<p>Winter weather has me thinking about soup. Care to share your favorite soup and, perhaps, it’s recipe?</p>
<p>My mother used to whip up the BEST soups, mostly from scratch and without formal recipe…not a talent I can emulate!</p>
<p>A family favorite (and easy, easy to make):</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.skinnytaste.com/2013_01_22_archive.html”>http://www.skinnytaste.com/2013_01_22_archive.html</a></p>
<p>Mine is a modified version of this recipe from the Williams-Sonoma’s recipe collection (I omit pork “croutons”, and it works just fine and tastes great) :</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.williams-sonoma.com/m/recipe/butternut-squash-carrot-soup-with-pork-croutons.html”>http://www.williams-sonoma.com/m/recipe/butternut-squash-carrot-soup-with-pork-croutons.html</a></p>
<p>This black bean soup is my favorite:</p>
<p><a href=“https://www.starchefs.com/DRodriguez_blackbeans.html”>https://www.starchefs.com/DRodriguez_blackbeans.html</a></p>
<p>I use half the amount of olive oil and salt called for in the recipe, and it is still delicious!</p>
<p>We make soup all the time but don’t use recipes as much as techniques. As in, roast vegetables - particularly butternut squash & carrots - because that brings out the flavor. Roasting onions is very good but we have to remember to open a window, even in the cold!! You can roast a bunch of half or quartered onions, keep them in a container and use them as flavor bombs. Roasting garlic makes it into a mellow treat but we don’t put it in soup all the time. Add to pot with water. To make creamy without cream, add 3 or so small cut up small potatoes. Cook for a while. Puree with stick blender to consistency desired. We tend to under salt, leaving the adjustment of salt to when we reheat - because the flavors are always better the next day anyway. Adding some dill or cilantro can be excellent. More carrots equals sweeter soup. Tossing in some wine broadens the flavor and cuts sweetness. </p>
<p>If you like meat, I find adding a bit when you’re serving is better than cooking it in because even smoked meat gets lost after 45 minutes in a pot. So we cook something until crispy and put in the bowl. </p>
<p>I recently had this at a friend’s, and she was generous enough to share the recipe (which she said she found on Pinterest). I made it today for the first time to rave reviews from the family:</p>
<p>Zuppa Toscana</p>
<p>Ingredients:</p>
<p>4 slices bacon, cut into a small dice
1 pound mild Italian sausage, ground or links with casings removed
1 large yellow onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
4 cups (32 ounces) chicken broth or stock
3 cups Russet potatoes, cubed
sea or kosher salt and fresh black pepper
2 loose packed cups kale or spinach, in bite size pieces
1 cup heavy cream or 14 ounce can evaporated milk</p>
<p>Instructions:</p>
<p>In a large soup pot or sauce pan cook bacon over medium until crispy. Add sausage and break it apart as it cooks. Once sausage is browned and crumbled drain off the grease leaving a tablespoon or two to saute the onion.
Push the sausage to the edges of the pot and add onion to center - saute until translucent then add garlic and saute until fragrant.
Stir in broth and potatoes, season with 3/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper, simmer for about 20 minute or until potatoes are tender.
