Giving Thanks: Creamy Apple, Leek and Brie Soup

Earlier this fall, I had reconsructive surgery to fix the issues caused by my weight loss. I spent most of my seemlingly-endless-recovery (which really was as long as the surgeon told me it would be, even though I totally thought he was nuts and I'd be back up-and-attem in a couple of weeks) in a recliner in the living room, watching the ID channel and cruising Facebook and Pinterest.

Pinterest. Such a simple concept - an online picture version of "favorites," organizable however you wish. To me... the best internet invention. Ever. Little by little, new recipes I've seen on Pinterest have started slipping into our regular dinner rotation. Falling into a same-old-same-old routine in the kitchen happens to the best of us, and for me, Pinterest is the ultimate for rut-busting. No matter how much my family enjoys a particular dish, there's an extremely fine line between last week's "YUM!" and this week's "AGAIN?" These people are a pack of wolves and will turn on me in a heartbeat.

Last year I told you about my tradition of serving a cup of soup before every Thanksgiving meal. In 2011, it was a Warm-Spiced Roasted Cauliflower Soup. This year I wanted something a little more decadent, and frankly, a little bad-for-you. To the Pinterest Bat Cave!! Somewhere in there I had pinned a very pretty picture of a Roasted Apple, Brie & Thyme Soup from the Spice or Die blog. The concept of an Apple and Brie Soup was exactly what I wanted to serve for Thanksgiving. Creamy, rich, and layered with the flavors of caramelized onions, apples, and cheesy goodness. My version really isn't anything like the original, but a Pinterest nod and thank you for the inspiration.

Creamy Apple, Leek, and Brie Soup
Inspired by Spice or Die

2 T. extra-virgin olive oil
2 T. butter
2 c. diced yellow onion (around 1 large onion)
2 c. sliced leeks (about 1 large leek, white and light green parts only, slice in half and fan out under running water to clean thoroughly)
2 stalks celery, chopped
3 large Granny Smith apples, peeled, quartered, cored and chopped
2 t. fresh thyme leaves
3 T. flour
1 c. hard apple cider
4 c. chicken broth
1 lb. brie, rind removed, cut into 1/2 inch cubes (cut when cold, then set aside to come to room temp while you reaheat the soup)
1 c. heavy cream
Parsley-Thyme Oil (optional)

Heat a heavy-bottomed soup pot over medium-low. Add olive oil and butter and melt, then add the yellow onions. Turn the heat down to low and caramelize the onions. Cook them low and slow, stirring frequently, until they are golden brown and soft. This process can't be hurried, it took me about 30 minutes.

Once the onions are caramelized, stir in the leeks, celery, apples, and thyme. Sautee until the vegetables start to soften, around 8-10 minutes. Stir in the flour and cook 30 seconds to 1 minute, until the flour has lost its raw taste. Add in the hard cider and stir it all together. It will foam up at this point, but it's all good. Add the chicken broth, and simmer the whole thing until the vegetables are good and soft, about 30 minutes more. Remove from heat, and let cool slightly.

I used my immersion blender to blend the soup at this point. Mine is amazing and awesome and purchased for me by my in-laws. If yours is more decorative than powerful, you may wish to blend in batches in your blender. But however you choose, blend the soup well until smooth.

The soup can (and for maximum flavor, should) be made one day ahead at this point and chilled.

Reheat soup gently until hot. Add cubed room-temperature brie cheese and stir and stir and stir until the cheese is mostly melted. I had impatient Thanksgiving guests, so near the end, I used the immersion blender one more time to get everything combined. Add the cream, and bring back temp to hot (not boiling) top with a drizzle of the parsley-thyme oil if you're using it, and serve.

Parsley-Thyme Oil (optional)

1/2 c. chopped fresh Italian parsley
2 T. fresh thyme leaves
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Combine all 3 ingredients in a blender and blend, scraping down sides of blender as needed. Let sit 10-15 minutes, then strain mixture through a fine strainer, pressing on solids. Use the lovely green oil, discard the solids.

Procrastination Soup: Farro and Dried Cranberry Soup with Kale

Apparently I am not good at multi-tasking my life. I can blog as long as I'm not teaching... but I seem to have some sort of blog-fail option that kicks in once I start teaching again... I'm sure it's poor time management on my part.

Well, that and the fact that I currently have 100 seventh-grade language arts students. It took a good two weeks in this position before I had the head-slap moment of realization that every time I had them turn in anything, no matter how small, it generated ONE HUNDRED items for me to correct.

It's a balancing act, I tell you. I need to see their work, and I need to spend time reflecting on each one individually, but if I'm not careful, my bookbag floweth over. Take this weekend, for example. I have two assignments that need to be corrected. Doesn't sound bad, until you multiply 2 x 100. You don't have to be a math teacher to figure out those numbers. Ugh.

I'm queen of the procrastinators. And I rationalize. A lot.

So I made soup instead!

A November kind of soup. Creamy and tangy and full of unusual ingredients! I'm pretty proud of this soup - it's all mine, from the farro to the dried cranberries soaked in raspberry vinegar. What's farro? Here's how I described it on facebook to a friend... "Farro is a grain like barley, but it kicks barley's ass. Chewier, nuttier. It's like brown rice on the best kind of steroids."

And I added sage, because sage is so very November-y.

And kale, because I'm renaming the blog Kale-a-Woman.

