Tag Archives: soup

Okay. I admit it.

I’m a soupie. I love soup. If you’ve read my blog before, this should come as no surprise.

Chicken soup makes my heart and my tummy especially H A {double P} Y.

I’ve experimented with a few different variations of chicken soup over the years. This is our family fave. If you don’t have the brewer’s yeast, it’s okay. Just try and have some in your pantry all the time, because (a) it’s good for you and (b) it’s yummy on popcorn.

I wish someone told me about it years ago. I mean, when something’s this good—ya gotta share, right? So here we go!

Word of advice for soupie newbies: When you take the chicken out of the plastic … be sure to remove the baggie of goodies from the chicken’s cavity. I have cooked it with the junk inside and we didn’t die—but still. Take it out. Some folks save it for chicken broth. I toss it. But that’s just me.

Turn your crockpot to low if you have at least six hours. Otherwise, high will do nicely. Put your chicken (breast side up) into the slow cooker. By the way, I just purchased a new one and I’m LoVInG it! This one is an 8 quart beauty. Pour water in.

While your bird is sitting there, dice your veggies. I use one board (it’s plastic) and then dump them in all at once. VOILA.

At this point, I cover the chicken with all my spices. This time, I mixed the salt, pepper, marjoram and sage with the brewers yeast and put them in at the same time. You’re done. Let it cook for 4 hours on high or 6-7 hours on low. Be sure the chicken is covered in water. This water is your broth!

This is what it looked like just before I took it out of the crock pot. Man I wish you could smell this. Your mouth would be watering.

When it’s all done, the meat should be falling off the bones. At this point, I take my chicken and put it onto a baking sheet that has a small lip. This way, the juices stay on the baking sheet and don’t go dripping onto the floor.

Yes. I learned that the hard way. You’re welcome.

Take the meat off the chicken and add it back into the broth. I like to skim the fat off the top of the soup, but with this chicken I didn’t notice much fat. I tried Kirkland’s organic. Mmmm…good.
Serve with some toasted garlic bread and/or a simple tossed salad.

Healthy, delicious soup is just a few hours away! You can do it!

Enjoy—
…and so, to recap…

Slow Cooked Chicken Soup

1 whole chicken (you can cook from frozen) be sure to remove the “insides” from the cavity
1 bunch celery, rinsed and diced
1 large yellow onion, diced
6 carrots (give or take)
3 tsp salt … you can add more later so go easy for now
2 tsp pepper ^^ see above^^
1/4 cup brewers yeast (adds a wonderful flavor to your soup and it’s really GOOD for you!
2 tsp garlic
2 tsp marjoram
2 tsp sage
9 cups water

Where’d she get that?

Brewer’s yeast
Hamilton Beach 8-qt slow cooker
In a hurry? Try pressure cooking!

Slow-Cooker Italian Beef Soup

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What you need

1 lb ground beef (I have also used cut up leftovers from a beef roast)
2 cloves garlic
1 small onion
2 can diced tomatoes with basil, garlic, and oregano
1 package frozen mixed vegetables
2-3 potatoes, cubed
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
4 cups beef broth (again, I use this from leftover beef roast. If you don’t have that, my favorite is Knorr homestyle concentrated stock)
1 tsp basil
1 tsp parsley
1 cup shell pasta

What to do:

Brown hamburger in a skillet. Mince garlic and dice onion and add those into the hamburger. Cook until hamburger is browned. (If you’re using leftovers, you get to skip this part with the hamburger).
Add all ingredients to crockpot, except pasta.
Cook on low 6-8 hours, adding in pasta for the last 20 minutes and cooking on high.
Note: if you like a “soupier” soup, you can add more broth.

Our whole family loves this soup! I serve it with my as-good-as-Olive-Garden breadsticks.

Healthy, Yummy, Split-Pea Soup

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Mmmmm. Split-pea soup. It’s one of my favorite ways to make our Christmas ham last through the new year.

Normally, I use my crock pot. But this year, I used my pressure cooker—just to see how it would turn out. I warned my family in advance that it might not be amazing but I decided to give it a try anyway. Hey, what are they gonna do? They’re stuck with my kitchen adventuring ways!

Wouldn’t you know it? It turns out that using my pressure cooker turned out the creamiest, yummiest split-pea soup I’ve ever made. I was able to serve it straight out of the pot, without adding anything to thicken it.

If you like this yummy soup, give this recipe a try. And let me know how it turns out! I’ll also post the slow cooker version at the bottom for those of you who like slow cookers.

Split Pea Soup {pressure cooker version}

Serves 6-9

6 cups of water or broth (I used ham broth, but you can use chicken broth, too.)
Ham bone if you have it
2 1/4 cups split peas, rinsed
2 cups chopped celery
1 whole onion, chopped

Delicious and nutritious!

4 cloves of garlic, diced
3 carrots, diced
2 tablespoons organic, no-salt seasoning (from Costco if you have it)
pepper
2 bay leaves

—ham— as much as you like. But do not add until the soup is finished in the pressure cooker.

