reciplex.com » soups

Butternut Squash Soup

melissafd — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 18:00:44 +0000

Note: Don’t substitute squashes. I made this mistake and it’s not as good.

Ingredients:

6 tablespoons chopped onion
4 tablespoons butter
“Meat” of one large roasted butternut squash
3 cups water
4 cubes chicken bouillon
1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram
1/8 teaspoon white pepper
1 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese

Directions:

Roast squash for about 40 minutes, face down in a baking dish; cool and scoop out meat (can do this on a separate day).
In a large saucepan, saute onions in butter until tender.
Add squash, water, bouillon, marjoram, and white pepper. Bring to boil, then simmer for about 20 minutes.
Puree squash and cream cheese in a blender or food processor in batches until smooth.
Return to saucepan, and heat through. Do not allow to boil.
Enjoy the awesomeness!

Melissa’s Leeky Potato Vegetable Soup

melissafd — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 16:05:03 +0000

Ingredients:

5 leeks, cleaned and dark green parts discarded
4 large carrots, peeled and shredded or chopped into tiny bits in a food processor
6 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped into small pieces
2 cups loose spinach (could also use kale or other greens), stems removed
7 cups vegetable broth
5 Tbsp butter
2 bay leaves
salt
1/3 tsp white pepper

Directions:

Cut the leeks crosswise into circular slices, about 1/4” thick
Melt the butter in a large soup pot.
Sautee the leeks, combined with about 1/2 Tsp salt in butter for about 25 minutes, until softened, over medium/low heat.
Add potatoes, spinach, and shredded carrots. Stir to coat.
Add the vegetable broth, bay leaves, white pepper, and more salt, if needed.
Simmer on low for about an hour.
Enjoy!

Makes 8-10 servings.

NOTE: To make this a creamy soup, puree the mixture in an immersion blender or food processor. Stir in 1 cup of heavy cream and 1 cup of buttermilk.

Escarole Soup

Russell B — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 05:00:00 +0000

By Grandma Pearl Bonfitto
This is my Grandmother’s "garbage soup" eaten mostly in January and February. I never liked it as a kid (though I did like to eat only the pepperoni out of the soup), I have now grown fond of it. Enjoy!

First, make your chicken soup.
Boil a small chicken
Add chopped carrots, onion, celery
In a separate pan of water with some salt added, boil chopped escarole – the curly kind if possible – it’s tender
Cook escarole until it is tender
REMOVE THE CHICKEN FROM THE SOUP
Drain and add the cooked escarole to the chicken soup
Salt and pepper to taste
Cut one stick of good pepperoni into rounds and add. You can also add tiny meatballs – if you like

In a mixing bowl mix together:
½ pound good hamburger finely ground
finely ground parsley
grated cheese, salt, pepper to taste
1 egg
½ cup bread crumbs
pinch of nutmeg

Roll out the mixture into small, round meatballs and drop in the soup
The meatballs will be very soft. DO NOT STIR the soup until the meatballs are cooked
OPTIONAL: Add ¼ cup of rice (no more than that)

Tomato Soup Blizzardio

admin — Sun, 23 Jan 2005 05:00:00 +0000

This soup recipe made my blizzard weekend yummy. It may also be tasty without the snow storm but I can’t vouch for that yet. I can strongly recommend dipping grilled cheese sandwiches in the soup. Oh, yum.
3 pounds Roma tomatoes, chopped
8 sun-dried tomatoes
1 onion
1 garlic clove
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper
1/2 tsp black pepper
A lot of basil (approx 1 tbsp)
1/2 – 1 tbsp oregano
1 1/4 cups of milk
1/2 cup sour cream
juice of half a lime
1 squirt tobasco
salt (or adobo spice mix) to taste
dash of white pepper
parsley or cilantro garnish
Rehydrate the sun dried tomoatoes by covering them in boiling water and letting them sit for 15 minutes.
Saute the onion, garlic, and black & red pepper in a soup pot until onions are translucent.
Add the chopped tomatoes, basil, and oregano and bring the mixture to a boil over med-high heat.
Chop the sun-dried tomatoes and add them & their water to the soup.
Simmer for at least 30 minutes.
Optional steps: Cover and refrigerate overnight, puree it and re-heat.
Add milk, sour cream, lime juice, salt (or adobo), white pepper and garnish with parsley (or cilantro).

