Add the bouillon at the table

My own copy

The kids are in finals, so of course half the kids, and me, are coming down with a cold.  An excellent occasion to try at least the idea of Mark Bittman's Clean-Out-the-Fridge Vegetable Soup.  My soup was comparatively limited by what I had in the fridge to clean out, and I wasn't about to go out in the rain in my mildly sick and tired state to pretend I ever had on hand as wide a range of vegetables as Bittman.

Wannabe Mirepoix: leeks, carrots, mushroom.

Mine was a leek-carrot-mushroom-tomato-potato-spinach soup.  No pistou.  But served with cheese sandwich or hamburgers to take the pressure off.

I added my bouillon paste right into my soup bowl!

I serve a vegetarian soup at more than half our dinners in the winter, but tonight I was impatient with the thought of another vegetable bouillon broth.  So I did a crazy thing--I cooked the vegetables in water, and served a choice of vegetable or turkey Better than Bouillon soup base paste at the table.  I know this doesn't allow the vegetables to season in the broth while cooking, but it was worth it to me to serve vegetables in turkey broth to those who wanted it, without having to divide the soup into two pots so the vegetarian version would be available to those who require it.

Potato Soup with Kale Garnish

<--The mere idea of kale on the plate.
<--Yum for me; tears for her.

It's been cold and rainy. Last week I planned two dinners that didn't happen: one a mildly yellow potato soup with green salad, another garlicky greens on ziti pasta with cannellini. I still have the ingredients for both, so I decided to make the potato soup with a side of sauteed greens. It was not a hit.

Menu:
Double potato soup (sweet potatoes and regular potatoes with half-and-half)
Kale sauteed in olive oil and garlic, steamed in vegetable broth.
Toasted Wheat hamburger bun as roll.
Milk or Cranberry Juice to drink

As a family dinner, this was a fail.
I forgot about the tendency of Kale to be bitter. I love it in a creamy soup, but obviously none of the children do, not even the vegetarian with the sophisticated palate. Also, the younger half of the family hate potatoes and most soups, though I refuse to acknowledge this.

Nevertheless, I assure you it was delicious. I love that greens / starchy soup / cranberry juice triad. However, I'm not sure I'm going to love it for three lunches in a row.

Potato through an Apple Peeler-Slicer-Corer

Yes, that's a (sweet) potato in an apple peeler/slicer/corer. I'm making "Double Potato Soup" from Leanne Ely's Saving Dinner and I couldn't find a vegetable peeler in my kitchen to save my life. Then I noticed that potatoes--aka pommes de terre--are as solid and thin-skinned as apples. And I've easily peeled and sliced some 15 pounds of apples for Thanksgiving pies, using a handcranked apple peeler-slicer-corer. I was going to pull back the slicer/corer blade and only peel tonight's potatos, when I realized I needed the potatoes cut for soup anyway.

I had to cut the potato in half--the ones I bought were too large to fit the hand-crank machine otherwise. I'm loving this shortcut. The potatoes were all peeled and cut miraculously fast.

Leaving me with plenty of energy to enforce dishwashing upon children this evening, making sure this time all my cooking tools go back into proper place.

Tortellini, Greens, and Bean Soup

Here's another soup I love from Soup Makes The Meal by Ken Haedrich.

2 TBS olive oil or unsalted butter
1 large chopped onion
1 rib celery, finely chopped
3 cloves minced garlic
salt to taste
6 cups stock
1 tsp dried basil
9 0z package fresh tortellini
2-3 C stemmed and chopped spinach (or Swiss chard--I use spinach)
Pepper to taste
1 can garbanzos, rinsed and drained
1 TBS tomato paste
Parmesan cheese for garnish

I know you know the steps.....
Heat the oil over mod low heat. Add onion, celery, and garlic. Salt light and sweat under tight lid for about 10 min.
Add stock and basil and bring to a boil. Add greens and tortellini. Return the soup to a boil. Boil for about a minute, and then lower the heat to mod low and simmer, partially covered about 5 minutes. Taste the broth, adding salt and pepper as needed.
Add the chickpeas and the tomato paste. Simmer another 5 minutes. Serve piping hot and pass the Parmesan at the table.

