Italian Egg Drop Soup (Stracciatella)

Soup.

I love soup...

If I had to limit myself to eating only two kinds of food for the rest of my life, they would be pizza and soup. If I had to limit myself to one? As much as this pains me, pizza, it would have to be soup.

This soup...is spectacular. So much so that I made it twice in a week. And, not just because we really needed to use all the chard.

It's just a perfect soup for when the days begin to chill.

Italian Egg Drop Soup (Stracciatella)

inspired by Simply Recipes

[What You Need]

6 cups chicken broth

1 egg

1 T breadcrumbs

2 T parmesan cheese

2 cloves minced garlic

1 t ginger

1 t tumeric

1 t chili powder

1 or 2 bunch chard

[What to do]

1. Bring broth to a boil, add chard and garlic. Continue to boil ~5 min.
2. Whisk egg, cheese, breadcrumbs, and spices together in a separate bowl.
3. Gently drop the mixture into the soup. Allow to sit for a few seconds, then stir.
4. Allow to sit for a minute before serving.

Preserving the Bounty: Kale and Potato Freezer Soup

As much as I wish it were hot peppers, our garden has been producing at least one vegetable with abundance and consistency: a trendy brassica known as kale. We've been cutting bagfuls of kale every other day it seems with no let up in sight. I enjoy kale and it's very good for you, so I'm not going to complain, but I was starting to run out of ways to prepare it: after several batches of kale chips, plenty of smoothies and stir-fries and salads, we still had several bags languishing. Kale is a terrible thing to waste, so the search began, Is there any way to preserve Kale for future use?

You can only can greens if you have a pressure cooker, so that was out. I was about to attempt freezing the individual greens when I remembered cabbage soup. My traditional m.o. when it comes to cabbage soup is to make a -huge- batch in the fall and freeze as many leftovers as possible. The result is lunches of cabbage soup all winter long. It occurred to me that something equally delicious might be created with kale.

And I was right! We were able to use up quite a bit of kale and preserve it for down the road when the greens parade has ended for our garden...and the soup is quite tasty too.

Kale and Potato Freezer Soup

inspired by Once A Month Meals

[What You Need]

Olive oil

2 cloves garlic

1 onion

5 cups vegetable broth

4 cups chopped red potatoes

1 cup Greek yogurt

1 teaspoon spicy brown mustard

1 tablespoon of oregano

1 cup milk

7 tightly packed cups of shredded kale

[What To Do]

1. Chop garlic and set it aside to rest.
2. Heat oil in a large stock pot and add chopped onion. Saute until tender and add garlic.
3. Add broth, potatoes, mustard, oregano, and yogurt. Bring to a boil and then allow to simmer until potatoes are cooked through.
4. Carefully blend about half the soup.
5. Stir in milk and kale. Allow to cook just a little while longer until the kale is slightly wilted.

Leek and Fennel Soup

Coming home to 50 degree Michigan from 80 degree Puerto Rico was a bit of a shock to my system. Not going to lie. 50 probably would have felt like a tropical heat wave just a month ago, but to me, this weekend, it feels like it does in September: soup weather. I suppose that's not a bad thing. It gives me a chance to display a spring vegetable soup! (And don't worry, I'll be waxing rhapsodic on the amazing cuisine of Puerto Rico soon enough.)

This soup is also, unfortunately, another in the "it doesn't look pretty, but I promise it tastes good" vein.

Well, it looks pretty before you blend it, at least.

Leek and Fennel Soup

(Inspired by these two recipes from Food52)

[What You Need]

2 leeks

1 bulb of fennel

Olive Oil

5 cups vegetable broth

1 cup buttermilk

Several big handfuls of fresh parsley

Parmesan cheese

Black pepper

[What to do]

1. Chop up fennel, leeks, and parsley. Set the parsley aside and saute the leeks and fennel in the olive oil.
2. Add stock and buttermilk. Bring to a slow boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.
3. CAREFULLY blend the soup until creamy.
4. Serve with a spoonful or two of Parmesan cheese and black pepper

Cabbage Soup

I'll chalk the invention of this soup up to Nonno. He's the one who deciphered the ingredients, at least. This fact partially explains how this recipe got passed down to me the way it did: as a list of ingredients and nothing more.

