Pumpkin Curry Soup

 

Week 2 of my “new recipe” New Year’s resolution and going strong! When I told J. about my resolution, he made one request – to use up ingredients in our cabinets and fridge! Since we have about half a dozen cans of pumpkin stocked up in our cabinets, I knew I had to do something with them.  And since one of the requirements of the new recipe resolution was that it had to be “healthy,” pumpkin pie was out of the question.  (Plus, who eats pumpkin pie in January?  That is a dessert I personally reserve for Thanksgiving.) 

So after some google searching, I found this recipe for this Thai pumpkin soup, which was perfect for the cold single-digit weather we had this week!  But since it calls for ingredients that I usually have in my pantry and is ready in minutes, I would make this any time of the year.

Pumpkin Curry Soup

Adapted from Foodie Crush

Ingredients:

• 2  14.5 oz cans pureed pumpkin
• 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
• 1  14.5 oz light coconut milk
• 2 Tbs red curry paste
• 1-2 tsp fish sauce (to taste)
• A few dashes of sriracha sauce (to taste)

Method:

• In a medium sized pot, toast the curry paste for about a minute over medium high heat.
• Add chicken broth and pumpkin, stir until smooth and cook until it reaches a boil, about five minutes.
• Stir in coconut milk, and cook until heated through, about another three minutes
• Season with fish sauce and sriracha to taste and serve.

Stay-at-home Chicken Noodle Soup

Last weekend, I caught a cold.  Fortunately, I did not get the flu, which apparently is an epidemic right now. Nonetheless, I still felt under the weather.  After several cups of honey and lemon tea, countless glasses of water, and two decongestant capsules, I felt well enough to make this soup.

Studies have shown the health benefits therapeutic effects of chicken soup.  Some would argue that its effects are psychosomatic.  As far as I was concerned though, it made me feel better. 

Stay-at-home Chicken Noodle Soup

Ingredients:

1 cup celery, chopped

1 cup carrots, chopped

1/2 onion, chopped

4 cloves of garlic, minced

5 thin slices of fresh ginger (optional, but ginger also has health benefits!) 

6 cups of low-sodium chicken broth (I like Pacific Natural Foods and Trader Joe's)

2 cups broccoli florets, chopped (can substitute spinach or any other leafy green)

1 large skinless, boneless chicken breast
1 Tbs fresh oregano
2 dried bay leaves

About 2 Tbs of olive oil

About 1 cup pasta (I used whole wheat penne) 

Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Heat olive oil in a large heavy bottomed pot on medium.  Cook celery, carrots, and onion until they start soften (about three minutes or so).  Season lightly with salt and pepper. Stir in garlic and ginger slices.  Cook for about another minute or so.  Add chicken broth, bay leaves, and about half the oregano. Raise heat to high to bring to boil.  Once the broth is boiling, reduce heat to bring it to a simmer for about 15-20 minutes. 

Meanwhile, boil water for pasta in a separate pot with a pinch of salt.  Cook pasta according to the directions on the package.  Drain and rinse in cold water to stop the cooking process.  Set aside. 

Around the time the pasta is done cooking (about 15 -20 minutes), add the chicken breast to the soup pot and allow to cook for about 15-20 minutes, or until fully cooked.   Remove the chicken and shred into bite-size pieces with two forks or if cool enough, your fingers.

Add the broccoli and rest of the oregano to the soup pot and allow to cook for about 3 minutes or until the broccoli is tender.  Adjust seasonings to taste.  

Just before serving, stir in the shredded chicken.  If serving all at once, add all the cooked pasta.  If you plan on saving some for later, add the pasta to individual servings and save the rest in a separate container.  I find keeping the pasta separate from the soup prevents the pasta from absorbing all the broth and getting soggy.  

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

We spent Thanksgiving with J's family.  Instead of coming back home with Thanksgiving leftovers, we came home with a fresh butternut squash from J's mom's garden. Which, in my opinion, is something to be thankful for.

After my acorn squash fiasco, I had no interest in peeling a butternut squash.  Unfortunately most of the recipes I found called for peeling and cubing the squash, so I had to use the roasting method from this recipe, but followed the rest of the basic method from this recipe.  And then I added spices to meet my fancy. 