yankee/cajun minestrone

admin — Sun, 07 Nov 2004 05:00:00 +0000

Creamy Jerusalem Artichoke Soup

constancecg — Mon, 22 Mar 2004 05:00:00 +0000

Jerusalem artichokes are also called sunchokes. They look like knobby potatoes crossed with ginger root. They have a mild artichoke flavor. This soup is so easy and so tasty!
1 lb. Jerusalem artichokes, peeled and cut into one-inch chunks
1 medium onion, diced
1 small potato, peeled and cut into one-inch chunks
2-3 c. vegetable broth
1 bunch leeks (or scallions), chopped
salt-n-pepa
creme fraiche or sour cream (optional)
fresh chives (optional)
Sautee onions and leeks for a few minutes until soft.
Add potato and Jerusalem artichokes and cook for a few minutes more.
Add broth to cover ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for about 15-20 minutes, until vegetables are tender.
Puree soup in blender.
Garnish with dollop of creme fraiche and chives, if desired.

Potato Leek Soup

admin — Tue, 14 Oct 2003 04:00:00 +0000

Leeks can be a bit of a pain – oftentimes they’re expensive, and then you have to deal with how dirty they are. You really need to slice them up and then rinse them in several changes of water to make sure you get out all the dirt, grit & bugs that seem to like to hang out inside leeks. Nevertheless, they’re very tasty and provide a great flavor base for this soup.
But if leeks are too expensive or too much of hassle, you can substitute regular onions and/or scallions.
Also, you could use water, but a good stock will make the difference between an ok pot of soup and a very good one.
3 medium-sized leeks, white and about 1/3 of green parts, halved lengthwise and then thinly sliced
About 2 lbs. small red (boiling) potatoes, halved and then thinly sliced
5 cups vegetable or chicken stock, or water
3 bay leaves
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup half & half or whole milk (you can omit the dairy for a lighter soup)
salt & fresh ground pepper
Heat butter in a soup pot over medium heat. Add leeks and bay leaves and cook until onions are soft and starting to color a little.
Add stock and a bit of salt and scrape up any bits stuck to the bottom of the pan, then add potatoes and stir. Add more stock or water as needed to make things appropriately soupy.
Simmer for about 25 minutes until potatoes are quite tender. You can remove some of the potatoes, and mash them lightly, then add them back in to thicken up the soup. Don’t use a blender, as I’ve read it can make potatoes gluey (which sounds bad enough that I’ve never risked it).
Add milk or cream, and let cook on low to medium (don’t let boil heavily) for another 5-10 minutes until thickened slightly.
Salt & pepper to taste.

Surprisingly Good Split Pea Soup

admin — Thu, 18 Sep 2003 04:00:00 +0000

The inspiration for the unusual additions of caramelized onions and cuminseed to split pea soup came from a recipe I found about a year ago on Epicurious. But I’ve messed with it enough, and don’t even remember the original recipe, so that I don’t feel too much like Jayson Blair for putting my name on it.
This takes quite a while from start to finish, but nearly all of it is unattended time, so it’s not a slave-over-the-stove dish by any means.
2 large or 3 medium onions, finely chopped
1 large carrot and 1 parsnip, or 2 carrots, peeled and finely diced
6 cups vegetable stock
1 1/2 cup split peas, green or yellow or a combination
2 tablespoons butter
Splash balsamic vinegar or wine
1 bay leaf
Chopped parsley or cilantro, optional
1 teaspoon or more whole cuminseed
Ground or chopped dried chipotle pepper, optional
Rinse peas and set aside in a bowl with enough water to cover.
Melt butter in a soup pot on medium heat, add onions and cuminseed, cover and cook, stirring occasionally, making sure they do not burn but that they start to soften and brown. After about 15 minutes uncover, let brown just a bit more. Add a splash of balsamic vinegar or red wine (or white), and cook, stirring (don’t inhale those wicked fumes!), until the onion mixture is a little syrupy.
While the onions are cooking, trim and dice up the carrots and/or parsnip. Add them to the onions after completing the steps above, stir and cook a minute.
Add peas, stock, bay leaf and a bit of chipotle if desired. Stir, and cover partially. Check on it every once in awhile to make sure there is enough liquid in the pot, if not, add water. Cook for about an hour, until peas have broken down and begun to thicken the liquid. Add water if it’s too thick.
If you like, add a handful or so of chopped parsley near the end. Season with salt and plenty of fresh ground pepper.
Serving suggestion: add a splash of balsamic vinegar to the bowl before you eat.

Flavorful Lentil Soup

tmcgin — Mon, 10 Feb 2003 05:00:00 +0000

Yet again, I swiped this one from Cooking Light, with some minor tweaking. But damn, its hard to find a decent lentil soup recipe, isn’t it? I used to have another that threw in some chopped dried apricots, which sound gross, but were pretty tasty. I might try this with some of them next time.

