Creamy Potato Soup (with Cauliflower, Carrots, and Onions snuck in)

I seriously have a problem. I am overcome with urges to see how many veggies I can sneak into one meal so my kids get enough vitamins and nutrients (they don't exactly like Total cereal or eating veggies, so this is how I do it.) This potato soup is really, really good, easy to make and has some great vitamins in them for the kiddos. No one guessed what "the secret ingredients" were either, they couldn't even tell.

Ingredients:
1 pouches of instant potatoes (prepared according to directions), or 4 or 5 potatoes cooked (I peel and boil them, but you could also use left over mashed potatoes)
1 cup pureed cauliflower (I cut up a large head of it, steam it, puree it, then freeze it until I am ready to use it again)
1 cup evaporated milk
8 oz. cream cheese
3 carrots, cut in chunks(or 1/2 bag of baby carrots)
1 onion, cut in chunks
4 cloves garlic
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
4 to 6 cups chicken broth (depending how thick you want your soup)
salt and pepper to taste
Bacon (optional)
Cheese (optional)
Parsley (optional)

In food processor, chop up carrots and onions (this gets them small enough so that they can't be picked out). Heat EVOO in large pot, add carrots and onions and saute for a few minutes. Add garlic. Saute for about a minute longer. While this is sauteing, prep potatoes. Add, potatoes to carrot/onion mix. Add cauliflower, chicken broth, milk. While this is heating up, cut up cream cheese and add to soup. Continue to heat, stirring often to break up pieces of cream cheese. Add salt and pepper to taste (it will need salt, for sure. Unless you use a flavored pouch of instant potatoes). If soup is too thick, add chicken broth. If it is not thick enough, add some instant potatoes. Add parsley (I don't know that it actually adds flavor, it just looks pretty). Top with Bacon and cheese.

Roasted Veggie Stew with Curry

This recipe started out at "Roasted Tomato and Eggplant Soup" from www.marthastewart.com. I found the recipe when a farmer sent 5 eggplants home with my husband one time. It was really good, but I changed it up a bit and this way was easier and has more veggies in it. I made this for a friend in WI one time and she loved it. It takes a little bit of time, but is so worth it and freezes well. Today I made a double batch, so I can freeze it. This is a soup that if you eat 1 serving of it, you are LOADED with veggies for the day. If I had fresh spinach, I would have chopped it up and tossed it in too.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 butternut squash

1 red pepper

1 eggplant

1 15 oz can of black beans

2 teaspoons or more curry powder

salt and pepper

1 28 oz can of tomatoes, undrained

4 cups chicken stock (or veggie stock)

2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

5 teaspoons of minced garlic (or 10 fresh cloves of garlic chopped)

1/2 bunch of cilantro

Slice eggplant, sprinkle with salt, and allow it to sit in a colander in the sink for about 20 to 30 minutes. Peel and cut squash into 1 inch chunks, cut pepper into chunks as well. Preheat oven to 425. Drizzle squash and pepper with half of the EVOO and put it in a rimmed cookie sheet or 9 by 13. Sprinkle with 1 teaspoon of salt and some pepper. Rinse eggplant slices and cut them into chunks. Drain beans, mix them with eggplant. Add remaining oil, curry powder, 1 teaspoon of salt, and some pepper. Put in a separate rimmed baking sheet or 9 by 13 pan. Put both pans in the oven and roast veggies for about 40 minutes stirring them a few times during cooking. In a large pot heat up the other 2 Tablespoons of EVOO, add garlic. Saute for about a minute and then turn off the heat. When veggies are done add eggplant mixture to garlic and oil. Puree squash mixture and the can of tomatoes (with the juice), add to pot. Add chicken stock. If it needs it add extra curry powder. Let is simmer for about 15 minutes. Top with half a bunch of chopped cilantro. (I take a short cut and actually put the cilantro in with the tomatoes and squash when I am pureeing them. Saves me some time).

Asparagus Soup

Asparagus has become one of my favorite veggies. When we were at the beach this summer my one sister, Kelly, made asparagus wrapped in bacon, and grilled it. It was awesome and I have loved this odd shaped veggie ever since. I was craving asparagus this week (weird pregnancy craving) and it was on sale for $1.99/lb, so we are having it this week. I made the soup for myself, doubting the kids would eat it. I will use 2 cups of it to make pesto pasta for dinner. They will never know (unless they read this).


Ingredients:
Extra virgin olive oil
1/2 sweet onion, chopped
2 pounds asparagus
2 cans chicken broth
1/2 teaspoon salt
pepper to taste
1/2 cup instant potatoes
1/2 cup fat free evaporated milk

Saute onion in olive oil until clear (you could just cut it up and throw it in the crock pot too, but I like sauted onion as oppossed to boiled). Cut hard bottoms off asparagus and discard. Cut the rest of the asparagus into chunks. Dump these and onion into crock pot. Add chicken broth and salt. Cook on high until onion and asparagus are soft (It took mine about 2 1/2 hours). Stir in instant potatoes (I added these because while the asparagus was cooking I took many tastes and felt like the soup needed to be thicker.) Let soup cool for a little while. Add milk. Puree in batches and pour into another pot. Add salt and pepper to taste. I used this soup to make pesto sauce for our pasta for dinner tonight too. I will post that recipe tomorrow.

