Simple and Delicious Mushroom Soup

I was craving mushrooms and there was a sale on baby portobellos at the grocery store. These past few days have been cold and blustery so I made soup with my haul. This is a pretty easy recipe to make as is or make it vegetarian or substitute chicken or vegetable broth for the beef broth. You can use any mushrooms here, although I don’t recommend the white button, as their delicate flavor wouldn’t make a very mushroomy soup.

This version uses milk instead of cream so just make sure you turn the heat down to simmer and then temper the milk (add a few spoonfuls of the soup liquid to the milk to bring up its temperature) a bit before adding it so that it doesn’t break in the heat.

The final result tastes rich with a deep flavor of mushrooms. Most everyone had seconds at lunch!

Mushroom Soup

2 tablespoons of unsalted butter
¼ cup onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
16 ounces of baby portobello mushrooms, sliced
2 tablespoons flour
2 cups beef stock
1 cup water
½ teaspoon dried thyme
Salt and pepper to taste
1 cup milk

Melt the butter in large stock pot or Dutch oven. Sauté the onions until soft and golden, about ten minutes. Add in the garlic and sauté a minute or two until fragrant. Add in the mushrooms and cook for about five minutes or until they begin to release their juices. Sprinkle the flour over and stir regularly for about five minutes to cook away the flour taste.

Slowly pour in the beef stock and water, stirring well. Add the thyme and salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Turn down the heat to a simmer and slowly add the milk that you’ve tempered with a couple of spoonfuls of soup. Simmer for 30 minutes or until well thickened, stirring frequently.

Serve with cornbread, crusty bread, dinner rolls or garlic bread. Heck, serve with a grilled cheese sandwich – just serve this soup today!

Purple Hull Pea and Sausage Jambalaya

A family friend had a large yield from their garden and gave us several bags of purple hull peas they had put up. These peas are less earthy than their black eyed pea cousins and, like all southern peas, are super healthy with lots of dietary fiber, iron, protein and folate.

I served this with a pan of my Mama’s Cornbread – recipe here.

Finished dish is hearty and complex and quite delicious. With all the layers of flavor, every bite is a pleasure.

4 rashers of bacon, chopped
1 onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
½ cup rice
1 lb. sausage, sliced
3 cups purple hull peas
1 quart chicken or vegetable stock
1 can Ro-Tel Diced Tomatoes and Green Chilies
½ teaspoon each Salt and pepper to taste

Brown the bacon in a Dutch oven or other heavy stockpot. Drain on paper towels, leaving as much bacon fat in the pot as possible. Sauté the onion in the bacon grease until golden, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and sauté until fragrant. Sprinkle over the flour and stir constantly for 5 minutes to cook the flour. Add in the rice and stir until coated in oil and lightly toasted. Toss in the sausage and cooked bacon and purple hull peas and stir until glistening. Pour in chicken stock and the can of Ro-Tel. Add in 1/2 teaspoon each of salt and pepper. Stir while bringing to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 1 hour or until peas are soft, stirring occasionally. Taste for seasoning.

Serve with cornbread.

Southern Peanut Soup

The weather has changed for colder and I decided to make a soup I haven’t had since I left Georgia. No, I take that back. I had a bowl in Williamsburg, Virginia a while back. I got this recipe from a brochure we picked up at the Georgia welcome center many, many years ago.

Southern peanut soup is different from the many West African varieties as there are no tomatoes in it and no additional veggies or greens added. Just onions, celery, milk, broth and peanut butter. It can be gussied up with a sprinkling of chopped peanuts on the top or a dash or two of hot sauce but I find it perfect just as it is.

The soup comes together quickly and is rich and creamy. So yummy and comforting!

