Tag Archives: soup

Chicken Tortilla Soup

When my oldest son left to go to University 5 years ago, I felt a deep sense of grief. I got so weepy every time I passed his empty bedroom that I had to shut the door. That sense of loss passed within a few weeks and we all got back to normal. Two years later, my middle child went off to Israel for a Gap year after high school. That sense of loss returned and I felt empty again. Her bedroom door also had to be closed, but this time the cause was mostly mess and not grief!  When my third child, the baby (now 19) moved out this past May, I followed him and moved in with him. No, I’m not making this up. I actually did sleep there for the first week. But that’s a story for another time!

Eventually I returned home. I must admit I enjoyed the sounds of silence in the house. However, it was short-lived. A week later, my middle one returned home from college for the summer.

But it is now September and all the chicks have flown the coop! I must admit that rather than feeling that deep sense of loss, I am filled with pride and joy in watching my kids make this transition successfully. That being said, when they all come home to visit, and the whole family is together under one roof, I just get that feeling that everything is good and right with the world. My friend Sharon says, that she sleeps better when all her little chicks are tucked in at home. I know just what she means.

For me, one of the biggest transitions has been learning to cook for just 2 people again. My husband will often come home and look at the big bowls and platters on the table and ask me who else is coming for dinner. One of my favourite strategies is to cook a roast chicken and eat half of it one night and then use the leftover in an entirely new way the next day. I will admit that even food writers get lazy and occasionally buy a Rotisserie chicken at the grocery store. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. 

With half a roast chicken as leftovers you are well on your way to creating any number of delicious dinners. I found a fantastic recipe for Chicken Tortilla Soup in the Ottawa Citizen Food section (September 13). The recipe, posted by Laura Robin, was created by Foodland Ontario. . As with most soups, you start with some diced onions. In the spirit of September and back to school, here is a little onion dicing lesson.

Peppers, red bell and jalapeno, add sweetness and heat.

If field fresh tomatoes are available, use them, if not, go for canned italian plum tomatoes. There is a bit of prep work involved in using fresh tomatoes. They need to be blanched, peeled and diced. Remove the cores and cut a little “X” in the other end. Gently place them in boiling water for a minute and the skins will slip off easily.

Cumin, oregano and chipotle chili powder combine to give this soup its distinctive flavour. Once all the ingredients are chopped, the soup comes together in less than 30 minutes.  

Corn and diced cooked chicken get added during the last 5 minutes of cooking. A squeeze of lime juice gives the soup a fresh acidic vibe.

Finish off with some freshly chopped cilantro and a few tortilla chips for crunch! A perfect dinner all in one bowl.

Click here to print recipe for Chicken Tortilla Soup.

Andalusian Gazpacho Soup

I literally had a gazpacho soup epiphany the first time I ate this version of it. Thick, creamy, silky, tangy, and just pure tomato goodness. I have had versions of gazpacho where all the vegetables are pulsed together in the food processor, and I have always found the texture and flavour to be murky, reminding me more of  V8 cocktail juice, than of gazpacho soup.

This gazpacho soup was served to me several years ago, at a friend’s cottage on a girl’s weekend. When I asked her how she prepared it, she said it was  pureed tomatoes, thickened with bread soaked in a little water, olive oil, sherry vinegar, garlic and cumin. This was classic gazpacho soup, prepared the Andalusian way. Andalusia is the Spanish town, where Gazpacho soup originated. I could not believe that these few simple ingredients created this astounding soup.

Now, I feel that I must disclose the event that immediately preceded the ingesting of this soup. It was a blustery day.

We all had afternoon naps and woke up feeling a little chilled, so we made a fire.  We were just beginning to prepare our cocktails, when the wind really started whipping around.  It came straight down the chimney and the cottage began to fill with smoke.  Within minutes the smoke alarm began its piercing cry and chaos ensued.  Our hostess managed to rip the smoke alarm from the wall and we opened windows and doors, but it wasn’t helping very much.

Someone suggested dousing the fire with water, but after much discussion, we decided that was a bad idea from a cleanup perspective.  Then someone suggested we use the fireplace tongs to lift the burning log, take it outside onto the deck, walk down the stairs and drop it into the lake.  This led to quite a discussion about safety.  The wind was really blowing and sparks from that log could fly off and begin a forest fire.

Finally, after about an hour and much coughing and choking, someone came up with the bright idea to use the fireplace tongs to lift the burning log, place it in a metal bucket and use that to carry it down to the lake.  All were agreed.  One person manned the tongs, the second person ran to get oven mitts (the bucket would be hot).  The third person wore the gloves and held the bucket and the fourth, opened the doors to the deck.  Mission accomplished.  The burning log was deposited safely in the lake.

