The cold approaches and I need soooooup!

Cafe Society
21

How weird ! I came here to start a thread on this very topic !

My favourite: Spicy Moroccan Lentil Soup

2 tbsp olive oil
2 onions, diced
1 stalk celery, diced
3 cloves garlic, pressed
2 tsp fresh ginger, diced
1 tsp paprika
2 tsp turmeric
1/4 tsp cayenne (or more, to taste)
2 cinnamon sticks, broken in half
1 cup red lentils
4-5 cup stock
1 can diced tomatoes
Salt and pepper to taste
1 can chick peas
1/4 cup chopped parsley
3 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 cup yogurt (optional)

Fry onions, garlic, celery and ginger.
Before onion gets brown, add paprika, turmeric, cayenne, cinnamon. Stir constantly for 1 minute.
Add lentils, stir until well coated
Add stock, tomatoes, salt, pepper, bay leaf.
Raise heat to boil then reduce and simmer, covered, for 30-40 minutes.
Add chickpeas, parsley, lemon juice. Simmer uncovered for 1 minute. Discard cinnamon and bay leaf.
Add yogurt before serving.

The first time I made it I accidentally added waaaaaay too much lemon juice, and it was really nice. So be generous.

22

Good one pugluvr I should note that even if you hate Broccoli as a side vegitable you might well enjoy this soup (I certainly don’t like Broccoli as a steamed or boiled vegetable). If you like blue cheese, a little blue cheese mushed up with a little cream or milk can be added as the soup is served and gently whirled into the soup to give a good appearence and great taste.
MMMM hate Broccoli, but love Brocolli soup.

23

Mmmmmm. Soup.

(drooling)

24

My mom’s vegetable soup:

1 lb cubed stew meat
1 onion, diced
4 celery ribs, diced
4 potatoes, diced
1 can peeled tomatoes
2 large bags frozen mixed veggies
All the bits of leftover veggies you’ve been saving in the freezer for soup day. (I just add water over the top of them in the container. Freezes well!)

Brown the meat in a little oil in a large soup pot. (Sometimes I skip this step - I just take the meat out of the freezer and put it in the pot!) Add all ingredients, add water to cover plus a little more, and bring to a boil. Add salt and pepper to taste. I also add powdered garlic to taste. Reduce heat and simmer for a few hours. Add more water as needed. Taste often, and adjust seasonings. Oh yeah - I sometimes throw in a handful of macaroni at the end. Cook until pasta is al dente. This soup is fun to play with. I’ve added barley before, too. Experiment!

25

1 large can garbanzos/chickpeas - undrained
2 cans diced tomatoes - I usually use the garlic or Italian blend from Red Gold
1 can corn - undrained
1 can mixed vegetables - undrained
2-3 ribs celery - chopped
1 smallish onion - chopped.

Put in crockpot (on low if gone for whole day, if just a few hours, on high) before leaving in the morning - come home to soup!

This makes a fairly thick stew - for a more brothy soup, add a cup or so of water and 1/2 cup of tomato/spaghetti sauce.

Feel free to experiment - the original recipe had cabbage, but my hubby said that stunk up the house too much. Other good veggies to add: broccoli, green beans, carrots (if chopped small) and/or other beans. Add meat if you wish - I’ve tried it with chicken, steak bits & even leftover taco beef.

26

Well, if you have a hog scalding kettle, you can try out the best tater soup in the world.

27

Again sorry about this… but here is my mama’s recipe for SOUP. And, in her world, soup bones mean basically any cartilaginous bones, such as ham hocks, pig knuckles, or oxtail. (Pig knuckles would be just about any pork joint that isn’t cured.) OK here’s the recipe, which is just as she wrote it out for me. And yes, those measurements are in pounds. This serves an army.

MAMA’S BEEF VEGETABLE SOUP

2 lbs soup bones
1 lb ground chuck
2 lbs chuck roast, cut into 1” cubes
2 lbs chopped potatoes
½ lb rice
½ lb macaroni
½ lb spaghetti
2 large onions, chopped
2 cans whole kernel corn
2 cans diced tomatoes
2 cans (large) Veg-all
1 can english peas
1 c big butter beans, dried
1 c great northern beans, dried
1 c black-eyed peas, dried
1 c carrots, slices
3 large cans tomato sauce

In your largest pot (12-16 quarts), brown bones and cook meat until tender. After meat is done, I remove soup bones onto platter, cool and then take meat off bones and put meat back into pot. (Feed bones to dog.)

Add potatoes, rice, macaroni, spaghetti, and onions. Cook about 15 - 20 minutes.
Add each ingredient until you want to stop. Use as much water as you want, we like our soup thick and with a lot of stuff.

