Jim,

Sounds great. I just might make me some gumbo soon. One question: your recipe calls for "infused chix stock". What's it infused with?

Kenny

Kennyz wrote:Jim,

Sounds great. I just might make me some gumbo soon. One question: your recipe calls for "infused chix stock". What's it infused with?

Kenny

thanks kenny,

I bought some smoked ham hocks at the store, and also used the bones from the turkey thighs I smoked and added them to the 3 quarts of the stock, and simmered this mix for a little over an hour, really added some flavor(a twist I thought would work).

This is a pretty interesting seasonal soup recipe from Chef Patrick Quakenbush. It made me think of all kinds of new ways to use cranberries:

Carrot and cranberry borscht

By the way, if you've got freezer space, stock up on fresh cranberries now. Last summer I needed cranberries for something and was shocked by the price of frozen berries.

Cream of broccoli soup is one of my standbys, & one of the first soups I mastered.

1# broccoli florets chopped
1/2 onion chopped
2 carrots diced
2 celery diced
3 cloves garlic minced
2 quarts chicken stock
1 pint half & half
10 tbsp unsalted butter
10 tbsp flour
black pepper
paprika
shredded cheddar


Melt butter in soup pot, stir in flour, cook for 5 minutes over medium heat stirring. Add onion, garlic, celery, and carrot. Cook another 5 minutes. Whisk in 1/2 of the chicken stock and bring to a boil adding more as the soup thickens. Once boiling add broccoli and reduce to simmer. Simmer 20 minutes. Add 1/2 and 1/2, black pepper and paprika to taste.

Ladle into bowls top with cheese.

Damn good soup. Was great yesterday, will be even better tonight.

Nice looking soup Jim. I've always folded the cheese into the soup, next time I'll try with just sprinkling on the top.

LikestoEatout wrote:Nice looking soup Jim. I've always folded the cheese into the soup, next time I'll try with just sprinkling on the top.

thanks,

I have found sometimes the soup might "break" when adding the cheese while cooking, and sometimes I just want a cream soup vs a broccoli cheese soup.

A delicious recipe for garlic soup, from Emeril Lagasse:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emer ... index.html

Try this... you will like it, I promise.

Mike

Soup seemed perfect for today's snowy, gloomy day. Using what I had on hand, including a mixed package of frozen beans and kale, made this one pot dish a quick and hearty lunch (not to mention, on the healthy side). The Israeli couscous was a new ingredient for me and it really pulled together the rest of the ingredients into a very satisfying meal.

White/Kidney Bean, Kale, Israeli Couscous, and Toulouse Sausage Soup

3 toulouse sausage links (i used the butcher & larder's housemade version)
1/2 onion, diced
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1/2 c. celery, diced
1 carrot, diced
1/2 c. eggplant, diced
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/4 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp dried red chili flakes
4 c. water & 2 bouillon cubes (or 2 c. chicken broth and 2 c. water)
8 oz canned tomatoes (or 3-4 small tomatoes)
1/2 c. Israeli couscous
1lb pckg of frozen white beans, kidney beans, and kale mix (i found mine at whole foods)

1. Brown the sausages on all sides (i did it in bacon fat!) and remove from pot.
2. Add a little olive oil if needed and saute onion, garlic, celery, and carrot to soften (5-7 mins). I also added in some chopped eggplant b/c i had it. Feel free to throw in whatever other veg you have.
3. Add salt, pepper, thyme, oregano, and red chili flakes. Saute for another 5 mins or so.
4. Boil 4 cups of water in the micro and dissolve 2 chix bouillon cubes in the water, and add to pot.
5. If you have a bit of a parmesan rind lying around, add that too.
6. Add tomatoes.
7. Add israeli couscous and frozen pckg of white/kidney beans and kale. Stir to combine. Return the sausage to the pot.
8. Bring to a boil and lower heat to a good simmer and cook, partially covered, for 20-30 mins. Taste for salt and flavor.
9. I pulled out the sausages, roughly chopped them and then added to the individual soup bowls and ladled in the rest of the soup.

