Soups and Stews – Kara Cooks and Eats

Sausage, white bean, and kale soup

Recipe

Recipe Notes

I saw this recipe in one of the Whole Foods coupon books (yes, I find recipes everywhere I go) and decided to give it a go. Though I thought it was a little bit heavy on the beans (7 cups!) and sausage so I used it more as recipe inspiration. Unfortunately I lost my notes the first time I made it so I had to make it again.

I really liked the way the bean puree helps to thicken up the soup a bit. I used fully cooked chicken sausages and sliced them in half lengthwise and then sliced them to make little half moons.

Photos

Maker:S,Date:2017-9-21,Ver:6,Lens:Kan03,Act:Lar02,E:Y — Tuscan kale, all chopped up and ready for soup

Chicken tortellini soup

Carrots, celery, onion, garlic

It’s a rainy Sunday, and another great day to make soup. I had the idea to make a tortellini soup. We had tortellini fairly regularly when I was growing up and we’d always say “The Tortellinis are coming for dinner.” Last weekend I made a version that also had cannellini beans, and I thought it would be too much if I also added tortellini. So I tried again this weekend and now I’m sharing it with you!

Almost ready…

I will also say that I usually buy San Marzano tomatoes, but this week the Muir Glen “San Marzano style” tomatoes were on sale and I decided to try them. Super disappointing. Some of the tomatoes were not ripe enough and some still had their skins on. I deliberately undercooked the tortellini, so feel free to adjust the cooking time based on the package instructions (not sure if it varies by brand).

Chicken tortellini soup
Serves: 6

Ingredients
1 Tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium onion, diced
2 carrots, diced
3 stalks celery, diced
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Soup’s on!

1/2 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
4 cups chicken broth
1 boneless, skinless chicken breast
1 can (28 ounces) whole, peeled tomatoes
8 ounces cheese tortellini
4 ounces baby spinach

Directions
1. In a large pot, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add garlic, onions, carrots, and celery, and cook until softened, about 3-4 minutes. Add red pepper flakes, oregano, and Italian seasoning, and cook for another minute.

2. Add broth and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to simmer. Add chicken breast to broth and simmer for about 10 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through. Remove chicken, shred it, and return to pot.

3. Add tomatoes and juice, breaking them into small pieces, and tortellini. Simmer for about 10 minutes, then stir in spinach and cook until it wilts. Enjoy!

Thai shrimp soup

Hello March, it is nice to see you! It was also nice to enjoy this warm, flavorful Thai-style soup last week, which helped me get through the end of February. I am ready for spring, so wasn’t sad to say good-bye to February. Though now I kind of hope we get enough snow to break all the records…at least then we would be truly justified in saying that this was “the worst winter evah.”

As I embarked on making this recipe, I should have paid a little more attention to the quantities *before* I got started. I am a leftover-lover but this recipe made so much! I decided to share some with a friend because I wasn’t sure how well coconut milk would freeze. Next time, I will probably just halve the recipe…or perhaps another friend will get lucky with a free meal.

I found that I needed (wanted) to add quite a bit of salt to coax out the flavors, perhaps because I used low-sodium broth. If using low-sodium broth, I’d probably add 1/2 teaspoon of salt at the time of adding the coconut milk and the broth, and then to taste. I would also have added some heat in the form of diced jalapeno or red pepper flakes. Lemongrass would be a nice addition as well.

Step 1: cook shrimp

Thai shrimp soup
Serves: 6
Source: Damn Delicious via Pinterest

Ingredients
1 Tablespoon butter
1 pound medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 onion, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 Tablespoon freshly grated ginger
2 Tablespoons red curry paste

Big pot o’ steamy soup

2 cans unsweetened light coconut milk
4 cups low-sodium vegetable broth or stock
2 packages ramen noodles, spice packet discarded
Juice of 1 lime
2 Tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro leaves

Directions
1. In a large stockpot or Dutch oven, melt butter over medium-high heat. Add shrimp, and season with salt and pepper, to taste. Cook until pink, about 2-3 minutes, stirring occasionally; set aside.

Big bowl o’ soup

2. Add garlic, onion, and bell pepper to the pot. Cook until tender, about 3-4 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in ginger and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Stir in curry paste until well combined, about 1 minute. Gradually stir in coconut milk and vegetable stock, and cook, whisking constantly until incorporated, about 1-2 minutes.

3. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer until slightly thickened, about 8-10 minutes.

4. Stir in shrimp, ramen, and lime juice, and cook an additional 3-4 minutes or until noodles are cooked.

5. Top with cilantro for serving and enjoy!

Juno soup (sausage and lentil)

I have a history of cooking or baking in preparation for or during a snowstorm (see Nemo cookies and Nika cookies). On Sunday, not knowing anything about the snowpocalypse heading our way, I did some meal planning and headed to the grocery store. Based on the state of the grocery store, I knew something was up, which I then confirmed via social media. Luckily I was not in the market for milk, eggs, or bread. It was also lucky that one of the meals I planned to make was this sausage lentil soup, a perfect blizzard meal…it was warm, hearty, and delicious.

It probably does not come as a surprise to you that I omitted the zucchini from the original recipe. I also left out the olive oil (sausage renders enough fat for cooking), decreased the salt, and forgot to add the red wine vinegar.

Juno soup (sausage and lentil)

Serves: 6-8

Pretty green lentils!

Source: adapted from A Hint of Honey

Ingredients

1 pound dried green lentils

1 pound sweet Italian sausage, removed from casings and broken up into small pieces

1 large onion, diced

4 stalks celery, diced

2 large carrots, peeled and diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (more to taste)

1 teaspoon dried basil (or Italian seasoning)

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 teaspoon dried thyme

1 teaspoon dried parsley

6 cups low-sodium chicken broth

1 can (28 ounces) fire roasted crushed tomatoes

Olive oil and freshly ground black pepper (optional)

Directions

1. In a large bowl, cover the lentils with boiling water and let sit for 15 minutes. Drain.

2. Add sausage to a very large pot and cook on medium-high, stirring occasionally, until browned and no longer pink.

3. Add the onion, celery, carrots, garlic, salt, pepper, red pepper, and dried herbs. Cook for about 15 minutes, stirring often.

4. Add the chicken broth, crushed tomatoes, and drained lentils. Increase heat to high, cover, and bring to a boil.

5. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for about 30 minutes or until the lentils are cooked through and tender, stirring occasionally. If needed, add water partway through cooking to thin the soup.

6. Drizzle individual bowls with olive oil and season with freshly ground black pepper, and serve with crusty bread.

Red lentil and squash soup

This recipe caught my eye on Pinterest for a couple of reasons. One, I love to make soup (which I’m sure I’ve mentioned before) and this time of year is perfect soup-making weather. Two, I could do some freezer cleanout since I had some butternut squash that I froze last season, and earlier this season I froze some chopped carrots and celery (a mirepoix starter). Since I had cooked the start of my mirepoix with some olive oil before freezing it, I decreased the olive oil to 2 Tablespoons. I also decreased the broth to 5 cups since I was using frozen butternut squash, which btw cooked much quicker than fresh squash. I used a leek instead of the white onion and omitted the parsley (didn’t have any).

The results were pretty tasty, and you don’t just have to take my word for it…a friend played the role of guinea pig. Despite being quite skeptical (and telling me it looked like hummus), he gave it an 8 out of 10. So there you have it, an N of 2 who give it 1.75 thumbs up. I don’t think my photo does it justice at all…soup photos are hard.

This can be made vegan by substituting vegetable broth for the chicken stock.

I am not hummus

Shorabit Jarjir (Red Lentil and Squash Soup)
Serves: 6
Source: Saveur via Pinterest

Ingredients
4 Tablespoons olive oil
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
3 medium carrots, finely chopped
2 stalks celery, finely chopped
1 medium white onion, finely chopped
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon crushed red chile flakes
1/2 small butternut squash (about 1 pound) peeled, seeded, and finely chopped
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
6 cups chicken stock
1 cup red lentils
Finely chopped parsley, for garnish
Paprika for garnish
Flatbread and lemon wedges, for serving

Directions
1. Heat oil in a 6-quart saucepan over medium-high heat. Add garlic, carrots, celery, and onion; cook, stirring occasionally, until slightly caramelized, 12-14 minutes.

2. Stir in cumin, chile flakes, squash, salt, and pepper; cook until squash is soft, about 15 minutes.

3. Add stock and lentils and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook, slightly covered, until lentils are very tender, about 20 minutes.

