Which Soup?

On a cold winter’s day there is nothing more comforting than a bowl of hot steaming soup! I have been thinking of soup lately, and cannot make up my mind on which one I should cook! So come with me as we cruise through some soup recipes!

I love the heat on Hot Sour Soup…

Hot Sour Soup!

But I also love the sausage and spinach in Spicy Chicken Soup!

Spicy Chicken Soup!

And I do love the creaminess of Cream of Broccoli Soup! Doesn’t this look yummy?

Cream of Broccoli Soup

Let’s not forget about Easy Tortellini Soup! The first time I had this dish we were visiting friends at their winery in the Barolo region of Italy!

Tortellini Soup!

I love artichokes, and I use them in this Pork Sausage Soup! Here is the soup while its cooking!

Pork Sausage Soup

I cannot make up my mind which one to make. Which one would you make?

Thanks for your help and for stopping by today! Have a great Thursday!

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What a Spicy Chicken Soup!

With the cold temperatures, we need hot soup! In my head, I can hear an echo of words from the blog site of Conor Bofin at One Man’s Meat, regarding ingredients and how wonderful it is that you can look on the internet to find something to do with the ingredients you have on hand. Sorry, Conor, but I cannot find the post where you said this, but you said it. So here I am with chicken, hot Italian sausage, and fresh spinach, and it what the heck do I do with this? I looked on the internet and no one has made a soup like the one featured in this post! So, here is a new soup recipe, nothing like anyone has done before! It is not only extremely tasty but easy to make! And you know I like easy! Want a preview? OK, only because you said please…

Preview!

Ingredients
1# Hot Italian sausage
3 stalks of celery, chopped
3 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 shallot, chopped finely
6 cloves of garlic, chopped finely
1/2 stick of butter
1/2 cup of white wine
6 14.5 oz cans of low sodium chicken broth
2 cups of cooked chicken, cut into chunks
1/2 tsp. white pepper
1 tsp. dried thyme leaves
3/4 cup frozen peas
1 1/2 cup of chunky cut baby portabella mushrooms
1/4 cup of fresh dill finely chopped
1/4 tsp. celery seed
12 oz. frozen artichoke hearts, defrosted
1 package of pre-washed spinach
Salt and pepper to taste
Parmesan cheese, shredded

I start by cooking up the sausage so that I can cook most of the fat out of it. Stir the sausage to get it nicely browned.

Pre-cooked hot Italian sausage

When the sausage is done, drain on paper towel and dab with another sheet of paper towel to remove surface grease.

While this is cooking get your mirepox veges ready, plus the garlic. A mirepox, in case you might be new to cooking, is a combo of onion, carrots and celery…In a soup pot add the butter and the mirepox veges plus the garlic. The secret to a good mirepox is to leave it alone. Heat over medium high heat and let it brown on one side before you even stir it.

Mirepox set to caramelize

When the mirepox is done, add the wine and enjoy the aromas as they rise up to fill the kitchen! As the wine cooks down, stir,  and then slowly add the chicken broth. Next add the cooked chicken, the white pepper, thyme, peas, baby bellas, dill and celery seed. Bring this up to a boil, and then reduce to a slow simmer. Cook this up for about a 45 minutes, and then add the artichoke hearts.

Add to the artichokes

Bring this back to a boil, and cook another 15 minutes. Then add the spinach leaves, stirring until they are just wilted.

After adding the spinach…

Turn the heat off.

Serve this up in a soup bowl, top with a bit of Parmesan…and enjoy!

Soup’s on!

Joe, are you jealous of the meal P has been served? Just wondering!

This is well worth the effort it takes to make, which is not all that much. It you decide to try this recipe, let me know how it turns out for you!

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Easy Tortellini Soup

Come and take a step back in time with me…Mid ’90’s it was. My parents offered me a trip to join them in France only if I paid the air fare, and they would take care of everything else. Who could not pass up an offer like this? I took it!

As most of this story is a chapter in a book that I have written and not yet published, I will tell you about part of our trip when we stayed with friends in Italy. And, of course this has to do with food…

We arrived at Alfredo and Luciana’s house late, and Luciana had lunch ready for us. A simple soup of tortellini in chicken broth. So here is the easy comfort food lunch we had that day, which we make for dinner on cold nights, and tonight is cold!

Ingredients
64 oz. low sodium chicken broth
Dash of white pepper
1 package of fresh chicken prosciutto tortellini
Olive oil
2 green onions, sliced
A couple of healthy pinches of Parmesan cheese

In a soup kettle, add the chicken broth.

Broth in the soup kettle

In another soup kettle add enough water to cook the tortellini. Add a drizzle of olive oil to keep the tortellini from sticking together.

Tortellini added to the pot with olive oil

Cook this based on the instruction on the package. While this is cooking,

Cooking tortellini

heat the chicken broth. When the tortellini is cooked, drain and add to the broth.

Add tortellini to the broth

Do not boil this but simmer gently. Serve by topping with cheese then the green onions.

Dinner is served!

Serve with a good crusty sour dough bread! Enjoy! BTW – tonight’s photos were taken by my husband who was really having a good time not only cooking but taking the photos. I was told to get out of the kitchen and not to touch the camera!

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Hot Sour Soup for a Cold Sweet Night

We had snow for most of the morning yesterday. Not enough for a snow day. Where I live in the Sierra Foothills snowplows are not in the mix here. It is too hard to get the equipment to where I live. With the extreme cold yesterday, high temp of 39 degrees and wind chill into the 20’s for some part of the day, I thought about how we could warm up inside…Hot Sour Soup came to mind. It takes a bit of prep work, but well worth it.