6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 small onion (about ½ cup) finely chopped
2-3 stalks celery (about ½ cup) finely chopped 
6 tablespoons all purpose flour
2 cups milk
½ cup peanut butter (I’m a big fan of Skippy)
2 cups low sodium chicken broth
½ teaspoon seasoned salt (I used Lawry’s)

Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium low heat. Sauté onions until translucent, about 5-10 minutes. Stir in the celery and sauté until soft. Sprinkle over the flour and cook for five minutes, stirring constantly. There should be no darkening of the roux as all you’re doing is cooking the flour.

Slowly whisk in the milk and stir well to remove any lumps. When the soup thickens, after about 10 minutes, whisk in the peanut butter and broth. Reduce the heat to low and cook until thickened, about 10 minutes, stirring regularly.

If you want a very smooth soup, pour through a strainer and discard the solids. I strain out the solids and put them in the blender to purée. Add back to the soup and stir to combine for a thicker, fuller bodied soup.

Bring soup back to a simmer and serve. This is one of those soups that is even better reheated so I’ve been known to make it around lunch time and put the entire pot in the fridge and then bring it out to reheat for dinner.

Quick Mushroom Barley Soup

I was over near the Uptown Crescent City Farmers Market today and stopped in to pick up a beautiful selection of mushrooms.

Feel free to use any kind of mushrooms in this recipe but aren’t these amazing?

Cascadia, king trumpet, and oyster mushrooms

I made a quick, small batch soup recipe that is the perfect amount for me to have seconds tonight and to have enough left over for another meal. Also, remember, barley will still absorb liquid off heat, so be prepared to add more liquid when reheating.

This is a comforting soup that has a lot going for it, with minerals and vitamins in the mushrooms and a good source of nutrients and fiber in the barley. Plus it is super tasty!

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small onion (about ½ cup), chopped
1 tablespoon butter
1 lb sliced fresh mushrooms
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 cups water
2 cups chicken broth
3/4 cup pearl barley
1 bay leaf
½ teaspoon dried thyme
salt and pepper to taste

In a large saucepan, heat oil over medium heat. Add onions and cook 10 minutes, until soft and tender. Add butter and mushrooms and a pinch of salt. Cook and stir 5-6 minutes or until most of the water has evaporated. Add in minced garlic and sauté until fragrant.

Add water, chicken broth, barley, bay leaf and thyme. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook, uncovered, 30-45 minutes or until barley is tender. Taste and add salt and pepper as desired.

Hearty Tortilla Soup

We had a quite a temperature drop overnight and it was cold enough for me to want to make soup. It had to come out of pantry, though, as I wasn’t going anywhere.

My girlfriend had canned tomatoes a couple of years ago and so I used a quart of farmed fresh tomatoes that were put away at the peak of ripeness. If you aren’t so lucky as to have such a handy, crafty gal in your life, use a 32 ounce can of tomatoes. I tossed them in a food processor with a can of Ro-tel to add a little heat and pulsed it a couple of times to make for a smoother soup. Out of the freezer, I got out diced, frozen onion (let the folks at PictSweet Farms do the peeling, chopping and crying) and cubes of frozen garlic and cilantro (I love the Dorot pre-portioned herbs) plus a pint bag of frozen corn. I also opened a can of black beans and hammered away at the bag of tortilla chips until they were well crushed. Also out of the pantry, came a container of chicken stock. Badaboom – after a bit simmering, I had a hearty soup.

I like this soup as it is or you can add 2 cups of cooked chicken after it comes to a simmer. The flavors are complex but very comforting. Exactly what this chilly day called for!

Tortilla Soup

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large white onion, diced (1 generous cup of frozen diced onion)
4 garlic cloves, minced (4 cubes of Dorot garlic)
1 teaspoon ground cumin 
1 tablespoon chopped cilantro (4 of the frozen Dorot cilantro cubes)
1 quart (32 oz) canned tomatoes
1 can (10 oz) Ro-tel diced tomatoes and green chilies
2 cups frozen corn
1 can (15 oz) black beans, drained
2 cups crushed tortilla chips, plus more to serve
1 quart chicken broth
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

In a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat, warm the oil before adding the onion and sauté, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and sauté until fragrant. Add in the cumin and cilantro. Cook a minute or two to bloom the spices, stirring constantly. Stir in the pureed tomatoes and Ro-tel, corn, black beans, tortilla chips, chicken broth and the salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, then cover, reduce heat to medium low and simmer about 30 minutes. Stir and cook for 30 minutes more, uncovered. Soup will have thickened from the corn tortilla chips.