Cook until soup sets up and beans are tender.

This makes enough to share! This recipe is the result of years of experience (since 1953!)!!

28

We should put together a Straight Dope Cookbook. These recipes look wonderful.

But DeVena, I don’t think I know enough people or have a big enough freezer for that recipe! :smiley:

29

I know - it’s huge!! But I make it and then freeze it in gallon size freezer bags. That way I have homemade soup whenever I want it, all winter long.

30

Yay soup! I’m vegetarian (unless yosemite shows up, in which case I’m pescovegetarian), so my soup recipes won’t include meat. And I’m not much of a measurer when doing my own recipes, so all quantities will be approximated.

Last Christmas, my mother-in-law told me that she’d had a sweet potato soup at some restaurant awhile ago, and it had orange juice in it, and she liked it, and so my job was to recreate it for Christmas dinner–despite not having a recipe for it, or even a working Internet connection through which I could find a recipe. Everyone gobbled up my eventual concoction, though, so I think I musta done something right.

First, I sauteed an onion in olive oil. Threw in some cinnamon and some cumin, and maybe a few other warming spices like powdered ginger. Also put in the salt and pepper at this stage.

When it was good and soft, with some caramelized bits, I chopped up a couple carrots and added them. After a few minutes, I added a lot of water.

While the water came to a boil, I chopped up a couple peeled sweet potatoes into radish-sized chunks and tossed them in. Boiled everything until it was nice and soft, and adjusted the seasonings. (Also consider curry powder and cayenne as seasonings for this).

Once it was all soft, I pureed it in a food processor, adding a bit of orange juice at the end to brighten the flavor and satisfy my mother-in-law.

Sweet potato soups, and carrot soups, are tremendously satisfying, stick-to-your-ribs soups; they radiate heat inside you. I love them in the middle of winter.

Daniel

31

Tomato Cauliflower Soup
2 tablespoons butter
1 medium onion, diced
1/2 pound cauliflower florets
1/2 cups crushed tomatoes
1 tablespoon tomato paste
3 cups vegetable broth
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
Sour cream and/or Monterey jack cheese to garnish (optional)

Place a small stockpot on medium heat. Add the butter. When it’s fully melted, add the onions and cauliflower. Saute the vegetables, stirring frequently, for five minutes, then reduce heat and cook on low-medium for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add the tomatoes, tomato paste and broth and stir well. Raise the heat to medium-high and bring the soup to a boil. Once the soup has boiled for five minutes, reduce the heat to medium or low-medium to allow the soup to simmer. Cook for an additional 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, remove the soup from the heat and allow to cool for 10-15 minutes. Using an immersion blender, puree the soup until it’s smooth and creamy. Return the soup to medium heat and bring back up to serving temperature, stirring frequently. Add pepper to taste. Serve with a sour cream or grated Monterey jack cheese if desired.

World’s Easiest Mushroom-Barley Soup
2 cups pearl barley
4 carrots, sliced
2 stalks celery, thinly sliced
1 parsnip, quartered and sliced
1/4 cup light soy sauce
1 cup red wine
4 cups stock (beef, chicken, vegetable, your choice)
2 teaspoons dill
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 pound button mushrooms, cleaned and sliced

Place all of the ingredients except the mushrooms into a 4 quart crockpot. Add water to fill the crockpot bowl. Cook on high until the barley and vegetables are nearly tender. Add mushrooms, cook another 45-60 minutes until mushrooms and other ingredients are fully tender. Serve.

32

All of these soup recipes look fantastic, especially the ones that can be done in a crockpot. There’s one soup, however, that I’m really jonesing for. There’s a chain of restaurants called the Macaroni Grill where I live (Northern Virginia area, near D.C.) and they serve a mean tomato dill soup served with a dollop of sour cream. I would love to make this soup and but I’m a doofus when it comes to recreating recipes. Are there any dopers out there reading this thread that know what soup I’m talking about and how to make something resembling this soup? I would be eternally grateful.

33

Unless I’m mistaken, ham hocks and smoked pork hocks are the same thing. I know that smoked pork hocks look and taste like ham to me, so if they aren’t the same thing they are at least a decent substitute.

34

This is a hearty, meaty Eastern-European style soup with paprika. Trust me about the raisins.

Cabbage Soup with Kielbasa

6 slices bacon, diced
1 1/2 pounds kielbasa, sliced
1 onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
3 pounds cabbage, cored and cubed
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
8 cups chicken stock
1 28-oz can cubed tomatoes in juice
1 cup raisins
In a heavy soup pot over medium heat, saute bacon and kielbasa until most of the fat is rendered. Pour off all but a tablespoon or so of the fat. Add onions and garlic to fat and saute until onion is tender. Add cabbage and paprika and saute another 5 minutes. Add stock and raisins. Drain tomatoes (discarding juice) and add to pot. Bring to a boil and simmer about 25 minutes. Serve hot, maybe with some nice chewy brown bread.