Ingredients
2 lean pork loin chops, boned
3 slices of fresh ginger root
5 dried shitake mushrooms, re-hydrated
2 pieces of wood ears (a black fungus), re-hydrated
1 extra firm tofu
1/4 cup of bamboo shoots
1/2 cup rice vinegar
1 tsp. ground white pepper
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. sesame oil
1/2 tsp sugar
1 TBS soy sauce
1 tsp. chili oil
2 eggs lightly beaten
4 TBS cornstarch
3 TBS water
8 cups of chicken broth
2 green onions

We are going to get all the ingredients ready first. Once these are all ready to go, making the soup takes no time at all!

Getting it all together

First, cut the pork into thin slices,

Slice the pork into thin strips

and then those slices, you cut into thirds.

Then cut each slice into three strips

Slice the fresh ginger into 3 slices and trim off the skin. Next take the dried shitake mushrooms and the wood ears

Place shitake mushrooms and wood ears into a bowl and soak in hot water to soften

and stick them in a bowl of hot water. Put something on them to hold them down in the water to soften. Next cut the tofu into slices

Slice one cube of tofu into strips

and then those slices into thirds.

Then cut the tofu slices into thirds

Do the same with the bamboo shoots.

Cut the bamboo shoots into thirds

Take the next seven ingredients and combine them into the measuring cup and stir to combine. Beat your eggs lightly and set aside. Then combine the cornstarch with the water in a separate bowl and stir to combine and set aside. Cut the green onions into little slices to top the soup with, and set aside.

Now take the broth and add to your soup pot. Bring this to a boil. Add the pork, ginger, shitake mushrooms and wood ears to the pot.

Broth with pork, mushrooms and wood ears

Cook for about two minutes. Remove the ginger. Then add the tofu and the bamboo shoots and stir. Then add measuring cup of ingredients.

Add next 7 ingredients

Combine well. Next, re-stir the cornstarch with water. It will feel hard at first, but it will turn back to liquid. Slowly stirring, and I mean slowly, add this to your pot. If you add this too quickly it will form one big glob in your pot – this happened to me the first time I made this! Not pretty! Stir well as you add this and then bring the pot to a boil.

The soup after adding the cornstarch mixture

Turn down to a simmer and let this cook for a bit until the liquid in the soup becomes somewhat clear. Turn the heat off, and while stirring the soup add the eggs. Serve in a soup bowl and top with the sliced green onions.

Dinner is served!

Enjoy the heat of the heat of this soup along with the sour!

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Hot Sour Soup?

If you like Hot Sour Soup, tune in tomorrow! I have a recipe that is a wonderful blend of flavors, and has the heat and the sour of this beautiful Asian dish!

Also for the upcoming weekend: A crockpot Chili Rellenos; Pizza with a twist, and a pork loin chop recipe!

Stay tuned!

Barb

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Cream of Broccoli Soup with Mushrooms

I have not made this soup before and after taking a look at recipes I got a basic idea of how to make this soup. One of the things that I noticed was that a lot of the recipes called for using frozen broccoli. While freezer veges are good for some things, for this cream of broccoli soup I will be using fresh. I also love the flavor of mushrooms and love a good cream of mushroom soup, so I thought that I should combine the two. Below is the recipe that I created.

Ingredients
10 oz. crimini mushrooms
2 TBS butter
5 cloves of garlic finely chopped
3 TBS butter
1/2 large onion, chopped
3 large broccoli crowns, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup flour
4 TBS butter
4 cups low sodium chicken broth
2 cups heavy cream
1 tsp dill weed
salt and pepper

Gather your ingredients

In a skillet melt the 2 TBS butter, then add the garlic and mushrooms.

Saute the mushrooms and garlic

Cook down the mushrooms until golden brown. Remove from the pan and set aside. Next, in the same pan, add the 3 TBS of butter. Melt and then add the onions and broccoli. Cook until the broccoli is a brilliant green and soft.

Cook the broccoli and onions

Move this to a bowl to cool. In the same pan, melt the remaining butter, and turning the heat to low, slowly add the flour. You will end up with a huge lump of the cooked flour. Turn the heat off. Then slowly add about one and a half cups of broth to the flour mixture, adding the broth slowly so as to avoid lumps.

The flour mixture with the addition of the broth

Set aside. Using a blender or food processor, in batches, add the broth, mushrooms and some of the broccoli mixture and puree. Add the pureed mixture to the pot with the flour, stirring to blend.

Pureed broccoli, mushroom, onions and garlic added to the flour broth mixture

Turning the soup pot to medium high, slowly add in the cream.

Slowly add the cream

Then add the dill, salt and pepper to taste and bring to a simmer.

Bring the soup to a simmer

Cook for about 10 minutes and serve with a warm crusty bread.

Soup is on!

Sit back and enjoy!

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Coming soon…

I wanted to get your mouths watering, so here is what is to come starting today and going through Monday!

Tonight – A spicy, flaky fish recipe, with a jasmine rice and steamed broccoli

Christmas Eve – Maple glazed smoked ham, sweet acorn squash and cheesy au gratin potatoes

Christmas Day – Barb’s famous Mac ‘n Cheese with ham

Monday – Sopa de Pedos, or “Fart Soup” – this is a bean soup made with the leftover ham and the bone of course!

Comfort food just perfect for the holidays! What are you cooking up?

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