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

No Soup this Sunday

Camille & Melanie making cookies

We had no soup this Sunday.  I planned a recipe and got the ingredients but instead of cooking, we had friends over and barbecued their generous offering of tri-tip.  These friends have kids the same ages as ours so everyone has a buddy to hang out with.  So instead of soup, the kitchen hosted cooking of Butter Cookies by the older girls.

Four soups this month was a good start to the year.  I'm looking forward to more in February with a new soup next Sunday - football themed?  Its Super Bowl Sunday.

Roasted Tomato Soup with Garlic Croutons

The Soup:
Great winter's day soup and very satisfying meal.  Today's soup was heavy on the prep but easy on the cooking.

Before starting on the soup, I prepared the garlic croutons by cutting cubes from a round loaf of sourdough.  I cooked the cubes in a pan with some melted butter and minced garlic until heated.  These cooled to room temperature while I made the soup.

For the soup, I started with 3 pounds of fresh tomatoes.  The recipe calls for plum tomatoes, I used a combination of Roma and Pearl since that's what I had access to.  I cut them in half and de-seeded each - too bad there wasn't something I could save all that seedy liquid for, it produced a lot.  Once they were ready, I marinated the tomatoes in a mixture of salt, pepper, garlic, crushed rosemary, and olive oil for 15 minutes.  Once marinated, I roasted the tomatoes for almost an hour until soft and browned a bit.  Then half the roasted tomatoes went in the blender with some of the chicken stock and were pureed until smooth.  The pureed tomatoes went into the pot with the rest of the tomatoes and the remaining stock until heated.

The Result:
The soup was garnished with some croutons and basil.  I served it with a salad of Arugula tossed with Lemon-Parmesan dressing.  (Dressing: some lemon juice, olive oil, grated parmesan, salt & pepper.)  A very satisfying meal!

I thought the soup was satisfying - it had a thick consistency and with the chunks of un-pureed tomatoes left in, some solid vegetables to feel more like a meal.  The flavor was good but overly peppery, a result of the mixtures the tomatoes marinated in prior to roasting.  My husband thought it was good, enjoyed the spice and texture and thought the rosemary was more balanced than in the Butternut squash soup of two weeks ago.

cutting up croutons

finished garlic croutons

Ingredients

a satisfying meal

de-seeding tomatoes

tomatoes, ready to roast

Celery Bisque with Stilton Toasts

The Soup:
Tonight's soup was Celery Bisque served with Stilton Toasts.  It was definitely a stand out, crowd-pleasing favorite.

Another simple recipe: saute leeks & celery in butter then add chicken stock and diced Yukon Gold potatoes and simmer until tender.  Next, use an immersion blender to puree the soup. Add the Creme Fraiche and season with salt and cayenne pepper, garnish with parsley & serve.  My official substitution for Creme Fraiche will be Light Coconut Milk, now and going forward for all future recipes.  It seems to work well.  The soup was served alongside sliced baguettes w/ Stilton blue cheese roasted on top.

The Results:
The family really enjoyed this soup!  It had a light, salty flavor and a great, thick & creamy texture.  Comments from everyone were positive, this soup was yummy-liscious.  It was agreed that the soup brought out the flavor of celery and made it much easier to enjoy than when eaten raw.  The part that was not enjoyed by all was the blue cheese flavor on the toasts.  Everyone tried it but only the adults enjoy it so far.  Perhaps this adventure bite of blue cheese will open minds for later appreciation.

Star rating:
15 yr old: 4.5 stars
12 yr old: 5 stars

Stilton Toasts, some left plain

9 yr old: 5 stars

pureed with an immersion blender

A lovely meal

Ingredients

Pumpkin Soup with Toasted Walnuts and Rosemary

The Soup:
Tonight's soup was Pumpkin Soup with Toasted Walnuts and Rosemary and once again was made with several modifications.  Instead of Pumpkin, I used Butternut Squash, due to availability.

The basic recipe calls for sauteing leeks in butter for a few minutes and then adding the cubed squash, chicken stock, rosemary, cayenne, and salt then simmer until soft. At this point, you use an immersion blender to process the soup until smooth.  Again, Creme Fraiche is called for and again, I used a substitute but this time it was Light Coconut Milk.  I toasted some walnuts for six minutes at 350 degrees to use as a garnish.  Coincidentally, I have another Trader Joe's tid-bit tonight, I learned that they sell leeks in their freezer section already chopped and these were the leeks that were used in tonight's soup.

The Results:
No star rating tonight as there were only two testers for this soup this evening, my husband and myself.  His analysis was that it was a good soup, nice and creamy with a great kick at the end from the cayenne.  He thought it was heavy on the rosemary, that the soup was overpowered by it rather then complimented and the rosemary could be cut by about half.  Otherwise, he thought it was a good Butternut soup made better with the cayenne bite.  I thought it was just okay.  I enjoyed the creaminess and the good squash flavor but agreed it was a bit heavy on the Rosemary.  I thought the walnut as garnish added a nice toasty flavor and texture.  All in all, this soup was nothing special to me.  I've had better Butternut Squash soups and this is not the best recipe I've made.  Better luck next week.

Ingredients - see the frozen leeks!

Before the immersion blender

Ready to serve