Week #8 - Red Pepper Soup

Hey guys! This is my first time doing a pureed soup. I don't know what made me think of searching for red pepper soup, but I found a recipe on allrecipes that looked pretty good. I was kind of afraid of the whole puree aspect, but I don't know why. It was easy. I pretty much followed this recipe exactly.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 4 red bell peppers, chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 24 fluid ounces chicken broth
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper

Directions

1. Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Place the red bell pepper, onion and garlic in the saucepan and saute for 5 to 10 minutes, or until tender. 
2. Pour in the chicken broth, stirring well, reduce heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes. Transfer to a blender and puree until smooth.
3. Run the soup through a strainer and return the liquid to the saucepan over medium low heat. Stir in the heavy cream and the ground black pepper and allow to heat through, about 5 to 10 minutes. 

Those weird-looking white-ish things are the parmesan shavings.

It came out great! I think I was extra impressed because, since the soup was smooth, it seemed more "professional" to me rather than homemade. I served it with some sour cream and parmesan cheese shavings, neither of which would float on top for a pretty picture, and some french bread. I would definitely make this soup again on a cold fall evening.

Rating: 4/5

Beef Stroganoff

Beef stroganoff is one of my favorite recipes to make. It's really easy and tastes great. I'm not sure where I learned how to make this but I have been making it for years. I approximated amounts, but I just throw stuff in.

Ingredients:
1 pound ground beef
1/2 cup chopped onions
2-3 cups egg noodles
1-1.5 cups reduced fat sour cream (depends how creamy you want it)
1/4 cup ketchup
1 tbsp mustard
2 small cans mushrooms
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
1. Prepare egg noodles according to package directions.
2. Saute onions and brown ground beef together.
3. When beef is done, add sour cream, ketchup, mustard, and mushrooms. Mix it up and let heat through.
4. Add salt and pepper to taste.
5. Serve over noodles or mix together with noodles.

Rating: 4/5

Week #7 - Chicken Corn Chowder

This week my husband requested chicken corn chowder. I looked online, and ended up taking inspiration from several different recipes.

I took 2 frozen chicken breasts and boiled them in about 6 cups of water. When the chicken was cooked, I shredded it with forks. I sauteed about 1.5 cups of chopped onions and celery with some butter until the onions were translucent. I added in the chicken water along with a couple of chicken bullion cubes. I added two cut up potatoes, the corn kernels cut from two ears of corn, the chicken, some salt, pepper, chili powder, and poultry seasoning. I let it simmer for about 20 minutes until the potatoes were soft. After removing it from the heat, I added half a cup of half and half.

This soup was ok. I wasn't thrilled with the way the seasoning came out, and it could have used more corn. One of the recipes I read said to add a can of creamed corn, but I forgot to buy it. I also think that would have made it thicker. I will have to try a creamy or cheesy based soup next.

Rating 2.5/5

Week #6 (Guest Blogger!) - Chicken Vegetable Quinoa Soup

My friend Erica is a great cook, and she came to visit this week. I asked her to be my first guest blogger!
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I think I love soup almost as much as Michaela.  Actually, my love is more for the cooking of the soup than the eating of it.  I've been cooking soup in Michaela's kitchen for years, so when I came in to town for a visit, it was necessary that I partake in her "52 Soups" adventure.

Unlike Michaela, I don't usually follow a recipe.  I'm a "throw stuff in to a pot and see what it tastes like" kind of cook.  So here's what I ended up with:

Chicken Vegetable Quinoa soup

Ingredients:
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp butter
1 medium white onion, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
3 ribs celery, diced
3/4 cup baby carrots (or 1 large/2 small regular carrots), diced
2 large cloves garlic, minced
2 cans diced fire-roasted tomatoes
2 cans black beans, drained and lightly rinsed
1 1/2 cups shredded chicken breasts
3 cups chicken broth
1-2 cups water
1 tsp chipotle chili powder
1/2 cup quinoa
salt and pepper to taste
Sour cream

Directions:
Over medium heat, heat butter and oil in soup pot
Add onion, pepper, celery, and carrot
Season with a pinch of salt a a few good grinds of pepper
Saute until vegetables soften

Add garlic and cook until you can smell it (30-45 seconds)
Add chicken, tomatoes, beans, broth, chili powder, and salt/pepper to taste
Add quinoa and 1 cup of water
Bring pot to a boil over medium heat

Cover and let boil for 12 minutes
If soup seems thick, add additional water
Remove from heat and let set for 10-15 minutes until quinoa is tender but not mushy
Serve with sour cream (for added creaminess and/or heat reduction if you used too much chili powder)

Notes:
- A request to make the soup "hearty" made me add chicken to my recipe.  The soup could easily be made vegetarian, or vegan, by excluding the chicken breasts and substituting vegetable broth for the chicken broth (exclude butter for vegan version)
- Play around with vegetables - many veggies can be substituted or added to this recipe, so use what you like or what you have on hand
- Lentils would be a good substitution for Quinoa in this - just reduce the water and add about 5-10 minutes to your cooking time

As one of my sporadic soup creations, I was greatly impressed with this.  The chipotle chili powder added a smokey spice which was greatly paired with the creamy sour cream.  I might play around with substituting different grains, though.  I love quinoa, but it was almost hidden by the chunky vegetables, so something more "present" like lentils or barley might work better.