Mmmmm.

35

Zuppa Toscatta recipe (originally posted by Little Bird, some modifications ahead.)
1 lb ground pork
2 cups (1 large) onion, chopped (1/4 to 1/2 inch pieces)
4 slices bacon (I prefer thick cut)
1 teaspoon garlic poweder
1/2 teaspoon chili powder (cayenne works also)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon oregano
6 cups chicken broth *
4 small red potatoes 1/4 cubes skin on **
2 cups greens ***
1 cup whipping cream

In a bowl: Mix pork and spices – cover and refrigerate overnight

1)In your soup pot , cook up the bacon (I cut it up into 1/4 squares
before), then remove bacon
2)Cook pork and onion in bacon drippings untill meat is brown and onion is
tender (8-10 minutes)
3)Drain off fat, add broth, bring to boil
4)Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes
5)Add potatoes and greens, return to boil and cook covered 15-20 min (until
spuds are done)
6)Add bacon and cream
7)Stir and serve

  • You can stretch the # of servings by having more broth – I have used 8 cups with little difference in quality
    ** or more, can’t have too many potatoes (I use about 6 B sized spuds)
    ** my recipe says spinach, but I use kale or “spring mix” (endive, redicio,
    mustard greens, etc)
    I chop said greens up in 1/4 inch sqaures (lots of those in this recipe)

enjoy

Brian

36

I like to cook but I don’t do soup. I’ve got two base soups that I do that are about the simplest soups you’ve ever had. But since everyone else is sharing I though I might as well.

Start with steak. Okay, 90% of the time I use the “stew meat” that markets package together, but the other times when I want something special (or its whats left over in my freezer) I use a bit of flank steak. I know that it’s a bit odd with flank steak but I’ve found that I like flank steak for things like stir fries because its very lean and it cuts into thin strips very well. If you’re going with steak, cut it into thin strips and then cut those into bite sized peices. If you’ve got “stew meat” then cut it up into much smaller peices as well. In the end you’ll want a little bit less than a pound of beef.

Before you really get into anything else you’ll also want to take about one and a half cups of dehydrated mushrooms and start reconstituting them. This is important, put just enough water over them to cover them. You’re going to want this liquid in a little bit so don’t just toss it.

Take two onions and chop them up. Also chop up some potatoes, celery, carrots, and other veggies that you really want in there. You can go frozen if you want to.

Now take your big soup pot. It needs to have a lid and be fairly large. I’ve done this with a pressure cooker but lets not get really over complicated. Toss your meat and onions into the bottom of it and start heating things up. You’ll also want to add about a tea spoon of salt. You’ll brown the meat at the bottom of that pot.

Once you’ve hit a turned brown but not done level (should only be a few minutes regardless of what meat is in your pot) it’s time to start working in liquid and veggies. Strain out your mushrooms keeping the liquid and then pour the liquid into your pot. Then start piling in the vegetables. Once they’re in its time to add some more liquid on top. Add enough beef broth to cover the vegetables and then bring the concoction to a boil. When it hits that point turn down the heat, cover, and let it simmer for an hour until the potatoes are done.

I feel kind of silly for posting this kind of simple thing (really, except for my own quirky touches it could be slapped into a can with a white label and black letters that say “SOUP”) to a thread filled with much better recipies than mine but I felt it was a bit of an oversight.

37

medstar, I’m going to ask my sister-in-law. She made a soup that sounds similar to what you’re looking for last Thanksgiving. I shall return! (Of course, they never answer their phone, so this could be a while. grumblegrumble)

38

**Step 1: **Make some food.

Step 2: Get it wet.

Step 3: Call it soup.

Step 4: Order a pizza.

39

Did you say you needed Snoooooooop?

No? My mistake.

40

I made a nice soup just last night!

Brown a pound or so of hamburger meat, along with a large chopped onion and some minced garlic.
Drain off the fat.
Then throw in 3 or 4 chopped carrots, some chopped potatoes (I think I used 5), some chopped celery if you have it (include the leaves–they’re really good in soup). Add a can of tomatoes (undrained), a can of beans of some sort (I usually use field peas, but last night I used red beans), and a bag of frozen mixed veggies (the kind that includes lima beans). Add beef broth or water & bouillon concentrate to cover. Bring to a boil and then simmer until it’s done. Season with salt & pepper to taste.

Yummmm . . . leftover soupy goodness for dinner tonight!