Add kale and heavy cream or evaporated milk. Bring to a simmer. Taste and re-season as needed. Serve with Parmesan cheese and crusty bread.</p>
<p>The only soup I make is from a leftover turkey or chicken carcass. I cover it with water, add chopped onions, carrots and celery, plus a bay leaf, salt and pepper, and let it simmer for a few hours. Then I strain it through a sieve so I ca find all the tiny bones that have separated from the carcass. I freeze it into serving-size containers, and then when we reheat I through in some orzo or other pasta. </p>
<p>I did once make a butternut squash soup (recipe from The Joy of Cooking) that was to die for.</p>
<p>I love zuppa toscana, it is a soup served at The Olive Garden.</p>
<p>I love Gypsy Soup from the Moosewood Cookbook. Easy to Google, hard to tell what is blog vs not-blog.</p>
<p>I am not a very good cook and I don’t like cooking very much. I think my dislike for cooking stems from the fact that my food does not taste very good. I feel like I spend a lot of time in the kitchen only to serve mediocre bland food. Recently, though, I really have been making an extra effort to experiment, research and educate myself on what it takes to make tasty food. And if I do say so myself, I think I can now make some mean soup. </p>
<p>I discovered that the key ingredient to delicious soup is the stock. The right stock gives the soup body and a more robust flavor. Like VeryHappy, I always have a stash of stock in the freezer ready to go whenever I want to make a quick meal. I have found that the most efficient way to make stock is to use my pressure cooker. I throw in chicken carcass and a blend of vegetables, seal the lid and let it simmer for about 30 minutes. The pressure cooker releases all the flavor from the bones which holds most of the flavor. Good stock will turn to gelatin when refrigerated. </p>
<p>I also have a bag in the freezer where I collect vegetable scraps to make vegetable stock once it is full. I will copy Lergnom’s method and blend the ingredients with the immersion blender instead of throwing them away. That sounds like an easy way to add flavor to the soup.</p>
<p>I make this fish stew all the time, but the last time I made it, it was da bomb.
<a href=“http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Fish-Chowder/Detail.aspx?event8=1&prop24=SR_Thumb&e11=fish%20stew&e8=Quick%20Search&event10=1&e7=Home%20Page”>http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Fish-Chowder/Detail.aspx?event8=1&prop24=SR_Thumb&e11=fish%20stew&e8=Quick%20Search&event10=1&e7=Home%20Page</a>
My secret ingredient was lobster stock. Whenever we steam lobsters, I save all the juices from the bottom of the pot and freeze it for future use. I usually buy fish that is already filleted but now I am rethinking that. It is probably better to buy the whole fish and fillet it myself and keep the skin and bones for a fish stock. That sounds like a lot of work; have to think about whether my family is worth it. 
</p>
<p>You can also get good beef stock by using beef bones and a chunk of beef thrown into the pressure cooker. You will get a thick gelatin with a milky color. Our family enjoys this soup by simply slicing up the beef chunk and just adding sliced green onions and salt and pepper. No extra flavoring is need because all the flavor has been extracted from the bones.</p>
<p>One quick and easy soup I make is a pseudo egg drop soup. While the stock is boiling, I add stirred egg to get a ribbon effect, throw in spinach and add a little salt and pepper. Simple yet tasty. If you have good stock, it doesn’t take much to have delicious soup.</p>
<p>I make soup often in winter. Don’t use recipes- just techniques like Lergnom. My go to’s include split pea with ham hocks in the crockpot, Zuppa Toscana clone from Olive Garden, hamburger and “Cheeseburger” soup, and chicken and dumplings. Yum!
