Anyone have soup hints?

[momo]

I am going to be eating alot more soup next year. Does anyone have any neat tricks or recipes they can share? Soup is not one of my specialties since I only make about 4 kinds.

[Deleted]

Oh, I love making soup, but I never do a recipe. That's the reason I like soup, because I can start with water or broth and just start tossing whatever sounds good in there.

Well, there is ONE that has a recipe. Hang on, I'll get it...

Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a saucepan and add 3 tablespoons flour or arrowroot powder to make a roux. Add 3 cups chicken broth and whisk until slightly thickened. Add 1 cup heavy cream and stir thoroughly. Season with 1/2 tsp. onion powder, 1/4 tsp. garlic powder, 1/4 tsp. paprika and some salt if you used unsalted broth. Cook and stir for about 5 minutes. Then toss in about 1 1/2 cups chopped cooked chicken (or turkey) and whatever else strikes your fancy. It's good just the way I wrote it above, but I also like it with green peas added, or sliced green onions, and if you have some of those mixed dried vegetables, toss in a handful of that, too. Just let it simmer until everything is heated through and/or rehydrated. You can also make it spicier by adding Tabasco sauce or cayenne pepper. Ginger is good, too, and very warming on a cold winter day.

Anyway, that's my favorite cream of chicken recipe. Other soups I make I start with a pot of water and just start adding things. Diced potatoes, onions, celery, lentils, rice, carrots, garlic, all kinds of spices, beans, you name it. Just follow your mood.

~Lannie

[Deleted]

I love soup too. Good stuff.

I don't think that you can go wrong with soup. Any kind of veggie/meat works in soup. Don't forget things like chili (white bean too) and gumbo.

If you've got a small family and a big pot of soup it can get boring. I put it into containers and freeze it so that I have a couple of meals worth in reserve. This makes cooking ahead so easy. Just use the crockpot every couple of days and viola.

To keep from getting bored try doing 'stir ins'. Make your favorite veggie soup and then one night take our a couple of bowls worth and heat it seperately and stir in tortilla strips and kidney beans and salsa or taco seasoned beef/chicken. Another night you could add spinach (super yummy in chicken soup btw) and white beans and italian sausage. You can get really creative and still make sure you have plenty of veggies and it is really easy on the budget. If you freeze half of your 'stir in' creations you quickly have lots of different soups to eat whenever you need a quick lunch or dinner.

With the basic vegetable beef, chicken, and tomato based veggie (V8 is great for this) you can't go wrong.

Things that are good in soup even though you wouldn't think so:
Peeled diced pumpkin, shredded cabbage, spinach, kale, mushrooms, turnips (rutabagas seem too licorice like to me), broccoli, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, and one of my favorites cilantro.

ENJOY and I'll probably edit this in the AM I'm TUI.

[momo]

Thanks for the ideas. I'm really trying to come up with a natural flavorful broth too.

I have a friend who has a restaurant. Everyone loves her veggie beef soup. They think she spends alot of time making it. Her secret is to take a can of Dinty Moore beef stew and add tomato juice to it. It is probably loaded with sodium but they don't know it!

[Deleted]

One of the best hints a friend told me about, he was a chef.

All your vegetable leftovers, tops and tails of carrots, zucchini, onions, including the skin, garlic, celery. The only ones you really don't want are peppers, they over power everything. Put them into a large, 1 gallon size, and keep it in your freezer. Once it is full dump it all into a stock pot with whatever else and simmer for a few hours. When it is finished strain the liquid from the stuff. Put the stuff into your compost and now you have great veggie stock as a base.

I also carry it a bit further and put all the bones left over from chicken or beef into bags and into my freezer. This can be added to the same pot as the veggies.

It's really simple and saves a lot of wasting of odds and ends.