Recipe of the Week: French Pumpkin Soup

Jamie's Autumn Potage a Variation on a Variation of French Pumpkin Soup I got the recipe for this delicious soup at the farmer's market in Carrboro, North Carolina. The C'est si Bon! cooking school was advertising and had samples of the soup with the recipe to take home. The original recipe had some slightly exotic and/or expensive ingredients like leeks and baby fennel, so I've adapted it to ingredients that are more available and affordable. I absolutely love the flavor of this soup and if you puree it, it makes very nutritious baby food!

3 T of fat, olive oil, butter, duck, chicken or goose fat 2 large onions, chopped 1 celery heart, chopped 2 sprigs of fresh thyme (or a couple pinches of dried) 2 bay leaves 3 pounds of fresh pumpkin or other hard squash (I like butternut better than pumpkin), cut in 1" cubes 1 pound of carrots, chopped 8 cups of chicken stock salt and pepper heavy cream or plain yogurt, optional

Heat the fat in a large soup pot over medium heat. Add the onions and celery, stir well, cover, and cook over LOW for 15 minutes. Do not brown them. (I add a little salt here to help sweat the veg.) Add the carrot and cook, covered, for another 10 minutes. Add the cubed squash to the pot, then the stock. Season with salt and pepper (go easy on the salt if using store-bought stock) and add the bay leaves and thyme. Bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer, partially covered for 45 minutes or until the squash is very tender. At this point you can either mash the soup with a potato masher or puree it with a stick blender. (I prefer to puree it.) If pureeing it in a blender or food processor, let it cool a bit first. If the soup is too thick for your liking, add more stock. Check seasoning and add more salt if needed. When serving you can drizzle a bit of cream or yogurt on the top.

I can't tell you how delicious and warming this is! Serve with some bread and cheese to fill out the meal.

Recipe of the Week: Potato Soup

It's fall and that means soup season! Hooray! Not long ago, I was searching for something easy to make for dinner. Okay, I admit it, I'm not a good menu planner. My dinners are too often thrown together very last minute. And since I had two napping children and no time for a grocery run, it needed to be something that I could make entirely with household staples. I remembered someone mentioning potato soup earlier that week and thought it might fit the bill.

So I turned to the internet and found The Pioneer Woman's Perfect Potato Soup.

Oh Friends, it is perfect. The best part? It's fast. Really fast.

Basic Info: Prep Time: 10 Minutes / Cook Time: 20 Minutes / Servings: 12

Ingredients 6 slices Thin Bacon, Cut Into 1-inch Pieces - I had some leftover cooked bacon from the day before. Saved a little time and worked a-okay. I've also used chopped up ham from a leftover ham steak instead of bacon. Also delicious.

1 whole Medium Onion, Diced

3 whole Carrots, Scrubbed Clean And Diced - I've snuck broccoli in, too. Hey, I'm a mama of a toddler. Veggies get thrown in EVERYTHING.

3 stalks Celery, Diced

6 whole Small Russet Potatoes, Peeled And Diced - Confession: I don't like Russet Potatoes. I used red-skinned potatoes and didn't peel them, because I never do. Saves a step and doesn't matter one bit in the recipe.

8 cups Low Sodium Chicken Or Vegetable Broth - I make a lot of my own broth and freeze it. I've used chicken, lamb and ham broth. They all work great in this recipe.

3 Tablespoons All-purpose Flour

1 cup Milk

1/2 cup Heavy Cream - I use half and half because we always have it. And depending on how creamy you like the soup, you may opt to skip this ingredient completely.

1/2 teaspoon Salt, More To Taste

Black Pepper To Taste

1/2 teaspoon Cajun Spice Mix - I used a spicy BBQ seasoning I had on hand. You could try a little chile pepper or cayenne if you like spicy. Or leave this out. It's your soup, after all.

1 teaspoon Minced Fresh Parsley - Yes, dried is fine. Just adjust it to your liking.

1 cup Grated Cheese Of Your Choice - Cheddar is king in this house.

Preparation Instructions Add bacon pieces to a soup pot over medium heat and cook bacon until crisp and fat is rendered. Remove the bacon from the pot and set it aside. Pour off most of the grease, but do not clean the pot. (If you're using leftover bacon or ham, just heat a little olive oil in the pot so that you can start with the next step.)

Return the pot to medium-high heat and add the onions, carrots, and celery. Stir and cook for 2 minutes or so, then add the diced potatoes. Cook for 5 minutes, seasoning with salt, pepper, and Cajun spice.

Pour in the broth and bring it to a gentle boil. Cook for 10 minutes, or until the potatoes are starting to get tender. Whisk together the flour and the milk, then pour into the soup and allow the soup to cook for another 5 minutes.

Remove half to 2/3 the soup and blend in a blender/food process until completely smooth. Pour it back into the soup pot and stir to combine. **Now this is where I did things differently. I have a stick immersion blender. It is my new favorite kitchen tool. You don't need to transfer any hot liquid and blend in batches. Rather, you just stick it in your pot and blend. Total timesaver and makes a perfectly smooth soup. I find reasons to use it. Ree likes some chunks left in her soup, but I prefer it completely smooth.**

Once you've blended up the soup, taste it and adjust your seasonings. Then, stir in cream (if you want) and parsley. Save some parsley if you want to use it for a garnish.

