But that general plan leaves me with a longing for tomato soup! I haven’t really found a recipe for tomato soup that uses jarred tomatoes and still tastes really rich and good.
In addition to these meals, I also made some pineapple chutney (yeah, I know pineapple isn’t local, it’s one of my cheat foods), queso blanco, crispy pecans and walnuts for snacking on, and I soaked and roasted the seeds from last week’s acorn squash. The rind from the pineapple is soaking away in whey, turning itself into pineapple vinegar to be used in cortido next week. My apple cider vinegar using the Thanksgiving apple pie’s peels and cores is still working, not quite the acid level I’d like, but getting there.
And John has asked for some homemade marshmallow fluff before he goes back to college. How can I say no?
This post is part of Real Food Wednesday, hosted by Kelly the Kitchen Kop.
What IS that thing?
I love eating soup for lunch, but rarely have much time at midday to cook. I used last night’s dinner meal prep time to roast a bunch of veggies which then today I tossed into some chicken stock, warmed and blended with a hand blender for a very quick and easy soup. Roasting brought out the sweet, nutty flavor of the squash, and provided a very different flavor profile from squash that is only simmered in stock.
Roasted Vegetable Autumn Soup
1 small Blue Hubbard Squash (5 pounds)
4 Granny Smith apples, halved, cored and peeled
2 yellow onions, peeled and halved
3 generous tablespoons bacon fat (rendered from cooking)
2 quarts homemade chicken stock
1 inch knob of ginger, peeled
2 cups raw (or at least non-ultrapasteurized) cream
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Sea salt and pepper to taste
Halve the squash and remove the seeds and strings. Save the seeds for roasting later! Rub the squash, onion and apples inside and out with bacon fat. Roast the squash and onion for 1 hour at 400°, add the apples to the pan in the last 20 minutes. Vegetables may be cooled and refrigerated at this point if you wish to make the soup later.
Heat chicken stock gently on stove. Scrape squash from its shell and add to the stock. Chop the roasted onion before adding with the apple to the soup for easier blending later. Grate in ginger and allow soup to heat slowly. Blend with hand blender or in batches in countertop blender. Add cream and rewarm slighly. Season to taste. Serve topped with parmesan shreds.
This post is part of Real Food Wednesdays hosted by Kelly the Kitchen Kop and Whole Foods for the Holidays, hosted this week by Gnowfglins.
I’ve been making the Winter Root Soup recipe from Nourishing Traditions a couple times a month since the winter root vegetables became available at the Farmer’s Market. Hubby wasn’t thrilled, so I’ve been tweaking the recipe. I haven’t been able to get the flavor right, though. So today I tossed out the recipe and started from scratch.
First, I used roasted veggies that I had cooked last time I made a roast chicken. (I try to combine oven uses, and fill the oven to make use of the heat, rather than heating it up twice or three times.) Roasting the veggies instead of boiling them intensified and sweetened them. I used a different set of veggies, different seasonings, different just about everything! Hubby gave it a thumbs up, even though he does not like some of the ingredients on their own. Tip: if someone in your family is anti-beet, try using a golden beet. The tell-tale deep red won’t be there to clue anyone in to the sweet, mellow flavor they can’t quite put their finger on!
Roasted Winter Root Soup
5 large roasted organic carrots
2 roasted organic potatoes (I used small russets)
4 roasted golden beets
1 quart homemade chicken stock
1 orange
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon black walnut oil (optional)
fish sauce
Parmesan cheese
Puree the roasted vegetables and stock in a blender or with an immersion blender, warm gently in pot and thin with water if desired. Grate a tablespoon of orange peel into soup. Add vinegar and oil and continue heating until hot. Remove from heat and let cool a few minutes, then add the juice of the orange. Add a dash of fish sauce to each serving (it takes the place of salt and doesn’t taste fishy at all) and top with a grating of Parmesan cheese. Makes about two quarts of soup.
This post is part of Real Food Wednesdays, hosted this week by Cheeseslave.
Warm, smoky, cheesy Baked Potato Soup!