1 T olive oil
2 cups chopped sweet onions
1 t tumeric
1 t. cumin
1 t. chilli powder
1 t. cayenne powder
1/4 t. salt
1/4 t. pepper
3 1/3 c. water
2 1/3 c. lentils
5 1/4 c. chicken or vegetable broth
1 28 oz can of diced tomatoes (I used fire-roasted, but it shouldn’t make a big difference
1/3 chopped cilantro
1 T balsamic vinegar

Heat olive oil over med-high in soup pot and sautee onions for 3 min.
Add in all spices and stir for about a minute
Throw in water, lentils, broth, tomatos and cilantro. Bring to a boil, then cover, reduce heat, and simmer for one hour.
Remove 2 cups of the soup. Take the remaining soup and puree it in a blender. Add back in the two cups, stir in balsamic vinegar, and serve.

Vegetable Stock

admin — Mon, 10 Feb 2003 05:00:00 +0000

This is a very loose recipe for basic stock. It comes from Deborah Madison’s “Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone”, which over the last 5 years or so has proved itself well worth the hefty price of the book (anyone who ever wants to cook a vegetable should buy this book).
1 large onion
2 large carrots
2 celery ribs
1 bunch scallions, including half of the greens
1 tablespoon olive oil
8 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
8 parsley branches
6 thyme sprigs or 1/2 tsp. dried
2 bay leaves
Salt
Whatever other vegetables or trimmings you have on hand
Scrub the vegetables and chop them roughly into 1-inch chunks. Heat the oil in a soup pot. Add the vegetables, garlic and herbs and cook over high heat for 5-10 minutes, stirring frequently. The more color they get, the more flavor of the stock. Add 2 teaspoons salt and 2 quarts cold water and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer, uncovered for 30 minutes. Strain.
I learned recently of a good trick for storing up good vegetable parts and trimmings for making stock. Keep a tupperwware container in your freezer for any good parts of vegetables you’d otherwise toss, and use them up whenever you want to make vegetable stock. Most of us in the city can’t compost, for fear of offending the neighbors with the smell or attracting vermin, but this is a good way to at least get some use out of vegetable stuff you’d otherwise throw away.
I make vegetable stock all the time and have probably never followed the recipe exactly. You shouldn’t have to go grocery shopping to make vegetable stock if you have a relatively well-stocked kitchen. I rarely have celery in my fridge, and only occasionally have parsley. However, I pretty much always have onions, carrots, potatoes, garlic, bay leaves and dried thyme, and I use these plus whatever is sitting around the kitchen.
The odds and ends of any other vegetables you will use for cooking are always good to add – stems and seeds and peels, (most of them anyway, see list of things to avoid below) things you won’t actually eat are good additions. For example, when red bell peppers are $2.99 a pound, don’t buy one for your stock, even though they add great flavor – if you’re using one for something else anyway, though, save whatever parts you’d throw away – seeds, ribs, etc., and add them to the stock. Same with the tough ends of asparagus, squash seeds and peels, the butt ends of zuchinni, corn cobs, pea pods, leek leaves, etc. You can even add the rinds of parmesan cheese.
While you can certainly use vegetables and parts of them you wouldn’t necessarily eat, (like corn cobs) vegetable stock isn’t a catch-all for the stuff in your crisper that really should be thrown out. Use those mushrooms that are no longer so fresh you’d put them in a salad, but don’t use them if they smell funky. You get the idea.
There are just a few ingredients you should avoid when making stocks: members of the cabbage family, like brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage of course. Also, turnips, rutabagas, beets (unless you’re making beet soup). Don’t use tiny celery seeds, powdered herbs, ground pepper, because they can make stock bitter. Avoid onion skins, artichoke trimmings, excessive amounts of greens, and of course anything funky or spoiled.
You can make a richer or darker stock (perhaps to sub for beef broth) by browning chopped onions in oil before adding the rest of the vegetables and liquid, by adding mushrooms to the stock (especially dried ones), and/or adding 1 tablespoon or more to taste of soy sauce to the finished stock.
Stock freezes well for later use. If you want to make a really big batch sometime, once the stock is finished and strained, put it back in the pot and simmer it until it is reduced by half or more. You can freeze the reduced stock in airtight containers or ziplock bags in 1-cup (or other) amounts to have on hand. Just thaw and add back some water and you won’t need to resort to buying (frequently bad and almost always overpriced) canned broth.