Fall Harvest Soup

Poor Mr.Surly, I haven’t made a full dinner in months. I'm not sure how much longer he can get by on my spartan dinners. I’ve been busy with hospital tests and doctor appointments and when I get home the last thing on my mind is food. All I want to do is to crawl onto the couch with my beloved heating pad and relax. Finally, all my medical appointments are winding down; my last 2 appointments are next week. By Wednesday I should know whether it’s a bad kidney or a bad pancreas that is causing my abdominal pain. Not sure at this point which option would be better. At least by knowing I can stop worrying about it and the doctors can start treating it properly. Then I can get back into cooking and baking. Sorry, about my medical rant; I'm just frustrated about it.

On a happier, seasonal note, I love the flavors of fall: pumpkin, apples, and especially acorn squash; warm, spiced comfort food. Lacking inspiration and feeling lazy, I decided to take some of my favorite fall foods and add them all together in a soup. It turned out creamy, dreamy, and delicious. Most importantly, for me, this was easy to make, yummy to eat, and caused minimal abdominal pain and bloating. Yay.

The soup is sweet from the apples and apple juice and gets a nice kick from the cayenne pepper. It is creamy enough that you don’t need to add the cream. I only added it because I need the extra fat and calories, since I'm still trying to gain weight.

Lemon-Garlic Chicken Noodle Soup

I wasn’t even considering posting this soup because it’s not very visually appealing. I didn’t give it much thought, to me it was just soup. But Mr. Surly raved so much about it, I thought I’d better hurry and post it before I forgot what I did. I had to hurry and get a picture of it, so I apologize for the unappetizing photo.

I love the depth of flavor the roasted garlic adds, while the addition of lemon brightens the flavor. I’ve seen tri colored egg noodles, which would be pretty in this, but I didn’t have any. All I had were boring whole wheat noodles.

I add leeks and cabbage since they are natural diuretics, thereby decreasing any abdominal bloating. No matter what I eat or drink, my abdomen still swells up after just a couple bites or sips of food. It’s painful and frustrating, so I’m trying to consume natural diuretics to help reduce the bloat. If you don’t like cabbage, it’s not a necessary ingredient to the soup, though red cabbage would look nice in it. I try to use leeks instead of onion, because onions just add to my tummy distention. But if you want, onion could be used instead of leeks.

French Onion Soup

I have never been a fan of onions and, until last year, I’ve never eaten french onion soup. The idea of eating onions in broth never appealed to me. Last winter Mr. Surly asked if I would make him some french onion soup; he’s a fan. I decided to use a Williams Sonoma recipe, because, even though some of their recipes are a bit involved, they always taste fantastic. Luckily, this recipe is easy, it just cooks for a long time. I hate onions but I love the soft, caramelized onions in this soup. This is a staple for us when it’s chilly outside and we want a nice, light soup to warm us up.

Butternut Squash and Apple Soup

I’m still not really feeling much like being in the kitchen. Due to Mr. Surly being out of town on business for a couple days this week, I didn’t have to make any food. But when he returned I had to make something so I chose to make an easy, quick soup. The addition of the apple and apple juice adds a nice sweetness to this soup. It’s yummy as is, but I’m trying to experiment with different spices to try to jazz it up. This time I added cumin (probably my favorite spice), turmeric and a pinch of cayenne to give it a nice kick. Mr. Surly ate so much of this for dinner that I was lucky to get a picture of it before it disappeared.

Curried Carrot Soup

I’ve been making this soup for a long time; it’s one of Mr. Surly’s favorites. A few times he has eaten the entire pot of soup in one evening (he ate nothing else but this soup and bread). When I made this recent batch, he came home from working out and declared he would probably eat the entire pot of soup. Fortunately I made a huge salad for him to eat, so I have leftovers of the soup. I am amazed at the amount of food he eats. Granted, he works out every day, but still. When we first moved in together it seemed like I was always running out of food. But now, 2 years later, I have learned how to gauge his appetite better to make sure I feed him enough for dinner, so he isn’t foraging for food an hour later.

This is a great soup to make if you don’t feel like being in the kitchen; there is little prep work involved and it cooks quickly. It’s also pretty spicy, so I usually have naan, pitas, or some other type of bread to serve along with it. The greek yogurt helps to cool down your palate from the spiciness of the soup. Of course you can use sour cream instead, but greek yogurt tastes similar and is much healthier.