Lots of potatoes in storage, a cold, blowing wind and snow on the ground. Time for Baked Potato Soup! Back when we ate from boxes and cans, the chunky version was one of our favorites. But since it’s particularly easy to make if you have leftover baked potatoes, why not drop a few extra in the oven next time it’s on. It’s not hard to personalize, just close your eyes and picture a big, fluffy, steaming baked potato. What do you like on it? Butter? Sour cream? Green onions? Bacon? Cheese? Everything? That’s what you want in your soup!
Baked Potato Soup
8 to 10 slices bacon, diced
4 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup diced celery
1 cup diced onion
8 green onions, thinly sliced
3 tablespoons potato starch (or cornstarch, arrowroot, etc.)
3 cups chicken stock
2 cups raw cream
4 large baking potatoes, baked, peeled, and diced
sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
8 ounces creme fraiche
8 ounces shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
Sliced green onion for garnish, optional
In a Dutch oven or large kettle over medium heat, cook the bacon until crisp. Drain bacon on paper towels and pour off all but 2 tablespoons of the fat (save it, it’s great for cooking with!) To the bacon fat in the pan, add the butter, chopped onion, and celery. Cook, stirring, until vegetables are tender. Stir in the sliced green onion. In a small bowl, whisk together the potato starch with a few tablespoons of your cold chicken broth, or shake in a jar until the lumps are dissolved. Stir in remaining chicken broth then add the chicken broth with the potato starch and stir well. Cover and cook until the soup is thickened and vegetables are very tender, stirring frequently. Stir in the diced potatoes, salt, pepper, and cheese. Continue cooking over low heat until the cheese is melted and the soup is hot. Use an immersion blender or regular blende to puree the soup until it is smooth. Remove from heat, add cream and mix in thoroughly. Add creme fraiche just before serving, and garnish with bacon and extra sliced green onion, if desired. Serves 8 shivering loved ones.
I didn’t add the creme fraiche to the pot, but to individual servings after they were ladled into bowls. Not everyone in my family enjoys a good bowl of soup, so I wanted the leftovers to be reheatable without losing the great enzyme content of the creme fraiche.
This post is part of Real Food Wednesdays, hosted today by Kelly the Kitchen Kop.
College Inn Culinary Broth by urbanbohemian on Flickr
Another food recall, this time for MSG-Free Chicken Stock that isn’t MSG-Free. For people sensitive to MSG, this is so frustrating. I was around in the 1970′s and 80′s when labelling laws were prompted many heated discussions. Citizens asked their government to standardize labels so that the information on them would be readable, comparable and trustworthy. Here we are 25 years later and we are still battling with food providers to put the food in the can that is listed on the label and to put the words on the label that accurately describe what’s in the can.
Here’s a better option. Buy a whole pastured chicken, a few stalks of celery, a couple onions and carrots and make your own. It takes a couple minutes and is superior to the mass-produced stuff available that you’ll never go back.
Put the chicken in the pot. Whole. Skin, bones, the whole shebang. If your chicken came with a liver, heart or other pieces and you don’t want to save those for other uses, toss them in there too. Cover the chicken with water and toss in a tablespoon of vinegar. Cover the pot and cook for 2 days on low. I use my oven set to 170°, but you can use a crockpot if yours is large enough. On day three, add celery, carrots and onion. Cook another 20 hours or so. Toss in a few stems of parsley for the last hour. Drain stock and freeze in quart (or pint, depending on your family size) glass jars.
You can use the meat for cooking, but check out the bones before you toss them. The connective tissue at the top of the legs, for example, should be gone. It’s dissolved in the broth, held in suspension waiting to be consumed. It will be used by your body to create new connective tissue for you. You don’t need collagen injections, just this collagen-rich broth! Get off the glucosamine pills and get yours in your diet!
Use your broth to replace water when cooking rice, making soups and sauces, or even just a cup in the afternoon instead of coffee. Delicious, health-promoting and MSG-Free, for real!
I made a delicious soup for lunch today with some of the bounty I found at the Farmer’s Market. I’ve been thinking about breaking one of my rules and canning some of the butternut squash taking over my kitchen just to get it stored. I hate to think about the nutrient loss it will suffer, though. So, instead, I’m going to work on using some of it up this week. One whole squash the size of my forearm went into this soup. It was delicious and nearly twinkled with that crisp, fall flavor. It was ready in about an hour and fed eight of us with no leftovers.
