SRC - Wonderful Winter Soup

Like many I crave simple easy foods at the start of the year.  After a month of indulgence all I want are simple nutritious foods and nothing fits this desire more than soup.  Soups can be made in 30 minutes or can simmer all day.  They can be a simple broth or chocked full of meats, vegetables, beans or pasta.  Being in a soup frame of mind I was thrilled when I came across Lesa's White Bean Sausage Kale Soup for this month's Secret Recipe Club.

Lesa's site, Edesia's Notebook, is filled with wonderful recipes that she shares with her husband and two adorable daughters.  Her holiday treats were mouth watering and the number of challenges and cooking groups she belongs to is definitely inspiring.  I was definitely tempted by many of her recipes, but stuck with the soup.

I made a few changes to Lesa's soup based on what was available in my kitchen, but that is one of the wonderful things about soup is that they are so versatile.  The two main changes I made were using spinach instead of kale and using a chorizo beef sausage and a chicken sausage in place of the Italian sausage Leasa used. We have become big fans of Cacique Beef chorizo it is wonderfully spicy and adds great flavor.  It almost disappears when cooking, so don't look to it if you want to add flavor and texture to the dish.

In my recipe I also added half a bottle of beer to help cut the spiciness of the chorizo and to add a little more flavor.  The addition of the beer is completely optional the soup is yummy either way.  I often add half a bottle or so because I like the hoppy flavor it provides and sometimes I add half a bottle just because it has been one of those afternoons.  It is completely up to you and the soup won't suffer either way.

Spinach White Bean Sausage Soup
5 oz. Cacique Beef Chorizo
2 links chicken sausage, cut into 1/2" slices
4 oz chicken broth
1/2 bottle beer (dark or light whichever flavor you prefer)
2 cans white beans, drained and rinsed
2 cups frozen chopped spinach (or a bunch fresh spinach, chopped)
Salt and pepper to taste

Over medium heat, heat large soup pot.  Once pan is hot add chorizo, cook for about 5-7 minutes  add sausage cook until sausage is lightly browned.  Add broth and beer cook for 10 minutes or until liquids are warm. Stir in beans and spinach, add salt and pepper to taste.  Simmer over medium low heat  for 10 minutes.

Please visit Lesa over at Edesia's Notebook and be sure to check out all of the wonderful recipes in this month's SRC reveal.


 

Chicken and Kale Soup

With the cold weather upon us, our consumption of soup has increased greatly.  Lots of squash, vegetable and chicken soups and stews have been making an appearance on our dinner table and then again the next day for lunch.

The most recent soup was a wonderfully simple Chicken and Kale soup.  As I have said before I struggle with greens.  I primarily use them in soups because that is the easiest for me and one way I know my kids will eat them.  They become completely oblivious to the tiny shrived piece of green in their soup and don't stick their noses up at like they do when it appears in a sauteed pile on their dinner plate.

While I like soups that simmer on the stove all day filling my house with a wonderful aroma I like 30 minute soups even better.  Soups that can be made at 9:00 in the morning, thrown in the fridge then reheated at 7:00 pm after practices are over are even better, and this is a soup that falls into both of those last two categories.

Chicken Kale Soup

2 chicken breast, diced
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1/2 onion, diced
1 Tbsp taco seasoning (see below)
2 cans dice tomatoes
4 cups chicken broth
1 bunch kale, stems removed roughly chopped

Directions:
In large soup pan, over medium high heat, heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil.  Add chicken cook until light brown.  Add garlic, onion and taco seasoning, cook for about 1 minute. Add tomatoes and broth, cook for 20 minutes stir in kale, cook for another 10 minutes or until kale is soft.

*Chicken breast can be replaced with sausage of chicken sausage, adjust amount of taco seasoning if using a spicy sausage.

 Taco Seasoning

4 tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon onion powder

1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1 teaspoon dried oregano

2 teaspoons paprika

6 teaspoons ground cumin

2 teaspoons fine sea salt

4 teaspoons black pepper

Directions:

Mix together ingredients in an airtight container. Shake to combine.

Add 2-3 tablespoons for every 1 pound of ground beef, turkey or chicken. Use to replace store-bought taco seasoning in any recipe

Lasagna Soup

It's the beginning of the month which means it's Secret Recipe Club time.  Before I reveal my recipe I have a confession - I didn't make anything this month, my husband did, but I did not.  The day before the reveal and as always I had marked a bunch of different recipes, but hadn't made anything.  To make things more challenging I had to work, so I brought in some backup.