Chicken Tortilla Soup

I love a good chicken tortilla soup. When I lived up north I often would go to Max and Erma’s and get a bowl of their chicken tortilla soup to go. Mmmm, my mouth is watering just thinking about that soup, Max and Erma’s serves the tastiest chicken tortilla soup I’ve ever had; it’s one of their most popular menu items. I’ve never tried to make it myself because most recipes have a long list of ingredients and being the lazy person I am, just never felt like putting forth the effort. Lucky for me I came across this recipe while browsing on Food Network. It got great reviews, looked fairly simple, and had a relatively simple list of ingredients. It ended up being really good; great flavor. However, I would have liked a bit more of a spicy kick to it. Maybe next time I make it I’ll add a serrano pepper or some adobo sauce. I made this as part of our cinco de mayo fiesta, so the chicken breast I used was seasoned with cumin, ancho chile, salt and pepper, since I was also making chicken enchiladas. I think the chicken could also be omitted without sacrificing any flavor.

Black Bean Soup with Cumin Crema

I love black beans. So healthy, so tasty, so economical, what’s not to love? I’m always on the lookout for new ways to incorporate them into my diet. I like things spicy, if spice isn’t your thing just decrease the amount of chipotle pepper and adobo sauce. I wouldn’t eliminate them all together because they provide a nice smoky flavor. I normally add red wine and lime, but I didn’t have them on hand this time, and I didn’t feel like running out to the store. It still tasted great, you really couldn’t tell that they were missing. Serve with tortilla chips or some bread (pita or naan). And of course, sour cream can be used instead of greek yogurt. This could be used as a healthy black bean dip. I’d just add some more tomato paste to thicken it up, or simmer uncovered to reduce the liquid. To make it vegan either omit the yogurt or use a dairy-free substitute. Yummy.

Pressure Cooker Chili

Most chili is made using a combination of ground beef, beans, and tomatoes. Since I am grossed out by the texture of ground beef, my chili usually is just a bunch of beans and tomatoes tossed into a pot and simmered with spices. Mr.Surly's brother told us about this chili recipe from Alton Brown that uses chunks of stew meat instead of ground beef and contains no beans. At first I was skeptical. How could chili have no beans? Could I tolerate chunks of beef in my chili? After one bite all my doubts were gone. This chili is awesome; it’s spicy and the meat is so tender you can cut it with a spoon. Trust me, you won't miss the beans in this, and like us, you'll be making it again and again. We use a Cuisinart electric pressure cooker we bought last year from Williams Sonoma. If you prefer a thinner chili consistency decrease the amount of tortilla chips and tomato paste.

Spring Vegetable and Bean Soup

This soup was surprisingly flavorful for how simple and easy it was to prepare. The original recipe called for fresh tomatoes, but since it's winter and tomatoes are not in season, I used canned. I also added a potato since I didn't have any cauliflower. I wish I had a sweet potato on hand to use instead of a yukon gold, it would have added a nice color. I would also like to experiment with different vegetables, like butternut squash or acorn squash. You could also use chicken broth instead of the vegetable broth, if desired.

Spinach and Lentil Soup

Lately I’ve been making a lot of soups/stews because they’re quick, easy, and we can eat leftovers another night, thus saving me a day in the kitchen. I have been looking through a lot of cookbooks, magazines, blogs, etc looking for soup recipes that look interesting. I read good reviews about Jamie Oliver’s book Jamie's Diet Revolution and decided to buy it. It’s really good. He gives great tips and the recipes are basic enough that you can adapt them to your own personal tastes; I love recipes that are adaptable to what you have in your kitchen. I’ve only had time to try a few recipes and thus far they have been great. However, this one really stood out as being extra delicious. 

I saw that it served 6-8 and decided not to halve the recipe because I planned on freezing some of it to have on a night that I didn't feel like cooking. But once I made it, Mr.Surly ate so much of it that there wasn’t enough left over to save. I added some of my favorite spices to the recipe to liven it up a bit. We really liked the cumin flavor. I can’t wait to try more of the recipes in this book.