Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

This recipe comes from my dear Minnesotan friend, Kristine. She made this a couple of times when she lived with us and it's so hearty and warm and perfect for the season.

Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

½ cups Onion, finely chopped
½ cups Celery, Diced
2 cloves Garlic Clove, Pressed
½ cups Carrots, Peeled And Diced
1 cup white wine
5 cups Chicken Broth
2 cups Water
2 cups Shredded, Cooked Chicken
2-3 cups cooked wild rice
½ cups Flour
½ cups Butter
Salt And Pepper, to taste
1-½ cup Milk/Half-and-Half/Cream (your Preference)

1. In a large dutch oven, saute onion, celery, carrots, and garlic until softened. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Deglaze the pan with white wine and simmer until reduced.
2. Add broth, water, and chicken. Bring to a boil. Add rice. Cover pan and simmer on low.
3. Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir in seasonings of your choice (salt, pepper, dried thyme, etc.) and mix together until bubbly. Lower heat and stir in flour. Add milk, whisking until fully incorporated. Cook until thickened, stirring occasionally.
4. Add cream mixture into the soup. Check seasonings and adjust as desired. Cook over medium heat until thickened and heated through–about 20-25 minutes.

Pumpkin soup with a bit of a kick

Autumn is in full swing here and it's a beautiful time of year. We've had some pretty cool nights and mornings and it's time to warm things up in the kitchen. I've tried several different pumpkin soup recipes, and this is my current favorite. This recipe yields a velvety, rich soup, with a smooth sweetness and a bit of a spicy kick, but not so spicy that it's hard to eat. Because of it's richness, it's best eaten by the cupful, served along with other foods to round out the meal. Perhaps a cool salad or half a sandwich? It will warm you, heart and soul! Plus, it's quite easy to throw together.

Pumpkin Soup with a kick.

2 Tablespoons Butter
½ whole Chopped Onion
1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
2 15 oz. cans Pumpkin Puree
3 cups Water
1/2 cup white wine
1 teaspoon Fresh Cilantro
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
½ teaspoons Cayenne Pepper
½ cups Brown Sugar (or experiment w/ Agave nectar)
½ cups half and half (or coconut milk, almond mild...whatever you use for a dairy substutute)
½ teaspoons Ginger

Melt butter in a dutch oven over medium heat. Once melted, add the chopped onions and olive oil and saute for 5-10 minutes until onions begin to turn soft and you can see through them. Deglaze the pan with the white wine. Add pumpkin, water, and freshly cut cilantro and stir, mixing well. Cover and let simmer on low for about 10 minutes. Add cinnamon, cayenne pepper, brown sugar, half and half, and ginger and stir well. Let simmer, stirring occasionally, for at least 10 minutes. Add additional spices as necessary to suit your tastes.

Clam Chowdah!

I have Heather to thank for this. Little did she know that at the exact time I was fantasizing about some good clam chowder, she was cooking some up over in her tasty kitchen and let the Facebook world know. Thankfully she shared her recipe, and it's a great one. I made a few small tweaks to lighten it a bit, although I don't think it's light enough for Cooking Light standards. It's super yum, though. It had the husband drooling.

4 slices bacon, chopped
3 (6.5 ounce) cans minced clams
1 jar of clam juice
1 cup minced onion
1 cup diced celery
2 cups cubed Yukon Gold potatoes
1 cup diced carrots
palmful of chopped parsley
1/4 to 1/2 stick of butter
up to 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 quart milk (I used whole)
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
ground black pepper to taste
couple dashes of hot sauce

Directions:

In a large skillet, fry up the chopped bacon until crispy. Transfer to a bowl and drain some of the grease out of the skillet. Leave a bit in there and add a tablespoon or two of butter. Once melted, saute all the vegetables for a few minutes until fragrant.
Drain juice from clams over the vegetables. Add the bottle of clam juice to cover, and cook over medium heat until tender. Toss in the parsley.