I usually add leftovers and must goes to the soup pot- kale and barley are healthy and seem to compliment every soup I make.</p>
<p>Home made chicken soup tops the list, in the crock pot --nearly any recipe will do. I top with dumplings made from Pillsbury biscuits. Just drop them on top of the soup and let them simmer on highfor about 15-20 minutes. In a hurry at the end stage, dump soup into a pot, bring to boil on stovetop and then add the dumplings and you can the get away with half the time. Sprinkle some dry basil or parsley on the biscuit dumplings.</p>
<p>Another quick favoirite is curry udon. Buy Japanese udon noodles from freezer, and boil according to directions. A can of japanese ready made curry diluted to desired consistncy is the broth, adding some fresh sauteed minced onion, garlic, celery for some fresh flavor or a bit of scallion. Add a drzzle of tonkatsu sauce and, mmm.</p>
<p>Miso potato and onion soup is also a treat. A teaspoon of bonito, chicken or veggy or fish broth per cup of soup. Add sliced sweet onions and potatoes. Boil until tender. Add miso taste to flavor with a touch of mirin wine. </p>
<p>Sigh…This is the time of year for my FAVORITE comfort food, Chicken & Dumplings, but I have been dieting (down 15#) and I refuse to wreck it. Does anyone know any ‘light’ soup recipes? I can’t stand beans, but other vegetables are ok :-).</p>
<p>I really like Soupe au pistou. It’s basically vegetable soup (tomatoes and green beans seem to be universal, you can also use onions or leeks and/or zucchini, carrots, potatoes). Cook them in chicken stock for about 15 minutes and stir in the pistou. If you like you can top it with Parmesan or croutons or throw in some pasta. Pistou is just 1/2 cup of basil, 4 cloves of garlic and 1/4 cup good olive oil chopped fine in a food processor. Like pesto without the nuts. some pureed basil and olive oil thrown in at the end. It all depends on how many calories you want it to have and what other protein you have. I think you could also throw in some cut up chicken if you liked.</p>
<p>@AllThisIsNewToMem, congratulations on your weight loss! If I am thinking of the right Chicken & Dumplings, it is probably the decadent sauce and dumplings which would be the culprits in derailing diets. How about using brown rice instead of dumplings? Maybe use other thickeners instead of the roux made from butter and flour? Ideas here: <a href=“Flour Substitute Ingredients to Thicken a Recipe | livestrong”>http://www.livestrong.com/article/545642-healthy-alternatives-to-flour-as-a-thickening-agent/</a>
If you have a good basic stock, it can still be a great comfort food by using more healthy substitutes. I think that any vegetable is fair game as soup additions. Whatever you like, why not add it to the soup?</p>
<p>Maybe you can also add some chicken for the protein. No matter what kind of chicken I buy at the store and no matter how I cook it, it never tastes as good as the rotisserie chicken from Costco. What I usually do is buy two chickens at a time and pull the breasts and thighs/legs and seal them in freezer bags to use for soups, pot pies, casseroles, etc. The chicken is always tender and delicious. I then throw the leftover scraps in my pressure cooker for my stock. This system has been great because I am never caught with nothing eat.</p>
<p>Too bad that you do not like beans, especially since they pack such a nutritional punch. As for me, I haven’t met a bean that I do not like. This makes me very happy because I know that they are good for me. I will say though, I prefer some beans to others. Maybe you can try different beans to see if any suit your tastes? I have made soup by cooking beans and blending some in the pot to act as a thickener. Beans are so filling and satisfying so I sneak them in whenever possible. My bean hating husband hasn’t protested too much since it is not so obvious.</p>
<p>AllThisIs New…Try this soup. It’s easy and won’t wreck your diet, not to mention it’s really yummy</p>
<p>Sweet and Sour Cabbage Soup
2 carrots sliced
2 stalks of celery diced
1 small onion diced
1/4 head of cabbage chopped
1 can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1.5 quarts water
1 tbsp. vegetable base…I use sodium free chicken broth instead because I always have it on hand</p>
<p>Heat oil in soup pot. Add carrots, celery, garlic and onion.
Cook over med. heat for about 10 minutes
Add remaining ingredients.
Simmer for 90 minutes</p>
<p>My new favorite is Mexican Chicken Tortilla Soup from the Tasty Kitchen:</p>
<p><a href=“http://tastykitchen.com/recipes/main-courses/chicken-tortilla-soup-17/”>http://tastykitchen.com/recipes/main-courses/chicken-tortilla-soup-17/</a></p>
<p>I only use 1 can of black beans and replace the other can with frozen corn kernels. I skip the Rotel tomatoes, add 1 14 oz can of diced fire roasted tomatoes and plenty of local roasted green chiles for kick.</p>
<p>If you can find it, masa flour (for thickening) really does add to the flavor. (Corn meal is too gritty, IMO.)</p>
<p>~~~~</p>
<p>And right about now is when all that roasted tomato puree I frozen this summer during tomato season gets turned into yummy creamless tomato soup. </p>
<p>Chicken Tortilla Soup, Taco Soup, Brunswick Stew</p>