October Harvest Soup
1/2 stick grassfed, unsalted butter
1 large organic onion, chopped
1 large potato, scrubbed and cubed
3 cups butternut squash, peeled and cubed
2 carrots, scrubbed and diced
1 Granny Smith Apple, cored and sliced 1/4-inch thick
4 cups chicken stock
1/4 cup white wine (I used Riesling because it was what I had on hand)
creme fraiche
Melt butter in soup pot. Stir in onions and cook about 5 minutes until translucent. Add potato, squash, carrots, apple and stock. Bring to a boil, skim, reduce heat and cover, allowing to simmer for about a half hour. Use a stick blender to puree in the pot (or use blender in small batches very carefully) but don’t reheat. Stir in wine, and serve with dollops of creme fraiche.
This post is part of Twister Tuesdays with Gnowfglins, Pennywise Platter Thursdays with Nourished Kitchen, and Make it from Scratch blog carnivals.
I was out of bed at a good, early hour and made scrambled eggs. I had a tomato that I hadn’t planned for another use, and some leftover green onions, so I chopped those up to add. Those of us who don’t have problems with milk tossed a small handful of shredded cheddar on top of our eggs. We enjoyed some 7 sprouted grain toast with our eggs. I love coconut oil on toast!
For lunch, I sauteed some mushrooms and shallots in the skimmed fat from a jar of homemade chicken stock. When they were softened and starting to turn golden, I tossed in a little white wine and a cup of stock and let it reduce some while I chopped up some leftover roasted chicken. I added the chicken and scooped out youngest’s serving before adding some cream to the sauce for the rest of us. Served over soaked and cooked rice it was just right for lunch.
I started some breadsticks in the bread machine to have with dinner right after lunch. I used the flour I’d soaked the other day to use in pancakes. I had about 3 cups that had been soaked in a little more than a cup of water. I threw that in the bread machine with 2 teaspoons of yeast, 2 tablespoons of coconut oil (my machine warms the ingredients with the first mix, so this will melt gently and be incorporated well without my having to melt it first and take the chance of scalding the yeast) and a pinch of sea salt. I set it on the “dough” setting and let it do its thing. When the machine beeped its “all done” sound, I took the dough out and shaped it into long twists. They went on a buttered cookie sheet in the turned-off oven to rise, which took about 2 hours. Just before baking them, I brushed them with melted butter and sprinkled on some garlic powder (and parmesan for the un-allergic). They didn’t take long to bake, about 10 minutes at 400° and they were so, so yummy.
A couple days ago I set some red lentils to soak in a mason jar on the counter. When I realized I wouldn’t use them the next day, I set them to sprout. The sprouts on them were about 1/4 inch long tonight, just right for cooking, so I made lentil soup. It was orange and beautiful and didn’t have the earthy flavor of brown lentils, but a bright, herbal taste.
Sunshine Lentil Soup
1 onion, peeled and sliced
3 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 tablespoon clarified butter
1 tablespoon coconut oil
1 quart beef stock
1 cup (presoaking measure) red lentils, soaked and sprouted
thyme sprigs
1/2 lemon, juiced
Kefir, to pass at the table
Cook onions and carrots in butter and coconut oil slowly for about 20 minutes. Add stock and lentils and bring to a boil, skimming off the foam. Reduce heat, add thyme and cover. Simmer 15-20 minutes until lentils are tender. Remove thyme and blend with stick blender. Add lemon juice and sea salt to taste. Pass kefir at the table to add to soup.
This post is part of the Pennywise Platter Thursday blog carnival hosted by The Nourishing Gourmet.
This post is part of the Make It From Scratch Blog Carnival.
After lunch today, I added a handful of parsley to the Chicken Stock about a half hour before it was done. I strained the stock into quart jars, tossed the veggies and picked the meat off the bones of the chicken for a dinner later this week.