4. Let soup cool slightly, then, working in batches, puree soup until smooth. Ladle soup into bowls and garnish with parsley and paprika. Serve with flatbread and lemon wedges on the side.

Corn chowder with zucchini and orzo

Simmering corn and cobs

I have been working on recycling six years of Everyday Food magazines, and since I can’t cook the recipes fast enough, I’ve been pinning them to a “Recipe Pile” board on Pinterest. I’ve made it all the way through July/August and this one caught my eye because I knew there was a cute little round zucchini waiting to become something delicious. Or at least acceptable since delicious is not usually a word I associate with zucchini. It was also nice to see local corn at my Whole Foods already; hopefully that means CSA corn will be arriving soon too!

Corn chowder “topped” with zucchini mixture

Unfortunately this came out a bit thin and bland. I may not have let it thicken enough, but I definitely simmered it for longer than the 8 minutes suggested in the recipe. I usually decrease or omit salt from recipes, but this needed liberal amounts of salt. I attempted to top the chowder with the zucchini mixture, but it kind of fell in and then I just mixed it all together (after the photo). I am still going to take it for lunches this week so I wouldn’t call this a total fail.

Corn chowder with zucchini and orzo
Adapted from Everyday Food, Jul/Aug 2012
Serves: 4

Ingredients
1/2 Tablespoon olive oil
1 medium zucchini, diced
1 cup cooked orzo
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
1 bunch scallions, white and green parts separated and thinly sliced
1 Tablespoon butter
3 cups corn kernels (from 4 ears), cobs reserved
3 cups water
Salt and pepper

Directions
1. In a medium saucepan, heat olive oil over medium-high. Add zucchini and saute about 4 minutes until crisp-tender. Stir in orzo and heat until warmed through. Transfer to a bowl and toss with scallion greens and basil; season with salt and pepper.

2. Melt butter in saucepan over medium-high. Add scallion whites and saute about 3 minutes until tender. Add 3 cups water and corncobs and bring to a boil; reduce to a simmer and cook until chowder thickens slightly, about 8 minutes. Discard cobs and season with salt and pepper.

3. In batches, fill a blender halfway with chowder and puree. Serve chowder topped with zucchini mixture and enjoy!

Vegetarian black bean chili

Mise en place

It seems that every recipe for vegetarian chili insists on using zucchini. While I have made peace with the zucchini, it is not likely that I will go out of my way to buy them or cook with them. So here’s my version of the recipe, sans zucchini. The original recipe called for zucchini and carrots, but I like to buy a “Coastal blend” of frozen veggies from Whole Foods that has corn, carrots, broccoli, and edamame.

For toppings, I added cheese, diced avocados, sliced black olives, and grape tomatoes. Two lucky coworkers got a free lunch the day after I made this, and they gave it two thumbs up!

Toppings

Vegetarian black bean chili
Source: adapted from Everyday Food, October 2007
Serves: 6

Ingredients
1 Tbsp olive oil

1 medium onion, diced

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 Tbsp chili powder

1 tsp ground cumin

2 cans black beans, rinsed and drained

Yummy!

1 can (28 ounces) crushed tomatoes

1 package (16 ounces) frozen corn or corn blend

1 jalapeño, diced (optional)

Toppings, such as tortilla chips, sour cream, shredded cheese, diced avocado

Directions

1. In a 5-quart Dutch oven or heavy pot, heat oil over medium-high. Add onion and garlic; season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until beginning to soften, about 4 minutes. Add chili powder and cumin.

2. Add beans, tomatoes, corn, and 1 cup water. Simmer until slightly thickened, 8-10 minutes more.

3. Serve in individual bowls and top with your favorite toppings.

Chicken tomatillo stew

I got both tomatillos and cilantro in my CSA last week, and they were just asking to be put together in something yummy. And I decided I wanted to use my slow cooker. I recall donating many of the tomatillos I’ve gotten in previous years, so I didn’t have a “go to” recipe.

After some searching on Pinterest and the internet, I found an interesting recipe from Food and Wine recipe for a Slow Cooker Mexican Pork and Tomatillo Stew, which became the inspiration for what I actually made. I really liked what I made, but it did not come out very stew-like. As written, this recipe would be great with rice or tortillas…or a can of diced tomatoes might make it a little stew-ier.