Taste and season with salt and pepper, if necessary. Remember, you’re serving it with more tortilla chips so go easy on the salt. To serve, either use tortilla chips as a spoon or ladle the soup over a pile of chips in the bowl.

Lemon, Chicken and Rice Soup

This is a combination of a Greek avgolemono soup with chicken, rice, eggs and lemons and a low country bog (a swampy chicken and rice soup) common to the Carolinas. I like the addition of lemons to clear out the sinuses and, with all the worries about COVID-19, what could be more comforting and healthy than chicken soup?

If you don’t want to hassle with making the chicken stock, buy 10 cups of stock from the store and get a rotisserie chicken from the grocer. Start the recipe with cooking the rice in the stock. A whole chicken usually gives about 3-5 cups of chicken. I reserved the breasts for chicken salad and still had more than 3 cups of chicken to shred for the soup.

The final dish is silky and refreshing while also being immensely comforting.

Chicken and Rice Soup

1 – 4lb whole chicken, rinsed
10 cups water
2 carrots, broken in half
2 stalks celery, broken in half
1 small onion, quartered
3 cloves garlic, smashed
2 cups long grain rice
½ teaspoon each salt and pepper
⅓ cup fresh squeezed lemon juice (about 3 lemons)
1 teaspoon lemon zest, finely chopped
2 large whole eggs plus 1 egg yolk

In a large stock pot, place chicken, carrots, celery, onion and garlic in the water and bring to a boil. Skim off any foam. Reduce heat to simmer and cook for 60-90 minutes or until chicken is fully cooked and water has become a flavorful broth.

Set chicken aside to cool slightly. Strain and discard solids from liquid and return the chicken stock to the pot. Run it through a fat separator if you want to reduce the fat in the final dish. Pick the meat off the cooled chicken, until you have at least 3 cups of chicken. Shred the chicken into bite sized pieces and set aside, discarding skin and bones.

Bring broth back to a boil. Cook rice in the broth with salt and pepper on low heat until soft and tender, about 20 minutes.

Ladle out one cup of the cooked rice and place in a blender with lemon juice and zest and the eggs. Blend until smooth.

Stir shredded chicken into broth. Very slowly, add the warm egg/lemon mixture into the pot, whisking constantly to prevent any clumps from forming. With heat on low, cook for about ten minutes or until thickened. Taste for seasoning.

This soup will continue to thicken when stored, so have about a cup of chicken broth when reheating the soup. As it warms, the liquids will combine and make it the perfect thickness.

Ham Bone Lentil Soup

Making soup with a ham bone is like winning the frugal lottery. Once you’ve had a lovely meal with the ham, now you get an awesome soup with the leftovers. I got this ham bone courtesy of Michelle’s family. There was lots of meat left on, so the soup was extra meaty and delicious.

I make this soup the stock way, meaning I cook the lentils until tender in lots of water with a carrot, some onion and celery. After an hour of simmering, I discard the veggies that have given up their flavor and add in freshly sautéed vegetables and some seasonings to finish the soup for the last 30 minutes of cooking. This way the final dish doesn’t have tired, mushy vegetables and the soup liquid is rich and delicious.

Adding a splash or two of vinegar at the end brightens the dish immensely. I used Steen’s cane vinegar but red wine vinegar is a very good replacement.

The house smells wonderful after the soup has been simmering for a while and the soup itself tastes even better than it smells. Very much the perfect dish after a damp, cold wintery day of Carnival parades (for a complete schedule of Mardi Gras parades, click HERE).

