Roasted Corn Chowder

One of my sassier friends commented last week that I should make a chowder because I'm from Rhode Island. I don't think he's the least bit familiar with the nastiness that is Rhode Island clam chowder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clam_chowder#Rhode_Island_clam_chowder) nor does he know that I'm not really a fan of traditional clam chowders. However, he threw down a challenge so I had to respond. Sudhir - I hope you're happy with this roasted corn chowder.

For this soup, you'll need: corn (I used 2 12-ounce bags of frozen corn), 5 Roma tomatoes, 4 stalks of celery, 1 onion, 3 cloves of garlic, 5 small red potatoes, 2 chipotles in adobo sauce, 2 cups of milk, 4 cups of broth of your choosing (I used chicken), chili powder, cumin, salt, pepper, 1/4 cup of flour, butter and olive oil. (please ignore the destroyed wall, we're still waiting on our tin tiles for the kitchen)

First, if you're using frozen corn set it out to thaw for maybe 10-20 minutes. If you're using fresh corn, cook it and cut it off the cob.  Then chop the tomatoes, discarding seeds.  Since its January, I was not pleased with the ripeness of the tomatoes I had, but that didn't seem to matter in the end. Mix the corn, tomatoes, salt, pepper, cumin, chili powder and bit of olive oil together in a baking dish and roast in the oven at 400 degress for 20-25 minutes.

Meanwhile, mince the garlic and dice the celery, onion and potatoes.  You can also mince the chipotle but keep it separate from the other veggies.  Now, melt about a tablespoon of butter in your soup-making vessel of choice. I used an 8 quart cast-iron dutch oven (go ahead and giggle) today.  Once the butter is melted, get your garlic, onion and celery cooking.

Cook the veggies for about 2-5 minutes, then add the flour, stirring constantly for about 5 minutes to form a roux-like substance. You may need to add more butter if the flour seems to just be clinging for dear life to a veggie or your spoon.

Next, add 1 cup of milk and 3 cups of broth.

Right about now, hopefully your roasted corn and tomatoes are done. Remove about one cup of corn from the baking pan and transfer to a large bowl.  Add the remaining one cup each of milk and broth and the chipotles.  Get out your trusty stick blender (seriously, buy one right now if you don't have one yet) and blend until smooth.

Add the blended corn mixture to the soup pot and bring to a boil. If you're cooking in cast iron like I was, this will take a considerable amount of time. Unfortunately, you do want to be close by so you can watch the progress of the boil.  Since there's milk in the soup, the potential for a huge milk boil over exists and those are no fun to clean up.

Once its boiling, add the potatoes and cook for 7-10 minutes.  Check to be sure the potatoes are cooked and add the remaining roasted corn and tomatoes.  Turn down the heat and simmer until everything is heated through or until you're ready to eat.

My soup turned out really spicy on account of the chipotles. If you don't like spicy just leave them out, or use less of them. Since I left out the traditional chowder ingredient of seafood, I thought it was more than appropriate to garnish with some cheddar goldfish crackers. Enjoy!

I got about 6 servings out of this recipe. Estimated nutritional facts per serving: 320 calories, 6 grams of fat, 12 grams of cholesterol, 860 miligrams of sodium, and 60 grams of carbs.

Lentil Soup

I'm going to apologize in advance for this boring lentil soup. I had a particularily tiring week complete with crashing Brian's Volvo on Monday followed by a three day long exhausting work meeting and a super fun Saturday night in Greenville for a friend's birthday.  Come the end of the week, I had no energy left to make anything other than super easy, super boring lentil soup. This soup is so boring the adorable begging dog wasn't even interested, but in his defense, the landscapers were outside and he was busy protecting the house from their terrible leaf blowers.  Just because its boring doesn't mean its not delicious, because this soup is quite good and very hearty for a soup that lacks meat.

As said many times, this soup is easy-peasy. You'll need the following ingredients: a cup or so of chopped carrots; 4-5 celery stalks, diced; 3-4 garlic cloves, minced; 2 small red potatoes, diced; 1 can of diced tomatoes; 5 sprigs of fresh thyme; 1 to 1 1/2 cups lentils; 6-8 cups of broth; and 1/2 cup of pasta. 

