Chicken and White Bean Tostito Soup

 

It's been a while ! It's not like we haven't been eating good food, but many times we're eating just what you find in the recipe archives (see Labels in the sidebar), as who doesn't tend to head for old favorites time after time ? 

This past week, I got a yen for a 'Tex Mex soup' - that Tostito cracker soup that you sometimes find on the menu at your local burrito or taco shop. I've been sicker than a dog and not feeling like doing a restaurant visit, so I patched a recipe together using on-line recipes as a basis to start from. 

The Little House Cooking Club - Cornbread and Soup

 

It all starts with a good cornbread recipe. Corn ... the staple of farmers for their animals and for their families. Corn ! Fresh and dried, soaked in lye to make hominy, pounded in various gritty grindings to make flour, grits, and coarse polenta. Boiled and buttered when its fresh off the stalk, grilled and cut from the cob to add to salads and custards. It's such a versatile grain !

As I embark with dozens of other fans of The Little House on the Prairie books and television series on this journey with The Little House Cooking Club, our first cooking challenge is to make a cornbread in homage to Ma Ingalls. I took my recipe from Melissa Gilbert's cookbook that honored her days on the series. 'Half pint' has grown up and moved on, but she still credits the series with giving her a firm foundation in home cooking and she's gathered some fine recipes together to honor the series and farm cooking.

Vietnamese Pork Noodle Bowl

Quarantine cooking has brought home the real need to use everything up in your fridge before heading out to a market for new supplies. That being said, there is some good food being passed around the Internet these days and this is one of the noodle bowls that I saw recently.

Gazpacho - Cool Relief From the Heat

Another healthy way to use the garden's bounty! This is Ina Garten's recipe with a bit of a more traditional adapting. The gazpacho is very smooth, has the addition of a piece of artisan loaf that has had the crust removed and a wee bit of cumin as well as that Kosher salt and black pepper. The garnishes resemble a pico de gallo atop the bowl of soup ... cold crisp and the perfect start to a meal with a glass of cold Pinot Grigio on the side and tortilla crisps with guacamole.

Curried Cauliflower Soup

I'd like to change the picture of The Spice Garden welcome in the sidebar to a lovely, breezy Spring photo, but alas, winter just continues to hold on tight to this little corner of New Hampshire. Taking a little walk around the back acreage, I've found that the daffodils are only about an inch out of the ground. The crocuses along the side walkway are tiny little needles of green just breaking the surface of the soil and there are three lone snowdrops in bloom along the rock wall. For mid-April, this is sad and sorry. To boot, we got a couple inches of snow last evening and into this morning.  So, I make soup and SB keeps the woodstoves going and we wait ...

Springtime Soup

The devilishly hot days that taxed our bodies earlier this week have passed ... for the time being. We're back to cooler temperatures and possible rain showers. So I made soup with some of the vegetables and herbs that are coming from the garden and that have popped up at the farmer's markets.

Minestrone and Savory Bread Pudding

Checking in after a long hiatus from food blogging ... not that I wasn't eating up a storm!

Chicken and Potato Gnocchi Soup

I snipped and hung the bittersweet to dry this weekend.

Lentil and Roasted Tomato Soup

The past few days have been grey and misty. We've actually burnt more wood in the past couple weeks than we did for the entire month of April. The damp, raw chill has put me off a bit. I haven't walked as much as I'd like. The soil isn't warming up, as it should so that we can get to planting. Everything seems to be in a state of suspension, while we wait and wait for Spring to show her colors. Even our daffodils have been cheated this year! The first blooms were snapped off or flattened by that snow storm we had a few weeks ago. The stalwart buds that came after the melt have been slow to develop and less showy without their neighboring blooms.

We are in need of color!

Ukrainian Beet Borshch and Pampushky

Christmas always brings me at least one new cookbook and this year was no exception! My traditional first recipe from most of the cook books I get is a soup recipe. This is, perhaps, the result of looking to use leftovers from the Christmas food shopping fest or maybe just a rustic reaction to all the rich food we consume during the holidays. Soup seems simpler, less caloric, and less stressful to create.

Cream of Chicken Soup

I've made this soup so many times over the years, but it never gets old. I tend to make it for potlucks and also when someone in the house has been under the weather. It's rich and gives a person a boost of calories when their appetite's been off. It's also especially comforting with a handful of small crackers to scoop up with the silky broth. I know we're all about Springtime and new greens and asparagus and pastel cakes and treats and all, but there will still be days when all you want is a hot bowl of comfort and a hunk of bread or a handful of crackers. Here's a soup that fills the need.

Let Them Eat Kale - The Cook Book's Minestrone with Quinoa Soup

Nom, nom ... with added chicken meatballs. 

Okay, so this New Hampshire hick is settling in for the winter months with her stash of Christmas cook books and her every present bouquet of  ... kale. Yup. Kale. It's what's for dinner during the winter up here in the wilds of New England - green, cheap, plentiful, healthy, and ever present, mounded up in the produce section at the local markets.

