Soup Recipes?

Here's one I shared yesterday for split pea soup. I'm having some tonight, by the way. With some fresh bread, many soups can be enjoyed as a main meal. When I have a chance, I'll post a killer bean soup recipe also.

This recipe calls for a slow cooker (Crock-Pot). If you don't have one, I'll post a stove top version as well:

I/2 pound smoked sausage, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
3 cans (14.5 ozs each) chicken broth
1 cup water
1 pound package of dried split peas
3 carrots, sliced
2 celery stalks, sliced
1/2 onion, chopped
3/4 teaspoon dried marjoram leaves
1 bay leaf

Saute sausage for a few minutes until browned. Rinse and sort peas. Add all of the ingredients into the cooker, cover and cook on high for four hours. Serve and add salt and pepper to taste.

One thing to keep in mind when slow cooking is that if you lift the lid, allow an extra twenty minutes of cooking time for the heat to build back up. With most recipes, the cooker will do its job without any need for stirring or checking on the meal.

One word, IT: Minestrone.

Okay, there are all sorts of other soups, and I love chicken soup or beef soup or stews...but minestrone is a staple in my kitchen.

Do this:
Chop one medium onion (1/4" to 3/8" pieces). You should have about 1 - 1 1/2 cups.
Chop two stalks celery (same size). 3/4 - 1 cup.
Chop (or grate) one large or two small carrots. 3/4 - 1 cup.
Chop one large or two medium zuchinni. 3/4 - 1 cup.
Chop 2 medium or 3 small white potatoes (not russets).

Heat 1/4 cup olive oil in a large heavy soup kettle. I use a 12-quart kettle, but then I make a LOT of soup.

Add the onions to the kettle, cook till nearly transparent. Add the other vegetables. Cook 2-3 minutes on high heat, stirring constantly. The veggies, especially the potatoes will stick--that's okay, just urge them off the bottom with your stirring spoon.

Add 1 14-ounce can of whole (unsalted) tomatoes, with juice. Stir in and reduce heat to medium.

Add some thyme. 1-Tablespoon if fresh, half that much dry.
Add 2-10 cloves of garlic, minced. I like lots of garlic, but not all folks do.
Salt and pepper to taste.

Add 2 cups chicken stock. Home made is best, but commercial stuff is just fine.
Add 2-4 cups water. Depends on size of your kettle. Mine 12-quart kettle is more than 3/4 full at this point. The more liquid will make a more brothy soup--more on that later.

Cover and simmer for one hour or more. The potatoes should be just tender.

Add some small pasta, like elbow macaroni, shells, etc. About 1/2 cup dry. More, and the soup will be REALLY thick. Cook until the pasta is 3/4 done--about 1/2 hr more.

Add one can kidney beans (and liquid), 8 oz frozen green beans, chopped, and return the soup to a boil. If you have fresh basil, chop some up and toss it in. I never have any--it's just too darned cold here to grow any year 'round--but I have some that I chopped up and froze in an icecube tray. I add one cube o'basil.

Serve. If you like, sprinkle some parmesan cheese on the soup in the bowl. Don't put cheese in the kettle--or you'll have concrete for leftovers.

Speaking of leftovers--the soup will thicken a remarkable amount in the fridge. But it loosens up some while reheating. If it's still too thick, just add a bit of water, or some chicken broth. I suppose the soup will last a week or more in a sealed container in the fridge... but I don't know. It never lasts that long around here.

Enjoy.

This might be a bit salty for your taste, but easily remedied by replacing my bouillion cubes with low-sodium broth. This is my new lose-weight pre-meal fix:

In a stockpot or saucepan, depending on how much you want to make, heat a tablespoon of olive oil. Toss in some diced onions and sliced mushrooms, and cook until somewhat soft. Add 3 chicken bouillion cubes and 3 cups of water, also a hearty pinch of dried thyme. Cook until hungry.