Meanwhile, in a large, heavy saucepan (or crockpot), melt the remaining butter (about 1/4 stick) over medium heat (high if using crockpot). Whisk in flour, spoon by spoon, until you have a smooth paste. Whisk in milk slowly and stir constantly until thick and smooth. Stir in vegetables and clam juice. Heat through, but do not boil.
Stir in clams and reserved bacon just before serving. If they cook too much they get tough. When clams are heated through, stir in vinegar, and season with salt and pepper. Serve with hot sauce, if desired.

Watercress soup

So I've started up with a CSA program again. Sadly, not with Farmer Chad (his pickup window was just too short and inconvenient for me), but with Local Food Stop, picking up at the new Natural Foods Warehouse right by me. I'm so excited about all this!
This CSA allows you to pick from a menu of what you get in your bag and there's no seasonal commitment. This week I got rainbow carrots, watercress, strawberries, apples, kiwi and broccoli. Watercress was a bit of a wild card for me since I don't recall ever using it for anything, but I figured I'd find something creative to do with it. After reading a bit online about the cancer fighting properties of watercress and running across a few recipes I decided to try a watercress soup. You'll need your immersion blender for this one, otherwise you'll have to transfer to a blender in batches, and that's a pain. I can't say enough about how great an immersion blender is. This soup is light and a great starter or a lunchtime accompaniment. OK, after a few tweaks, here's what I got:

Watercress Soup

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
3 small yukon gold potatoes- peeled and cubed
1 onion, chopped
2 or 3 small carrots, peeled and sliced
3 cloves of garlic, pressed
salt, pepper, and seasonings
2 1/2 cups chicken stock or vegetable stock
2 1/2 cups milk
2 nice bunches of watercress, rinsed and large stems removed

Directions

Heat the oil and butter in a large saucepan over medium high heat. Add the potato , carrot, garlic and onion, stirring to coat with the oil. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Reduce heat to medium and saute until tender and fragrant. If you have a bit (1/4 cup) while wine, pour it in to deglaze the pan.
Pour in the chicken stock and the milk, bring just to a boil, reduce heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes, or until potatoes are tender. Stir in the watercress and simmer, uncovered, for 4 to 5 minutes, or until watercress is just cooked. Turn off heat and let cool for a few minutes. Using an immersion blender puree until smooth. Season to your desired taste. I threw a little dill in mine. Top each serving with fresh cracked pepper and shaved cheese if desired.

The easiest soup evah...

I'm really cheating here with this one, but I just couldn't not post this. You'll see why. This is, most definitely, the easiest soup (and one of the most delicious) I've ever made. I wish I could take the credit for it, but it's not my genius behind it. It's the good folks at Trader Joes. This is what they were demo-ing the last time I was there.

For years I've made chicken tortilla soup with painstaking detail. My tried and true recipe is no doubt delicious, but time consuming. After having this one here, I don't see going to the trouble of making it the other way for awhile.
It could not be easier...

Trader Joe's Captain Mark's Chicken Tortilla Soup
1 large can chicken
1 jar garlic chipotle salsa
1 carton chicken broth

Optional items that I like:
frozen corn
cooked brown rice

Toppings:
shredded cheese
sour cream
tortilla chips
Trader Joe's green salsa verde (refrigerated section)
hot sauce

In a heavy pot, heat the chicken, salsa, and broth. Add any optional items and heat through. Ladle out into bowls and top with desired toppings and hot sauce.

Tortellini Soup

It's a new year, and time to breathe some new life into this forgotten blog of mine. I'm ready to post a few recipes and inspiration. I'll get right down to business.

This here recipe is an old one for me, actually. I started making it as a newlywed 14 years ago, so I can tell you it's quite simple. I originally found this recipe in a Betty Crocker cookbook and have made a few tweaks of my own. It's a versatile soup and can be used for lunch or dinner. Since my oldest and I are a bit under the weather, we're having it for dinner. I'm hoping that the little picky eater will eat it as well since it's got pasta in it. I consider it a twist to classic chicken noodle, even though there's no chicken in it. It wouldn't be a bad idea to throw some in!