This is not an uncommon problem with the recipes I've acquired from my family. Plenty of recipes in The Cookbook have an annotation that essentially tells you to call someone else who might have an idea of the baking temperature or how to combine things, etc. Unfortunately, many of the people referred are also no longer with us.

Luckily in this case, I still had people around who could make heads or tails of things.

We start with a simple head of cabbage and shred it.

Then add the rest of the ingredients to the pot. Seriously. That's all you need to do. Well, that and simmer for about 4 hours until the cabbage cooks down.

Cabbage Soup

[Ingredients]

1 head cabbage

onions, chopped

meatballs

tomato sauce

1 cube beef bouillon (or one cup beef stock)

salt

pepper

oregano

rosemary

basil

Potato Soup aka The Cure for the Common Cold [The Cookbook]

[Apologies for the lack of pictures. Blame the congestion brain.]

It's been a rough week. First full week back in the office after a few off and of course I come down with a nasty cold. Not able to stay home, I had to turn to more unorthodox methods to manage the symptoms. Number one of which is my Bisnonna's potato soup. This soup never fails me.

It's pretty basic: just potatoes, chicken broth, onions, carrots, and some seasonings.

The key to this soup, unlike the usual potato soups, is the lack of milk (dairy is awful when you have a cold). The potatoes are cooked until they break down somewhat which adds a level of thick creaminess to the broth.

I also recommend adding garlic and cayenne pepper to the broth (sorry, Bisnonna, but they help clear my sinuses).

Potato Soup

[via The Cookbook]

Bisnonna writes: Brown an onion. Add some water with chicken base (creating a broth), chop up a few carrots, cube some potatoes, add to the broth and let cook for a good while so that the potatoes start to break up a little and the broth thickens. The amounts depend upon how much you want to make. Use your own judgement.

Madre adds: Grandma used to laugh and say that she could tell if an American made the soup; they always add milk to it.

Bonus!

Prozia Lena's Sore Throat Cure

shot whiskey + black tea + honey

Stuffed Pepper Soup

It’s getting cold. Can you feel it? Soon it will be Autumn and my favorite time of year: Soup season!

I could wax rhapsodic about my love for soup for many an age. I love soup of all kinds (so long as the amount of celery that ends up floating in the stock is limited -- but that’s an argument for another day). The one I'm about to present to you is one of my all time favorites.

I have a special relationship with stuffed pepper soup (and definitely more memories surrounding this little number than actual stuffed peppers). Many a chilly fall / winter day has been warmed by this soup, but there is one fall day in particular:

It was my junior year of college and having lived in a dorm on a meal plan for the past two years, my cooking skills left something to be desired. Not to mention the fact that college was a rough one emotionally. So, one fall day when things had been particularly rough (though this was still before the time of the bats), my mother showed up with several bags full of ingredients and we got down to making stuffed pepper soup.

Since then, stuffed pepper soup has been on of "our things". Whenever I come home during the fall or winter holidays, we tend to make it at least once. Just last week, she came up to attend a Michigan football game and we made yet another batch.

[ignore the beans; we also made chili]

And so, since this is one of my most requested recipes (especially by my dear friend Jill), I've decided to share its wonderment with you.

Stuffed Pepper Soup

[via mi madre]

[Ingredients]

2 lb ground beef

1 green bell pepper

1 can tomato sauce

1 diced tomato

2 cubes beef bouillon

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 tsp salt

1 tsp black pepper

1 T soy sauce

2 cups cooked rice

[What to do]

1. Brown beef over medium heat
2. Add peppers and saute for 3 minutes
3. Stir in rest of ingredients (sans rice). Reduce heat to love, cover and simmer for 30-45 minutes
4. Stir in rice and heat through
5. Be sure to add some Parmesan  and romano cheese to the top when you serve.