Serves 2-4, depending on hunger levels.

shyne

Grubseeker Crawfish Bisque with Stuffed heads:

Fresh, recntly live crawfish are a must for this bisque, do not even try it using chinese or frozen bugs and tails. Also very prep heavy as it works best when you make your own crawfish stock.

bisque:

3 onions minced
1 green pepper minced
3 celery stalks minced
6 cloves garlic smashed
3/4 can tomato paste
6 tbsp butter
1/2 cup veg oil
1 cup flour
2 bay leaf
thyme
cajun seasoning
black pepper
8 cups crawfish stock
3 lbs. crawfish tails
1/4 cup crawfish butter
1/2 cup chopped green onion
1/2 cup parsley
long grain rice

head stuffing:

1/4 cup oil
1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup chopped green onion
1/4 cup parsley
cajun seasoning
3/4 cup crawfish stock
2 eggs beaten
4 tbsp melted butter
bread crumbs
crawfish heads
1 lb. crawfish tails minced
1/4 cup crawfish butter

Bisque: make roux, add trinity and garlic, cook, add tomato paste, slowly add stock. Add crawfish butter, simmer uncovered 15 mins, simmer covered 30 minutes. Cold water bath to cool stock.

Heads: make roux, add veg, cook, add crawfish butter, and minced tail meat, cook. Add stock, melted butter, eggs, green onion, and parsley, remove from heat add bread crumbs, season with cajun seasoning, stuff heads.. Dredge in flour, bake in 350 oven for 15 minutes.

Reaheat bisque, add parsely, and green onion. To serve, grab a bowl, add a scoop of rice, a few tails, add a aladle of steming hot bisque,, garnish with stuffed heads, parsley and green onion. Eat. Brilliant.

stuffed heads before they hit the oven:



cup o' bisque:

Mark Bittman wrote this weekend about the last vegetable soup recipes you'll ever need.

Thanks for the recipe and the photos and the memories, Jim!

(A story to preface this recipe. All of my family members love to cook, though my brother & I are probably more innovative/less recipe-driven than our parents. A few years ago, my Mom went to visit my brother & his family, and he served a soup that she absolutely loved, so she asked him for the recipe. His reply, "Well, it's really your chicken enchilada recipe..." that he'd adapted into a soup.)

With that in mind, I just created a soup that I'm calling Beet Salad Soup. For reference, here's my basic beet salad recipe.

I found some beautiful golden beets at WF today, and midway through roasting them, it occurred to me that they'd make a great soup. Just finished it & it tastes great. Here's the basic recipe:

Beet Salad Soup

About a pound of beets
About 3c of chicken broth
About 2T unflavored Greek yogurt (or unflavored regular yogurt, or sour cream, or even cream)
1/2t sea salt, or more to taste
Juice of about half a lemon (2-3T, or to taste)
About 1T of olive oil (optional)
Cilantro
Goat cheese

Roast beets per your preferred method. I usually wrap individually in tin foil then roast at 425' for 60-90 minutes, until fork tender. Today I went without tin foil and threw them in my Dutch Oven (covered) and roasted for the same amount of time. This make be my new method, because peeling was much easier.

When beets are done & cooled, peel them.

Set one beet aside. Roughly chop the rest of the beets and put in blender with about 2c of the chicken broth, about 2T of lemon juice, olive oil (optional, consider omitting if you're using cream or want a lighter version) and Greek yogurt. Blend thoroughly.

Start tasting, add more chicken broth as necessary to thin it out, add more lemon juice, add salt to taste & blend as necessary. You can use more yogurt if you'd prefer a creamier version.

Once you're done blending, dice the remaining beet & add to the soup to give it some texture.

Top with crumbled goat cheese and chopped cilantro.

Note: I tasted this as it was lukewarm from the beets, but I suspect it'll be good either hot or cold.