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

Ingredients

1 butternut squash

1 carrot (or about 4-5 baby carrots), chopped

1/2 yellow onion, chopped

1/2 yellow bell pepper, chopped (I added this on a whim because I didn't have celery)

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

2  Tbs and 1/4 tsp olive oil, divided

4 cups low-sodium chicken broth

Spices (adjust according to taste):

2 tsp curry powder

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp all spice

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1 tsp brown sugar

salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. 

Prick butternut squash with a fork all over.  (Using a sharp knife would probably be easier, but stabbing a squash with a fork is so much more fun). Roast in the oven for about 1 hour. Allow to cool.  When cool enough to touch, cut in half lengthwise, and scoop out seeds and fibers.  Scoop out the pulp into a bowl and set aside. 

Heat 2 Tbs olive oil in a large pot.  Cook carrots, onion, and bell pepper for about 8-10 minutes, or until the onions are soft and translucent. Push vegetables to the sides of the pot. Add garlic and and remaining 1/4 tsp of olive oil. Saute for about 30 seconds and then incorporate with the rest of the vegetables. Add chicken broth and squash pulp.  Bring to a boil and then lower heat to simmer for 10-15 minutes. Add spices according to taste. (I added about 1/2 tsp of each until it met my liking). 

Allow to cool a bit and then puree in batches in the blender. (Or use an immersion blender.) Taste and adjust seasonings again. 

Spicy Acorn Squash Soup

I swear this is not baby food.  This was supposed to be pumpkin soup.  But apparently, I don't know my squashes, and bought an acorn squash by mistake.  Don't make this with acorn squash.  Not just because it will make it this funky color, but because acorn squash, with its ridges, is a pain to peel.

I should have stopped after I first attempted to peel the squash with the vegetable peeler.  Or even after I broke out the very sharp paring knife to carve the skin out of the ridges.  But instead twenty-five minutes and two band-aids later, I had a peeled acorn squash, which I cut up into chunks and dropped into the slow cooker.

The flavor of this is soup is actually not bad.  I added extra spice and used fresh grated ginger to make it extra spicy.  The dollop of sour cream at the end was cooling and creamy.  I would make this again, except with a nice, smooth, ridgeless pumpkin.  And save the acorn squash for roasting and eating with butter and brown sugar.

Spicy Acorn Squash Soup
Adapted from Best Ever Recipes for Your Slow Cooker

1 acorn squash, peeled and cut into chunks (but really, you shouldn't make this with an acorn squash, unless you want to risk the bloody fingers)
1 leek, cut into chunks
2 cloves garlic, crushed through a garlic press
2 tsp cumin
2 tsp fresh grated ginger, and 1 tsp ground ginger
3 cups low-sodium chicken broth
2 Tbs olive oil
pinch of cayenne pepper
pinch of nutmeg
1 tsp chili powder
2 teaspoons brown sugar
salt and pepper to taste
sour cream as garnish

Place squash chunks into stoneware insert of the slow cooker. Over the stovetop, heat oil in a large pan.  Add leeks and garlic and cook until they start soften, about two minutes or so.  Then add fresh grated ginger and cumin and cook for another minute or so.  Transfer to stoneware and season with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and cayenne pepper. Add chicken broth.  Cook on low for 6-8 hours, or until the squash is soft and tender.

Ladle soup in batches to blender and puree until smooth.  (Or if you have an immersion blender, good for you!) Transfer soup back to the stoneware.  This is where I tasted and found the soup kind of bland, so I added ground ginger, chili powder, more cumin, and more cayenne pepper.  You could probably do this before cooking the squash.  I don't think it makes a difference. Cook on high for 1 hour.

Ladle into bowls and garnish with sour cream.

Spicy black bean and orzo soup

Unlike last year, I will not be hosting Thanksgiving dinner. And while it was fun, I am more than happy to return the torch back to my sister this year. But as is what happens before any long weekend in which I am going to be away, I am on a mission to finish any perishables in my fridge. Which usually involves a little creativity and making use of some staples from the pantry, since I hate to buy more groceries just before a long weekend. So what does one do with a handful of baby carrots, a few stalks of limp celery and an onion? Make soup, of course!

Since I wanted to do something different than the classic chicken noodle soup (and since I hadn't had the foresight to defrost any chicken), I decided to add a can of black beans. When I tasted the soup, I felt it needed something more to jazz it up - so I added some cumin to bring out the smokiness of the beans, and a few dashes of chipotle tabasco sauce. I'm quite pleased with the end result, and even more pleased I didn't need to make a trip to the grocery store to buy any of the ingredients!