First, get all your veggies chopped up

Then, get your lentils ready. Rocks and other forms of debris have an uncanny ability to sneak their way into bags of lentils, so you want to sift through your lentils to be sure all grossness is removed. I didn't find any grossness in the cup I used for this soup, but I've definitely not sifted through lentils before and cooked some rocks into my soup.

Now you're ready to get everything cooking. I used my trusty 8 quart stock pot. First adding the veggies with a little bit of olive oil and cooking over medium heat, until they were just tender, about 8 minutes.

Next, I added the tomatoes. I used a can of fire-roasted diced tomatoes because I think they have a nice flavor.  Cook the tomatoes for about 10 minutes, stirring every once in a while and breaking the tomatoes pieces up if they seem too big.

Now, add your lentils and thyme. Throw in the entire thyme sprigs, the leaves will fall off as the soup cooks and you will remove the stems before serving.  Stir everything up so that its well mixed.

Add your broth. I used 6 cups of organic chicken broth but if you wanted to make this strictly vegetarian a nice vegetable broth would work well too. Beef broth may even taste nice, but I've never made the soup that way. Increase the heat to high to bring the soup to a boil. Then reduce the heat to low to simmer for about 30 minutes or until the lentils are cooked. Now is also a good time to add any salt, pepper or other seasoning you'd like, I threw in a little crushed red pepper.

Lastly, add your pasta. I used Barilla picollini, the cute little wagon wheel pasta because I like cute things, but you can use anything you like or have around. Or omit the pasta if you want and just add more lentils. Cook for another 6-8 minutes or until the pasta is done, remove the thyme sprigs and enjoy! To serve, you can top with some parmesan cheese, but I think the soup tastes lovely without any added cheese.

This recipe made 6 servings, all about 1 cup each.  Estimated nutrition facts per serving: 210 calories, 1 gram of fat, a whopping 1400 grams of sodium, 42 grams of carbs, 7 grams of dietary fiber, and 10 grams of protein.

Crock Pot Beef Barley Soup

I adore beef barley soup. My love affair with it started in high school when a friend made it for a biology class dinner party project. I love it so much that I purposely make way too much of it and have to eat it for lunch and dinner for an entire week. Which is something Brian tends not to enjoy as much as I do, but he's traveling for work all next week, making it the perfect time for a week's worth of beef barley.

First, you need some beef. I usually buy the 'stew beef' for this recipe, but there was none at my local Publix (I blame the "Great Atlanta Blizzard of 2010" since we got 1/2 inch of snow, everyone freaked out and bought all the food from the grocery store). I bought this hunk of beef roast meat instead, cut it into three big portions, used one for the soup and threw the rest in the freezer for another day. It probably ended up being 3/4 of a pound of beef. Kindly notice the adorable cow on the cutting board, in case you didn't fully realize that the piece of meat is beef.

Chop the beef up into bite sized pieces small enough to fit on your soup spoon.

I like to marinate my beef overnight in about 1/3 of a bottle of red wine. I started doing this mostly because I had some leftover wine that was no longer good for drinking and because I like the idea of wine in food. This step is totally optional, I have no idea if it adds to the flavor.

Get started chopping your vegetables on the morning of the day you're making the soup. This baby takes 6-8 hours in the crock pot so you do need to plan ahead.  In no particular order, you'll need: 3 to 4 cloves of garlic, minced.

1 to 1/2 cups of carrots, sliced or diced.  I used baby cut carrots and slice them into thin strips.

You will need to ignore the adorable, begging puppy. He just cannot stay out of the kitchen. He never even eats vegetables when I give them to him so I'm not sure why he's so interested in the floor.

1 to 1/2 cups diced celery. I used about 5 celery stalks.

Some potatoes, diced. I used about 6 petite red creamer potatoes.

1 to 2 small white onions, diced.

Now, the piece de resistance, the mushrooms. I find most people either love or hate mushrooms. Brian hates them, I enjoy them very much in certain applications. They are supurb in this soup. I used one 8 ounce package of pre-sliced cremini mushrooms. Since the slices were huge, I also diced them up.  I'm usually not a big fan of buying pre-cut vegetables unless they're on sale since they're so much cheaper whole. But I find that mushrooms are a huge hassle to clean and the sliced ones cost the same as the whole ones, so it makes sense to buy them sliced. Work smarter, not harder.

