Basic Italian Sausage Soup: A Template

So here's a new idea: a recipe template. I'm going to list ingredients as categories and give acceptable ranges of volume. Then you can freely adapt the template to work with whatever you have on hand, and vary it to make it interesting.

Ingredients:

1 package hot or sweet Italian chicken sausage

1 or 2 onions, white or yellow (red doesn't always work unless you add olives)

Garlic. Use ONE of the following:

- If fresh, 4 or more cloves. 

- If powdered, 2 or more teaspoons. 

- If paste, 1 or more teaspoons.

(OPTIONAL) 1/4 cup cooking wine or sherry

Dried Herbs. Use any or all of the following:

- 1/2 tsp oregano

- 1 tsp parsley

- 1/4 tsp powdered rosemary OR 1/2 tsp whole rosemary

- 1/2 tsp thyme leaves

Tomatoes. Use ONE of the following:

- 1 can diced

- 4 fresh plum tomatoes, chopped and seeded

- 2 tbsp Tomato Paste

(OPTIONAL) Additional Vegetables. Use any or all of the following:

- 1 cup chopped zucchini

- 1 fennel bulb, thinly sliced

- 1/4 cup black olives, or to taste

- 1 summer squash, chopped

- 3 carrots, sliced

- 2 celery stalks, sliced 

8 ounces greens: spinach, chard, kale, etc. Frozen works well. Avoid delicate greens like arugula.

1 or 2 cans of beans, rinsed and drained. Use any of the following, or a combination:

- kidney beans

- cannellini beans

- navy beans

- lima beans (frozen, not canned, the canned ones are gross)

- butterbeans

(OPTIONAL) Squeeze of lemon, recommended only if you omitted the wine

(OPTIONAL) Cooked pasta

Preparation:

Slice the sausage and sautee in a large soup pot with a little olive oil until browned. Remove to a plate.

Sautee the onion and, if you're using fresh garlic, the garlic too until beginning to soften. Add the wine, if you're using it, and scrape the pot to get any browned bits. 

Add any other chopped vegetables you're using EXCEPT greens. Add the broth, tomatoes, and the herbs.

Bring to a boil, then turn the heat down and simmer until the vegetables are almost done. 3 or 4 minutes for delicate vegetables, 8 minutes if you've got carrots. Stir often to check progress.

Add the greens. Return to a boil and cook until greens are tender, about 2 minutes, but maybe a little longer for kale.

Add the beans. If you're using pasta, add that too. If you're using lemon, now's the time--don't go overboard though!

Serve. If you can eat cheese, this is great topped with parmesan, romano, provelone, manchego, or most Greek cheeses.

This soup stores well. Freeze leftovers or keep in the fridge. It gets better the next day.

Salmon Bisque

Yum. Works with frozen salmon just fine, but not canned. This looks super fancy, with a lovely peach-pink color, and tastes creamy and satisfying. It's impressive enough for company, but it's actually not hard to make, and you can prepare it the day before and reheat it.

Ingredients:

1 lb salmon, cooked and flaked
1 onion, chopped
3 stalks celery, chopped
3 carrots, chopped
1/2 tbsp minced garlic
2 cups chicken broth
1/4 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp paprika
2 Yukon Gold potatoes, or your favorite potatoes, chopped
4 ounces cream cheese or neufchatel
2 tbsp table cream (media crema) or additional cream cheese or heavy cream
1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 of a can of diced tomatoes or 2 tbsp tomato paste
Salt

Sautee the onion, celery, and carrot in a little butter until tender. Add broth, garlic, thyme, and paprika. Simmer until vegetables are very tender, about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, steam the potatoes until just tender, about 12 minutes. Don't overcook.

When the vegetables are done, add the cream cheese, table cream, Worcestershire sauce, and lemon juice. Puree the mixture with an immersion blender, a regular blender, or a food processor until smooth. Pour through a sieve to remove any fibrous bits (optional).

Return to the pot and add the potatoes. Taste and add salt or pepper if you like. Reheat if necessary.

Add the flaked salmon and serve.

About the salmon: 
You can prepare it any way you like, or use leftovers from another meal, as long as it's relatively simple - no crazy sauces that will conflict with the flavor of the soup. The way I made it was I just brushed it with oil, sprinkled salt and garlic powder on it, and baked it at 425 for 11 minutes.