Now I want you to know that we are all intelligent women, quite accomplished in our various fields, but as you may have surmised, not one of us earned a fire safety badge in Girl Scouts. However, this story perfectly demonstrates the ability women have to work together as a team to accomplish great things, like clearing a house from smoke so the cocktail hour could properly begin! After a few glasses of wine, we sat down to dinner and this gazpacho soup.

When I reflected back on the weekend, I surmised that perhaps all the excitement and wine had played tricks on my mind. There was no way that this soup was really that incredible. So I got the recipe from my friend and made it myself.

The beauty of this soup is that there is no need to peel or seed the tomatoes. Fresh ripe summer tomatoes are quartered.

Into the blender they go with a piece of baguette soaked in water, olive oil, sherry vinegar, salt, garlic and cumin.

After pureeing, the soup is poured through a sieve.

Chill and serve! While the soup is delicious as is, I love a little bit of crunch added, so I toasted up some tiny croutons and diced some cucumber and peppers.

Yes, the soup was just as delicious as I remembered.

Deeply flavourful and complex. The small amount of bread really thickened the soup and the olive oil created an emulsion that contributed to the soup’s silky texture.

Click here to print the recipe for Classic Andalusian Gazpacho Soup.

Smoky Corn Chowder

Warning… I’m going to rant like an old person, about the good old days, when you could count on certain things to same. When companies built things to last and when product consistency was a highly regarded value.  Don’t you just hate it when companies change a product, when it was perfect already. Then they go and slap a “new and improved” label on it and when I try it, I discover that the improvement has actually made the product worse, not better. Why do they insist on tinkering with something when it isn’t broken. I am referring, specifically, to Imagine Organic Creamy Sweet Corn Soup.  It used to have a mild corn flavour that I used as a base for corn chowder. I am not sure what they changed but it now has a nasty chemical aftertaste. I stopped making corn chowder after this.

But then I found a recipe in Chatelaine Magazine that uses canned cream style corn to give the soup thickness and body. I had always thought that cream style corn was corn puréed with cream, but it turns out it contains corn, water, sugar and cornstarch. It is low in fat and works beautifully to thicken a corn chowder with very little effort. The original recipe used bacon to get that smoky flavour. We keep kosher, so bacon was out of the question. For a cold winter day (like every day this winter!) I wanted to have the heaviness of a smoky soup. I decided to experiment with smoked turkey breast. I chopped up a few slices and sautéed them in some vegetable oil. Instead of onions, I opted to use leeks.  Sometimes leeks can be quite sandy, so I quarter them, slice them and then soak them in a bowl of cold water.

This is one of those simple chop and dump soups. It simmers for 20 minutes and you have a thick and hearty chowder. A bowl of this is like a big hug, warm and comforting. Add a slice or two of no-knead bread and dinner is done.

I also popped in a finely diced jalapeno pepper when I was sautéing the leeks to wake things up a bit. You could use sweet potatoes instead of white potatoes for a pretty colour contrast and to up the vitamin content. Make it today, you’ll thank me.

To print this recipe, click here.

 

 

Linda’s Corn Chowder

This recipe was inspired by my friend Linda.  She is the one who introduced me to Imagine Organic soups in tetra-pack packaging.  They come in several flavours (creamy corn, butternut squash, tomato to name a few) and are fantastic for making quick soups.  It’s a great pantry staple. 

The creamy corn does not in fact contain any cream or dairy products for that matter.  I think of these soups as a blank canvas and add in my own ingredients.  This is delicious in the summer when you can add fresh corn but I make it all year round using frozen corn too.

What you need:

3 tablespoons butter
3 small cloves garlic, finely minced
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and finely minced
1 ½ – 2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 large onion, finely diced
2 ribs celery, finely diced
1 large sweet potato, peeled and diced into ½ inch pieces
1 teaspoon fresh thyme
2 litres Imagine Organic Creamy Sweet Corn Soup
2 cups fresh or frozen corn
freshly ground black pepper, to taste

What you do:

  1.  In a large pot, melt butter and add garlic, jalapeno,  salt and onions and sauté over medium-low heat for about 2 minutes.  Add celery and cook for about 5 more minutes.  Add potatoes, thyme and Corn Soup.  Bring to a boil, turn down to low, cover and let simmer for about 15 minutes, until potatoes are tender.

   2.  Add corn and cook for about 5 more minutes. Taste for seasoning, adding pepper and more salt if needed.  Transfer one third of the soup to a blender and puree.  Add pureed soup back to the rest of soup.  Serve hot.

corn soup cropped

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