Winter is coming....

In the famous words of the Starks "Winter is coming."

The mornings are becoming frigid... as are the nights. This morning in particular is a cold and rainy Sunday. Leo has refused to get out of bed, even to eat breakfast!

The weather leaves me craving warmer and often more hearty foods.

As you may know (or have noticed) I like all of my foods mixed together-- I tend to disgust those people who enjoy their foods neatly separated on their plates. Thus, one bowl wonders, like soup, tend to fit the bill for me!

Last night I decided to make a Kale soup. I tend to look at recipes, but then I am always too impatient to go shopping for ingredients/ I like to improvise so I used the basis of Rachael Ray's Chourico an Kale soup 

My version wound up something like this:

Kale and Italian Sausage Soup: 


* 1 Tablespoon olive oil
* 2 medium onions, chopped
* 2 white potatoes, chopped (I left the skin on, feel free to peel if you prefer).
* 8 cloves of garlic, diced
* 1.5 quarts chicken broth
* 1 -20 oz bag of frozen chopped kale (fresh would be ideal but..)
* 1 pound italian sausage (I used sweet, but hot would also be delicious), cut into bite sized chucks
* 1 carrot
* kernels from 1 ear of corn
* 1 cup frozen peas
* 1 can (~14.5 oz) of pinto beans
* 1 can (14.5 oz)  diced tomatoes
* 2 bay leaves
* black pepper

1. In a large pot or crockpot, saute chopped onions and potatoes in olive oil until tender.  
2. If using fresh kale add this in to the pot, and with bay leaves and garlic. If using frozen just add in the ba leaves and garlic. 
3. In a large pot or crock pot add in everything else. 
4. I simmered mine on low over night. If you are in more of a time crunch cook at a rolling boil and then cook at medium until potatoes are tender. 

Apple-Carrot Soup

Apple picking inspired a lot of desserts- but I felt I should also make something a bit more healthy out of the apples - so I found a recipe for apple carrot soup and adapted it.
Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoon(s) margarine or butter
• 1 large onion, coarsely chopped
• 4 medium Golden Delicious apples - roughly peeled and chopped (I used Junga-golds -- my soup was really sweet-you could probably cut this down to 3 apples.)
• 2 pound(s) carrots, peeled and chopped  (I cheated and used a bag of frozen carrot coins)
• 1 pound butternut squash, peeled and chopped  (Used a bag of frozen)
• 5 cups chicken or vegetable broth  (This is used from scratch broth I made)
• 1 tablespoon(s) brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon(s) peeled and grated fresh ginger (I admit I just used ground)
• salt and pepper to taste (I used fresh cracker black pepper and NuSalt)
• Fresh chives for garnish

1. Melt butter or margarine in a dutch oven over medium - high heat.
2. Add in onions and cook until soft (About 10 minutes).
3. Add in apples, carrots, squash, broth, sugar, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil.
4. Reduce heat and cover. Simmer for about 30 minutes.

  5. Once Carrots and squash are tender, use an emersion blender to blend until smooth.

Serve with fresh chives for a garnish. Bon appetite!

Baked Potato Soup

I've had some extra potatoes around and been craving potato soup, so I decided to try one out! I tried to make it some-what healthier, but this still isn't a super healthy recipe (considering the bacon and cream) feel free to substitute all skim milk or a lean turkey bacon. 

It does make a very filling and delicious soup. 

Baked Potato Soup:

• 4 strips of bacon, chopped
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped or minced 
• 4 tablespoons flour
• 1/4 cup fresh basil
• pinch salt or salt substitute 
• ground black pepper
• 4 cups low sodium chicken broth
• 6 medium potatoes, baked  (I peeled half of them) 
• 1 cup skim milk
• 1 cup fat free half and half
• 1/8 cup hot sauce (I used Franks)  
• Optional: extra bacon, shredded cheese, chives for topping 

1. In a large pot (or crock pot) cook chopped bacon. Remove Bacon and save for later, leave bacon grease in pot. 
2. Add onions and garlic and cook until tender. 
3. Add basil, pepper, salt and flour.  
4. Add in chicken broth slowly and bring to a boil. 
5. Add in potatoes, milk, half and half, hot sauce, and bacon. Simmer, but do not boil. 
6. Using an immersion blender, regular blender or food processor puree as much of the soup as you would like. If you left the peels of the potatoes on, you probably want to blenderize those as much as possible. 

