Yikes, it’s cold.
I was sharing some recipes via a link to this blog and it made me realize that I’ve shared very few of my soup recipes. I think that’s because I tend to think of writing about new things happening in my life, and most of the soups that we eat regularly are soups that we’ve been eating for many, many years. And so if I do actually mention soups, and they’re new soups, it’s often in the form of comic relief as my family rejects the new recipes. Actually, it is extremely distracting to write something like this, because then I remember all of the other stories I have about dismal new-soup-making failures, and then I’m doing all sorts of key-word-searches to try to find the various stories. Because I found the one linked above, but I distinctly remember another soup I tried, and it just wasn’t that great, and I was talking about how the recipe could be tweaked. This is a family thing: my dad, in particular, would make some recipe and then discuss the recipe of the day and possible future variations while we were all at the table. So I had made this soup that wasn’t quite up to our usual high standards, and I was musing about different spices or vegetables that could be swapped in, and finally, Cute W said, “there is nothing that you could do to this recipe that would make it be something worth making again.” Which was. . . not as hurtful as it sounds, because it was true.
And, why? Because our carefully curated collection of soups is pretty fantastically awesome, and when we try a new soup, it has to be pretty scrumptious to be added to the collection. A collection which I have callously neglected to share with you. But that thoughtless oversight is going to be corrected, starting now!
First: I can link to a couple of soups, so here they are:
Here’s Apple-Cheddar-Squash Soup originally from the Food Network, but I’ve adapted it a bit in the recipe I shared. What’s nice about this one is that you can easily make a vegetarian/relatively healthful version of it, then offer up grated cheese and prosciutto on the side that you can add to make it super-indulgent. Plus, it’s just so autumnal, and perfect with some good bread.
Here’s a Black Bean Soup from America’s Test Kitchen, which looks like it’s paywalled now. If you really want it and you don’t want to give up your email address, comment and I’ll share my old, stained print-out. I will never become a person who primarily follows a recipe from a screen — I just spill too much to make it practical. This is an extremely basic soup in which the joy is all in the garnishes: avocado, red onions, cilantro, sour cream, and/or a squeeze of lime.
The rest of my recipes are either so old or of such obscure origins that I’ll just write them out myself, but I’ll spread it out over a two posts. Here are a couple: the onion soup that we make at our house, which was my dad’s adaptation of a recipe he’d found. It is scrumptious but best eaten with Beano. Next, my dad’s potato-leek soup, which is such a very old favorite that I remember that my mom once mailed me some in Tupperware while I was at college. This is also the soup that we traditionally eat while decorating the Christmas tree, with plenty of charcuterie (we call it snicky-snacks) on the side.
French Onion Soup
Ingredients:
- 1 cup butter
- 5 onions, thinly sliced
- 2 tablespoons flour
- 7 cups rich beef stock or 7 cups water and about 10-12 bouillon cubes
- 2 teaspoons pepper (preferably freshly ground, of course)
- French bread
- Gruyère cheese (Swiss if you can’t find it)
Directions:
- Melt butter in heavy saucepan, add the onions, and sauté onions over very low heat until tender.
- Add flour and mix until smooth.
- Add stock gradually, stirring constantly.
- Add pepper, cover, and cook over low heat 30 minutes.
Here’s where people have different options. First, you could stop here and freeze for later. For serving, you can either:
1. place slice of bread on bottom of bowl, pour soup over, sprinkle with cheese, and put bowl in very hot oven until cheese has melted.
2. pour soup in bowl, top with cubed bread that’s been toasted or is a bit stale, then cover with grated cheese and put in under the broiler until the cheese has melted.
At our house, we like option 2, as pictured above.
Serves: 6
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Potato-Leek Soup
Ingredients:
- 1 lb. potatoes, cut into 2 inch cubes
- 1 lb. leeks, white and lighter green leaves, sliced [if you’re not usually a leek eater, you should know that they’re the dirtiest vegetables ever, so wash them carefully.]
- 2 quarts chicken broth (bouillon is fine)
- Butter to taste (probably 2 tablespoons to 1 stick)
- salt and white pepper to taste
Directions:
- Boil potatoes and leeks in broth until tender, about 30 minutes.
- Puree with a hand blender if you’ve got one [OMG you should totally get one if you don’t have one yet!]. If not, let cool, fish out solids and puree in a food processor, then return to broth and reheat.
- Swirl in butter, season to taste.
Variations:
- The original recipe said peeled potatoes, but we often don’t peel them: they’re pureed and good for you, anyway.
- We usually sauté the leeks in butter prior to boiling them with the potatoes; it caramelizes them a bit.
- We often add a few scallions along with the potatoes and leeks, which makes the soup a bit spicier. A bunch of scallions or more is too much, though.
- You can use vegetable broth or water instead of chicken broth.
Serves: 8
Don’t you just feel warmer already? I’ve got four more soup recipes to share, coming up sometime while it’s still cold outside, I promise.
