I promised more soup recipes, and here they are.
First up: Chicken Chowder. This family classic is invariably the first soup that we cook to kick off soup season. It’s adapted from Cute W’s family recipe, and it’s his all-time favorite. I think if you presented him with a steaming mug full of chicken chowder while hanging out on a sweltering beach in August, he’d still be super-psyched.
Chicken Chowder
Ingredients:
- 1 whole chicken (or 1 package chicken breasts)
- c. 8 strips of bacon, cooked (Cute W says the more the better)
- ½ onion, roughly chopped
- 1 28-oz. can diced tomatoes
- 2 1/2 cans creamed corn (we use the other half can of creamed corn to throw into the Jiffy Corn Mix muffin recipe, then make johnny cakes instead of muffins with it, our traditional Chicken Chowder side)
- 1 can whole corn
- 3 lbs. red potatoes, cubed
- chicken bouillon or prepared chicken broth as needed
- salt & pepper to taste
Directions:
- If you’re starting with a whole chicken, cook the whole chicken in a pot and fill with water halfway up the chicken. Retain the broth and skim it. Tear the meat off the chicken in bite-sized pieces.
- If you’re starting with chicken breasts, you can cook in water or pan fry in the bacon grease. Either way, chop the chicken and set it aside.
- Blend bacon, onion, and tomatoes. Pour mixture into the broth created from cooking the chicken and/or supplement with prepared chicken broth.
- Add chicken meat, creamed corn, and red potatoes and cook over medium heat until potatoes are tender.
- Taste and add bouillon or salt & pepper if needed.
The next soup, Creamy Chickpea Soup with Roasted Red Peppers, is originally from Food & Wine‘s February 2001 issue, and now I can’t find it on the site, although it looks like they’ve got great soups to try. It’s a longtime family favorite, and it’s the soup from an anecdote I told in my Vegetables A to Z article about M just fully surrendering to spinach: “Once, while eating this soup, I actually overheard my daughter, who used to try to navigate around the spinach and onions, mutter to herself, ‘it’s not worth the trouble, the soup is too good.’ With that, she took a spoonful and sucked it down, spinach and all.” Sometimes I’ll prepare this with vegetable stock and keep cook the kielbasa separately so that it can be vegetarian- and vegan-friendly.
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Creamy Chickpea Soup with Roasted Peppers
Ingredients:
- 2 T olive oil
- 1 pound kielbasa, halved lengthwise and cut crosswise, 2 inch thick
- 2 medium onions, coarsely chopped
- 2 large garlic cloves, minced
- 2 cups (about 16 oz) drained roasted red or yellow peppers
- 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
- 8 cups chicken stock
- 2 cups canned chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- 1 package (10 oz) frozen chopped spinach
- 1 cup tubetti or other small pasta
- 1 cup prepared hummus
- salt & pepper to taste
Directions:
- In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil, then add kielbasa, onion, garlic, roasted peppers and crushed red pepper. Cook over high heat, stirring frequently, until lightly browned, about 5 minutes.
- Add the stock, chickpeas, and frozen spinach and simmer over moderate heat until the stock is thawed, about 5 minutes.
- Meanwhile, cook the pasta separately until it’s al dente. You can add this to the soup or keep in separate until you’re ready to serve (we keep it separate to avoid mushy pasta).
- Stir the hummus into the soup, season with salt and pepper, and you’re done.
Another old reliable is Hearty White Bean and Pasta Soup, a recipe we first got from my vegetarian sister, who skipped the bacon and used veggie bouillon. It’s a basic, comforting classic, and I personally don’t consider the cheese optional.
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Hearty White Bean and Pasta Soup
Ingredients:
- ¼ lb. bacon
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- ¼ cup finely chopped onion (I tend to do a bit more, like 1/3 cup)
- ¼ cup finely chopped celery (I tend to do a bit more, like 1/3 cup)
- ¼ cup finely chopped carrot (I tend to do a bit more, like 1/3 cup)
- 1- 15-16 oz. can tomatoes with juice
- 1-19 oz. can cannellini beans
- 4 cups chicken stock or broth (or vegetable)
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon pepper
- 1¼ cup small elbow macaroni or other little pasta
- 2 teaspoon dried basil
- Optional Romano or Parmesan cheese
Directions:
- Prepare pasta separately and add to each individual bowl, so it won’t be mushy.
- Cook the bacon until crisp. Drain and discard all but one tablespoon of drippings.
- Mix bacon drippings and olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Stir in onion, celery, and carrot. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes until the vegetables begin to brown.
- Meanwhile chop the bacon once it’s cooled and keep it to the side for now.
- Add the tomatoes and cook uncovered, stirring over high heat until reduced in volume and slightly darkened, about 8 minutes.
- Add the beans, stock, salt, pepper, and basil. Bring to a boil, then turn right back to a simmer. Cook for 5 minutes. With the back of a spoon, mash some beans to thicken the soup slightly.
- Add the bacon.
- To serve, put some pasta in a bowl, cover it with soup, and sprinkle it with cheese.
Serves 4.
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My last recipe is a veggie-packed Chili with Chocolate. For some reason, I tend to be a little fussy about chilis, and this one if by far my favorite. The recipe comes from an article in the October 2003 issue of Parents magazine devoted to ground beef recipes (I suppose you could use ground whatever-you-choose). These recipes are fantastic: three out of four of the recipes were absolute bangers that became family favorites (I never tried the fourth recipe, for sloppy joes, because I’d hated sloppy joes growing up). These days, there’s very little trace of the defunct magazine, and more than a decade ago, when I still had all of the cut-out pieces of paper from the original article, I tried to hunt down more articles or books by the article’s author, with no success. But you can see two of the recipes in these paper scraps–which will give you an idea of how crazy my recipes binder looks–and the chili recipe is below.
Chili with Chocolate
Ingredients:
- 1 T vegetable oil
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 green pepper, seeded and diced
- 1 red pepper, seeded and diced
- 1 lb. lean ground sirloin
- 2 T chili powder (When we used to make this recipe, we’d use less so it wasn’t too spicy for the girls. These days, I’m more likely to use chipotle chili powder, and that’s definitely spicier, so I start with much less and tweak at the end.)
- 1 T cumin
- 1 t salt
- ½ t cinnamon
- 2 cans (14.5 oz each) diced tomatoes with jalapenos (or green chilies) — you can sub in 1 or 2 cans of plain tomatoes if you’re worried about spice
- 1 can (14 oz) beef broth
- 1 can (16 oz) kidney beans, rinsed and drained
- 1 cup shredded carrots
- 3 T dark chocolate chips or 5 miniature bars
Directions:
- In a large saucepan, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add onion and cook 3 minutes. Add garlic and peppers and cook 4 minutes more. Transfer all vegetables to a bowl and set it aside.
- Return pan to heat and add beef, chili powder, cumin, salt, and cinnamon. Cook, breaking up beef with spoon, until cooked through, about 4 minutes.
- Stir in tomatoes, broth, beans, carrots, and cooked onion and peppers. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer, covered, 15 minutes.
- Stir in the chocolate. Don’t forget to stir in the chocolate–it’s easy to do! I like to measure it and put it next to the pot to remind me to add it after the simmer.
Here’s a link back to the first soup post. Let me know if you try any of these!