Sometimes, life is too hectic for a wonderful, involved, slow-cooked soup, and so I've developed some recipes for soups that can be thrown together with things I always have on hand. Today seemed like a soup day, so I made one of those "stuff on hand" quickies -- and I think it's worth sharing. One large can of Libby's pumpkin (plain pumpkin, not spiced pie filling), one can of coconut milk, three (or more) tablespoons of Indian garlic and ginger paste, a dash or two of curry powder, a dash or two of cayenne, and enough chicken broth to make it soup, as opposed to a side dish. Cook over low heat until it's heated through and flavors blend -- and it loses that "pumpkin out of a can" taste.

Coconut milk is so perfect with pumpkin, I can't imagine using anything else at this point.

And if you served this, I don't think anyone would guess that it was thrown together in five minutes from a few cans.

Cynthia wrote:Coconut milk is so perfect with pumpkin, I can't imagine using anything else at this point.

And if you served this, I don't think anyone would guess that it was thrown together in five minutes from a few cans.

I love these kinds of recipes. I like to use beer in pumpkin soup.

Mr. KajmacJohnson and I used to go to Dapper's at Addison Mall almost on a weekly basis a few years back and I always enjoyed their cream of mushroom soup. That was the only thing that ever stood out for me at such a meh restaurant. Now that the week is back to looking dreary I am on the hunt for a good cream of mushroom recipe. Anyone have any suggestions?

I have a smoked ham hock in the freezer and I've been wondering what to do with it, I think I now know!

One of my favorite soups is Potato Leek soup. The recipe is:

3 diced shallots
2 Chopped leeks

Sweat those in a pan for five minutes or so, and let them brown just a bit. Then add:

2 tablespoons or so Noilly Prat

Let that cook off, then add:

3 finely diced Russet potatoes
1 quartered carrot
3 large sprigs of thyme
1 bay leaf
1 large piece of celery from the top (with leaves)

Cover that well with either veal or chicken stock and simmer for 20 minutes, or until much of the potato has dissolved but there are still well cooked chunks in it. Add S+P to taste in the last 5-10 minutes. After it's cooked remove and toss the bay leaf, carrot, thyme stems, and celery. Stir in a little heavy cream and you're set! If you thicken this up just a touch it makes a great base for a chicken or lamb pot pie, just toss in the meat and pour into a crust to bake.

Made this today, it's not hard to put together, as most of it is things you could or should have on hand already. Not quite a food-desert dish, though, as the main ingredient is roasted tomatoes. I don't honestly know if you couldn't just sub a can of those Fire Roasted tomatoes, but it's a good way to use tomatoes from the summer. Next summer take a bunch of tomatoes and roast them before freezing them in bags. I also cheated and used frozen basil, since it's being cooked anyway (when basil is plentiful, blend it up with some water or oil and freeze so you have it in the winter to drop into soups like this!)

If it's not an exact clone for the Corner Bakery Roasted Tomato soup, it's certainly very very close.
(adding three links to the same recipe, in case one goes away, interesting that none of them credit the other, but the recipe is the same)
http://www.examiner.com/chain-restauran ... oup-recipe
http://annies-eats.net/2011/02/22/roast ... asil-soup/
http://community.tasteofhome.com/commun ... 39491.aspx

Perfect for this time of year...


Creamy Turkey and Wild Rice Soup
Serves 6 to 8
This is a nice, rich, thick soup- more like a stew, and the wild rice gives it a chewy counterpoint.

Leftover turkey wings, thighs, or drumsticks can be used in place of the carcass.
Turkey Broth
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 onions , chopped
1 celery rib , chopped
1 turkey carcass, chopped into 4 pieces
3 cups white wine (can substitute more stock or water)
6 cups low-sodium chicken broth (or use leftover turkey broth)
Soup
3/4 -1 cup wild rice
2 carrots , peeled and chopped
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup heavy cream
3 cups chopped cooked turkey
or the meat stripped from the carcass, chopped.
Salt and pepper to taste

1. For the turkey broth: Melt butter in large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Cook onions, celery, and turkey carcass until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Add wine and chicken broth and simmer over medium-low heat for 1 hour. Pick all the meat off the turkey carcass and chop. Discard bones. Strain broth, discarding spent vegetables. Return Broth to pot. Reserve meat.
2. For the soup: Toast rice over medium heat in a dry non-stick skillet until rice begins to pop, 5 to 7 minutes. Add to broth with carrots, thyme, and baking soda and bring to boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, until rice is tender, about 1 hour.
3. Whisk flour and cream in bowl until smooth. Slowly whisk flour mixture into soup. Add turkey and simmer until soup is slightly thickened, about 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Serve.