I was a little worried about bringing in Mike as a replacement.  He is an excellent cook, but he has trouble following a recipe, so even though I gave him a recipe for Lasagna Soup there was a great possibility I could have come home and found something completely different.  In the spirit of SRC he did follow the recipe, but made a few changes and we now have two delicious recipes to turn to when a craving for lasagna soup strikes.

As a thank you to Mike for helping out I have a favor to ask of you.  Mike loves knowing what other people eat and he started a Facebook page called "so what did you eat".  He just started it and would love to build it up so if you could "like" the page and share what you eat Mike, and I, would really appreciate it.  It doesn't matter if you had a gourmet meal or a bag of chips and a soda, just snap a picture and share away.

As I said this month's SRC dish was lasagna soup from Cravings of a Lunatic.  There are so many great recipes to choose from, I was initially going to make the Turtle Popcorn, but with all the Halloween candy around I couldn't add another sweet to the house.  Even though it didn't make an appearance this month I am sure it will around Christmas time.

Here is Kim's recipe.  This is a delicious, quick and easy dish.  Perfect for cold days when you need some warm comfort food.  Enjoy!

Lasagna Soup

Ingredients

• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 green pepper, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced (I didn’t have fresh so I used minced garlic)
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 box (32 oz) of beef broth, or mix 4 cups boiling water with 1 to 2 tablespoons of better than bouillon beef base (I used the better than bouillon)
• 1 (28 fl oz) can of whole peeled tomatoes (san Marzano), pulsed in blender
• 1 (1 lb 8 oz) jar of pasta sauce ( I used Ragu Sauteed Onion & Garlic)
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 cups broken lasagna noodles
• 1 (5 oz) package of grated parmesan cheese
• 2 cups mozzarella (the new pizza mozzarella is the bomb)

Instructions

1. Brown your ground beef, onion, and pepper in a large dutch oven. It should be broken into fine particles and cooked till juices run clear.
2. In the last minute or two add the garlic.
3. Now add your brown sugar, tomatoes, sauce, oregano, basil and salt. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 20 minutes.
4. Add the noodles and simmer until they are tender. Stir in parmesan.
5. Turn on your broiler.
6. Transfer soup into ovenproof soup bowls. Place in oven and broil for 3 to 5 minutes.

Everybody Soup

Why is it when I have nothing going on that I find myself scrambling to pull dinner together?

Yesterday the kids were out of school for a teacher work day.  I didn't schedule anything for us to do and left it up to them to decide.  Their decision, a jammie and TV day.  While they got bored with TV after a while, much to my surprise and happiness, they had no desire to get dressed.  They were all dressed by noon and we went outside to play for a while, but other than that we didn't leave the house.  We happily worked on other projects and had a lazy day.

One would think with all this down time I would make some bread and prepare a nice dinner, but no.  At 5:00 the kids started fighting, which signaled it was time to think about feeding the little animals.  Had I thought about dinner earlier I would have remembered I had not been to the grocery store in a week, so the pickings for dinner were a little thin.  And thin pickings mean one thing, soup.

I pulled a variety of ingredients out of the pantry, fridge and freezer and everybody got to choose one or two ingredients to add.   The result was a tasty soup that we named "Everybody Soup."   This time our soup included:  diced tomatoes, tomato puree, spinach, white beans, leftover pot roast, carrots, and corn.  Served with some corn bread it was a quick and wonderful meal to end our very lazy day.

What is your favorite last minute meal?  How do you get everybody involved to make the process go faster and  help calm the craziness?

Menu Planning Monday

We were out of town for the weekend, so this is a day late, but better late than never.

Monday - peanuts, soda and pretzles on the airplane.  I didn't even have any other snacks and our flights were so close we didn't have time to pick anything up, definitely not a day of healthy eating

Tuesday - Butternut squash soup - there are so many ways to make this soup, but I love it with apple.  A little crunchy bread and you have the perfect meal.

Wednesday - Salisbury Steak, I don't think I have ever made or eaten salisbury steak and I don't usually like Sandra Lee and her receipes, but I was watching Food Network in the hotel and this just looked really good, plus it will be a good meal to make with the kids. 

Thursday - Minestrone Soup

Friday -  Breakfast,  it has been a while since we did breakfast for dinner I think it will be a waffle night and of course eggs, scrambled and over easy, and most importantly BACON!!