I have a soup (just made it up). I used venison, but beef works well too.

brown a pound of ground meat. Add beef broth, in another pan, I saute' carrots, onions, celery and garlic, add that to the soup, and cut small red potatoes into quarters and drop those in. I season with the typical, salt pepper and parsley. I thicken it to a stew consistency and serve it with biscuits.
I don't eat ground meat soups very often but I enjoy the lighter texture - it's less meat than cubed beef.

My dad makes really good chicken noodle soup...freezes really well...if only I actually had a real recipe for it...mostly it's throw in a bunch of stuff without measuring....

Quick Chicken Soup -
Buy a precooked rotisserie chicken
sauté some cubed veggies, whatever is on hand. Usually some celery, carrots, onion, and at the last minute some minced garlic. While veggies are cooking rip the chicken up. Literally. Rip off the meat into small pieces.
Salt, pepper, thyme, rosemary, a bay leaf, and basil. Any combination of those works.
Add chicken stock and water in equal parts, simmer for 30 minutes.
Boil some noodles, add the noodles to a bowl, and ladle the soup over top. I find the soup freezes better without noodles, so I keep them separate.

Super Easy Italian Wedding Soup

1 big can of low-sodium beef broth
1/2 bag of prepackaged frozen meatballs
1 C chopped fresh spinach leaves
1/2 C acini di pepe (uncooked)
Some garlic
Some pepper
A few chopped green onions
Some oregano

Throw it all in a pot, let it simmer for an hour. Sorry there are no measurements for some stuff, but I just kind of toss stuff in until it tastes right.

Most of my clear soups don't have recipes - they're a throw-in-whatever's-on-hand type of dealie. And I tend to make stoup, as does my sister - we're terrible at getting it to soup thinness.

And all amounts vary depending on mood, taste, and what's on hand.


Fry some onions until brown. If you're having meat with it (ie, chicken, beef, whatever), then add that, chopped up, to the onions as you fry them. Then add the hard vegetables (carrots, potatoes) that require longer cooking times as you add water (I boil my water first in the kettle, then dump it in - basically because I'm impatient). Then add other vegetables as needed (tomatoes, cabbage, beans), adding the ones with the lowest cooking times last. Oh, and if I add lentils, I add it at the same time as the hard vegetables & boiling water. Add a few cubes of chicken flavouring (we have no actual chicken stock available here, and no freezer room to make up any in advance). Salt and pepper to taste. Usually very heavy on the pepper since that's the way Fahim likes it, and, yeah, I do, too.

My soups are never really the same twice, but they're always good.

Maine Lobstah Stew (with apologies to Davids)

Ingredients:

1 one and a quarter to one and a half pound live Maine lobster
1 quart whole milk (no, not 2 percent--not ½ percent--not soy milk--not acidophilus milk...)
1 quart half-and-half
Dry sherry wine
Butter
Salt and white pepper

Preparation:

Drop a live Maine lobster headfirst into a pot of boiling salted water.

Continue cooking until either the lobster stops screaming or his shell just begins to turn red (about 10 minutes--no more). Remove lobster from pot and cool.

Once lobster is cool enough to handle, remove meat and set aside. Yes, there is meat inside those legs. Dig for it. You'll be glad you did.

Break up lobster carcass and put it into a pot. Add the milk and half-and-half. Simmer for at least one hour, adding more milk and half-and-half if necessary.

Strain milk stock through cheesecloth into a clean pot and bring up to temperature.

Stir in ½ to 1 ounce of dry sherry wine to taste (no, not cooking sherry--use the good stuff)

Shred lobster meat by hand and add to pot.

Once lobster is warm, dish up in individual bowls, topping each with a pat of butter and a dash of salt and white pepper.

Ingest.

Note 1: I have no idea how well this soup freezes. I've never had any leftovers.

Note 2: If you'd rather have bisque (for whatever reason), simply add one tablespoon of tomato paste to the soup. Dump soup into food processer and pulse 3 or 4 times. Do not over process, people. Leave some character in the soup. Also save some claw meat to sprinkle on top.

That sounds great, Haggis!