I have a ham bone left from a spiral ham and I am looking for a good recipe for soup.
The split pea soup down here looks good. I'd like lentils, though, I think. Any other suggestions?

october271986 wrote:I have a ham bone left from a spiral ham and I am looking for a good recipe for soup.
The split pea soup down here looks good. I'd like lentils, though, I think. Any other suggestions?

Navy Bean Soup. Try the Congressional recipe.

I'm a big fan of tom yum/dtom yum and its variations. Tom yum is very simple to make. You simmer water or stock with lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves and galanga, then add other ingredients including tamarind, lime and protein (classically shrimp). Kasma Loha-Unchit has a nice recipe on her site--I've adopted her addition of nam prik pao (Thai chile jam), onions and scallions. I also like to add bean sprouts and a topping of fried shallots. Rice noodles are a nice addition as well. Inspired by the tom yum shu mai at Rosded, I made a recent batch with shredded chicken, frozen shumai and frozen fish balls from Golden Pacific, topped with fresh mint (because that's what's still growing in my garden) rather than the more traditional cilantro.

What I Learned about the CIA from Cooking the Declassified Recipe for Soviet Borscht

World War II had ended. The Iron Curtain was extending across Europe. And the cook instructors in the Russian army were making borscht.

The key, according to their recently declassified manual, was to start with the lengthy process of making beef bullion (or stock) before adding any beets, cabbage, or other vegetables. As any good soup-maker knows, it's all about that base.

Yet this recipe was kept secret for decades, buried in the Central Intelligence Agency archives simply because our national security apparatus, by habit, hides everything.

The author and his wife made a good attempt at cooking the Soviet army's borsch with sauerkraut and include their undertaking and the recipe.

River Cafe's vegetarian ribollita is a sturdy winter soup:

https://twelvemilesfromalemon.com/2015/ ... ribollita/

Soup Map of Europe: 273 Traditional Soups

Looking for inspiration on soup, this will do it. I only got to 1+ pages and counted at least 20 I have made over the years.

Regards,
CAthy2

I have 5# of FRESH pork neck bones sitting in my refrigerator from my weekend shopping sprees. Any suggestions on how to use these. Ordinarily, I would probably make posole but I do not have hominy in the house?

It was a very productive weekend. 5# of beef cheeks for $2.99/ lb and a neighbor dropped over with two packages of elk sirloins and ground elk straight from Montana.

jlawrence01 wrote:I have 5# of FRESH pork neck bones sitting in my refrigerator from my weekend shopping sprees. Any suggestions on how to use these. Ordinarily, I would probably make posole but I do not have hominy in the house?

Google = "italian gravy neck bones"
------> Link

jlawrence01 wrote:I have 5# of FRESH pork neck bones sitting in my refrigerator from my weekend shopping sprees. Any suggestions on how to use these. Ordinarily, I would probably make posole but I do not have hominy in the house?

It was a very productive weekend. 5# of beef cheeks for $2.99/ lb and a neighbor dropped over with two packages of elk sirloins and ground elk straight from Montana.

If you have these Korean ingredients around, gamjatang is legit one of my favorite things ever. Here's a version I made a couple weeks back. (first attempt at using the post picture functionality)

https://www.saveur.com/gamjatang-spicy- ... ew-recipe/

Gam Ja Tang- is one of my favorite KOREAN Soup/Stews!

The version I like is served at lunch in Des Plaines-
that idyllic hamlet along
I-83 (or Elmhurst Rd.)
called Bowl + BBQ.

Bowl + BBQ
1277 Elmhurst Rd.
Des Plaines,IL.
847.581.1277