Hearty Mexican Chard & Chickpea Soup

A recipe modified in enough ways that I consider it mine at this point, it's fast (15 minutes if you're good!) and easy, not to mention satisfying. A good way to get some greens and fiber, too.

Ingredients:
1 head Swiss chard, doesn't matter what kind - the stems lose their color when boiled, so if white is cheaper, then just buy white
1 small can chickpeas
1 large onion
3 cloves garlic
2 cups broth, chicken or vegetable
1 tsp cumin
1/4-1/2 tsp ground chipotle pepper, or 1-2 canned chipotle peppers, seeded and minced
1 brick pepper jack cheese (low-fat works well here)
1/2 brick regular monterey jack cheese (low-fat works well here)
(Note that the cheeses must be bricks, not shredded.)

Tear the chard leaves into bite-sized pieces and set aside. Slice the ribs like celery and set aside, separate from the leaves.

Chop the onion and the garlic and sauté in olive oil over medium heat until the garlic is translucent. Add the spices and the broth and bring to a boil.

Once boiling, add the chard ribs and boil for 4 minutes. Then add the leaves and boil for another 2 or 3 minutes, or until all the vegetables are tender.

Remove from heat and add the chickpeas I do it this way so that the chickpeas cool the soup slightly, so it's ready to eat without needing an ice cube to cool it. If you don't intend to serve it immediately, or if you enjoy burning your tongue on your soup (weirdo) then add the chickpeas along with the leaves and boil an extra minute to warm them.

Cut the cheese into cubes about half an inch wide. Put 1/4 of the cheese cubes in the bottoms of 4 soup bowls and ladle the soup on top.

Frankly, you had me at "cheese cubes."

A note on chipotle peppers: Chipotle has recently come into vogue. Even McDonald's has chipotle-flavored stuff now. The chipotle pepper is a smoked red jalapeno. If you are familiar with jalapenos, then you can safely use them equivalently in terms of heat.

Until recently, I could only find these peppers in cans of adobo sauce, which was annoying because I never used the whole can before it went bad, and also I had to wear gloves to handle them or inevitably the pepper's heat would find its way into some tiny cut I didn't know I had and I'd be running around the kitchen yelling about how I should have worn gloves. Now, though, McCormick's Spices sells ground dried chipotle peppers and suddenly chipotle is SUPER easy to use. (Although I personally buy mine from Penzey's, I'm sure McCormick's is fine.) Try a sprinkle atop eggs, in anything mexican or beef-based, and on top of chef's salads!

Chicken, Mushroom and Parsnip Soup

Cook Light's holiday edition has arrived in my mail and with it a new collection of recipes for my favorite food season. I tried this recipe tonight and it was so easy, tasty, and unique that I will be prepping it many times in the future, I suspect. As always, I didn't quite follow the recipe, so here is my version.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp butter or Smart Balance or olive oil (I used butter, recipe called for olive oil)
3/4 cup sliced shallots, about 2
3/4 cup sliced parsnips, about three or four
1 turnip about the size of a lemon, diced into 1/2 inch pieces
2 packages presliced white mushrooms, or 1 package mushrooms, sliced
1 minced garlic clove, or a scant teaspoon of minced garlic
1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
1/2 tsp minced dried porcini mushroom (optional but delicious)
The breast meat from a rotisserie chicken, chopped
Ground pepper to taste
Dash of ground chipotle pepper - if you don't have chipotle, use cayenne, or omit
1/4 tsp thyme leaves
3 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

Melt the butter in a large pot, and sauté the mushrooms, parsnips, turnip and shallots until the mushroom liquid is mostly evaporated.

Add the remaining ingredients, and simmer about 10 minutes or until the turnips and parsnips are tender, stirring frequently.

You may have noticed that I didn't call for much broth. This is because I don't really make soups, as such, but rather make braised dishes. This necessitates more stirring to keep the cooking even, but it produces a more concentrated and delicious broth, and it is much easier to eat. I don't like to drink broth and so if there's too much of it, it just goes to waste. Unless you really love drinking the leftover broth in your soup, I suggest you try making your favorite soup recipes with as little as half the called-for amount of liquid. You may be surprised at how good it is!