Beautiful Soup

Beautiful soup, so rare and green,
waiting in a hot tureen
Who for such dinties would not stoop.
Soup of the evening, Beautiful soup.

-Alice in Wonderland

That song really sums it up for me. I absolutly adore soup. I'm not talking about canned soup or the kind of soup you get out of a styrofoam cup. I'm talking about real, home made nothing but good for you delicious soup. My favoirite soups are vegetable blends. They are coincidentally, an excelent way of getting vegetables into children, since even children (and husbands) love good soup. I have to say, making soup is really fun too. It's kind of like being a witch tending your special brew or something. I think of all kinds of crazy things to go into the pot. And I love drying my garden vegetables to pull out in winter and sprinkle into a steaming soup pot. There's nothing better.

Here are several recipes that you might like to try. But,if you have some vegetables, an imagination, and a blender there is no limit to what you can do!
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Egg Drop Soup

I have been sick lately, and in need of something steamy and comforting. I decided egg drop soup would be the perfect addition to my soup page and to my tummy. If you like to eat hot and sour soup at a Chineese restaurant, then you will like this soup. The key to the sour flavor is white rice vinegar, but first you have to start with the broth. The easiest way to make chicken broth is to buy a rotisserie chicken at the grocery store, take it home and eat most of it while standing at the counter…or use the meat for some other dish. Take your nice, juicy, chicken carcass and put it in the crock pot covered with water on high. Let it simmer overnight. The next day you will be ready to make your egg drop soup.

 

2 cups chicken broth

1 Tablespoon white rice vinegar

1 Tablespoon soy sauce

A handful of dried black fungus or dried mushrooms

A cup of chopped green cabbage

1 beaten egg

Ladle two cups of your broth into a small sauce pot, and heat it to boiling. Add the soy sauce and the vinegar. Add the fungus and cabbage. Simmer the vegetables about five minutes. Bring your soup back to a gentle boil and slowly pour the egg into the soup while stirring. It will cook instantly and form beautiful egg ribbons. Pour soup into a bowl and eat immediately.

This soup is best fresh so just make as much as you are going to eat.

A little side note on dried black fungus. Don’t leave it out if you don’t have to. It sounds gross, but is really quite enchanting. You should be able to find it in the dried mushroom section of your local ethnic market.

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Tomato Soup August is the time we start getting our first ripe tomatoes and boy am I getting a lot of tomatoes! Of course eating them fresh is the best thing to do, but when you come into the house with your apron full it’s time to make my favorite winter treat, tomato soup. I make batches as the tomatoes ripen and freeze them to be pulled out and re-heated when the snowflakes begin to fly. Here is the recipe.

1 clove of elephant garlic or 1 head of regular garlic 1 onion 10 tomatoes or so 1 sprig of basil Pinch of salt

Chop the garlic and onion. Sauté those in olive oil in the pot. Meanwhile, have your kids cut the tomatoes in half. Add the tomatoes and stir. They will melt down like apples in apple sauce. When the tomato soup is nice and soupy, add the chopped basil and salt to taste, cool and freeze. It can be eaten immediately also, and it can be put through the blender to make it more creamy, but I like my tomato soup chunky. You may also add cream, but I don’t. Happy tomato harvesting!

A side note on tomato soup...

I recently made this one again. I took out the onions and used celery instead. I also ran it through the blender. It was even better.

--------------------------------------------------- Another Good One

Last night I came up with a really great soup. I made turkey broth in a giant pot. The next day I took it out of the fridge and strained out the broth and removed all the meat that was left over on the turkey. Then I browned a package of Italian sausage in the same big pot that I made the broth in. Then I put all the meat aside. I drizzled a little olive oil into the pot since there wasn’t a lot of fat from the sausage in there. I added an onion and three cloves of garlic and browned them. Then I added the broth and about five pounds of potatoes. I also added a head or two of broccoli. After the vegetables had softened, I ran half the soup through the blender to thicken the broth (in small batches please). Then I added a few more potatoes to the soup for chunkiness. I cut up a head of cabbage and tossed that in. When it was wilted, I added the turkey meat and the sausage to the soup. This made a very large vat of soup for my family to slurp for several days without me having to cook every three hours. Everybody liked it.


