Cauliflower Sweet Potato Soup

I won't give exact amounts of the ingredients--I just want to remember everything that went into the delicious soup that I made up.

Saute in a large pot with some olive oil: Chopped celery, chopped carrots, and chopped onions. Add dried lentils and some stock of any kind (I used turkey stock frozen from Thanksgiving). Cover and simmer for 45 minutes. 

Add cubed, roasted sweet potato and chopped roasted red pepper. Add more stock as needed. Cover and simmer another half hour or so. Add chopped cauliflower. Cover and simmer until cauliflower is tender. 

Use an immersion blender to puree everything. Season with coriander, cumin, smoked paprika, and rogan josh. Add salt and pepper to taste. 

I froze several packages for future meals. This is my new way of eating vegetables--if they are all pureed into a soup I can trick myself into eating way more vegetables than usual. Let's face it, for me to eat any vegetables is unusual, so this soup is so good for me.

Green Pea Soup

Good old Campbell's Green Pea Soup in the red and white can has always been my ultimate comfort food. Now the company has discontinued it, so I guess not enough people shared my love of it. This recipe makes a fine substitute and I'm sure contains way less salt than the original canned version. 

You can make this soup on the stove or in the instant pot. Soak the peas before if cooking on top of the stove, but you can skip this step with the instant pot. 

2 cups split green peas, picked through and rinsed until water runs clear. Soak for 4 hours to overnight if cooking on the stove; skip this step if cooking in the instant pot

2 tbl. vegetable oil or butter

One large onion chopped

1 cup chopped celery

1-1/2  cups chopped carrots

1 clove garlic, chopped

1/2 tsp. dried thyme

A few grinds of black pepper

1 to 1-1/2 quarts chicken stock

Fresh lemon juice to taste

Saute the chopped vegetables in the oil or butter until the onions are soft. You can do this right in the instant pot using the saute function or on top of the stove, your choice. Add the peas, thyme, pepper, and chicken stock to cover. Cook for an hour and a half on top of the stove OR if using the instant pot choose the soup/broth function and cook under pressure, then let the pot sit to release the pressure naturally.

Remove the bay leaf, add lemon juice to taste, correct seasonings. 

I used an immersion blender to make a smooth soup. 

Roasted Sweet Potato and Chicken Soup

I'm going to let you decide how much of each ingredient to add...

Roast peeled and cut up sweet potatoes, carrots, and garlic by tossing them with salt and avocado oil and baking on a cookie sheet for 30 minutes at 400 degrees F., stirring once after 15 minutes.

Make Chicken stock (I made mine from the bones of a rotisserie chicken, simmered with chopped onions and carrots, salt, pepper, and herbes de Provence), strain and cool, skim off fat.

Simmer the strained stock (I added some turkey stock from my freezer) with a cup of red lentils until the lentils are tender

Add:
The roasted vegetables
Dried sage

Simmer enough to let the flavors blend. Using an immersion blender, liquify the soup.

Add:
1-1/2 cups cut up cooked chicken 

Warm soup through and serve.

Southwestern Style Pea Soup

Strange as it may seem to those who dislike it, pea soup has always been my ultimate comfort food. The other day, after several hours spent in the chair at the dentist's office, I wanted something warm and easy to eat, and came up with this soup with a Southwestern kick.

You can use homemade pea soup if you wish. I've always loved plain old Campbell's Green Pea (no ham) soup best. It's your choice.

1 can Campbell's Green Pea Soup
1 soup can of milk
1 cup of fresh salsa

Place ingredients in blender, whir until smooth, thinning with additional milk if necessary. Heat by the cupful in the microwave. Serve with a dollop of sour cream, if you wish.

Makes 4 servings.

Marie's Taco Soup

Everything that Marie has ever brought to our knitting group's potlucks is always delicious, and she is very generous about sharing her recipes with us.

1 pound of ground beef

1 medium onion, chopped

1 can diced tomatoes

1 can Ro-tel tomatoes with chiles

1 can regular pinto beans

1 can pinto beans with jalapeños

1 can yellow corn

1 can hominy, drained

1 cup salsa

Brown the beef and onion. Add the contents of all the cans, undrained (except for the hominy, which is drained). Add the salsa. Mix well and simmer for a bit to combine the flavors. Taste for seasonings; add salt, pepper, and chile powder, if you wish.

Note: I added some water to the mixture by rinsing out the emptied cans into the soup pot. If you want it soupier, add more.

Serve with cornbread.

Marie said to tell you that this soup freezes well.