Another Meatball Soup ...

Yesterday was such a lousy, rainy day! It was a day for spending under a blanket on the couch with hand sewing or a good book or a willing partner. But no. I had to schlep wood for woodboxes and deliver some food to a friend who is ill, return overdue books to the library and schlep grocery bags from the store to the car to the house. By the end of the day, my toes were wet because my clogs have sprung a leak. My hands were clammy and chilled and my hair was damp from the trips between car and errand locations. And the rain and bluster just kept blustering. UGH!

Golden Winter Soup with Turkey Croquettes - Virtual Supper Club

Virtual Supper Club's 'Thyme for Turkey' Holiday Preview !

How did it get to be November??? This year has flown by and here come the 'big two' holidays ... again! For our family, Thanksgiving and Christmas really are the biggies. We make it a point to get together in one spot, make way too much food, joke around and play Scrabble or Bananagrams, try to get some decent family photos, drink good wine and beers, and catch up on all the news. Occasionally, there are forays to the movies or an afternoon out at the antique stores or shops, an evening out at the local pub/inn, short hikes to walk off the big meals, playing in the back yard with the dogs, and hauling wood in for the fires. Ah, family life in a rural backwater!

Roasted Red Pepper and Carrot Soup

This is a soup that really hit the spot this week. I have needed to be on a simple soft diet for a few days, as I've been in the hospital to have a gall bladder procedure. Consequently, I am shuffling around the house with a pillow held to my mid-section, and a supply of easy meals in the fridge.This soup was made on Thursday morning just before I headed to the hospital. It has been lunch and late night snack after my return home.

I first thought that this would be a tomato based soup when I saw the recipe title, but no. This is a thick and rich carrot and red pepper soup with just a hint of tomato and a good dose of curry. The consistency is smooth and velvety, as the soup is pureed in the blender before going back into the soup pot to sit a bit and mature the spices. I told SB that the next time I make it, I'm going to throw a few handfuls of cooked rice and a handful of chopped parsley into the soup just before serving.

Julia's French Onion Soup

... soup bowl as palette ...

One More Bowl of Soup, Please!

Here's a soup for a cold raw day ... one that went really well with a plate of cheesy nachos and a cold beer. Everyone here in Fitzwilliam is crabbing about another snow storm that is threatening southwestern New Hampshire. There's a severe case of cabin fever going around the grey cottage ... wishing for a thaw and hoping that we get a long warm snap so that the drifts melt and the stone walls reappear! We are ready to see some forsythia and crocus blooms! Until then, though, the first paperwhite blossoms have poked their faces out to say, "Hello!".

Come on Springtime!

Creamy Sweet Potato Soup - A Healthy Virtual Supper Club Holiday Meal

This month, we'll all be eating rich foods and sharing a glass or two of bubbly with friends and family. Some of us will be eating more rich food and drinking more bubbly than usual, so in the off times, it's pretty important to knosh on some lower calorie and super healthy dishes. Picking and choosing light and nutritional dishes can offset some of the over indulgence that comes with the holiday party season and family feasts.

Hence, the Cooking Light Virtual Supper Club menu for December reflects several good choices for lighter fare. Take this soup for instance - 244 calories for a 1½ cup serving. Pair it with a salad and you have a nice lunch or light supper. Put it on a holiday dinner menu and it lightens the calorie load quite a bit. Plus, it's healthy and pretty much dairy free ... and phew, the colors!

Soup and Bread --- Simple Sustenance

Today was a day for baking bread. There were off and on snow squalls ... didn't amount to anything other than making us feel like we brushed up against the edge of winter. The woodstove in the kitchen has kept the place cozy enough to coax the bread dough up up up to the top of the loaf pans. And while the bread baked, I puttered at a small painting project.

I also wanted to try out a recipe for a creamy coconut carrot soup that I'm thinking would make a nice start to our Thanksgiving feast.  This month's Bon Appetit magazine has what looks to be a winning take on carrot soup so I've made it up and am simmering it, as we speak.

Musing on a Sunny Summer Morning ... and a Seasonal Soup

The march is on ... this morning we woke to a thrum of katydids and cooler, dry air. The heatwave that has been crushing the Eastern seaboard seems to be passing and a change is in the air. Autumn ... yup, that's Autumn rattling the bugs and bringing on a cool morning breeze. The sky is changing from that deep summertime azure to a more washed out blue. The roadsides are lined with feathery chicory blossoms and the fields beyond are beginning to turn bright yellow with late summer's goldenrod. I can practically hear the school kids groaning about summer's demise and the onset of another year of classes, but the boys up the street are racing up and down our dirt road on their bikes, screaming and whistling at each other and making our Corgis howl and hoot. Timmy and Christopher clatter their bikes back and forth out front of the house, defiantly in denial of summertime's end. It's a joy to hear. Their rambunctiousness is a perfect counterpoint to the almost hypnotic background sound of the crickets and katydids.