Meatball Soup

I saw a recipe for this at a website called "The Pioneer Woman Cooks" under "Italian Meatball Soup". She has some awesome recipes. Anyway, I was intrigued. It sounded very good, but a bit too much work. For some reason I cannot make my own meatballs, they fall apart or are gross. And, I have no idea where to even purchase cheesecloth and didn't have any of the herbs on hand (the first time I made this I used Italian dressing seasoning and it was good. If you want more flavor, try that). So, here is my simplified version, and it was really good. This picture does not do it justice. The first time I made it I added the pasta (whole wheat spaghetti) and then went outside to play in the snow with the kids. When I came back inside and hour later my soup had morphed. It looked like canned pasta and meatballs. The kids still liked it, but I didn't like the mushy pasta. Lesson learned - cook the pasta and add it to the soup when you are ready to serve it. The second time was so much better and I am excited for left overs tonight.

Ingredients:
1 large onion (I prefer the big sweet onions)
1 large red pepper
3 large carrots
Olive oil
3 cans of beef broth
At least 1/2 jar of your favorite pasta sauce (After I dump the sauce I rinse it with about 1/2 cup water to get the rest that is in there and add it to the soup. You can use a full jar if you want. I had 1/2 a jar, so that is what I used.)
1 16 oz bag frozen meatballs (or 1/2 a 32 ounce bag, what I had)
small pasta of your choice, about 2 cups, cooked. (If you want more, add it)
cheese for topping
optional - fresh spinach (Frozen would work too, but fresh looks so pretty. I didn't have any this time, so my soup looks kind of blah, but it tasted awesome. ALL of the kids liked it.)

Preheat oven 425 to 450 (some cookware is not designed to cook above 425, if yours is not roast these veggies at a lower temp.) Cut up the onion and pepper, peel and slice up the carrot. Put them in a 9 by 13 pan and drizzle with 2 to 3 Tablespoons of Olive oil (or less if you want). Roast veggies in oven for 35 to 40 min, stirring once. In the meantime heat up broth and pasta sauce. In a skillet, heat up 1/2 cup to 1 cup of the broth mixture and add meatballs. Simmer meatballs until they are fully cooked. I spooned them out onto the cutting board and cut them in 1/4's so that there were more. Cook pasta. When veggies are done roasting, puree them in blender. Add veggies to broth mixture. Heat through. Add meatballs and spinach and cook for a few more minutes. Add cooked pasta right before you serve the soup. Top with Italian blend of shredded cheese. Serve with some yummy garlic bread. Enjoy!!!

Chicken and Dumplings Soup

Mike is out of town for the week at a conference, so our meals will be really simple and quick (not that I normally go all out, but the kids are kind of picky.) My friend, Juli, gave me the idea of how to make this soup. I don't have a recipe, so I just made it up. The kids like the dumpling part a lot.

Ingredients:
Chicken broth (I just used the broth I saved from cooking all of that chicken in the CP on Friday. I added some water. You will probably need at least 6 to 8cups.)
Shredded chicken (however much you want in your soup)
Celery
Carrots
Onion (I cut up my veggies, drizzled them with olive oil, and roasted them at 425 for 40 minutes stirring once. Then pureed them in the "magic bullet"
Refridgerated biscuits, cut each biscuit into sixths or eighths. (Again, use as many as you like. I used 1 roll and it was plenty)

Heat broth, cook and puree veggies. Add to broth. Add chicken and heat through, I bring mine to boil. Add biscuit dough, cover, and let soup cook until the biscuits are cooked enough (simmer about 15 minutes without lifting the lid). Serve with grilled cheese sandwiches, bread, or alone. Enjoy!!

Tortilla Soup

This is one of my favorite recipes because it is easy, I usually have the ingredients on hand, makes a lot, and it is inexpensive. This soup was so good today, after getting 18 inches of snow yesterday.
Ingredients
8 cups of Chicken Broth
2 cups cooked chicken, pork, beef (left over roast or something works great in this)
2 cups cooked beans (I prefer black beans)
1 red pepper cut in chunks
1 onion cut in chunks
Any other veggies you may want to throw in, cut in chunks (today I used carrots and left over sweet potatoes. If you want to add a couple of cloves of peeled garlic, go for it. Right now it give me heartburn)
1 pepper in adobo sauce, plus a little of the sauce (found in the latino food isle)
Freeze the rest of the peppers to use when you make this again.
2 cups cooked rice (I prefer brown)
If you want you can add a can of diced tomatoes too, really, this recipe is so flexible

Olive oil
Salt and Pepper to taste
Cilantro (Some like a little, some like a lot, some don't like any)
Cheese, tortilla chips, avocado, cilantro, sour cream for garnish
It also tastes great if you have lime wedges and sqeeze them in the soup. A nice touch.

This has several steps you can do simulateously, AKA multi tasking.
While you are cooking the rice preheat oven to 425 and cut up veggies into chunks. Put veggies in a 9x13 pan and drizzle with about 2 Tablespoons of Olive Oil. Add Salt and Pepper. Cook for 20 minutes, stir and cook for another 20 minutes. (I like to roast several veggies at a time, then puree and freeze them for later meals. Just a shortcut.)
Puree veggies in a food proccessor. (I also puree the beans so my kids don't complain about them. I choose my battles).
Once veggies and rice are done, dump all ingredients into a big pot and simmer for about 30 minutes until flavors blend. Take out the pepper, unless you have someone who is daring and wants their tongue to feel like it is on fire. They will say, like Shaun Spencer on "PSYCH" - "Did you make this with motlen lava?"
Crunch up chips in the bottom of bowls, add soup, top with whatever toppings you have. Enjoy. Freeze left overs for another meal. You may want to add water when you re heat this as the rice tends to soak up the liquid and make the soup thicker.