Blender Soups

For some reason, I never thought of doing this. It sounds like a great way to use up leftover vegetables. I always make more than the two of us can eat, hoping that Beez will eat eat more than a single reluctant forkful. Just as he was born with refrigerator blindness (defined here, see #1) he has a genetic disability to eat vegetables with any kind of gusto.

So, finally, I have found the solution--blender soups. Mind you, this solves the leftover vegetable problem, but does not mean that anyone will eat this stuff but me.

Blender Soups

According to The Boston Globe Cook Book (mine is from 1974; later edition here): Leftover vegetables can buzzed into delicious last-minute soups. Use:

spinach

asparagus

celery

peas

to name a few. Add: Milk or water or bouillon and seasonings; heat and serve.

Chilled Blueberry Lavender Buttermilk Soup

I've had this recipe for years. I cut it out from a long ago newspaper article on "Cooking in the Shaker Spirit." It's been tucked into a book on Shaker cooking, just waiting. I dedicate it to my sister, who will make it for a summer supper for us, to be served on a patio overlooking the sage bushes, piñon trees, and the distant blue mountains--a perfect blending of New Mexico scenery and New Hampshire memories.

4 pints blueberries

2 cups maple syrup

Juice of one lemon

6 to 8 lavender sprigs

2 cups buttermilk

2 cups light cream

Pick through and wash the blueberries. In a soup pot combine the berries, maple syrup, and lemon juice. Simmer the mixture for 30 minutes. Puree the soup in a blender until smooth. Chill.

Soak the lavender sprigs in the buttermilk and cream for 45 to 60 minutes, then strain. Combine the chilled soup with the perfumed cream and buttermilk mixture. Chill the soup for 4 hours to allow the flavors to develop.

Serve in chilled bowls garnished with blueberry lavender ice cubes.*

*Ice cubes: fill a conventional ice cube tray with lavender blossoms and blueberry juice, then freeze.

Grandma Elva's Clam Chowder

How my mother loved a good chowder! She was born in New Brunswick, and lived in Maine and Massachusetts before moving out west, so I guess she knew a thing or two about making one. Of course, she probably started out making her earlier versions from freshly shucked clams, but I remember her making do quite nicely with canned clams from our inland grocery store. I don't seem to have my mom's directions written down, but I have watched her make it many times. This version from Allrecipes comes the closest. 4 slices bacon, diced 1 1/2 cups chopped onion 1 1/2 cups water 4 cups peeled and cubed potatoes 1 1/2 teaspoons salt ground black pepper to taste 3 cups half-and-half (half of this can be whole milk) 3 tablespoons butter 2 (10 ounce) cans minced clams Place diced bacon in large stock pot over medium-high heat. Cook until almost crisp; add onions, and cook 5 minutes. Stir in water and potatoes, and season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, and cook uncovered for 15 minutes, or until potatoes are fork tender. Pour in half-and-half, and add butter. Drain clams, reserving clam liquid; stir clams and 1/2 of the clam liquid into the soup. Cook for about 5 minutes, or until heated through. Do not allow to boil. **Now, here is where Grandma Elva added her own particular touch. After the chowder was heated through, she insisted that it should sit on the stove (off the heat) for at least an hour to develop its full flavor. Then she would carefully reheat it (no boiling, very important!) and serve it with oyster crackers. Common crackers, split and buttered, are wonderful, too.

Chicken Soup

This isn't really a recipe, just an outline.

Make a pot of chicken stock.

Add any/all of the following:

Peeled and cubed potatoes or barley or rice

As many vegetables as you would like--I usually use carrots, celery, onions, peas, green beans--but you may have some other favorites. Turnips and rutabagas come to mind...

Cook until the vegetables, barley, rice, or whatever is tender.

Add some chopped fresh parsley, chives, and whatever else is growing in your herb garden.

Add the cooked, cut up chicken from making the stock

Season to taste.

Have another look around the fridge and dump in any likely leftovers you find. A little casserole! Salsa! Enchiladas! Who knows what's lurking in your fridge.

Potato Leek Soup

This was another easy soup that Marsha and I used to make. We ate it a lot because it costs about $.47 to make. And it's delicious!

--3 Russet Potatoes
--1 Leek stalk
--Water
--Kosher Salt or Sea Salt
--Fresh-Ground Black Pepper
--3 to 5 tbsp Butter

Wash potatoes and cube. Leave on the skins. Cut the leeks into 1/2 inch pieces, then rinse well in a bath of cold water (leeks like to collect mud, so it's a futile effort to clean them until after they have been cut). Put the potatoes and leeks into a stockpot and add water to a level of about half an inch above the veggies. Cover and simmer over medium heat for about 45 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. Season with a lot of salt and pepper to taste, then stir in the butter.