Serve with extra bacon, chives and cheese, if desired. 

Enjoy :) 

Thanksgiving Leftover Turkey Soup

Post Thanksgiving, aka Black Friday, has been a relaxing, yet semi-productive day!

Yesterday Jordan and I hit three Thanksgivings, but of course, we did not pace ourselves and only really ate at the first one.

We did, however, get some lovely leftovers. One of my best finds would have to be the turkey carcass from Jordan’s brother’s house. I was helping with clean up, and they were going to throw the bird remains away! Since no one else was interested in making soup with it, I decided to step up and offer to take it off of their hands.

As you may know, I was a vegetarian for quite some time. I am now back to my omnivorous ways, but I still try to limit my impact of animal eating by at least making use of as much as I can- hence, my compulsive need to repurpose the carcass.

So this morning I started my turkey soup making.  This is only my second attempt making a soup with a carcass- so I am sure my routine could use some refining, and from some internet sources I read, many people add in a lot more steps, but, frankly I think mine came out just fine.

Ingredients used:

·      1 Turkey carcass(I only used half of mine, and froze the rest for a later time)

·      1 Red onion

·      1 Yellow onion

·      4 ribs Celery, chopped

·      ~ 2 pounds Carrots, chopped

·      4 tiny Red potato, quartered

·      2 medium Idaho potato, chopped

·      1 Italian pepper, chopped

·      1 cup Frozen peas

·      ½ cup Frozen corn

·      2 cups dry Egg noodles

·      1 cup dry Lentils

·      5 cloves garlic, sliced

·      Thyme

·      Rosemary

·      Black pepper

·      Parsley

·      Oregano 

(As usual- I just used whatever veggies I had around- no real need for mixed colors of onions/ potatoes etc, they just happened to be hanging around) 

1.     I started by making the stock by placing the carcass in my crockpot with water, the veggies that were stuffed inside (in this case red onion, celery, and parsley). I also threw in an additional yellow onion (quartered) and a few carrots (roughly chopped).  I simmered this for a few hours. 

2.     During the interm, I chopped up some of the other veggies and threw them into the pot as I went.  I also added the spices and garlic at this time.

3.     After a few hours of simmering I removed the bones from the stock. Some of the meat had already fallen off, but I picked at the carcass and removed the rest of the meat before throwing it away. I gave the weird bits that I wasn’t quite sure what they were to Leo, who was quite appreciative. 

4.     I added the meat back into the stock.  ** This is where my methods varied from a lot of others I read, many people make the stock, strain it, cool it, remove the fat etc, and get rid of the veggies and stuff they used in the stock.. but I just kept it in there. I only had a little bit of fat on the top so I just skimmed that off in the crock pot. 

5. I then added the egg noodles and lentils.

    

6. I then continued simmering the soup on low for most of the day. I decided I wanted it to be a bit thicker of a soup, so I removed some of the large pieces of potatoes, carrots, and celery and placed them in another bowl and blenderized them with an immersion blender, then added the pureed soup back into the crock pot.

Here are a few pictures of the end result. I was surprised how much meat was actually in the soup considering it was only what was on half of a turkey carcass- and what was going to be thrown away! 

What are you making with your Thanksgiving left overs?? 

Autumn Squash Soup

With My CSA- I feel like I can barely keep up with all of the vegetables I am getting each week! 

My recent solution: Soup. Soups are a great way to use up a variety of veggies, and make something warm and delicious. I love the fact that soups are so diverse and you can put essentially anything in them and get a some wonderful product. 

Here is my most recent creation, which came out quite well! 

I'll have to add a picture later.