Tortellini Soup

1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 medium celery stalks, chopped (1 cup)
3-4 medium carrots, chopped or sliced
1 small onion, chopped
White wine
2 cartons (32 oz each) chicken broth
4 cups water
2 packages (9 oz each) dried cheese-filled tortellini or refrigerated tortellini
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon freshly grated whole nutmeg, or more to taste (the nutmeg makes this soup, IMO)
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Melt butter and olive oil in 6-quart Dutch oven over medium-low heat. Saute garlic, celery, carrot and onion until fragrant and onions are translucent. Deglaze the pan with a few glugs of white wine.
Stir in broth and water. Heat to boiling; reduce heat. Stir in tortellini. Stir in parsley, pepper and nutmeg and any other seasons you desire (I like Italian seasonings). Cover and simmer about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until tortellini are tender. This may take less time if using refrigerated pasta. Top each serving with cheese.

*This makes a large amount. I don't know how well it would freeze because of the pasta. Once it's refrigerated, the pasta tends to soak up more of the broth so you may need to add more water when reheating. Or, you may just use 1 pkg. of pasta to begin with. Just depends on how much broth you want.

Golden Winter Soup

I have needed some inspiration lately in the kitchen. Spending so much time in the kitchen around the holidays made for some real burnout this past week and I needed something new to look forward to. I turned to an old Cooking Light issue (Jan/Feb 2008) and knew that the soup on the cover, Golden Winter Soup, would be perfect for this cold night. Surprisingly, the kids even ate it! I paired it with Rachel Ray's greek salad. Here's my adaptation of the delicious Golden Winter Soup:

Golden Winter Soup

Ingredients
3 tablespoons butter
4 cups (1/2-inch) cubed peeled butternut squash (about 1 good sized squash)
2 cups (1/2-inch) cubed peeled russet potato (about 12 ounces)
2 cloves minced garlic
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 cups sliced leek (about 2 medium)
4 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
1 cup half-and-half
4 Tbsp Agave or honey
freshly grated nutmeg, to tase (about 1/2 to 1 tsp)

12 ounces baguette, cut into 16 slices
3/4 cup (3 ounces) shredded Gruyère cheese
3 tablespoons chopped chives (optional)
Freshly ground black pepper (optional)

Preparation:

Melt butter in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add squash, potato, garlic, salt, and pepper to pan; sauté 3 minutes. Add leek; sauté 1 minute. Stir in broth; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 20 minutes or until potato is tender, stirring occasionally. Using an immersion blender, blend until smooth. Stir in half-and-half, agave or honey, and nutmeg. Cover and keep warm.

Arrange bread slices in a single layer on a baking sheet; sprinkle evenly with cheese. Broil bread slices 2 minutes or until golden. Ladle 1 cup soup into each of 8 bowls; top each serving with about 1 teaspoon chives. Serve 2 bread slices with each serving. Garnish with freshly ground black pepper, if desired.

Thai coconut soup

In the first few years of mine and David's marriage, we fell in love...with Thai food. Our absolute favorite was Chicken Coconut Soup. We'd order up a "hot pot" and slurp up every last bite as the fire in the hot pot crackled away. If you've never had this soup before, the flavors might be completely new to your taste buds. The combination of coconut milk, lime juice, lemon grass, and curry can be daring if you're not an adventurous eater. But even if you're not, I would still encourage you to try this. I know many who turn their little noses up at international foods but still love this soup.

We tried several times years ago to duplicate this soup at home but were never satisfied with the results and decided to just leave it up to the professionals. Until now.

One of the food blogs I frequent posted this recipe she adapted from Allrecipies. After trying it out today, it definitely passes the taste test. Instead of shrimp I used cooked shredded chicken. I also used a little more lime juice and red curry paste than she calls for. Other than that, I pretty much stuck to the recipe as written.
Serve it up with some Naan bread! Or better yet, buy yourself a hot pot, have some fellow Thai food foodies over and impress the heck out of them!

