Take a Break: Make Soup!

It’s cold, snowy, sleety and just plain nasty out. What a wonderful pick me up to have a bowl of nice warm soup that you make yourself. The house smells cozy delicious while it's bubbling away and you can include whatever ingredients you like.

The simplest soups have the same basic method for cooking:

• In a soup pot (Dutch oven) sauté aromatic veggies (onion, garlic, celery, carrot, garlic) in some type of fat (butter, olive oil, bacon drippings)

• Cook your meat if your using it

• Add the base (except for milk or cream), veggies, meat and spices. Your base can be chicken, beef, fish or veggie stock or broth. In general you want your broth to just cover the veggies and meat. Can add tomatoes.

• Allow to simmer for an hour or two. However Instant Pots are great.

• Taste and adjust seasonings as you go.

• Add cream or milk before serving. Another way to get a thicker soup is to take some of the soup and puree it. This will thicken the soup, without using milk or cream,  particularly if you have potatoes in the recipe.

I like roasted vegetable soup. Put cauliflower, garlic cloves skin on, onions and carrots in a sheet pan, sprinkle olive oil, salt & pepper. Mix and bake at 450 for about a half hour or until they start to brown up nicely. I’m pretty casual so I’ve been known to turn the oven off after 20 minutes and let them sit in the oven for a couple of hours. I then put the roasted veggies, removing the skin from the garlic, in a soup pot adding some potato, 4 cups of chicken stock with additional spices if it needs it. After the potatoes are fork tender, I puree in a blender until smooth. Add whatever toppings you like. Crispy Fried Onions are pretty tasty. I also make this soup using butternut squash in place of cauliflower and add a sweet potato instead of white potatoes.

There are many recipes on-line. Check out The Best Soup Recipes of 2018  to get started.

Not interested in today’s activities, try the Take a Break Pinterest Board.