Chopping the tomatillos, onion, garlic, and jalapeño ahead of time makes this pretty quick, since you are just dumping everything into the slow cooker. The only can of hominy I could find in Whole Foods was industrial-sized, so I opted for frozen corn. And actually, I used a bag of mixed corn, edamame, carrots, and broccoli…but mostly corn. I’m also not convinced that the browning of the chicken step is really needed. It’s a nice way to give it some color and flavor, but could easily be skipped if you don’t have the time or don’t want to deal with the stove and another pan.

Mise en place

Chicken tomatillo stew
Serves: 4

Ingredients

Cooking spray
2 cups frozen corn
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
1 Tbsp canola oil
1/2 cup low-sodium chicken broth
1 pound tomatillos – husked, rinsed, and cut into 1-inch pieces
1 onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, diced
1 jalapeño, thinly sliced
3 Tbsp coarsely chopped cilantro
Toppings as desired, like sour cream and shredded cheese

Directions

Ready to eat

1. Spray the bottom of your slow cooker with cooking spray. Spread frozen corn in a layer on the bottom of the pot.

2. Season the chicken with salt and pepper. In a large skillet, heat the oil on medium-high heat until shimmering. Add the chicken breasts and cook until browned, about 3-4 minutes. Turn chicken over and cook an additional 3-4 minutes until browned. Transfer chicken to slow cooker (it does not need to be fully cooked).

3. Add the chicken broth to the skillet and bring to a boil, scraping up the browned bits from the bottom. Pour the broth into the slow cooker.

4. Layer the tomatillos, onion, garlic, and jalapeño on top. Cover and cook on high for 1 hour, then turn to low for another 5ish hours, until the chicken is cooked and the tomatillos have broken down and formed a sauce.

5. Remove chicken from slow cooker, shred, and stir it back into the slow cooker. Cover and cook for 30 minutes to 1 hour longer. Stir in cilantro and top individual servings with sour cream and shredded cheese as desired.

Chinese New Year potluck

It’s been awhile since we’ve had a potluck, and it was great to get together to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Gung hay fat choy! Thanks to Kim and Rob for hosting and challenging us to create some delicious Chinese-inspired dishes.

I searched “Chinese new year” on Allrecipes and I decided to make Chinese lion’s head soup for a few reasons 1) I’m obsessed with soup, 2) I loved the name, and that it does not contain real lion, and 3) it didn’t seem too complicated. Turns out you can’t really go wrong with a pork, cabbage, ginger combination…it was the base for my soup as well as Kendrin’s pork dumplings.

Homemade dumplings

We had a pretty delicious spread, including chicken in foil, hot and sour soup, Chinese chicken salad, longevity noodles, peanut noodles, and a beautiful cake from Eldo Cake House.

Chicken in foil

Delicious cake

Chinese lion’s head soup
Source: Allrecipes.com
Serves: 4-6

Ingredients
1 pound ground pork
1 egg
1 Tbsp cornstarch
4 tsp sesame oil
1 Tbsp minced fresh ginger root
1/2 tsp salt
2 green onions, chopped and divided
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 head Napa cabbage, cored and cut into chunks
2 cups low-sodium chicken or vegetable broth
2 cups water, or as needed
1 Tbsp soy sauce

Directions
1. Mix the ground pork, egg, cornstarch 2 teaspoons of sesame oil, ginger, salt, and half of the chopped green onions together in a bowl. Use your hands to mix until the ingredients are evenly distributed. Use a spoon to form the meat mixture into 1-inch balls. Set aside.
2. Heat the vegetable oil in a wok or large pot over high heat. When the oil is hot, fry the cabbage, stirring constantly, until cabbage begins to wilt, 2-3 minutes. Pour in the broth, water, and soy sauce. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat to medium.
3. Drop meatballs into the boiling soup. When the last ball has been added, cover with a lid and simmer for 10 minutes. Taste, and adjust salt before serving. Garnish with remaining green onions and 2 teaspoons of sesame oil.

Prepping the lion’s head

Cheers to the Year of the Serpent! May your fortunes be better than some of the ones we received…

Fortune cookies from Long Island