Thai coconut soup with chicken or shrimp

Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Soup

For this week's soup I dug out my Mitford Cookbook for a recipe I've made only once before. It was great the first time, but a little messy with having to transfer the soup into the food processor in batches and puree, so I never made it again. I couldn't wait to try it out with the immersion blender. Man, what a difference that makes. It was SO easy! I love that thing!
Anyway, here's my take on the recipe:

Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Soup

2 TBS olive oil
1 cup chopped green onions or shallots
4 1/2 cups chicken stock
2 cups chopped jarred roasted red peppers, drained
2 (14 1/2 oz.) cans whole stewed tomatoes
2 garlic cloves, pressed
2 tsp. granulated sugar
1 1/2 tsp. dried basil
1/4 - 1/2 cup half and half
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Sour cream or cheese for serving

Warm the olive oil in a large heavy sauce pan over medium heat. Add the green onions and saute until soft, 8 to 10 minutes. Add the chicken stock, red peppers, tomatoes, sugar, garlic and basil. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat, cover and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool for a few minutes.

Using an immersion blender, blend until smooth. Add in the half and half (or whipping cream if you're going for it!) until desired creaminess is achieved. Season with salt and pepper. Ladle into soup bowls and garnish with sour cream or parmesan cheese.

My new toy and a new soup

I've always wanted an immersion blender. I always knew it would be something I wouldn't use a ton, but when I'd need it, I'd be so thankful for it. Why keep putting it off? Turns out they're only like $30, and with a coupon I got mine for $25. Let me tell you, I'm already pleased with the purchase. It's amazing how well that baby works! No more transferring soup in batches to the blender, spilling it all over the counter. I've avoided making so many things for that reason alone!

And so what did I use my new purchase on? This soup I finally decided to make: Carrot Ginger Coconut Soup.



The immersion blender came in SO handy on this one. You could still make it without one, but you do have to do the whole transfer in batches thing. Either way, it's definitely worth it. Similar to the curried butternut squash soup I've made before, just without curry, so if curry scares you, try this one. Oh, and if you hate carrots, don't worry, it's not too "carrot-y." Really.
We had it for lunch today, along with a sandwich inspired by Jen (who makes wonderful sandwiches).
Turkey on whole wheat with horseradish cheddar, cranberry chutney, mayo, and sliced apples. Fry it up in a pan with a little butter. Yum! And we like to dip our sandwiches in our soup!
I'm thinking it would be fun to make a new soup once a week.

My mother in law said the sweetest thing today. She said "I was excited about eating lunch here. I always love your lunches!" That was so sweet to me because lunch is not my favorite meal of the day, although it is growing on me. Sometimes I just eat bits and pieces of things...hummus, vegetables, salad, crackers, cheese, etc. I'm not a big fan of sandwiches, mainly because I'm not very creative in that department. Lunch today was pretty simple, but I have to admit it was pretty good. Too bad I can't take much credit for it. I heated up some of Jen's Pepper Cheese Chowder from our soup swap, topped it with bacon, cheese, green onions and hot sauce. I also threw togehter a nice salad of mixed greens, CSA box radishes, broccoli, tomatoes, heart of palm, artichoke hearts, bell peppers, green onions, carrots and gorgonzola cheese. I also made some sweet tea (sweetened with agave) and threw in a little chai. For dessert, a Trader Joe's cherry pie. As long as there's a Trader Joe's around, I don't think I'll need to make a cherry pie ever again. This was a lunch worth repeating.

Fresh Vegetable Soup...or as I call it: CSA box soup

I'm doing a soup swap with some friends this week. We're each making a huge batch of soup then dividing it into 5 large portions. We keep one batch for ourselves then when we meet up this week, we all trade our other 4 batches. The idea is that you cook once, but end up with 5 different types of soup for the freezer. As I type I've got two large pots simmering away on the stove.

I love soup. Love all different types. Ever heard of Apple and Parsnip soup? It's amazing. So is Curried Butternut Squash soup.
For me, part of the joy of soup is the making of it. I love the process of taking a bunch of fresh vegetables, chopping them up, sauteing garlic and onions in EVOO, tossing the veggies in, along with some broth, and letting it simmer away.
By far, my favorite soup to make is Fresh Vegetable Soup. I found a great recipe in Cooking Light years ago and I've been making it ever since. Of course, I've added my own little changes. Whenever I make vegetable soup, this is always the version I make. Although I pretty much know how to make it from memory, I still rely on the recipe just to make sure. When I went to find the recipe a few days ago, it was nowhere to be found. I looked high and low to no avail. Did tons of internet searches to find it, but still couldn't come up with the exact one. I was all prepared to just wing it and do it from memory, but decided to make one last attempt and finding it and thankfully it was found, just stuck in between some random cookbooks.