It’s hard to argue with hamburgers for dinner if you’re a kid and you’re mom has started feeding you healthy all of a sudden. I found some local kosher ground beef after weeks of searching. I like how kosher meat is slaughtered and processed and if I’m going to eat meat, I’d prefer it to be kosher. We had our burgers with lettuce and hothouse tomatoes, ketchup, mustard and storebought pickle relish. I took a wholegrain baguette from my local artisan bakery, cut it into half-inch thick rounds and put them in a 250° oven to dry out while I made dinner. About ten minutes before I put it all on the table, I brushed the rounds with some melted butter. These were very yummy croutons to float on top of our vegetable soup. I’m looking forward to slurping the leftover soup for lunch all week! This recipe served us with a little less than a quart left over.
Vegetable Soup
1 small onions, peeled and chopped
2 carrots
4 tablespoons coconut oil
6 purple fingerling potatoes
2 quarts chicken stock
5 sprigs fresh thyme, tied together with twine
2 large zucchini, diced
sea salt
buttermilk
Melt the coconut oil in soup pot and add onions and carrots. Cover and cook over lowest heat for 1/2 hour. Add potatoes and stock, bring to a boil and skim off the flotsam. Reduce the heat and add thyme. Cover and cook 15 minutes, or until potatoes are soft. Add zucchini and cook about 10 minutes, until they are tender. Remove the thyme sticks (most of the herb leaves will remain in the pot but the woody stems will still be tied together) and pour into soup tureen. Blend with handheld blender. Pass buttermilk at the table for garnish, serve with croutons.
Early in the day, I started making Chicken Stock. I broke the wings and legs off a whole chicken, broke the wing bones and put the whole chicken in a stockpot. I covered the chicken plus an inch with cold water and let it set for about twenty minutes before turning the heat on. I brought it to a fast boil, skimmed off the flotsam, then turned it down to a very slow simmer and covered it. It will sit on the stove, simmering, for the next 24 hours. Before I left the kitchen, I cut up some local, tart organic Granny Smith apples and put them in the slow cooker for applesauce. I started the Bavarian Cream before I started the lunch dishes. After dinner I added a couple large-cut carrots and quartered onions to the stockpot.
My middle daughter and I are great fans of Wild Pacific Salmon. It reminds us of Oregon, which we both would like to call home. Our first Fish Tuesday featured some Wild Pacific Salmon I found at my grocery store at a wonderful price. While not a local ingredient, it was delicious and healthy. I made Buerre Blanc to serve over the fish, not only as a delicious sauce, but to educate dearest Hubby. He is preparing to be the next Ken Jennings on Jeopardy and food is a category he needs a little experience with. What better way to learn about food than enjoying it? I made some homemade cinnamon applesauce to serve with the fish, and some organic frozen peas, since peas and applesauce seem to “go with” fish in our house. Dessert was a very light Bavarian Cream.
The fish was surprisingly well-received, even one of my no-fish-please kids said it wasn’t awful! Hubby said I could make him homemade applesauce any time I wanted to, which is nice to hear. There were some complaints about the Bavarian Cream, as I used very little sweetening in it. But I thought it was just sweet enough to cleanse the palate without knocking you over. I used the following recipes directly from “Nourishing Traditions” and will not reprint them here:
Baked Salmon NT page 260
Buerre Blanc NT page 153
Applesauce NT page 541
I adapted the Bavarian Cream to our tastes, and the final recipe turned out thus:
Bavarian Cream
1 packet gelatin
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup maple syrup
4 eggs, separated
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup cocoa powder
pinch of sea salt
2 cups heavy cream
Place water in small saucepan over very low heat. Sprinkle gelatin on top, stir once and allow to melt slowly. Meanwhile, place egg yolks, cocoa, syrup and vanilla in bowl and mix with hand mixer for about a minute. Slowly stream in gelatin mixture while the blender is running, incorporate then place bowl in refrigerator. In spotlessly clean bowl with spotlessly clean beaters, beat egg whites with salt until stiff. Put that bowl in fridge, and remix first bowl for a second or two and return to fridge. In a third spotlessly clean bowl with spotlessly clean beaters, whip cream. Gently fold cream into the egg yolk mixture, then gently fold egg whites in as well. Cover and refrigerate at least one hour.
The Dark Side of Fat Loss