Split Pea Soup

Wash and soak 2 cups split peas. Drain the peas, reserving the liquid. Add enough water to the reserved liquid to make 10 cups. Adding peas again, cook covered for about 2 1/2 to 3 hours.

Add and simmer, covered, for 1/2 hour longer until vegetables are tender: 1/4 tsp. thyme, 1/2 cup chopped onions, 1 cup chopped celery with leaves, 1/2 cup chopped carrots.

Put the soup through a sieve.

 
Melt: 2 tbl. butter. Stir in it until blended: 2 tbl. flour. Add a little of the soup mixture, slowly. Cook and stir until it boils then stir it into the rest of the reheated soup. Correct the seasoning.

Makes about 8 cups.

National Public Radio's "How Low Can You Go" Challenge

For NPR's "How Low Can You Go" family supper challenge, some of the nation's best cooks have each agreed to come up with a budget-conscious meal for a family of four that's healthy, easy and delicious. The hitch? The meal must cost less than $10 — and the cheaper the better. ~All Things Considered

When I first heard about this challenge, I was sure that most of the suppers we make here at the Zees are well within this price range--dividing the $10/per family of four in half, making $5 for our empty-nest family of two. Looking at Beez's lasagna this past weekend, I'm not so sure. The cost for that cheese sure adds up!

Here are some of the results from the NPR challenge:

The Neelys Get Playful with a $9 Mac 'N' Cheese (Cheesy Corkscrews with Crunchy Bacon Topping

Chef Ming Tsai Makes a $10 Dish His Kids Love (Chicken-and-Corn Fried Rice with Lemon Spinach)

From Chef Jose Andres, A Family Favorite for $10 (Moorish-Style Chick Pea and Spinach Stew

Navy Chef Gets Creative with a $10 Skate Meal (Cream of Asparagus Soup, Sauteed Skate Meuniere with Potato Gnocchi)

Corn Chowder

5 slices of bacon

1 medium onion, thinly sliced and separated into rings

2 cups cooked or canned whole kernel corn

1 cup diced cooked potatoes

2 - 1/2 cups whole milk

1/2 tsp. salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Cook bacon until crisp. Remove bacon, pour off fat, returning 3 tablespoons to pan. Add onion, cooking and stirring until lightly browned. Add remaining ingredients, reserving one slice of cooked bacon. Heat to boiling, reduce heat and simmer for a minute or two. 

Crumble bacon over each serving. 

Note: You can also add a can of cream of mushroom soup (undiluted), if you wish.

Butternut Squash Soup

This is my go-to soup nowadays. It's both comfort food and healthy food (depending on how you make it). I often switch up the recipe. Garlic or no garlic? Bacon grease or olive oil with a pat of butter? Heavy cream or milk or sour cream? Should I roast the squash first? As you can see, this recipe is in flux. Here's my current favorite way:

--1 medium yellow or vidalia onion, chopped
--1 clove of garlic, minced
--1 tbsp bacon grease (just...trust me)
--1 butternut squash, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
--4 cups low-sodium chicken stock
--1 tsp cinnamon
--1/2 tsp nutmeg
--1/2 tsp Sea Salt
--1/3 cup heavy cream

Melt the bacon grease in a large sauce pan on medium-to-low heat. Add the onion and slowly saute. When the onion is half cooked, add the garlic, and saute until the onion has turned clear. Add the butternut squash, chicken stock, cinnamon, nutmeg, and sea salt. Bring to a boil and turn heat to low. Cover and let simmer for about 10-12 minutes, or until the squash is tender. Remove from heat. Spoon stock and squash into a blender (this may require multiple batches if your blender is small). Add the heavy cream and puree until smooth. Adjust salt if necessary. Serve with a salad and fresh bread for dipping.

Emerald Bisque

2 cans cream of potato soup

1 soup can of milk

1 soup can of water

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1 cup chopped spinach

Dash of nutmeg

Combine all and heat.

Shaker Style Butternut Squash and Corn Chowder

½ lb. smoked bacon, diced

1 medium onion, diced

½ lb. red potatoes, diced

2 cups butternut squash, peeled and finely diced

1 bay leaf

Chicken stock

1 tbl. chopped parsley

½ cup light brown sugar

2 cups corn kernels

¼ cup chopped scallions

2 cups heavy cream

Fry bacon in a soup pot, drain off half the grease, return pot to the stove. Add diced onion, cook 2-3 minutes until clear.  Add potatoes, squash, bay leaf, and enough chicken stock to cover.  Simmer until potatoes are tender.  Add corn, parsley, scallions, brown sugar, and cream.  Simmer until the corn is tender, about 5-10 minutes.  Season with salt and pepper and serve.