I'm now posing it here so I'll forever have it. No more searching high and low.
The recipe is more of a guide, as all the vegetables listed can be substituted with whatever you have fresh on hand. Thanks to my CSA box, I had a lot of nice goodies to work with. If you have no potatoes on hand, substitute some dried macaroni. To make it even more hearty, add some shredded cooked chicken or ground beef.

Fresh Vegetable Soup

2 Tbs. Olive Oil
2 C. Chopped Onion
5 garlic cloves, minced
2 C. Chopped Celery (about 4 stalks)
2 C. cut green beans
1 1/2 cups fresh corn kernels
1 C thinly sliced carrot
1 cup. frozen baby lima beans
1 medium zucchini, halved lengthwise and sliced
1 1/2 cup. peeled and chopped potato
3 teaspoons dried Italian seasonings
4 (14 1/4 ounce) cans organic beef broth or vegetable broth for a vegetarian version
1 (15 oz.) can kidney beans, drained
2 cups chopped seeded tomato
2 cups crushed tomatoes
2 teaspoons sugar to cut the acidity of the tomatoes
2 cups shredded green cabbage
salt to taste
pepper to taste
Parmesan cheese for topping

1. Heat oil in a large pot over med. heat. Add onion and garlic and sauté for 2 min. Stir in celery and next ingredients through tomatoes. Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat and simmer for at least 30 min.
Add cabbage salt and pepper, cook 5 min. or until cabbage wilts. Serve with cheese.

White Chicken Chili

I totally meant to post this recipe at Christmas, especially since this is what I made on Christmas Eve for the family. And here it is April and I'm posting a Christmas recipe! It's great for any time of the year, though. It's also a wonderful option for serving at larger gatherings. You can do a tex-mex thing with it and let people top the chili with various toppings (sour cream, salsa, pico, chips, shredded cheese, etc.) It went over great. I pretty much made it just as the recipe calls, although I decided to use dried white beans and soak them overnight in lieu of the canned. Make it the day before and you won't be disappointed!

White Chicken Chili

My Kitchen This Week

Monday....Sweet and Sour Chicken with brown rice...Wyatt's absolute favorite. It's the only time he asks for more chicken.

Tuesday night...Roasted Chicken with carrots, potatoes and onions. Also tried my hand at braised cabbage. It was pretty good!

Wednesday lunch...Quick Thai Corn Chowder. We're having kids over to play today, so maybe ordering a pizza and throwing together a salad is in order if they're all still here at dinnertime.

Thursday...eating out or eating leftovers.

Out of town this weekend! We're heading down to the Strawberry Festival in Tampa...I've heard they have the best strawberry shortcake ever! Good friends and good times ahead.

Some things I'm crazy about

I know I've mentioned it before, but there are a few things in the world of food that I'm crazy about. If there's something on the menu with these choice ingredients, I'll definitely be getting it. To name a few...Coconut, butternut or acorn squash, pumpkin and sweet potatoes. And why do I love these things so? They're all sweet, of course!

Upon doing a little search of these ingredients, I came across a few recipes I'll be making in the future. Just thought I'd pass along the goods:

Coconut Ginger Spiced Carrot Soup - different, I know, but I bet it's delish!

Coconut Mashed Sweet Potatoes - Hello! How have I never heard of this before?? It's a Hawaiian dish.

Acorn squash quesadillas -
Yum!

Thai Coconut Corn soup - Thanks Jen Gordon!

Maybe I'll get creative and come up with some of my own.
One of these days I'll share my recipe for my mom's famous homemade coconut or chocolate pie.