Autumn Squash Soup

1- medium Onion – finely chopped

~ 1 tb Olive oil

1 tb butter

1 clove Garlic – minced

1- Butternut Squash

1- Acorn Squash

2- Sweet Potato

1 head Green Cabbage

2- Apples (I used macintosh)

1 quart Vegetable broth

Nutmeg

Cinnamon

Sage

Pepper

Salt if desired

2 cups Low fat milk

* Peel and chop all ingredients

* In a large pot, simmer onions, garlic, olive oil, butter and a splash of water for about 5 minutes, or until onions are translucent.

* Add in all other chopped vegetables and apples, and vegetable broth, and spices. Cover and simmer for about 30 minutes, stirring periodically.

* Once ingredients are soft, use an immersion blender (or portion out and use a regular blender or food processor) to blend ingredients until pureed.

* mix in enough milk until desired thickness. Dry white wine could also be added if desired (~1/2- 1 cup).

Notes:

 I just used whatever vegetables I had on hand, I’m sure any yellowish squash/ pumpkin would be good.  I used fresh, but canned would work fine too. 

Other recipes used white potatoes… I thought the sweet potatoes kept nicely with the color scheme, and I enjoy sweet things.

 I do not think the cabbage did anything for taste- I just had it on hand and wanted to use it, but nice way to sneak in a green vegetable and add some more fiber and nutrients J  

This made a very large portion of soup, you may wish to scale down.

Seasonal Soup and Salad: The Soup

My last post discussed Jon and I's seasonal dinner inspired by the bounty of my CSA box.

I had made a Roasted Butternut Squash Salad with Cider Vinaigrette, and he made a lovely potato and leek soup.

I generally attempt to make my recipes healthier- but Jon was only willing to do so much tweaking to the recipe...

He used:

1/2 stick unsalted butter
olive oil
2 leeks
1/4 large onion (so.. like one small one?)
3 cloves garlic, minced
~1.5 pounds potatoes, peeled (we used russet potatoes )
1 pt chicken or vegetable broth
parsly
black pepper
salt
1 cup heavy cream (Um.... I would not have chosen this. You can substitute 1/2 or all milk, or use a light cream at least)

* wash and chop leeks, garlic and onion.
* Heat a bit of butter and oil in pan (big frying pan/ wok).
* add garlic, leeks and onions. Saute until soft. Set aside.
* peel and thinly slice potatoes.
* prepare pan again with olive oil and butter, and add potatoes. You are not trying to brown the potatoes. Add a bit of broth and cover pan. Cook until soft.
* add in the leek combo, and saute. Add the rest of the of the broth and spices as desired, and let simmer.
* place a large pot over heat. Pour the soup mixture into pot.
* add 1 cup of cream (or milk).
* use immersion blender to blenderize some of the soup until reaching a creamy consistency.
*** note: Jon blenderized quite a bit, but in retrospect we think he should have left some chunks of potatoes etc. So blend to your desired consistency.





Enjoy!

We served ours with our salad and a side of french bread.

Black Bean Soup

Going on with my bean theme, the other day I made some tasty Black Bean Soup!
I unfortunately packed it all up and froze it before thinking to take a picture, but it looks like a standard black bean soup. Low fat, high protein, high fiber, and no cholesterol :)

Black Bean Soup
1 pound dried black beans (or about 3 normal sized cans, preferably low sodium)
1 green pepper, diced
1 onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 TB olive oil
3 cups water
3 cups vegetable broth
Cumin
Oregano
Cayenne pepper
Black pepper
Thyme

If using dried black beans, soak them over night, then boil until tender.
In a pot, heat olive oil and add onion. Cook for about 3 minutes until becoming translucent. Add in peppers and garlic.
Once the vegetables are softened slightly, add beans, spices and water and broth.
Simmer.
Either using a potato masher, hand blender, food processor, or something else useful for squishing things, mash or blend some of the soup so as to mush up some of the black beans and create a thicker base.
The soup will thicken more and more as you let it simmer. Cover to reduce water loss.
Enjoy alone or topped with sour cream or chili peppers.