Spicy black bean and orzo soup

Ingredients:

About 1 cup baby carrots, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1/2 onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
A couple tablespoons of olive oil
1 quart low-sodium chicken broth
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 tsp dried oregano, crushed
1/2 tsp dried basil, crushed
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper to taste
pinch of cayenne pepper (to taste)
a few dashes of chipotle tabasco sauce
2/3 cup orzo

Method:
Start boiling the pasta water with a generous pinch of salt. Add orzo when it comes to a boil. Cook for about a minute or two less than the time indicated on the instructions. Drain and set aside.

Meanwhile, chop the vegetables. Add oil to another pot and heat on medium-high heat. Add vegetables, stirring frequently for about 7 minutes, or until the vegetables are soft. Add chicken broth, beans, bay leaf and spices and tabasco. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat to a simmer. Allow it to simmer, covered, for about twenty minutes. Taste and adjust seasonings to taste.

I like to keep the orzo separate from the soup, until just before serving, since I am one person, and can't eat it all right away. My concern is that if there are leftovers the pasta will absorb all the liquid and get mushy. But go ahead and toss it in if you plan on eating it all right away.

New England Clam Chowder

Aside from gorging on lobster rolls, while we were in Maine, we also tasted different versions of New England Clam Chowder. As a kid, I never cared much for clam chowder because my only experience I had with it was from a can. Until I traveled through New England, I had no idea the pride New Englanders have for their chowder. (And their disdain for Manhattan-clam chowder that it is illegal to put tomatoes in clam chowder). Boyfriend, being from New England, is partial to thick and creamy clam chowder. The kind you can stick a spoon and it stands up like this:

This is a chowder we had in Agawam, Massachusetts.

But as we found out in our travels, not everywhere in New England makes chowder quite as thick and creamy. Some were thin and runny, some were somewhere in between. So I wanted to re-create thick and creamy chowder at home. What you see in the lead picture here was my first attempt using Dave Lieberman's recipe. As you can see, its not quite as thick (I tried the spoon trick - it fell right in). But the taste was spot on, better than the stuff in the can.

So it looks like I will have to try again to make the perfect thick and creamy chowder. But until then, I will be perfectly happy finishing off this batch.

Crockpot Albondigas Soup

Much to my surprise, I've been using the crockpot quite a bit this summer. For the first half of this summer, I didn't want to use it because I figured making hot soups and stews in the crock would only make me feel hotter. But then I had a realization: using the crockpot means no standing over a hot stove at dinnertime.

I chose to make this soup for two reasons: (1) I had albondigas soup at a Colombian restaurant a few weeks ago, and thought it was delicious and (2) I had a bunch of frozen meatballs in the freezer from a party I threw, oh, say about 10 months ago...

This recipe makes an excellent soup, though I was a little disappointed that I couldn't taste the mint so much, which is supposed to be what makes albondigas soup special. Maybe next time I will add more mint, or add some to garnish at the end. Update: I threw in a handful (about 1/4 cup) of finely chopped fresh mint after posting this. At first, it tasted vaguely like mint chewing gum. But after letting the flavors mellow overnight, the mint added a nice refreshing tingle that complemented the heat from the cayenne pepper.

Crockpot Albondigas Soup
Adapted (barely) from A Year of Slow Cooking

Ingredients:
1 quart low-sodium chicken broth
1/2 cup prepared pasta sauce
1 cup baby carrots, sliced into quarters
1 1/2 cups tomatoes , diced (I used a combination of grape tomatoes and a regular tomato)
1 Tbs fresh mint, chopped
1/2 cup frozen corn
About 15-18 frozen meatballs (Italian flavored)
3/4 cup frozen peas
2 whole cloves garlic (I love slow-cooked garlic in soups and stews!)
Pinch of cayenne pepper

Method:
Dump all the ingredients into the crockpot, except the frozen peas. (Handy tip: chop up the vegetables the night before and store in the fridge to save time in the morning!) Stir to combine. Cook on low for 8-10 hours. About twenty minutes before serving, stir in frozen peas to retain their color. (This step isn't necessary, but I was following Stephanie O'Dea's advice on her post). Garnish with some parmesan cheese.

Loli's Gazpacho

This summer has presented many opportunities to make a cold soup.