Throw me something, Mister!

3 slices streaky bacon, chopped fine
1 ham bone or ham hock – the meatier, the better
1 lb dried lentils, rinsed
8 cups water
small onion, quartered
1 carrot
2 stalks celery
1 large bay leaf

3 tablespoons butter
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 carrots, diced
1 cup celery, diced
¼ teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon dried thyme
2 tablespoons good quality vinegar either cane or red wine
salt, to taste

In a stock pot or Dutch oven, fry the bacon until crisp.  Place the ham bone in the pot and brown slightly. Pour in 2 quarts water and the rinsed lentils. Place in the pot the quartered onion and a carrot and two celery stalks broken in half. Add in the bay leaf. Bring the water to a boil. Partially cover the pot and reduce heat to low and simmer for 45 minutes or an hour until the lentils are starting to be tender.

Remove the ham bone and let cool slightly before cutting off the meat. Fish out the onion quarters, carrot and celery and discard.

In a skillet, melt the butter and sauté the onions until they are softened and golden, about 5 minutes. Add in the garlic and cook until fragrant. Toss in the carrots and celery and sweat for just a minute or two. Stir in the black pepper and thyme. Scrape the contents into the pot with the lentils along with the meat from off the bone. Bring the pot back to a simmer. Cook for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until lentils are fully cooked. Stir in the vinegar. Taste for seasoning and add salt as necessary.

Serve with bread (I made cornbread – recipe HERE).

White Bean Soup

Last time my parents had a spiral sliced ham, I took the bone and tossed it in the freezer. I pulled it out a couple days ago and put it in a pot with 12 cups of water and a quartered onion, a couple of carrots and stalks of celery. After two hours of simmering, I had enough hambone stock for making soup.

Dry beans last a good long while but the older they are, the longer it takes for them to soften. I knew the package I had was old (which is why I soaked them for a day and a half before starting) but didn’t know just how old mine were until I had simmered them for over five hours before they finally softened. I ended up using 8 cups of stock. With fresher beans, you might need less stock.

By pureeing the veggies and adding them toward the end, their flavor stays bright and they will also thicken the soup broth. If you want an even thicker broth, add a tablespoon of flour to the skillet when sautéing the veggies and cook for 5 minutes to take away the raw flavor, stirring regularly. Splash in a little water or extra stock in to deglaze the pan and then puree the veggies. When added to the soup, it will only take about 10 minutes of simmering to make the flavorful broth, thick and smooth.

1 lb dried navy or great northern beans
5 to 8 cups chicken or hambone stock
1 large bay leaf
½  teaspoon dried thyme
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 large garlic cloves, minced
½ cup coarsely chopped celery
2 carrots, peeled and diced
salt and pepper to taste

Pick over beans and soak overnight in water.

Drain and put beans, 4 cups stock, bay leaf, and thyme in a large pot. Bring to a simmer and continue to cook until beans get tender and fall apart, usually about 1½ to 2 hours. Add another 2-4 cups of stock if the soup has reduced too much by the end of cooking time.

Meanwhile, place olive oil in a large skillet and sauté onion for five minutes. Add in garlic and sauté until flavorful. Add in celery and carrots and continue to cook until they soften. Scrape into a food processor or blender and puree. Add the puree to the beans when you add the additional stock to the softened beans. Bring back to a simmer and taste for seasoning, adding salt and pepper, if necessary.

Serve immediately with bread for sopping up the juices.

Stepping up the Gazpacho Game

I have a recipe for Simple Gazpacho that I blend up in just a few minutes and which I make several times a summer when the tomatoes are at their peak. However, for something to really knock your socks off, a few additional steps can mean a world of difference.

Roasting the garlic and onion deepens the flavors and takes out any harshness from having them raw. I also added roasted cashews as a thickener and for a hit of protein. You could use almonds instead.