Pull your marianted beef out of the fridge and dump it along with the vegetables, a few dried bay leaves, some fresh cracked black pepper, and 6-8 cups of beef stock into a crock pot. A word of caution about crock pots, in order for them to work efficiently you need to fill it at least half full with delicious goodies.  I put this soup into my 6 quart crock pot and it fit beautifully. If yours is a different size, you may need to modify the recipe.  I also have this super cool crock pot (thanks MD!) that has 2 and 4 quart bowls that work with one base, so I can choose to make less soup, though I would never do that.

Set the heat to low and let it cook for 6 hours. Its in your best interest to leave your house for a few hours during this time and come home when the soup is almost done. You'll be greated with a lovely beef barley aroma that will make you want to eat the soup right then, but you really should wait for the barley. After 6 or so hours, add 1 cup of pearled barley  and cook for another hour or so until the barley is done.

After an hour, give the soup a taste to make sure the barley is cooked and everything is delicious. I had to add a pinch of salt to mine since I used low sodium broth.  Remove the bay leaves and enjoy!

This recipe made 10 1-cup servings. Estimated calories are 225 with 2 grams of fat, 20 miligrams of cholesterol, 180 milligrams of sodium. 35 grams of total carbs, 5.6 grams of dietary fiber and 15 grams of protein.

Nonnie's Italian Wedding Soup

This soup reminds me of my childhood. My Nonnie used to make it in the pressure cooker, the whistling of which used to terrify me as a child. I also used to fight her over eating the kale and had a habit of eating everything but those leafy greens out of my soup bowl. My Nonnie passed away about ten years ago, but this soup lives on in both my mom's kitchen and now my own.  This soup lends itself very well to pressure cooking because the kale takes considerable time to cook. My pressure cooker is only 6 quarts so its not big enough so I just used a stock pot. If you're pressure cooking, just throw everything in together and cook for about 20-30 minutes, if you're sans-pressure cooker, this baby will take a few hours, but its worth it.

Start with the kale, remove the leafy greens from the rigid stalks and shred. I used 1 1/2 bunches because I now love dark leafy greens and tend to go heavy with the kale. (Kindly notice the shiny new granite counter tops in the background)

Get the kale cooking in a stock pot with 4 cups of stock, bring the stock and kale to a boil and cook for at least 30 minutes. This is not going to smell good, greens never smell good when they're cooking, but they taste much better than they smell.

Meanwhile, get your other veggies together. You'll need to mince 4 cloves of garlic, dice 2 medium white onions, chop 1 bunch of big or 1/2 bag of baby carrots, and chop 6 stalks of celery. Set these aside.

Next, make your meatballs. I used homemade pork sausage for mine, probably about 3/4 of a pound. Remove the sausage from its casing and add about 1/2 a cup breadcrumbs.

Mix these together with your hands and form into small balls.
Ignore adorable begging dog.
Sear the meatballs over medium heat. This helps them to stay together in the soup and cooks out a bit of the fat. Set these aside.
Check on you kale, it should be a little darker in color and flimsy.

Add the veggies, sausage balls and at least 4 to 6 more cups of stock. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to a simmer. Simmer this for 45-60 minutes to be sure all the veggies and meatballs are cooked through.

Give the soup a taste to be sure the broth is yummy and everything is cooked, add any salt, pepper or other seasoning it may need. Lastly, add you pasta. I usually use orzo but didn't have any in my pantry, so I used 1/3 of a cup pastina. The pasta is going to absorb lots of stock, so be sure you have plenty to spare in your soup. Cook the pasta for about 5 minutes as you'll want it al dente. Don't be surprised if the pasta seems to disappear in the soup, its probably just hiding at the bottom of the pot.

I made 10 servings out of this recipe, so I hope you like it if you make it. Top with some Parmesan cheese and enjoy!
My good friend Liz enlightened me about this wonderful website www.sparkrecipes.com where you can input recipes and it will calculate nutritional information for you. For this recipe, per 1 and 1/2 cup serving, there are 150 calories and 6 grams of fat.