Tomato-Vegetable Lentil Soup

I love soup and am glad to live in a place where we still have several months of serious soup weather. Lentils are way faster to cook than beans which have to be pre-soaked.

2 TBS olive oil
1 large chopped onion
2 ribs celery, diced
green bell pepper, seeded/diced
5 cups stock (vegetable, chicken, beef--wherever you are in the process)
3/4 cup lentils, rinsed/sorted for rocks, etc.
2 carrots, peeled/diced
1-2 bay leaves
1 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp dried thyme
pepper to taste
1 large potato, peeled and diced relatively small
28 oz crushed tomatoes

Heat oil and add onion, celery and pepper. Cover and sweat over med low heat, about 8-10 minutes.
Add stock, lentils, carrot, bay leaf, and herbs. Bring to a boil, cover partially, and reduce heat to med low. Simmer about 15 min. Stir in the potato and a bit of salt. Simmer another 10 min.
Add the tomatoes. Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, another 10-15 min. Add seasonings to taste.

This makes about 5 servings, and is adapted from Soup Makes the Meal, by Ken Haedrich.

Liz's Tomato Soup Recipe

... can be found here on her blog. It sounds really good.

War muffins and Tomato Lentil Soup

On Friday we had pumpkin pancakes (the recipe is in the sidebar) and scrambled eggs (they were delightful). By Sunday I was out of eggs, so I looked online for a recipe for eggless muffins to go with some Tomato Lentil soup I was going to make for dinner.

I found this recipe and tried it out. It was really pretty good, given there's no eggs, no butter. It's definitely a vegan recipe. This seems like a good food storage type recipe, ya know?

And here's the Tomato-Vegetable Lentil Soup (adapted from Ken Haedrich's Soup Makes the Meal).
4 TBS olive oil
2 large onions, chopped
4 ribs celery, diced fine
1 green bell pepper, diced
salt to taste
10 cups broth---veg, chicken, beef--you decide ;)
1 1/2 cups dried lentils, rinsed and picked over
2 large carrots, diced fine
2 bay leaves
2 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried thyme
black pepper to taste
28 oz can crushed tomatoes (or petite-diced), undrained
2 potatoes, peeled and diced

Heat olive oil in large soup pot. Add onion, celery, and bell pepper. Lightly salt. Cover tightly and sweat over med. low heat until veggies are soft, about 9 minutes.

Add the stock, lentils, carrot, bay leaves and other herbs and season with pepper. Bring to a boil, cover partially, and reduce heat to medium low. Simmer for 15 minutes. Stir in the potato and simmer 10-15 minutes more. Add the tomatoes; cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, another 10 minutes. Correct seasonings as needed. This makes 10-12 servings.

For the pathetic people who think they need flesh, I gave them a few bacon bits. I tell them when they eat those things they smell like doggy treats, but they don't care. They just feel the love that I even allowed anything piggy in my house.

Minestrone Soup

I have only ever had canned minestrone, and then only a few times, but my husband loves it so I decided to try my hand at making up my own recipe for it. This is what we are having for dinner tonight. It turned out great (I think, as well as my son #1 who is my picky, non veggie eating son), and has lots of veggies in it. I hope you'll try it out and let me know what you think.

