Cream of Chicken and Fennel Soup

Its been months since a blog post but we have been enjoying Sunday Soups all along.  I always take the time to cook, just not necessarily to type up a post afterwards.  Back in March, I made Cream of Chicken and Fennel Soup.  I'd never eaten, let alone cooked with, Fennel before and I was pleasantly surprised by this tasty and easy ingredient.  It has a very mild licorice flavor and a texture much like celery.

Preparing a Fennel bulb is quick and easy, just cut off the feathery top, halve the bulb, and cut out the tough core. 

To make the soup I brought chicken stock to simmer, added the fennel and carrots and cooked until the veggies were tender.  Once cooked, I drained the veggies into a bowl and added diced chicken.  Next I made a roux in a heavy saucepan and whisked in milk, instead of heavy cream, and reserved chicken stock until the mixture thickened slightly.  Once it was thick I added lemon juice, fennel seeds, salt and the chicken and vegetable mixture and mixed it to combine - voila - Soup.

This was an easy and tasty soup and I loved it. We agreed that we would eat this soup again and again.  And I am excited to use the tasty Fennel in other dishes

Cold weather Potato Chowder with Caraway Cheese

On March 11th, I made the Cold Weather Potato Chowder with Caraway Cheese.  This soup was a huge hit.

I made bacon for breakfast and saved four strips out to garnish  the soup.  I also used the bacon drippings to saute the onion and celery for the soup.  Once those were soft I added a pound of diced potatoes, garlic, chicken stock and milk to the pot and simmered until the potatoes were tender.  When the potatoes are soft you add the grated Havarti cheese with caraway seeds to the soup.  Then you make a paste of butter and flour and add to the soup until completely blended.  This thickens the soup up nicely.  To serve the soup, you add fresh chives and crumbled bacon as garnish.

Comments included 'yummy', 'delicious', and 'more bacon'.  They said the soup was warm in your mouth and was nicely aromatic.  This was definitely my favorite soup so far and one of the most widely appreciated.

Melt in your mouth Beef and Barley Soup

On March 4th, I made the recipe for 'Melt in your mouth Beef and Barely Soup.  It was a long cooking beef stew.  First you brown the meat, then add beef stock, Soy Sauce, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper.  You simmer this for over an hour.  While its cooking, you saute the veggies - carrots, celery, parsnips, and onion until softened.  Separately, you saute the mushrooms until lightly browned.  After the meat has cooked, you add the vegetables except the mushrooms, along with cubed potato, barley, and thyme to the pot.  You simmer this for almost an hour then add the mushrooms.

I made this soup a day ahead and served it to the family the next day.  It was a good stew and everyone enjoyed it.

Stone Soup

Last week's soup was Stone Soup.  This was not a recipe from the book but instead was my son's idea, he's been wanting to make it for a long time.  Its based on a story in a picture book by Jon Muth.  The characters in the book claim not to have anything to make soup with but after they all come together with one ingredient, they make an entire soup.  He thought this would make a great soup.

He wanted to use as many ingredients as he could so the recipe included: corn, peas, potatoes, carrots, celery, mushrooms, onion, garlic, ginger, green onions, leeks, chicken, and dumplings. He made the dumplings ahead of time, earlier in the day and then got down to the process of chopping all his veggies. 

Then I guided him in what order to cook everything - first we sauteed the onions, celery, garlic and ginger in some olive oil.  Then we added the chicken stock and brought that to a boil.  We then added the potatoes and carrots, let them cook, then the smaller, lighter veggies, and the dumplings at the end. 

It turned out great, and had a fantastic flavor.  I don't think the dumplings were popular and the soup would have been fantastic without them.  Either way, it was a hearty and popular soup.

Ingredients

Dumplings

 

Tomato Dill with Farmhouse Cheddar

On Sunday, February 19th, I made this Tomato Dill soup. It was my least favorite of the soups so far. I'm not a big fan of dill but I'm not sure that's what made this a poor soup to me.  I think the reason I didn't appreciate it was because it called for canned tomatoes, not fresh.

The first step was to add leeks to heated oil and cook until softened.  Then you add tomatoes, chicken stock, dill, cayenne, and salt.  Here it called for fresh dill and I used dried because there is no fresh dill in stores this time of year.  Once the soup was cooked, I pureed it until smooth. The soup is garnished with shavings of White Cheddar. 

It was liked by others in the household, it was just myself that thought it was not so great.  To me, this was the least flavorful and creative soup of the bunch. Maybe the reason is that I chose it to be an easy, and quick soup to mke on a low energy day.

Ingredients

in the pot

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mama Veli's Pozole

This week's soup has been voted the Best Soup So Far by the entire family.  It was a prep-intensive but easy to cook soup.

I started by preparing the garnishes - sliced radishes, shredded red cabbage, chopped avacado, chopped cilantro, and sliced limes.  Then I processed 10 fresh Tomatillos along with chopped onion, a few sprigs of cilantro, and a few sliced jalapenos in the food processor until it resembled salsa.  The next step was to cook the chicken and shred it.  I boiled the chicken in the chicken stock
and then shredded it with a fork.  Once shredded, I added it back to the stock along with the Tomatillo salsa and a main ingredient of Pozole - Hominy - and let it cook until the flavors blended, about an hour.

Once cooked, it was as simple as dishing it up and topping with the garnishes.  Everyone raved.  The family agreed that the soup included a lot of complex flavors, there was lots of zip,and they liked how the many flavors worked together with the garnishes.  They thought it was going to be super spicy but it turned out to have a tang without being spicy.  One person in the family did not like it because they don't particularly like Mexican flavors.  Pozole was a big hit.

Ingredients

 

Garnishes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pozole, without garnish

Pozole

 

Black Bean Soup with a Hint of Orange

This soup was the first soup I've made that was not based around a single vegetable as its theme.  In fact, it doesn't call for any vegetables at all, its beans and meat - black beans and chorizo sausage.

I used dried black beans that I soaked overnight and paired with Mexican chorizo sausage.  I browned the sausage then added chopped onion, rosemary, salt, and crushed red pepper flakes. When these flavors were mixed I added the beans and chicken stock and simmered until the beans were soft, over an hour.  Once the soup was cooked, I added orange juice for the 'hint of orange' flavor.  Then, I used the immersion blender to blend up the beans and make the soup smooth.

I have to say, this has been the least favorite soup we've tried so far.  It was not bad, just not as many positive comments as the others.  Comments about this soup included 'too sweet', 'too orange-y', 'too spicy', and 'too bean-y'.  A coupld of people said it was good, just not their favorite and one family member said they just did not like it. 

I served some on Sunday night and more on Monday night and I noticed that on Sunday night I could barely tell there was a hint of orange but on Monday night, the flavor was VERY orange tasting to me.  The orange flavor increased as it sat in the refrigerator overnight.  I'm not sure the orange flavor goes well with the spiciness of the chorizo and I would probably not make this recipe in the same way again.  Thats what this soup project is about - trying new things and discovering what you like and what you don't.

browning chorizo

ingredients