Cheap, Quick, No-Brainer Black Bean Soup:

Two cans black beans in their liquid; maybe three if you're hungry
One can diced tomatoes, with juice
One can corn, drained
Most, more or less, of a jar of your favorite mild/medium salsa (like Pace Picante)

Open cans, dump contents in suitably-sized pot. Heat slowly. Eat.

You can get fancy...saute onions in the pan before you dump in the cans. Add some chicken broth. Mash some of the beans. Top with sour cream, grated cheese, sliced green onions, cilantro, chopped avocado. But just heat it 'n' eat it works too.

TheIT said:

Silver King, I don't have a slow cooker. Could you post the stovetop version of your split pea soup recipe?

Thanks!

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For the stove top recipe, after rinsing the peas, I place them in a pot and add water until it's about two inches above the peas. You can let them soak overnight this way, or simply heat the water until it boils for two minutes; then take the pot off the heat and cover, and allow it to stand for an hour.

In the meantime, you can chop the onion, carrots and celery. Pan fry the smoked sausage. (You can use ham also, or a combination of the two.)

Melt a half stick of butter in another pot over medium heat and cook the onions for a few minutes. Add the celery and carrots, and cook for a few minutes more.

Drain the peas from the other pot and add all of the ingredients together. Simmer for ninety minutes or so, uncovered, and stir the soup once in a while.

(The slow cooker recipe I mentioned earlier requires far less work, but this one is just as good.)

Oxtail Soup is my favorite that I grew up on. If you've never seen them in the stores, just ask. I like the bigger ones that actually have some meat on them, but the flavor they give the broth can't be beat. I let them simmer for about an hour, then add a good sized chopped onion, 5 sliced carrots, 3 chopped stalks of celery with some of the leaves and a can of tomatoes. When the vegetables are tender add half a bag of the wide egg noodles. I usually add a couple beef bullion, as well, rather than salt, and pepper to taste.

If the family is picky and wonders what the heck you're feeding them, pull out the oxtails ahead of time, remove the meat and hide the evidence. They'll all think they died and went to heaven and beg you for more.

I don't know if chili counts as soup, or how well it freezes, but I lived on this all winter. I'd make a batch every saturday and eat it for lunch the rest of the week. (it's better on day two and on than fresh) I found it in Cooking Light.

Chili with Chipotle and Chocolate

2 cups diced onion
1 cup chopped red bell pepper
1 tsp minced garlic
1 ¼ lbs ground turkey
3 tbs brown sugar
2 tbs ancho chili powder
1 tbs unsweetened cocoa
1 tsp ground cumin
½ tsp pepper
¼ tsp salt
2 (15 oz) cans pinto beans, rinsed
2 (14.5) oz cans diced tomatoes, undrained
1 (14 oz) can chicken broth
2 chipotle chilies, canned in adobo sauce, minced
2 oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped (I actually switched to semi-sweet)

Saute onion, garlic, bell pepper and turkey 8 minutes or until meat is browned. Add sugar and next nine ingredients (through chipotle), stirring to blend; bring to boil. Reduce heat; simmer 15 minutes. Add chocolate, stirring to melt.


And for dessert...

Peach-Blackberry Soup

1 cup Riesling
2 lbs peaches, peeled and sliced
1 cinnamon stick
3 tbs honey
2 tsp lemon juice
¼ tsp vanilla extract
1 cup blackberries

Combine first three ingredients in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer 10 minutes or until peaches are tender. Remove from heat and discard cinnamon stick. Food process peach mixture. Pour into a bowl. Stir in honey, juice, and vanilla. Chill. Top with blackberries before serving.

Chile freezes extremely well. Extremely. I used to make up a huge batch of it and freeze it into individual serving sizes and eat it when I didn't feel like cooking. Worked extremely well.

Mushroom & Barley is one of my favorite soups. I've made the traditional kind, which includes meat, but I find I prefer this lighter, vegetarian version. It's easy to prepare and is both healthy and delicious:

Mushroom & Barley Soup - Serves 6


Ingredients

3/4 cup pearl barley
10 cups vegetable stock (or chicken stock for non-vegetarians)
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 1/2 cups chopped onion
1 cup chopped carrots
1/2 cup chopped celery
1 1/2 cups thinly sliced mushrooms
1 teaspoon dried thyme
salt & pepper to taste
fresh parsley

Instructions

1. In a saucepan, combine the barley
and 3 cups of vegetable or chicken stock.
Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium-low
and simmer for 1 hour, or until the liquid
is absorbed.

2. Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large
pot and add the onion, carrot, celery and
mushrooms. Cover and cook the vegetables
over medium heat until they are softened.

3. Add the remaining stock along with
the thyme to the vegetable mixture and
simmer, covered for 30 minutes.

4. Add the barley and simmer an additional
5 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.

5. Ladle into bowls and garnish with freshly
chopped parsley.



Only the pure of heart can make good soup
--- Ludwig Van Beethoven

This site has some great soup recipes. They have to be occasionally adjusted, though.

Kerr said:

Oxtail Soup is my favorite that I grew up on. If you've never seen them in the stores, just ask. I like the bigger ones that actually have some meat on them, but the flavor they give the broth can't be beat. I let them simmer for about an hour, then add a good sized chopped onion, 5 sliced carrots, 3 chopped stalks of celery with some of the leaves and a can of tomatoes. When the vegetables are tender add half a bag of the wide egg noodles. I usually add a couple beef bullion, as well, rather than salt, and pepper to taste.

If the family is picky and wonders what the heck you're feeding them, pull out the oxtails ahead of time, remove the meat and hide the evidence. They'll all think they died and went to heaven and beg you for more.

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Oxtail soup is an old family favorite, at least three generations back!!!!

Try this link for soup recipes:

http://www.soupsong.com/

I copied this from my recipe blog:

I had a craving for soup, but had very little money. All I had in the fridge/freezer was half a roast chicken, left over from Sunday dinner, and a pound of ground beef. Here's what I did:

First I bought a package of carrots (37p). Because the carrots were cheap I went ahead and splurged out and got another package of chicken breasts, £2.17.

I made the meatballs the night before.

1 lb (or 500g, to be exact) ground beef
a couple of handfuls of bread crumbs--maybe 1/4 cup?
3 tbsp or so of Worcestershire sauce (I was low on milk--and wanted to use what I had for dumplings--but needed something liquid for the crumbs. Luckily, I love Worcestershire.)
1 1/2 tbsp or so of herbs de Provence

Combine. Roll into small balls--maybe half an inch?

Bake in a 190C/375F oven for about 12 minutes. (Note: if you want bigger balls--heh heh--just adjust the cooking time. I usually make one-inch balls for pasta sauces, using a different version of this recipe, and bake them 20 minutes.)

You can drop these right in the soup if you've made it all at once. I kept them in the fridge overnight. They were delicious, so yummy I'm trying to think of new recipes to use them in.

Okay. For the soup:

meatballs
2 chicken breasts (roughly). I baked the new breasts with the same Herbs de Provence as I used in the meatballs and on Sunday's roast.
Carrots. It was a 1 pound sack of sliced carrots, I believe. About 2 cups worth?
Beef stock (actually, I use Better than Bouillon)
Chicken stock (I used a Knorr liquid stock mix)
Boiling water, about 5-6 cups/1.7L
Herbs de Provence
olive oil
butter
salt & pepper
garlic powder
onion powder
flour (AP)
white wine (optional)
shallots (dried)

Dumplings (see bottom).

Okay. Heat about 3 tbsp olive oil and 1-2 tbsp butter in the bottom of a large pot. Add carrots. Sweat (a very low fry) for five minutes or so.

Add garlic and onion powder, maybe 2-3 tbsp or so of each? I don't usually measure this stuff out. If you like a lot of garlic and onion, use more. If not, use less. Add a tsp or so of salt and pepper.

Keep stirring carrots, then sprinkle with flour. Stir more.

Add a tsp or so of Better than Bouillon. Stir.

Add shallots. I meant to add a tsp or so, but my hand slipped and I think I ended up with over a tbsp. This actually ended up being delicious, so use a tbsp or so. Stir.