½ Cup Butter (or Olive Oil if you live healthier than I do)
½ to 1 tsp dried basil (more or less to your tastes) Fresh would work also
½ to 1 tsp Italian seasoning (more or less to your tastes)
1 med to large onion
2 stalks celery
2 medium sized carrots
One small zucchini (like you get at the grocery store)
2-3 cloves minced garlic
1 can of diced Italian style tomatoes (do NOT drain it)
Four cups diced potatoes
6 to 8 cups of broth (I used chicken, but veggie broth would be lovely)
1 15oz can green beans (drained)
1 15oz can peas (drained)
1 15oz can kidney beans (drained and rinsed)
1 15oz can Great Northern beans (or other similar bean of your choice, drained and rinsed)
1 to 1 ½ cups of small macaroni shells
1 6oz can of tomato paste

In a large stock or soup pot heat butter or olive oil. Chop the onion, carrots and celery finely and add it to the pot, along with the spices and sauté until the onions begin to become translucent. Add the minced garlic and sauté a little longer. Add the can of tomatoes (including the juices) and the zucchini and stir. Let simmer over medium heat while you dice the potatoes (I peeled them, but you could leave the peels on). Add the potatoes to the pot and then 6 cups of the broth. Cook, stirring occasionally over medium to medium high heat for about 5 minutes, until the potatoes begin to soften but are not fully cooked. Add the cans of drained green beans, peas, kidney and great northern beans. If you think you will need more broth for cooking the macaroni noodles, now is the time to add it (I used 8 cups total when I did this, but if you use fewer or smaller veggies it may not need that much) Bring the soup to a boil and add the macaroni shells, stirring. Reduce the heat to just over medium and stir in the can of tomato paste. Cook until the macaroni noodles are soft, making sure that the potatoes are also cooked through. Enjoy!
You can serve this soup with a little Parmesan or Romano cheese grated on top. This makes a huge pot of soup. It will feed my family of 7 not including the baby at least twice. You could cut the recipe in half, but you would have to use only half a can of the veggies and beans, or just use one kind of each. Of course you can use different kinds of veggies or leave out those that you don’t like. I chopped up the celery, carrots and zucchini with a food processor so that they were fairly fine, and my pickiest eater (who hates most veggies) loved the soup.

Recipe: Southwestern Corn Chowder

I have no grand plans of turning into a vegetarian, but I do like the idea of incorporating more and more meatless meals into my family's dinners. Here is a recipe that we have had twice now. DH and I love it.

Southwestern Corn Chowder (from Martha Stewart Everyday Food)
1 T butter
1 scallion, thinly sliced, white and green parts separated
1 medium carrot, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
1/2 t chili powder
1/2 t oregano
coarse salt and ground pepper
1 baking potato, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 package (10 oz) frozen corn kernels
1 can (14.5 oz) reduced sodium chicken (or veggie) broth
1 cup milk

1. In a medium saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Add white part of scallion, carrot, chili powder and oregano; season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally until scallion is soft, about 2 minutes. Add potato, corn, broth and milk.

2. Bring to a boil over medium-high, and reduce to a simmer. Cook until potato is easily pierced with the tip of a knife, 15 to 20 minutes. Stir in the green part of the scallion, and season with salt and pepper. Serves two.

I added cumin and cayenne, and adjusted the ingredients to feed my whole family (this only serves two). I also added some cream in at the end the last time I made it (only because I happened to have an open carton -- something I don't usually keep on hand but was left over from another recipe). I served the soup with cornbread and a green salad.

Recipe for Cheese Soup

First a disclaimer that this soup is not necessarily super low in fat, but its good and warms me up when its cold in the winter.

Cheese Soup

1/2 cup finely chopped onion
4 Tbs butter or margarine
1/2 cup flour
4 cups milk
4 cups chicken broth or Vegetable broth
1/2 cup finely diced carrots
1/2 cup finely diced celery
Dash each salt and paprika
1 cup grated medium or sharp cheddar cheese

Cook onion in butter till tender. Blend in flour. Add remaining ingredients except cheese. cook and stir till thickened and bubbly. Reduce heat. Add cheese. Stir to melt. Simmer 15 minutes. Serves 8

When my sister gave me this recipe it called for American cheese, but I have never made it that way. I always just used cheddar, so that is the way I am sending it on to you. Also, I tend to put a little bit more of the veggies in this soup. Closer to 3/4 cup. It won't hurt anything and it will be better for you!