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Thanks, Erica! This soup was great. We served it with Pampered Chef beer bread. It was a great meal.

Rating 4.5/5

Creamy Italian Chicken and Rice

Tonight for dinner I wanted to use a container of Philadelphia Italian Cheese and Herb Cooking Creme that I bought on sale and with a coupon. So I looked up recipes for it on the Philly website. I found this recipe, and Ken mentioned wanting risotto, so I modified a bit and used rice instead of orzo pasta.

Ingredients

1 lb. boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces

1 small zucchini, chopped

1 tub (10 oz.)PHILADELPHIA Italian Cheese and Herb Cooking Creme

1/2 cup chopped tomatoes

2 cups hot cooked orzo pasta (I subbed basmati rice)

I also added mushrooms.

 

Directions

1. Cook chicken and zucchini in large nonstick skillet on medium heat 6 to 7 min. or until chicken is done.
2. Add cooking creme and tomatoes; cook and stir 2 min.
3. Serve over pasta. 

I cooked my rice in my rice cooker, and I chopped my veggies with my new Pampered Chef manual food processor. The rice came out a little dry, but maybe I didn't use enough water. I never use it and I just looked up how much water to use online. I also mixed the rice into the sauce at the end so it would be more like risotto.

This was ok, it didn't thrill me. But it was pretty easy and did not require a lot of ingredients. I would use less rice next time, and maybe add more veggies.

Rating:  2/5


P.S.  Look for my next soup post written by a surprise guest blogger. :)

French Onion Soup - Next Day

I tried toasting the bread first before putting it in the soup and it worked much better. Still yummy!

Week #5 - French Onion Soup

I love French onion soup! This seemed like a fairly easy soup to make and I always get it at restaurants, so I tried it. Most recipes I saw seemed to be pretty similar, so I went with this one from the Food Network.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 4 onions, sliced
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 fresh thyme sprigs
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 cup red wine, about 1/2 bottle
• 3 heaping tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2 quarts beef broth
• 1 baguette, sliced
• 1/2 pound grated Gruyere

The only thing I already had at home was the wine, flower, and dried herbs (instead of fresh ones). I used half a bottle of Gnarley Head red zin that I had in the fridge, and got swiss and mozzarella cheese instead of Gruyere.

Directions

Melt the stick of butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onions, garlic, bay leaves, thyme, and salt and pepper and cook until the onions are very soft and caramelized, about 25 minutes. 

Add the wine, bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer until the wine has evaporated and the onions are dry, about 5 minutes. Discard the bay leaves and thyme sprigs (I used dried herbs and just left them in). 

Dust the onions with the flour and give them a stir. Turn the heat down to medium low so the flour doesn't burn, and cook for 10 minutes to cook out the raw flour taste. Now add the beef broth, bring the soup back to a simmer, and cook for 10 minutes. Season, to taste, with salt and pepper.

When you're ready to eat, preheat the broiler. Arrange the baguette slices on a baking sheet in a single layer. Sprinkle the slices with the Gruyere (I used swiss and mozarella) and broil until bubbly and golden brown, 3 to 5 minutes. Ladle the soup in bowls and float several of the Gruyere croutons on top.
Alternative method: Ladle the soup into bowls, top each with 2 slices of bread and top with cheese. Put the bowls into the oven to toast the bread and melt the cheese.

I did the method where you put the bread and the cheese in the soup and then put it in the oven (400 degrees for 10 minutes), but it did not toast the bread. Next time I will toast the bread in the oven on a cookie sheet, and then put them in the soup with the cheese and put it back in the oven to melt the cheese.

This soup tasted great. I think I should have cooked the onions longer, I only cooked them about 15 or 20 minutes. I was very pleased with this soup.

Rating 4.5/5

Week #4 - Cup of Garden Soup

Sorry this post is coming late, but I went to Chicago to visit my friend Kara. While I was there, we made Cup of Garden soup, which is a recipe by Jamie Oliver featured in Better Homes and Gardens. There is a full recipe here, but it said you could use whatever veggies you wanted, so we went to the Green City Market in Chicago and got some things that looked good, including:

red onion
purple carrots
leeks
zucchini
basil

Kara at the farmers market. If you like her bag you can order one from Full Circle Crafts. She makes them!

We also had some ingredients at home that we used: bacon, garlic, yellow squash, celery, oregano, red potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, 2 cans of whole tomatoes, 2 cans of chickpeas, and 8 cups of broth. 

First we fried up about 5 strips of chopped up bacon, then we added the garlic, onion, carrots, celery, zucchini, squash, leeks, and oregano until the vegetables were soft. Then we added the tomatoes, potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, chickpeas, and broth. We brought all that to a boil, and then simmered for about a half hour.

We served it with a little basil on top. We also bought some french bread at the farmer's market to have with the soup. Yummy!

Rating: 4/5