The first time I had gazpacho andaluz was when I was studying abroad in Seville, Spain, when temperatures would easily reach over 100 in the summer. My host mother, or my "senora," Loli once said that her past American boarders either go crazy for her gazpacho or they hate it. This was probably because there was so much raw garlic in it, that it had a kick to it after eating it. To me, it was delicious, even though I would be tasting the garlic for days in a way that no amount of teethbrushing or mouthwash gargling could extinguish. But as a garlic-lover, it was worth it, and I couldn't wait for Loli to make more.

I made this soup yesterday with my boyfriend, using his fancy $40.00 blender. I made a mistake when I was taste-testing the soup, that I only skimmed a spoonful off the top. So when I tasted it, I didn't get the same garlic "kick" that I had at Loli's house and kept adding more garlic. So I put seven (yes, seven!) cloves of garlic in it. It turns out that the garlic sunk to the bottom of the blender; the soup was plenty potent.

So today I made it again (the soup is that good), using my $13.99 blender from Target. I learned that the difference in price of the blenders DOES make a difference. I had to cut the vegetables into much smaller pieces and I still ended up with small chunks at the bottom. I also dialed back the garlic, to provide just enough garlic "kick."

Loli's Gazpacho (gazpacho andaluz)

1.5 lbs tomatoes
1 green pepper
1/4 c olive oil
3/4 c water
2 cloves garlic
salt to taste

Roughly chop the vegetables and drop into the blender in batches with water and oil. Puree until smooth. Add salt to taste. Chill for at least 30 minutes in the fridge or if you are short on time, add a few ice cubes. Garnish with parmesan cheese. Serves 4-6.

Crockpot Minestrone Soup

This is my lunch for tomorrow.

It was my lunch today too.

And my dinner.

And yesterday's dinner.

But I'm not complaining.

Because that is how good this soup is.

And my crockpot is awesome.

I used this recipe, with some tweaks, of course.

Crockpot Minestrone Soup
Adapted from A Year of Slow Cooking

Stephanie O'Dea calls this a "clean out the pantry" soup, so really use whatever you have on hand. This is what I used:

Ingredients:
3 cups low-sodium chicken broth (I used Pacific Natural Organic Low-Sodium Chicken broth. It comes in a carton and only has 70 mg of sodium per serving - much lower than the "low-sodium" broth that comes in cans)
1 can Roma beans (rinsed and drained)
1 2/3 cup cooked red beans (I cook them in the slow-cooker using this method and freeze them. I could have used just my pre-cooked beans, rather than mixing in canned beans, but I needed to clean out my pantry of high-sodium foods)
2 cups chopped tomatoes (I forget the brand I used, but it comes in a carton and only has about 20 mg of sodium per serving.)
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
Handful of frozen corn kernels
Handful of frozen green beans
3 cloves of garlic, peeled
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
Salt and pepper to taste

Method:
Dump everything into the crockpot. Cook on low for 8-9 hours.

Homemade Crockpot Chicken Stock

You may have noticed that many of my recent posts have been making a lot of things from scratch. See e.g. homemade pizza dough, this soup, and this soup, and sadly this attempt at roast chicken. For the past few months, upon the advice of my doctor, I have been watching my sodium intake. One of the ways I can control how much sodium I consume is by making foods from scratch and relying less on convenience foods. Plus it gives me a sense of accomplishment when I make something all by myself. And then there are also collateral reasons that might encourage some people to make their own food, such as being better for the environment, and the feeling of security by knowing exactly what is in your food.

So aside from my endeavor to make “grown-up” food when I attempted roast chicken, I had plans to make chicken stock from the leftover carcass. When I made the chicken, I deliberately only used a tiny pinch of salt, and relied on fresh herbs for flavor. Fresh herbs and aromatics are important when you can’t rely on salt to make food taste good. In this stock, I didn’t add any additional salt, but instead used fresh herbs, garlic cloves, and ginger. And personally, I think this stock tastes better than the stuff from the can. So all was not lost from my roast chicken disaster!