Pasta e fagioli

I spent Christmas this year at my new in-laws house celebrating with some lovely Swiss traditions, but realized once I got home that I missed some of the Italian traditions that I'm used to from growing up in Little Italy (aka Westerly, Rhode Island). I decided today was the perfect day for some pasta e fagioli. This soup is actually inspired by a pasta e fagioli I had in Greve in Chianti on my honeymoon, a meal I proclaim was the best meal I've ever had. I also decided that today was also the perfect day to document the soup in pictures ala Carla Jeffries' fantastic blog (see link list to the right and click on the 'il piatto blu' link) and because said wonderful in-laws bought me and Brian an awesome camera and we're quite the shutter bugs these days. Kindly do not judge the mess that is my kitchen, Brian and I are starting to remodel it next week and we've pretty much mailed it in with keeping it clean. Now to the soup . . .

 First, chop up a few things: about 1/10th of a pound of pancetta into cubes, 1-2 onions diced and 3-4 garlic cloves minced. I get the pancetta from the deli and usually order a quarter pound in thick slices. The nice deli man gave me three thick slices and I used one and a half of them. I used white onions because that's all that we had in the house, but any onion other than red will do. You'll also want to drain and rinse two cans of Great Northern or Cannellini beans. Later, you'll need a sprig or two of rosemary, so you may consider getting that out now too. I have a huge rosemary bush in my backyard (another spoil from the awesome in-laws) and I highly recommend you get one too.

Next, melt one tablespoon of butter in your stock pot. I tend to be a devoted olive oil girl, but this recipe does really well with butter. Once its melted, add your pancetta. 

Cook the pancetta for 5-15 minutes depending on how fatty the cut you have is. You want to make sure a good portion of the fat is rendered. 

Once the pancetta is a little crispy, add the diced onions and minced garlic and cook for 2-4 minutes until the onions start to get a little translucent. Now is also a good time to add any other seasoning you'd like. I put in a pinch of salt, some fresh ground pepper and a pinch of red pepper flakes.

Next, add a third to half of a bottle of white wine and the rosemary sprigs. I used a sweet white, but anything white will do. The wine adds some really good flavor, so unless you're a teetotaler, I strongly suggest adding it. Cook this for about 10 minutes so that the alcohol cooks away but the flavor cooks into the veggies. Then add the beans and 4-6 cups of stock. I used chicken stock but anything but beef should taste yummy. Simmer the soup for 20-40 minutes. I like to believe that the longer you simmer, the better it tastes, but I have no idea if that's actually true.

Once everything has happily simmered for a while and the broth tastes delicious, its time to blend this baby with your trusty stick blender. First, pull out the rosemary sprigs as they can sometimes taste a little bit like a tree. You can pull a few of the rosemary leaves off and keep them in the soup, but not the entire sprig, unless you like the taste of tree. Take the soup off the heat and blend until smooth. If you don't have a stick blender, you can use a stand blender, just be sure to cool the soup a bit first (or be ready to clean up the mess you'll make if you don't).

Lastly, put the soup back over medium heat, and add about 1/2 a cup of ditalini or other small pasta. If you can't find ditalini, rigatoni could work in a pinch. Cook for 6-7 minutes, you'll want the pasta to be al dente. If you're eating or serving the soup immediately, it will be a little thin but very delicious and surprisingly hearty. If you're going to refrigerate and eat later, be prepared for it to thicken a ton and only slightly thin out when reheated. It will still be delicious. The pasta has a tendency to sink to the bottom, so when doling out portions, be sure that you're ladling from the bottom or else you'll end with a serving of all pasta and many of all broth. Enjoy!

Colorful Vegetarian Chili

It was very damp and dreary in Atlanta yesterday, which, to me, is the perfect weather for a big pot of chili. Some may argue that chili isn't exactly a soup, but its served in a bowl and eaten with a spoon, so I think its soup (though with that logic, ice cream is also soup, maybe this is faulty logic).

I have many chili recipes, most involve some sort of ground meat. I wasn't feeling like eating meat yesterday and all the fridge cases at my local Kroger seemed warm yesterday and I didn't trust the safety of anything in them, so I decided on a nice, colorful vegetarian chili.

