This soup is from a hospital newsletter

Last week I stayed with my parents one night while traveling for work. They made me taste a bit of this soup that they made from a newsletter that my mom got at work. The soup didn’t have a name but I really liked it so we made it tonight.

This was super easy to throw together and worked out great because just as it was starting to simmer for fifteen minutes, Butler got his head stuck in the handle of a plastic bag. We could just ignore the soup on the stove and move the bed that he decided to hide under wrapped in a bag. He was fine by the way and got the bag off himself before we got to him. Chica followed him under the bed and stayed by his side through the whole ordeal.

Anyway here’s the recipe:

1 med onion chopped
2 tbsp veg. oil
1 can 15 oz black beans, drained
1/2 can refried beans
1 can 11 oz corn, drained
1 can 14.5 oz chicken broth
1 cup bottled chunky salsa
1 tbsp lime juice
1/2 tsp salt and 1/8 tsp pepper

Saute onions in oil until tender.  Add the other ingredients, simmer for 15 minutes and serve.

The soup is hearty, thick and creamy and very filling. I used medium salsa so that it would have a bit of heat.  I didn’t put in the salt or pepper and I felt it didn’t need either although Mike said it needed some pepper.  Maybe my sense of taste is a bit off because I have a cold.

We had cheese quesadillas on the side.  I found these high fiber flour tortillas at Giant that were only 80 calories.  They were softer than usual but toasted up perfectly in the pan and tasted just as good as regular tortillas.

For such a quick, easy dinner, it really was very cozy and homey.  Perfect for a weeknight.

Lazy Matzo Ball Soup

Tonight’s dinner was planned around a jar of homemade chicken stock that Mike’s friend gave him.  So while the base of the soup was homemade, all the work that went into that stock (and boy did he work for it – he raised that chicken) was done by someone else.

We decided to turn it into matzo ball soup and we really cut corners. First, I bought pre-cut onion and celery at the grocery store. Also, I didn’t see actual carrots in the produce section. (I must have been temporarily blind?  How could they not have whole carrots at Giant, a normal grocery store where I buy carrots all the time?) So I bought those carrots in the bag that are cut with ribs and they worked out great once Mike chopped some of the larger pieces.

See that browned chicken piece?  That’s because we used a rotisserie chicken.

We even used matzo ball mix but we don’t keep matzo meal in the house so it’s almost the same thing. Matzo balls are really easy to make, mix or not.  Mike seasoned the soup with some poultry seasoning and garlic powder.

Don’t let the lazy fool you. This soup was good.  It only took about an hour total of prepping and cooking time, but this was so warm and cozy and it tasted like Sunday night.  And there is a ton so we’ll have it for leftovers this week.

I’ve got a few more inches to go on my cardigan and I’m trying to make up for not knitting at all last week.  And I have many other projects in my queue that I want to tackle as well.  I hope it’s a productive week!

 

Beef and Barley Soup

Tonight we made Beef and Barley Soup from the October issue of Martha Stewart Living.  It turned out excellent and the broth was so flavorful.

I was a little nervous because it says it takes four hours and we didn’t start it until later in the afternoon.  I think ours took closer to three hours but I didn’t skimp on any of the steps.

Our broth doesn’t look like the picture but it was still great. The London broil turned out so tender.  Next time I might add more carrots and we forgot to add parsley at the end. We were just too ready to eat it and it was pretty perfect.

The Lemont Soup Guy

We’ve lived in Lemont for over five years and every week we’ve noticed the sign ups in our post office for the weekly soups from the Lemont Soup Guy Tom Everly. (Yes, we have to pick up our mail at the post office because we don’t have mail delivery to our house.) Tom is a local chef and he and his wife Judy own Keystone Yankee Catering. They were the caterers of Granary Gourmet Candlelight Dinner we went to in September.

Anyway, every week Tom offers two soups that you order before noon on Wednesday and can pick up between noon and six in the evening on Thursday. He uses fresh, local ingredients and makes most of the stocks himself so that many of his soups are low sodium.  And his prices are very reasonable: $5.30 – pint; $10.60 – quart; and $42.40 – gallon.

I don’t know why it took us so long but this week, we finally ordered. We were planning to be out of town for the weekend (although we canceled because Mike doesn’t feel well) and thought we’d love to have soup on Sunday. Instead, we ate it tonight.

We chose the sweet potato and Andouille sausage with cream. According to Tom’s description it is gluten free. The Andouille sausage is locally raised, butchered and sold from Hog’s Galore in Philipsburg.

It was so good and the perfect end to this gloomy, damp day.

You don’t have to live in Lemont to get his soups but you do have to be willing to go there to pick them up on Thursday. You can email him at teverly707@comcast.net to get on the list and order your soup.

First Soup of the Season: Rabe and White Bean Stoup

We finally had the time to plan a few new recipes this week and tonight was our first soup of the season, Rachael Ray’s Rabe and White Bean Stoup.

This was so easy to put together. We made a few modifications. We didn’t cook the broccoli rabe first but added it at the end with the pasta. We also put in an extra cup of broth and substituted orzo for the orecchiette because we had a cup sitting in an open box.

It was quick, hearty and flavorful.  Great for a weeknight.