Serve in bowls garnished with parsley, grated cheese and crisp bacon pieces.

So, so good. I serve this with some hot crusty bread. Yum!

Recipe of the Week - White Chicken Chili

Chili is my husband’s favorite  soup/stew, but we get tired of the mainstream beef, tomatoes, corn and kidney beans.  This is an excellent one to mix things up!  It is very flexible, and my favorite way to make it now is to sauté the onions, garlic, spices, and green chilies, then throw everything in the crockpot to let the flavors really meld together.

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp. oil

1 onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, crushed

2 4 ounce cans chopped green chile peppers

2 tsps. ground cumin

1 tsp. dried oregano

1 tsp. ground cayenne pepper

2 cups low-sodium chicken or vegetable broth (you can add more if you want it to go further)

3 cups chopped/shredded cooked chicken (I’ve used way less than this, or none at all)

3 15 ounce cans white cannellini beans (drain 1 can, use a whole can, and puree one whole can in a food processor to thicken the chili)

1 can pinto beans, drained

1-2 cans black beans

Optional cilantro, lime, Monterey jack cheese

Directions:

Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium-low heat.  Slowly cook and stir the onion until tender.  Mix in the garlic, green chiles, cumin, oregano, and cayenne.  Continue to cook and stir until the mixture is tender, about 3 minutes.  Mix in the chicken and stir briefly.  Add broth and beans.  Simmer 15 minutes, stirring occasionally (or place in crockpot on low 4-6 hours or high 2-3 hours).

You can always add more beans or broth to adjust texture, as well as to make the chili go further.  Dried beans would work as well, you would just have to add more cooking time and much more broth or water to desired preference.

Adapted from http://allrecipes.com/recipe/cha-chas-white-chicken-chili/detail.aspx?event8=1&prop24=SR_Title&e11=cha%20cha%27s%20white%20chicken%20chili&e8=Quick%20Search&event10=1&e7=Home%20Page

Recipe of the Week - Savory Homemade Brunswick Stew

Autumn beckons, and for me that's soup season. This recipe is a winner for us because it's very flavorful, reasonably healthy, and makes a HUGE amount for delicious leftovers which somehow taste even better when reheated! Our version is based on a recipe from Southern Living magazine years ago, but with lots of tweaks over the time we've been making it. Feel free to customize it yourself and call it your own. This makes anywhere from 8 to 16 servings depending on how hungry everyone is!

1 whole chicken (small to medium size is good, say 3-4 lbs) 1 large onion, diced 2 green bell peppers, chopped 1.5 Tbs olive oil 1 large (28 oz) can and 1 small (15 oz) can of whole peeled tomatoes, undrained, coarsely chopped (I use kitchen shears to snip them up while still in the can to save some mess) 1 small (8 oz.) can tomato sauce 1/4 cup sugar 3 Tbs white vinegar 2 Tbs Worcestershire sauce 2 Tbs all-purpose flour 1.5 lb. white or red potatoes, peeled and cubed 1 tablespoon Cholula or similar hot sauce (if you like it spicy, add more!) 1.5 teaspoons salt 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric (Don't skip this! And watch out because it'll dye your wooden spoons yellow.) 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper 16 oz. frozen or canned corn, drained 16 oz. frozen or canned lima beans, drained

Instructions:

1. Rinse the chicken and remove any giblets, etc. Place in a deep pot and cover with water. Boil for 45 minutes or until done.
2. Remove chicken from broth and place on a plate to cool. Allow the broth to return to a boil over medium to low heat, and let it cook down until it is quite concentrated, boiled down to about two cups.
3. Skin, bone, and chop chicken. Don't chop it up too small or it will all disintegrate later when reheated. One inch cubes are good.
4. Cook the onion and bell pepper in the oil in the bottom of a large soup pot (this is a great recipe for a big enameled cast-iron pot if you have one, but any large pot will do, really, even the one you boiled the chicken in). When softened, add the chopped cooked chicken, both undrained cans of tomatoes, the tomato sauce, sugar, vinegar and Worcestershire sauce.
5. Carefully scoop about 1/2 a cup of your reduced chicken broth from the pot it's been simmering in, into a glass measuring cup. Add the flour and whisk until smooth. Stir into the chicken mixture. If there are a few lumps, don't worry, just stir things around and it will incorporate.
6. Add the rest of the reduced chicken broth, as well as the potatoes, hot sauce, salt, turmeric, and pepper.
7. Cover and cook over medium heat until the potatoes are fork-tender. This can take anywhere from 20-40 minutes depending on your potatoes. When this is done and you are about 10 minutes away from serving, add the drained corn and lima beans, and continue to cook for the remaining 10 minutes or so. This is fairly forgiving if you need to leave it on the stove on low for a bit.

Serve over rice or with warm crusty bread.

Again, this reheats beautifully. We have frozen single servings of it to have as a quick go-to meal for later, and it's one of my favorite things to see a stack of these in the freezer!

If you have a favorite recipe you'd like to share with our readers, please submit it here or email us at: submissions@themotherhoodcollective.org