Additionally, I used Aleppo pepper here for a lovely pepper taste without adding much heat but you can use a pinch of cayenne if you’d rather. As the flavor intensifies the longer it rests, don’t add so much seasoning you can’t eat the leftovers!

It is so pretty and oh, so delicious! Summertime never tasted so good!

Roasted Gazpacho

1 small head garlic (about 5-8 cloves)
1 small onion
1/4 cup olive oil, divided
2 lbs tomatoes – about 4 good sized
1 large cucumber
1 green bell pepper
1 slice bread, torn into chunks
1/4 cup sherry or red wine vinegar
1/3 cup cashews
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon Aleppo pepper
1 cup V-8 or tomato juice

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Cut the top off the head of garlic. Place it on a piece of aluminum foil and drizzle generously with olive oil and seal the foil around the bulb. Roast for about 30 minutes or until tender. Squeeze out the softened garlic and let cool.

Quarter the onion and separate the layers. Toss generously with olive oil and place on a baking sheet in the oven with the garlic. Roast until the garlic is done, flipping layers over once during baking.

Wash the tomatoes and cut small x’s in both ends. Place in boiling water for 2 minutes. Remove to an ice water bath. Peel off skin, core and quarter. 

Peel cucumber, scrape the seeds out with a spoon and cut the cucumber into chunks. Core and seed the bell pepper and cut into large pieces.

Soak the bread in the sherry vinegar. While adding the bread isn’t necessary, I find it thickens the soup and mellows the flavors.

Pulse the cashews in a food processor until they become a fine meal.

Combine tomatoes, cucumber, bell pepper, onion and garlic in the food processor with the nuts and pulse several times. Scrape down the sides with a rubber spatula. Add in the sherry vinegar soaked bread, then drizzle in the remaining olive oil, salt and Aleppo pepper until well combined. Add just enough V-8 or tomato juice until the soup reaches the desired consistency. It should not be thin or watery but neither should it be the consistency of a smoothie, either.

Chill for several hours or overnight. Taste for seasoning before serving. Serve with fresh bread.

Michelle made a gorgeous loaf of crusty bread to go with our soup.

Yummy! I’ll see if she’ll give me the recipe for blogging.

Corn Chowder

It has been quite chilly these past few days, so I decided to make some soup. In my freezer, I had some corn taken off the cobs grown in Michelle’s grandfather’s field. James Earl Clark passed on last summer and his kindness and generosity is greatly missed.

You can make this vegan by eliminating the bacon, using oil instead of the butter and using a vegetable stock. Better yet, consider boiling the corn cobs after you’ve removed the kernels in a large pot to make a corn stock instead. Replace the cow’s milk with soy milk.

For extra rich soup, replace the milk with heavy cream. The soup will need more stirring during the final cook to make sure it doesn’t stick to the bottom.

3 slices bacon, diced
1 medium onion, diced
1 large potato, peeled and diced
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 cups sweet corn (fresh or frozen)
4 cups chicken broth (for vegetarians, use corn stock)
1 ½ cups milk
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon fresh cracked black pepper.
3 tablespoons yellow corn meal
¼ cup water

Add bacon pieces to a large dutch oven and cook for 5 minutes over medium heat. They should have rendered their fat but not be crispy. Place in the diced onion and potato and stir well. Cook for about 10 minutes, until onion is translucent and potato has softened. Add butter and corn. Stir and cook until butter melts. Pour in chicken broth and milk and stir to combine. Add salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, stirring regularly. Reduce heat to low. In a a small mixing bowl, combine cornmeal and water. Pour into the chowder. Cook uncovered for 15 minutes over low heat, stirring occasionally.

Ladle 3 cups of the soup (being sure to get lots of the onion, corn and potato) into a blender and puree. Return to soup and stir to combine. Taste for seasonings.

Serve with sourdough bread or another hearty, crusty bread.