First, chop up all your veggies. I minced four garlic cloves and one fresh jalapeno pepper. I then diced, in pretty big chunks, one yellow onion, five tomatillos, one yellow bell pepper, one red bell pepper and one green bell pepper. A note about the tomatillos, I live in a highly Hispanic part of metro Atlanta so my local grocery store carries them. They don't add too much flavor to the chili and can easily be omitted if you can't find them.

Then, cook the garlic, jalapeno and onion in your soup pot with a bit of oil until the onions are translucent. Try your best not to breathe over the soup pot, unless you want to be attacked by jalapeno fumes and have a sneezing fit. Once those are cooked, add your peppers and cook for about 5 minutes or so.

Next, add your canned goods. I like to add color so I used one can of sweet corn, one can of black beans and one can of dark red kidney beans. Make sure you drain and rinse all of these to cut down on the saltiness of them. Now, add the canned tomatoes. I used one can chili-ready diced tomatoes, one can of Mexican-style stewed tomatoes, and one can of tomato paste. The whole thing is probably looking a little thick, so add some liquid, I used one Yuengling black and tan beer because it was the best beer I had in the fridge (miller light has no place in chili). I think this would be yummy with an even darker brew, of if you're fresh out of beer, just add some water.

Now, spice it up a bit more with whatever spice you like. I used a generous portion, probably a tablespoon or more each, or ground cumin and chili pepper. I'm not a fan of black pepper and very rarely salt anything, but now would be a good time to add both pepper and salt if you like.

Bring this to a boil then reduce the heat to a simmer. Stir it every once in a while. I simmered for 30-45 minutes to be sure the beer taste cooked out, all the flavors mingled together and because I was making cookies at the same time and didn't have time to stop and eat.

Serve in your favorite soup bowl topped with various yummy additions such as shredded cheddar cheese, crushed tortilla chips, or even crushed Goldfish crackers (just a few of my favorites). Or leave it naked, its delicious either way. Be sure to admire its lovely mix of colors since it really is a pretty soup.

Chicken Satay Soup

I fully intended to take pictures of this gem but Brian thought that the Clemson-Georgia Tech game in Tampa was a more appropriate place for the camera. Alas, hopefully words will adequately describe the soup.

Brian and I eat a lot of Asian-inspired food, usually some sort of stir-fry concoction thrown together because its quick. I put together this soup from a bunch of leftovers we had, but I'll describe it as if it was from scratch since I'm not going to assume anyone has these leftovers in his or her fridge.

First make a satay-like sauce, or really any Asian-like sauce with peanut butter. The one Brian made included peanut butter, soy sauce, and crushed red pepper flake. Usually satay sauce usually includes coconut milk, but we didn't have any of that. Just make the sauce to taste, you'll need about a half cup.

Then, cook your chicken in the satay sauce. I used leftover grilled chicken tenderloins. Grilling the chicken adds another dimension of flavor that is delightful, but its perfectly fine to just cook the chicken in a with the satay sauce anyway that's easy for you. You'll ultimately want the chicken in bite sized pieces but you don't necessarily have to chop it before cooking.

Next, mince some garlic and fresh ginger root. I used about 3 cloves of garlic because I ♥ garlic and maybe an inch of ginger root. The ginger really spices this soup up, so you don't want to leave it out.

Then, amass your vegetables. I used 1 julienned red pepper, 3 chopped celery stalks, 1 diced onion, 1 chopped bunch of bok choy, a handful of snow or snap peas and 3 sliced carrots.

Lastly, defrost, steam or otherwise cook 4 to 6 store-bought pot stickers, flavor of your choosing. If you can't find these at your local grocery store (I should know, the "nice" Publix near me doesn't stock them) you can always find them at Trader Joe's or Whole Foods.

Now, put this baby together. In a stock pot, an 8 quart will be plenty of space, cook your garlic, ginger and veggies. I left mine a bit crisp-tender because I like them a bit crunchy. Add your cooked satay chicken. Stir it all up and add as much stock as you'd like. I think this soup does well if its a bit thin, since the satay sauce makes for tasty broth. Bring this to a boil, then lower heat to a simmer. Let it simmer for about 10-20 minutes and give it a taste. If the broth seems a bit dull, add more satay sauce if you have any left or maybe some soy sauce. Once you like the taste of the broth, add in the cooked pot stickers. Simmer for another 5 minutes or so and enjoy! Each soup serving should have one pot sticker in it.