Homemade Crockpot Chicken Stock

Ingredients:
Carcass of a roast chicken, and any leftover bones
1 onion, quartered
2 carrots, chopped into 1-2 inch pieces
2 stalks of celery, chopped into 1-2 inch pieces
1 inch of fresh ginger root, sliced into 2 half inch coins
3 peeled garlic cloves
10 peppercorns
2 bay leaves
1 Tbs of fresh poultry herbs, roughly chopped (rosemary, thyme, sage)
6 cups of filtered water (I read that it is better to use filtered water so that you don’t have chlorine and fluoride in your stock, but if that doesn't bother you, then go ahead and use tap)

Method:
Dump everything into the crockpot. Cook on low for 10-12 hours. Allow to cool. Discard solids and strain the stock. Refrigerate the stock for a few hours, (I put it in overnight). Strain again to separate the fat that has congealed on the top. Store the stock into freezer bags or ice trays. (What I do is I freeze some into an ice tray so that I have stock in neat little ice cubes, which I transferred to a freezer bag. This makes it easy to portion it out, especially when you only need a little for a sauce. )

Patience and Tortilla Soup

I love my crockpot. I love that I can dump vegetables and meat into the crock in the morning and have a nice tasty stew or soup for dinner. Ideally, I would go to work and forget about it all day, and then be pleasantly reminded when I get home of the meal I had waiting for me.

Except when I had a snow day last Wednesday and was working from home.

The hardest part about using a crockpot when you are home all day is resisting the temptation to eat it as it's cooking. The smells that emerged from the crockpot made my mouth water as I attempted to draft motions on my laptop. The soft gurgling of the broth simmering tantalized me, "Open me and just take a little taste." But I had read that by opening the crockpot while it is still cooking, can add as much as 20 minutes of cooking time.

So I was good, and was well rewarded at the end.

I got this recipe from A Year of Slow Cooking, with a few minor tweaks. I was very happy with the results, and hope to write about more tasty crockpot concoctions in the future.

Clean Out the Fridge/ Snowstorm Soup

Last night, a snowstorm hit the East Coast, keeping many Greater New York area residents indoors. As such, I felt that this soup was appropriate as it uses ingredients I had in my fridge/pantry. Even though technically, I made this soup before the snowstorm. Hours before I left my apartment to go home for the holidays, I found myself with nearly three pounds of Yukon Gold potatoes, about half a bunch each of carrots and celery. The potatoes were already growing eyes, and the carrots and celery were from when I made this soup. So I was worried these otherwise sturdy vegetables would not make it over the long weekend. So what do with vegetables before they go bad? Make soup!

I found my inspiration from Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything, an early Christmas gift, using the recipe for Simple Potato and Carrot Soup and the springboard for this soup. When the soup was done, I poured some into jars to bring home to share with my parents, and left some behind in the fridge. After driving in the aftermath of the snowstorm back to my apartment today, I was glad to have this soup waiting for me at home to simply re-heat and eat.

Clean Out the Fridge/ Snowstorm Soup

Adapted from Mark Bittman, How to Cook Everything

Ingredients
(I am leaving out the quantities, because really they are quite fluid and depend on what you have in the fridge)
Potatoes
Carrots
Celery
Onion
Pat of butter
Olive oil
Chicken broth
Water
Salt and pepper to taste
Dried herbs (I used basil, oregano, and thyme)

Method:
Chop up all the vegetables into bite-sized pieces. Heat butter and olive oil in a large stockpot. When the butter melts and gets foamy add vegetables. Cook vegetables until the onion becomes translucent (About 5-7 minutes), stirring occasionally so that the vegetables do not stick to the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle some salt and pepper on the vegetables. Add chicken broth (If you don't have enough broth to cover the veggies like I did, then add some water). Bring to a boil, and then let simmer on low heat for about 20 minutes. Add dried herbs and season with salt and pepper to taste.

White Beans and Vegetable Soup

My first job out of law school was at a civil litigation firm in the Ironbound district of Newark. Now, the Ironbound has a myriad of places for lunch, but one of my favorites was soup from Spain Restaurant. The restaurant has a different soup, for each day of the week. My personal favorite was on Fridays, when they would serve white bean and vegetable soup. I have moved on to a different law firm, but I will always remember this soup.

I found this soup to be very similar to the “Greens and Beans” soup in Rachael Ray’s 30-Minute Meals, but Spain put in more vegetables, so I added carrots, onions, and celery. I also added some chicken to make it a heartier meal.