Marinara, veggie lasagna and soup

My life has to be all about planning these days. Planning meals, planning lessons, planning what errands I'll run on what day, planning when I'll work out, planning the boys' activities, planning when not to cook, etc. I like to try to spend some time on Sunday each week making my plans for the week. I need to plan on two decent cooked at home meals this week. Why just two? Well, thanks to the baptist church down the road, our boys attend AWANA on Wednesday night and we have a date night each week. Wednesdays are my night off from cooking and eating at home. Out of the other 4 nights (I'm counting weeknights here), I know we'll be heading out of town on Friday, so that leaves Mon., Tues., and Thurs. I'll plan on cooking two nights and having leftovers the other. Of course, good planning requires a big trip to the grocery, which I took care of this afternoon.

So..what to make. I've already gotten a head start on that one. As I type, my house smells amazing thanks to the big pot of homemade marinara I have simmering on the stove. There's enough in there for several meals, so I'll freeze most of it. Let me just say that I don't always make a homemade marinara. There are plenty of good ones out there at the store, so I usually start with a jarred variety and add to it. However, I got inspired this time and decided to make it from scratch. It's really quite simple and not too time consuming. Plus, it leaves you with so much that you can just freeze it in one or two cup batches and have plenty on hand for next time.

So...here is the Basic Marinara recipe from Cooking light.

On our menu for tomorrow night...Vegetable Lasagna inspired by Heather. Actually, that's probably not the most accurate title. It's not technically veggie, I do add meat to it, but there's sure a lot of veggies used. I'll utilize the veggies I have on hand and add some sweet Italian chicken sausage to the marinara. This lasagna is amazing and I'm convinced it's due in part to the addition of pumpkin. It adds such a subtle sweetness. I also love the fact that the veggies are all buzzed up in the food processor so the kids don't really notice them. It's a great way to slip some veggies into their mouths with them even knowing it.

For later in the week, I'm trying a soup I've never made before. Sweet Potato and White Bean Soup with Sage Walnut Pesto.
I just love making soup. I love the versatility of it. It can satisfy lunch or dinner, it will freeze well (usually), and I enjoy the process of making it. It may be a bit ambitious to serve this to the kids, but we'll give it a try. Of course, I'll have bread, fruit and salad to satisfy them if they turn their little noses up at the soup.

Cauliflower Soup

Tis the season for full hearts and full bellies...and warm bellies. With the weather being as cold as it has been, it's hard to think about eating something cold for lunch. Lunch is not my favorite meal of the day. I'm always at a loss of what to make. I'm usually too hungry to go all out and make something that requires a lot of time. But I also tire easily of the typical turkey and cheese on wheat. Soup is always a good option, especially when it's paired with a fresh salad or crusty bread for dipping. I like to take advantage of the time on the weekends to make a big pot of soup; one that will leave me with plenty for the week and maybe even some for freezing.

I was invited to a friends for lunch recently, and she made a soul warming cauliflower soup with bread and salad. It was delicious and left me satisfied all the way up until dinnertime. I had never actually made cauliflower soup before, so it got me searching around for several recipes, and the one I settled on was this one from Rachael Ray. It's pretty simple to make and the effort pays off big time. You will be happy with this one! While it was simmering, I threw together a huge salad with the lettuces I received from the CSA box this week that should last several days. I now have my lunch dilemma solved for a while.

And get this...Wyatt actually liked it! I told him it was mashed potato soup.

Here you go:

Cauliflower Soup by Rachel Ray

Coarse salt and coarse black pepper
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons butter
2 small heads cauliflower, or 1 large, cut into small bunches of florets
3 ribs celery and leafy tops from the heart of stalk, finely chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
2 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme leaves
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 quart chicken broth
1 cup half-and-half or whole milk
Hot sauce, optional
3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves or chives, for garnish
1/2 cup grated Parmesan, for passing at the table

Directions
In a large pot, heat up the olive oil and 2 tablespoons of the butter, over medium heat. Season with salt and pepper. Add the cauliflower florets and stir with a wooden spoon. Add celery, onion and thyme and cook for 3 minutes. Push the vegetables to 1 side of the pot. Melt 1 more tablespoon of butter on empty side of pot and add flour to the butter. Cook for 1 minute, stirring the flour in the butter. Mix in chicken broth and half-and-half. Bring up to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes. Puree soup using an emersion blender, food processor or blender and return to pot. I like to leave it a little chunky. Check seasoning and add a dash of hot sauce, if desired.