You should add boiling water right away, but I had to wait for the kettle to heat. I don't know if this deepend the flavor or not, but the carrots were brownish from the bouillon and kind of sludgy from the flour and flavor powders when I added it.

Okay. Pour on the water. Stir. Add a glug or two of wine if you're using it. Maybe 1/4 cup or so. (In metric thats, what, 75 mil or so? I'd duble check that if I were you.)

At this point I thought I'd made a mistake, because it smelled both bland and astringent. Almost like bleach or something. I figured, it takes time for the flavors to develop, and so set it to a gentle boil and gave it forty minutes or so.

Then I shredded the cooked chicken and added it. Let that boil for another half hour or so.

Now I tasted the stock and it was truly getting yummy.

I added the meatballs.

It was a bit liquidy yet, so I made a buerre blanc (hot stock mixed with flour) and added it in to thicken a little. Then I turned the heat up and let it reduce for half an hour or so.

At this point I could have made the dumplings, but hubs wasn't on his way home yet, so it ended up simmering for another half hour. This is why I love soup.

Finally it was time to do the dumplings. I love, love, love dumplings. My Mommy used to make me chicken and dumplings (which I will post the recipe for at some point) all the time, especially when I was sick. I freaking love dumplings, seriously. So I was happy to make them, especially as it meant I didn't have to spend the money to buy bread to go with the soup.

Dumplings:

2 cups sifted AP flour (they rise better if the flour is sifted)
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp shortening
1/2 cup parsley*
1 cup milk

Cut the shortening into the flour, salt, and baking powder combo. Add parsley*. Add milk. Stir.
Drop by large tsp into lightly boiling soup. Work quickly. When you've added it all, cover the pot tightly. Turn the heat down. DO NOT PEEK. I cannot emphasize this strongly enough. DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT PEEK. If you do the dumplings will be hard and yucky.
Cook 20 mins. Voila.

*The dumplings used in chicken and dumplings contain only parsley. For last night's soup I added some Herbs de provence. This was delicious...but also, I think, a bit much with that particular flavor combo. next time I will either not add it to the chicken as much, or leave it out of the dumplings. It WAS delicious, don't get me wrong. The hubby and I each ate two big bowls of this soup. Even the kids had a little--Princess loved the meatballs. But it may have been a bit much.

Also, if you like a more liquidy soup, don't let it reduce as long.

This was so thick with meatballs and chicken and carrots, and the broth was so light, and the dumplings so fluffy and flavorful...mmmm. A yummy new invention by me! I could eat this once or twice a week, I think, no problem!

Oh, and I was originally going to add frozen peas to this, but forgot. I think they would be delicious in there, too, so go ahead if you're a pea fan!

If you want to freeze it, do it before making the dumplings. They don't freeze well. Thaw it in a pot and make the dumplings, or simply eat without. It's still a really lovely and filling soup.

I don't know how to make any soups, so I'm really glad this thread is here, as my kids love soup and all the canned ones have soy.

I do, however, make a delicious stew that only takes 1 hour from start to finish and everything is pretty much from scratch.

You take a half a pot of water, 6 bullion cubes and toss them in. Add in enough chopped carrots and potatoes till it's pretty hearty looking. Get that boiling, then turn down the heat a little bit.

Now with the spices I just toss them in until it looks and smells good. I use parsley, oregano, basil, rosemary, tarragon, salt to taste, onion, garlic, two bay leaves, sometimes some seasoned salt depending on what I'm looking for.

In another pan (Sausage is my favorite) I brown about a pound of meat. During Thanksgiving, I use the broth off my turkey and some of the brown turkey meat as well and it is super delicious as I use some fun spices in there that change the flavor.

When the potatoes and carrots are tender, I toss in the meat and add in a can of corn. If you're looking for a heartier stew with less extra, I add in rice as well. I love using the soaked up stew with rice the next day on homemade tortilla shells. YUM!

icerose said:

I love using the soaked up stew with rice the next day on homemade tortilla shells. YUM!

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Oooh, I used to make stew and rice for dinner all the time, I never thought of putting it in tortillas yum!!