White Bean and Vegetable Soup
Adapted from Rachael Ray, 30 Minute Meals

Ingredients:
2 carrots, chopped
1-2 stalks celery, chopped
½ yellow onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 chicken breast, cut into bite-sized pieces (optional)
5 cups of low-sodium chicken broth (can substitute vegetable broth)
1 can (15 oz.) cannelloni beans, drained and rinsed
1 head escarole, roughly chopped
Olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
nutmeg

Method:
Heat a couple tablespoons oil in a large stockpot. Saute chicken until lightly brown on all sides.* Remove and set aside. Add carrots, celery, and onion and sauté for about 5-7 minutes, until the onions are translucent. (You may need to add more oil to prevent burning). Push the vegetables to the sides of the pot, creating a space at the center of the pot. Drizzle about a teaspoon of oil into the center and add garlic to that space. Cook for about thirty seconds before stirring it into the rest of the vegetables.** Add escarole with salt, pepper, and a dash of nutmeg. Cook until the escarole wilts. Add beans and broth. Bring to a boil, and then simmer for about 15 minutes. When there is about 2 minutes left in the cooking time, add chicken. Serves 4-6.

* If making a vegetarian version, skip this step.
** I learned this trick from Cook’s Illustrated – it helps to prevent burnt garlic.

Spicy Tomato Soup

I could tell you a story about how this meal brought back cherished childhood memories of coming home from a blustery winter day from school, and how this soup would be waiting for me to warm me up.

But that never happened.

Growing up in an Asian household, tomato soup was never really in my repertoire. My mom's idea of making soup usually involved boiling unidentified meat bones and adding chinese radishes, cabbage and/or scallions into the broth. My only childhood encounters with tomato soup would be Campbell's from a can, which always tasted like tomato juice warmed over to me. And after this disappointment, I was hesitant to make tomato soup again.

But then I read this post on Cathy Erway's Not Eating Out in New York and I felt inspired again. I used the same basic method with some deviations. But am I glad I didn't give up on making tomato soup. This soup is awesome - spicy, tangy, and perfect for winter.

Spicy Tomato Soup
Adaped from Not Eating Out in New York

Ingredients:
2 carrots, diced (if you buy the bunched carrots, like I did, chop up some of the tops too!)
1 stalk celery, diced
1/2 onion, roughly chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
About 1 cup canned diced tomatoes
About 2 cups chicken broth
1 small can (8 oz) plain tomato sauce (I used Hunt's)
1 crushed dried chile pepper
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
10-15 fresh basil leaves, torn
Olive oil

Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil with a crushed dried chile pepper to infuse the oil in a large pot. Saute carrots, celery, and onion, for about five minutes. Add garlic and chopped carrot tops (adding the garlic later prevents burning), and cook for another 2-3 minutes or until all the vegetables are lightly browned. Remove heat. Stir in diced tomatoes and chicken broth.

Transfer the mixture into a blender, and pulse until desired consistency. If it doesn't look thin enough, add more broth or water. Transfer back to the pot and simmer on low heat. At this point, I tasted it and felt the soup wasn't tomato-y enough so I stirred in a can of tomato sauce. But I see no problem in added the sauce before blending it. Add cayenne pepper and adjust seasonings to taste. Allow the soup to simmer on low heat for about 40 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and stir in basil leaves. Garnish with olive oil and a sprig of carrot leaves, if desired.

For the ultimate comfort food meal, serve with a grilled cheese sandwich and a glass of milk.

Chunky Cheese Potato Soup

I made this soup a few years ago when I was still leaving in my apartment in Philadelphia. Back then, I made it with heavy cream as the original recipe calls for. This time, I decided to make lighter version with milk and a splash of half and half to help maintain the creaminess. (Plus, I didn’t quite have enough milk, so the half and half helped to stretch out the soup.) This soup tastes just like a baked potato, but in soup form. It has my favorite toppings to go on baked potatoes, bacon and cheese. Sour cream and green onions would probably also make good toppings.

Chunky Cheese Potato Soup
(Adapted from Food Network)

5 slices of bacon
¼ of a yellow onion, chopped
2 russet potatoes, chopped
1 ¾ milk plus a splash of half-and-half.
Salt and pepper
1 ½ cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1 tsp flour

1. Cook bacon in a large pot (I recommend using a good heavy pot, the one I used was not so good and burned the bacon.) Remove the bacon, and drain on paper towel and leave the drippings in the pot.
2. Cook onions and potatoes in the bacon drippings until softened, about 15 minutes.
3. Stir in milk, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil.
4. Dredge cheese in flour. Stir in cheese and about a handful of the bacon. Allow to simmer for about another 15 minutes.

5. Serve with reserved bacon bits and extra cheddar cheese for garnish.