Instructions:

Put all in ingredients except ham into pressure cooker. Set timer for 15 minutes. Allow pressure to come down on it’s own. This will take another 15 minutes or so.

When pressure is released, remove bay leaves and stir. Add ham if you are so inclined. (I am always inclined this way if I have ham in the house!)
Salt and pepper to taste. Serve with corn bread or salad. Enjoy!

{slow cooker version}

as above, except: cook on low for 6-8 hours
Remove bay leaves
Add ham

Stir. To thicken, I usually add a mixture of milk and flour that I’ve prepared in my salad dressing shaker). I don’t honestly know how much I use. I would guess it’s about 1/2 cup of milk and 2 tablespoons of flour mixed very well. You can also thicken with instant potato flakes, or cornstarch and water. Be sure to mix the cornstarch well, one part starch to two parts COLD water.

Enjoy!

heidi

Zuppa Toscana Soup {A Lighter Version}

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I love soup. Seriously. LOVE. So when Old Man Winter knocks on my door, I head to the kitchen to heat things up!

It’s a “thing” I have, this obsession of good soups. Happily, my husband shares my love of soup. In fact, he is the driving force behind most of my obsessive behavior. 😉

Years ago, my husband and I discovered this delicious winter soup when we were invited out to Olive Garden with friends. Jay looked at me over his soup spoon with this sort of “If you will make this soup for me I will think you are even more amazing than I already do” look in his eyes … and with incentive like that, I had to figure out how to make my own version. I figured it would save us some money too while allowing us to stay snuggly warm at home with our soup.

I worked hard to lose about 30 pounds two years ago, so I’ve lightened this up just a bit to cut out calories and fat … but really … you can’t skimp on things like bacon and sausage and still keep the wonderful flavor of this yummy winter soup. Mostly what I did to cut calories was skip the butter and use regular 2% milk with half and half instead of heavy cream.

I like to get bacon at the local butcher shop if I remember. 🙂 This is the key for me. (The remembering part, that is.) Tonight we were lucky to have peppered bacon from our local butcher. ‘nuf said. YUM.

I use about this much bacon when I make my sausage, kale and potato yumminess.

Bacon is one of my love languages. I don’t know why BACON is not in “that” Love Languages book. Anyway.

This is about enough for a batch of soup that feeds my tribe of ten.

I cut it into bite size pieces and cook it while the water is heating up in the stock pot.

Cook up some Italian sausage. I did two pounds for my purposes. (I feed 10 and I want leftovers for lunch the next day). Two pounds is perfect. Drain off the grease and set it aside.

While your sausage is cooking … rinse and tear a bunch of kale into bite-size pieces. Set it aside. You won’t need to add it until the very end.

BONUS… this stuff is really good for you

5 quarts of chicken stock

Saute onions and garlic before adding potatoes

I made this last night in the MIDDLE of all the Un-decorating FALL and finding Christmas decoration madness. AND did I mention I am potty training our almost two-year-old.

My pictures reflect this. Do NOT use the pot I’m using for your soup. When I’m thinking, I do everything in my stock pot. But whatever. This still worked. It just made my life a teensy bit harder than it had to be.

Add red pepper flakes and your cooked bacon and sauté the potatoes until they are just a little on the brown side. YUM. Man, this smells good.

When they look and smell irresistable, you’re ready to pour the chicken stock in.

Add your cooked italian sausage.

Add 2 cups half and half and 1 cup 2% milk.
Heavy cream in you would rather be naughty than nice. 🙂

Add your kale and cream at the end and simmer, adjusting flavors as you go. (You know, a sip for you, a sip for your friends, a sip for your husband, etc.)

Here’s the recipe, all summed up and pretty for you “print in out and post it” people..

Sausage, Kale and Potato Soup

1 bunch of kale, rinsed and torn into bite sized pieces
bacon, cut up and cooked (about as much as you see in the photo above)
3 large russet potatoes (about enough for six cups), peeled with some skin left on
2 pounds Italian sausage
1 T red pepper flakes
5 quarts chicken stock (remember I feed a tribe!)
2 onions
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups half & half
1 cup 2% milk
pepper to taste

Put chicken broth on stove to simmer.
Cook bacon. Drain and set aside.
Cook sausage. While sausage is cooking, rinse and prepare kale. Set aside.
Drain sausage. Set aside. Drain grease but leave the pan as is, you’ll love the flavor it will give the onions.
Saute onions and garlic in same pan you just cooked bacon and sausage in.
When onions are slightly browned and soft, add red pepper flakes, bacon and potatoes.
Cook until potatoes are slightly browned.
Add chicken stock. DO NOT BOIL. It makes the potatoes mushy. And nobody wants that.
When potatoes are soft (not mushy), add the cream, milk and kale.

Simmer, adjusting flavors as you go.
Serve with warm, rustic garlic bread… you’ll be glad you did.

Gather ’round the dinner table and enjoy!

Heidi St. John

Speaking the Truth in Love