Favorite Soup Recipes

[Juni]

I am learning to cook, and I decided to start with soup. I made Chicken & Gnocchi soup (based on Olive Garden's) successfully, so I figured I'd pick Cauldronite brains for their favorite soup recipes. Here's the recipe I used:

Chicken & Gnocchi Soup

1/2 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cup celery, chopped fine
3/4 cup onion, chopped fine
1/2 cup carrot, grated very fine and chopped
1 1/2 teaspoons garlic, minced
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup milk
4 cups chicken broth or 4 cups fresh chicken stock
1 1/2 cups cooked chicken (white meat works best)
3/4 cup fresh spinach, julienne cut
16 ounces gnocchi (potato dumpling)
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions:
1 - Melt butter in a large heavy saucepan.
2 - Add onions, celery, carrots, garlic and sauté until soft.
3 - Add flour mixing well, cook for 3-4 minutes ,stirring frequently.
4 - Add heavy cream, milk and chicken broth mixing well.
5 - Cook and stir until mixture thicken and comes to a boil.
6 - Reduce heat and stir in chicken, spinach, gnocchi and remaining seasonings.
7 - Adjust seasonings to taste.
8 - Cook over low heat 8-10 minutes until gnocchi become tender.


I also had success replacing the gnocchi with potato chunks, adding them in with the rest of the veggies in step 2.

[yewberry]

The Pot of Beans:

• 1 pound of dried beans (I like organic pintos, but that's just me)
• 1 large onion
• 2 tablespoons of fat (butter, vegetable oil, lard, bacon grease, goose grease, you name it)
• Several garlic cloves (or garlic granules/powder, in a pinch)
• Water
• Soy sauce
• Salt
• Freshly-ground black pepper
• Fresh herbs if ya got 'em (thyme, sage, rosemary--all of these can be omitted and you'll still have a fine pot of beans)
• A couple tablespoons (or more) of smoked paprika, or a few strips of cooked bacon (crumbled), or a smoked ham hock...or any combo thereof

Soak the beans in a crock pot overnight (I prefer to soak mine for 48 hours, due to how cold I keep my house), draining and changing the water at least once. Drain one last time, and then top with boiling water to just above the level of the beans. Turn the crock pot on high. Chop the onion roughly and sautee it in the oil. Add all ingredients to the beans. The cooking liquid should be just a little too salty to taste. Most of this salt will be absorbed by the beans and the liquid will become progressively less salty as they cook. You can substitute some or all of the soy sauce with salt, but the result won't be quite as rich-tasting.

Keep the pot on high until it comes to a boil, then turn down to low and simmer until the beans are tender, and a little longer if you added a ham hock. The resulting beans can be eaten like soup (the cooking liquid is scrummy) or added to various recipes.

Brina

[Tana]

Made an Asian style vegetable soup this weekend, it was just *yum*.

Basic soup broth with the standard soup greens.
Add fennel, let cook a bit.

Add chili, ginger and lemon grass.

Add vegetables all you like, we did it with ball peppers, shiitake mushrooms, carrots and leaf spinach (at the very end, it doesn't really need to cook).
(You can also add: bamboo shoots, mung bean sprouts and chinese cabbage.)

Salt and soy sauce.

Finished.

If you like heat some udon noodles separately (they don't need to cook with the soup), put them in a bowl and pour the soup over them.

[Tana]

Beef Soup
(very simple, the way my grandmother did it)

Look for a nice piece of soup meat.
It needs to have some fat on it for this.

Put in water with soup greens.
Let cook till meat starts to falls apart, or till you can pull it off with a fork. (Can take a while.)

Salt soup, add (umm, we use Maggi on everything, I don't think it's available everywhere in the states) but you can use a salty type of soy sauce to replace it and some broth (do you have it as instant?), a bit of tomato puree and rice.
Let the rice cook.

You can either leave the meat in it, it will become even more tender, or fish it out, cut it into little pieces and add it back to the soup.

I let the rice cook till it kinda curls up.