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This soup I came up with last night after visiting the local farmer's market. It lists cilantro and sorrel, but you can use any herbs you have on hand.


SPLIT PEA SOUP WITH CILANTRO AND SORREL

(Sorrel is a plant with large leaves that you eat. They taste refreshingly lemony.)

2 cups dry split green peas
1 cup red lentils
6 cups water
4 cups chicken broth
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 small onion
2 or more fresh leaves of sorrel
1 Tablespoon fresh cilantro...or more
5 small idaho spuds, washed, peeled and cut into small squares.

Put the peas, lentils water and 3 cups broth into a large soup pot. Bring it to a boil and simmer,stirring gently for 30 minutes or until peas and lentils are soft and blend together when stirred. Meanwhile, chop onion and saute it in a medium soup pot with the oil. Add the herbs to the saute and stir till wilted. Put the onion/herb mixture in the blender with remaining cup of chicken broth. Blend until smooth and add it to the pea soup. In the medium pot, boil the potatoes until soft, strain, and return to pot. Blend the pea soup in small batches until smooth and silky. Pour soup into the medium pot, over potatoes and stir gently. Serve right away, or put the lid on and turn the stove to low and wait for hubby to get home from work. Serves 4.
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This recipe I found on Martha Stewart's web site. It has a light, spring time flavor and is good even for lunch on a hot summer day. It also uses those garden vegetables you are likely to have right in your yard in summer. I think it would also be very good with your favorite fresh herb added. I would throw it right in with the spinach. I make mine as I harvest and freeze for a rainy day.



SPINACH AND PEA SOUP

Yield
Makes about 3 cups
Serves 4
Ingredients
5 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
1 3/4 cups homemade or low-sodium store-bought chicken stock
1 pound fresh English peas, shelled (about 1 cup)
8 ounces spinach (curly or flat leaf), tough stems discarded (about 6 cups packed leaves)
1 1/2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

Directions
1.Heat 4 teaspoons oil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion, garlic, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and a pinch of pepper. Cook, stirring, 3 minutes. Add stock, and bring to a boil.

2.Add peas, and return to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer, stirring occasionally, until peas are tender and bright green, 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in spinach. Cover, and cook, stirring occasionally, until spinach has wilted, 2 to 3 minutes.

3.Working in 2 batches, puree pea mixture in a blender, filling no more than halfway and adding up to 2 tablespoons water to each batch to achieve desired consistency. Stir in 1 teaspoon lemon juice, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon pepper.

4.Divide the soup among 4 bowls. Serve immediately.

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This last recipe is a staple at our house in the fall. I started growing Amish Pie Pumpkins a few years back and they make huge pots of soup that last for several days in the fridge. My kids love to dip bread in it, and I have been known to toss it over noodles when we get tired of eating it as soup. If you don't have Amish Pie Pumpkins it's really too bad...but you can use any large cooking squash.

ROASTED VEGETABLE SOUP

ingredients:

A collection of fall vegetables such as...squash, sweet potato onion, garlic, tomatoes, and carrots.
Olive oil
herbs such as rosemarry and sage. You can use fresh or dried.

Directions:
In a casserole dish, lay your chopped raw vegetables. Make sure squash is skin side down. Brush with olive oil and sprinkle with herbs. Place garlic cloves in the little cupped parts of the squashes. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until all vegetables are very tender, and squash is a little mooshy. Take dish out of oven and let veggies cool a little. scoop squash out of skins with a spoon and transfer to a blender or food processor with other vegetables. You may need to do it in several batches. Add chicken broth as you blend until the mixture becomes smooth and a little soupy. Transfer to a soup pot and heat on medium low, stirring constandly. Add salt and pepper to taste and serve. Sprinkle cheese on top if desired.

It's sooooooooooooooooooooo good!