Rachael's Favorite Recipes: Home Made Soups

Soups

There is nearly nothing better for the soul than preparing and eating delicious home-made soups.  Most of the soups I make use chicken stock that I collect after baking a whole chicken in the crock pot, but if you prefer, vegetable broth can be substituted.

Soups that you make can be frozen or canned.  I love to make large batches of soup and then divide it up into quart sized jars to store for later and to easily share with friends.

Chicken Rice Soup

This recipe has been handed down to me by my mother from an episode of Sesame Street we were watching when I was a child, altered only a little bit by me.  This is the ultimate nourishing soup that I like to have on hand to serve if anyone I know is sick in body, heart or soul.

• ·         1-2 cups prepared and cooled steamed rice
• ·         Cooked chicken, cut into bite sized pieces or shredded

Set aside;

• ·         1-2 carrots, grated or diced (scrub carrots only; do not peel)
• ·         4 cloves fresh garlic, diced finely
• ·         1 onion diced, or 2-3 leeks
• ·         Ground pepper to taste
• ·         Salt to taste
• ·         1 teaspoon onion powder
• ·         1 teaspoon garlic powder
• ·         1 teaspoon ground nutmeg, optional
• ·         Thinly sliced fresh mushrooms, optional
• ·         ½ bunch fresh parsley, finely chopped, optional

Sautee over medium/low heat in ½ stick of butter or olive oil until soft then add the following:

• ·         3-4 red or yellow potatoes, peels left on, cut into small bite-sized pieces
• ·         6 cups of bone-in chicken stock (or combo of chicken broth, bullion and stock)

Boil together sautéed mixture with potatoes and broth until potatoes are soft

Add cooked chicken and cooked cooled rice to soup and bring to a boil

Serve chicken rice soup to your favorite people and enjoy!

Farmer’s Market Green Goodness Soup

A few summers ago, I signed up for a box of locally grown produce that I picked up at the tail-gate market each week.  Often these boxes of lovely, organically grown vegetables and roots would come freshly cut flowers and bunches of herbs – whatever was in season that they grew at the time is what came with the box.  

It was always a fun surprise on Wednesdays to open the farmer’s market box and see what treasures lay inside.  Most of the things I recognized.  Often I was delivered things I’d never considered using before (beet tops, for example, and chard).  A couple of times there were things in that box that I had never even seen before and had no idea what it was, let alone how to prepare it.  Undaunted by the dilemma, I made up this soup to incorporate the mystery vegetables and healthy greens that I was unused to cooking.  

What makes this soup interesting are the spices that you choose to incorporate.  These are merely suggestions of spices to use; feel free to play around and experiment.  I like to think that each flavor, though individually perhaps poignant and extreme, lends itself to a lovely essence when used sparingly.  This allows your soup much more depth in palate when spices cooperate in harmony and do not over-power or stand out.  Think of using spices to flavor and enhance your food as a choir or orchestra uses its instruments: when groups of musicians play well together, individuality is lost.  What transforms is something more, a new creation in and of itself.  The same thing applies to anything you create using a pallet, whether it is a pallet of paint or people or spices for your soup. 

Chop up the vegetables, roots, fungi and leafy greens that you find in your possession: 

• ·         Carrots, parsnips
• ·         Potatoes
• ·         broccoli and other Brassicaceae family plants
• ·         onions, leeks
• ·         greens like kale, chard, beet tops, parsley, etc
• ·         squashes
• ·         mushrooms
• ·         garlic

·         Add and anything else that you think might be fun to try out.  Again, the individual flavors will combine, so get wild and try something unique!

Suggested spices – go slowly, use to your taste; you can always add more. Remember that often it takes a while for the flavors to merge.  Use your sense of smell and taste regularly while adding spices to your soup:

• ·         Salt and ground pepper
• ·         Turmeric – yellow spice great for digestion, lends a definite warmth to your soup
• ·         Nutmeg – another layer of indiscriminate flavor; if you want your soup to be really unique, add a little nutmeg!
• ·         Fenugreek powder – often used in baking, this spice has a maple like flavor; it nicely off-sets the warmth, IMHO
• ·         Ground red pepper – use sparingly; this adds warmth and spice
• ·         Onion powder
• ·         Garlic powder
• ·         Curry powder – use sparingly
• ·         Thyme
• ·         Coriander powder
• ·         Ground cumin
• ·         Paprika

Basic Soup Making Method

Step One:

Sautee hard roots first in some olive oil over medium/low heat: minced garlic, diced carrots, diced onions

 Step Two:

After the sautéed roots are mostly cooked, add softer vegetables: leafy greens and stems chopped finely, mushrooms, diced squash

Step Three:

Start to add dashes of different spices, smelling the spice before putting it into the sautéed mixture.  Continue stirring as needed and lift the scent up to you as the spices and vegetables cook together.  You can add more spices later, too.  I simply enjoy sautéing the spices with the rest before adding the hard chopped vegetables to boil.

 Step Four:

Add 6 cups vegetable or chicken broth along with chopped pieces of harder vegetables: broccoli and potatoes (skins intact), etc.  Bring to a boil and then reduce to medium/low heat, continuing to boil until the vegetables are soft and cooked through.

Step Five:

After your soup is cooked all the way and you have taste-tested it to satisfaction, it’s time to puree your soup.  Divide the cooked soup into manageable portions and use a food processor or blender to puree ¾ of your soup.  Add the pureed soup with the remaining ¼ unblended soup so that there is a bit of texture, but no overwhelming big bites of individual ingredients.

Serve and enjoy with warm bread!

Creamy Cheesy Potato and Dumpling Soup

This is a delicious comfort food soup to prepare; though it’s not extremely healthy, it is quite warm, yummy and satisfying.  A definite family favorite!

Sautee to start:

• 1 stick butter
• 3-4 cloves garlic, minced
• ½-1 onion, chopped
• 1 carrot, chopped

-          Sautee until tender with dashes of nutmeg, salt and pepper, onion powder and garlic powder, then add:

• 4 – 5 red or yellow potatoes, cut into bite sized pieces, skins left on
• 6 cups chicken broth or vegetable broth

-          Boil until potatoes are soft

-          Mash most of the potato pieces by hand to give it a creamier texture

-          Bring soup back to a slow boil

Prepare the dumplings:

1. -          Mix (do not whip) 2 – 3 eggs together
2. -          Fold in about 1 ½ cups of white flour, stirring gently until the egg and flour mixture is crumbly, but still sticky and not too stiff.
3. -          Drop dumpling mix by spoonful and smaller bits into the gently boiling soup

Finishing steps:

1. -          Reduce heat to low
2. -          Add ½ cup of whole milk, stirring gently
3. -          Slowly, while stirring, add 1- 1 ½ cups of shredded cheddar cheese, letting it melt and mix with the soup

Serve and enjoy with your family.  Goes well with Asian spinach salad.

I would not recommend freezing creamy soups like this; freezing cream-based soups can lessen their integrity upon being reheated, so serve up second helpings and invite friends!