[Erinnightwalker]

Awesome soup and stew recipes at the Skint Foodie, plus a lot of simple, delicious recipes, excellent for new cooks (in most cases, anyway )

[Finn]

Here's a new favorite:

Quick Apple and Sweet Potato Soup

Ingredients
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 stalks celery, chopped
1/2 cup chopped Vidalia onion
8 sprigs fresh thyme
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 cloves garlic, smashed
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon ground cumin
2 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
4 Granny Smith apples, cored, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
4 cups vegetable stock
1 1/2 cups apple cider

Directions
In a large pot over medium heat add the butter and olive oil. Add the celery, onion, and thyme. Season with salt and pepper, then stir while cooking until the onions and celery are tender. Add the garlic, cinnamon, allspice, and cumin. Stir and cook until fragrant, about 5 minutes. Add the sweet potatoes and apples stirring to coat them with the contents of the pot. Add the vegetable stock and apple cider and then cover. Simmer for 20 to 25 minutes or until tender.

In batches, carefully puree the contents of the pot in a blender or use an immersion blender. Taste and season with salt. Serve warm or chilled.

When blending hot liquids: Remove liquid from the heat and allow to cool for at least 5 minutes. Transfer liquid to a blender or food processor and fill it no more than halfway. If using a blender, release one corner of the lid. This prevents the vacuum effect that creates heat explosions. Place a towel over the top of the machine, pulse a few times then process on high speed until smooth.

[SunflowerP]

Awesome soup and stew recipes at the Skint Foodie, plus a lot of simple, delicious recipes, excellent for new cooks (in most cases, anyway )

Ooh, that site is a find - I can usually do my own cost-estimates, but it's nice not to have to, and tight-budget cooking sites are relatively uncommon, and often not about really tight budgets (or they are, but lack expertise) <grumbles about classism in the food world>. And I see it's quite new; you were onto that really fast!

Sunflower

[Erinnightwalker]

Ooh, that site is a find - I can usually do my own cost-estimates, but it's nice not to have to, and tight-budget cooking sites are relatively uncommon, and often not about really tight budgets (or they are, but lack expertise) <grumbles about classism in the food world>. And I see it's quite new; you were onto that really fast!

Sunflower

It really helps to have a wide variety of Twitter people. If I remember right it was a link in a link I clicked ^_^ There are sooooo many recipes I wanna try there....

[BunnyMaz]

Yellow pepper and sweetcorn soup, used as a base. Easy recipe - no measuring, all done according to preference.

Put an amount of corn, off the cob, and several hastily-cut yellow bell peppers into a pan with some chopped potato, ratio roughly 1:1:2 for corn: pepper:spud, add a chopped onion. Add enough water to cover, and a quick glug of milk, and a pinch of salt and cook until the potatoes are soft and the pepper dissolving. Roughly mash the contents of the pan with a hand masher, to keep it fairly chunky while still improving soup consistency. Can be eaten as is, but is great if you add some prawns, or a mixture of smoked and white fish, or some smoked chicken, or some shellfish or a blend of all of those and give it another round of cooking until the meat is cooked.

[veggiewolf]

I am learning to cook, and I decided to start with soup. ...

Me too!

Tomato Fennel Soup with Vegan Sausage

Ingredients:
- 1 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes
- 2 medium fresh tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped
- 3 cups vegetable broth
- 1 cup dry white wine
- 4 cups chopped fennel (1-2 large bulbs)
- 4 vegan sausages, Italian flavor, cut into 1/2" pieces
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 4 tbsp fresh parsley

In a soup pot, heat the oil on medium high heat. Add fennel and saute for 5 minutes. Add sausage, and cook for an additional 5-7 minutes or until sausage starts to stick to the bottom of the pot. Using a little wine, de-glaze the pan for 5 to 10 seconds, then add broth, fresh tomatoes, canned tomatoes, parsley, and the rest of the wine. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 20-30 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with fresh bread (I like to put a slice in the bottom of the bowl.)