Garnish soup with hot pepper sauce, chopped parsley or chives and serve with grated cheese to sprinkle on top.

Curried Butternut Squash Soup

As I said in my previous post, I had two butternut squashes on hand from the CSA box. Other than making babyfood when my babies were babies, I don't recall ever making anything with butternut squash. It's not that I don't enjoy eating them, I've just been intimidated a little by them. One of my favorite pastas is butternut squash ravioli. It's hard to come by, but if I'm ever at a restaurant that serves it, I will most definitely get it. In fact, my favorite dish in all of Atlanta is Zuzza at Figo. Zucca is a divine butternut squash ravioli with a raddichio cream sauce. I cannot go to Figo and not get it. I salivate as I drive by the restaurant just thinking about Zucca. I LOVE LOVE LOVE it!

O.K., I'll stop going on about my little obsession.

Anyway, I'm certainly not going to attempt to make it; I'll leave that up to the experts.
But I had to come up with something to do with the butternut babies I had on hand.

After poking around online, I found this recipe by Ellie Krieger:

Curried Butternut Squash Soup

Perfect. Right up my alley. I've watched her show before on the Food network; Healthy Appetite, and she comes up with some pretty good recipes. I had everything I needed, so I sat the boys down in front of the TV with their lunches, and I got busy in the kitchen making a huge batch of the soup. And yes, I do use the TV as a babysitter at times. Well, a lot of the time if I'm honest.

The result...delish! And I mean it. I'm trying to make myself wait until dinnertime to eat a whole bowl, but I keep sneaking by the pot and dishing out little spoonfuls. Tonight, I'll top it with a dallop of yogurt (greek yogurt) as the recipe suggests. I know some are afraid of curry...don't be. This is just a rich, flavorful and slightly sweet soup that is perfect for this season.

I can't wait until dinnertime tonight!

Curried Butternut Squash Soup

Ingredients
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 medium onion, chopped (about 2 cups)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 (2 1/2-pound) butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut into 1-inch cubes
6 cups low-sodium chicken broth or vegetable broth
1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons curry powder
1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more, to taste
2 tablespoons honey
4 teaspoons plain low-fat yogurt, for garnish
Directions
Heat oil over medium heat in a 6-quart stockpot. Add onions and garlic and saute until soft but not brown, about 6 to 7 minutes. Add the butternut squash, broth, curry powder and salt and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until squash is tender, about 12 to 15 minutes. Remove from heat stir in honey and puree with an immersion blender or in batches in a blender until smooth. Season with salt, to taste.
Ladle into serving bowls and add a dollop of yogurt.

Cheesy Chicken and Rice soup

My mother in law came over yesterday for lunch. This is what I made: cheesy chicken and rice soup.
Jen made this for me after I had Wyatt. It's a recipe from CL that I had overlooked at the time, but she zeroed in on it and I loved it. I had a craving for it over the weekend and got the ingredients so I could indulge.
My twist on it: I use precooked brown rice from TJ's instead of the wild rice it calls for. I also used a couple of glugs of white wine, red potatoes, doubled the amount of garlic, and added a little celery. I used half cheddar cheese and half processed cheese ( I just couldn't use the amount of processed cheese it calls for). The end result is sooooo good. It's similar to a baked potato soup. In fact, if you add a few slices of precooked bacon and chopped green onion, it would be a good version of baked potato soup. And who doesn't like baked potato soup? In fact, when I was pregnant with Ethan and couldn't stomach anything except fruit loops and cocoa puffs, I distinctly recall sending David out to Atlanta Bread Co, for a cup of this soup. And I guarantee that my version has lass fat and preservatives than theirs.

Warning...it makes a lot, so make it when you want to feed more than just yourself. I'm not too sure if it would freeze well since it is dairy, so I sent the mother-in-law home with some. And I had it for dinner and am eating it for lunch as I type. Enjoy.