Farro and Dried Cranberry Soup with Kale
Serves 4-6

2 T. butter
1 medium yellow onion, diced (about 2 cups)
1 large carrot, diced
1 stalk celery, diced
1 T. chopped fresh sage
1 clove garlic, pressed through a garlic press
1 T. flour
1 c. farro, soaked in cold water one hour, then drained and rinsed
1 c. dried cranberries, soaked in raspberry vinegar (or balsamic) for one hour, drained and RESERVE the vinegar
5 c. chicken broth (or vegetable broth)
1/2 c. heavy cream
2 c. chopped kale, washed, center ribs removed, and chopped small.
3 T. of the reserved vinegar from the cranberry soak

Rinse 1 c. of farro and then place in a bowl and cover with water to soak for one hour. At the same time, place 1 c. dried cranberries into a bowl and cover with raspberry vinegar (or balsamic vinegar) and set aside to soak for one hour.

Drain and rinse farro. Drain cranberries into a separate bowl. Reserve vinegar.

Melt butter in a heavy soup pot over medium heat until melted, but not browned. Add diced onions and cook, stirring frequently, until softened and translucent, around 8-10 minutes. They should be tender, but not browned. Stir in carrot and celery and sautee until tender, around 3 more minutes. Stir in sage and garlic and sautee until fragrant, around 30 more seconds.

Stir in flour, and stir and stir until flour is cooked and has lost its raw taste, around 1 minute. Add the chicken broth and the farro. Stir well and simmer around 30 minutes, stirrring occasionally, until farro is nearly tender.

Add in drained cranberries, and simmer 15 additional minutes, until cranberries start to plump up. Stir in cream and kale and simmer 10 more minutes or so, until everything is melded and yummy. Add the 3 T. of reserved vinegar and stir well. Taste and add salt and pepper, even more sage or more of the reserved vinegar if needed. Tweak the seasonings untl just right for you.

Confessions of a Soup Hoarder: Slow Cooker Pasta e Fagioli

Last weekend I started to get "the look" from Mr. Soup. Okay, fine, by the time I finished hoarding freezing the Sopa de Carnitas, I had 29 one-cup containers of soup in my freezer stash. And okay, fine, I officially ran out of my preferred soup containers and went out and bought 12 more. And okay, fine, I was already sketching out/pinning/researching the next soup I wanted to make. I still don't think there's any reason for somone to come upstairs and stand in the living room with fists on hips and demand, "Do you KNOW how much soup there is in the freezer?"

Whatever.

 

(And the answer was, yes, I knew exactly how much soup there was in the freezer.)

I can't help it this time of year. It's soup season: I love to think about it, I love to make it, I love to eat it, and okay, fine, I love to have a freezer full of it. Deal, Mr. Soup.

The good news for everyone involved is that this week I got a sudden call back to school for a 7th Grade Language Arts leave replacement. I now have an excuse to go ahead and indulge myself with another soup, because now that I'm working again, I'm whittling that stash down by one every day. (There are only 26 in the freezer now! Eek!) It is just so ridicuously handy to grab a cup of frozen soup on my way out the door each morning. Ta-da! Lunch!

Today's soup is my version of a Slow Cooker Italian Pasta and Bean Soup - Pasta e Fagioli (pronounced fah-zhool). There are a lot of recipes for this on the internet, most of which seem to be inspired by Olive Garden. I've only eaten at Olive Garden once in my life, and I hated every bite of the shrimp scampi linguine I chose, so I can't attest to their soups. I can, however, attest to the version I made. It's probably not authentic, especially as I snuck kale in there. (And if you're wondering, the answer to that one is "No, there isn't anything kale doesn't make better.") It's a hearty, flavorful bowl full of yum that makes your house smell terrific. Soup hoarders, unite!

Slow Cooker Pasta e Fagioli (Italian Pasta and Bean Soup)
Serves 6-8

1 lb. ground beef
1 large yellow onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, pressed through a garlic press
2 t. dried Italian Seasoning
1 t. red pepper flakes
2 bay leaves
2 stalks celery, diced
3 medium carrots, diced
1 can red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 can white kidney beans (cannellini), rinsed and drained
3 c. marinara sauce (I'm a big fan of Paul Newman's - but make your own if you are so inclined)
1 2-inch chunk of parmesan rind (optional)
4 c. chicken broth
1/2 c. ditalini pasta (or other small pasta)
1/2 head curly kale, washed, stems removed, and chopped (about 3 cups)

In a large sautee pan, brown ground beef over medium-high heat. Once browned, drain excess fat from pan. Turn heat down to medium and add the onion. Sautee until onion starts to soften, around 5 minutes. Add garlic, Italian Seasoning, red pepper flakes and bay leaves and continue to stir and sautee around 1 minute more, until everything is well combined and you can smell the garlic and spices.

Add the ground beef mixture to your slow cooker. Stir in the remaining ingredients EXCEPT the pasta and kale. Turn slow cooker on to low and cook for 7 hours. Add pasta and kale and cook for an additional 30 minutes, or until pasta is tender. Remove bay leaves and parmesan rind before serving.

**The pasta will absorb quite a bit of liquid, so make sure you use a small shape, or you'll end up with a squishy stew instead of a soup. Add a small amount of additional liquid when re-heating, if necessary, to re-brothify. Yes, that is too a word.

Deliberate Leftovers: Slow-Cooker Ham and Great Northern Bean Soup

It's already established I'm soup-obsessed. Clearly. I didn't make any soup over the summer, but now that the leaves are turning, it seems like it's all I think about. I'm pinning soups like mad, I'm making lists of different soup ideas I'd like to try, and I've been covertly buying used soup cookbooks from Amazon on the cheap. (The covert part of that plan hasn't worked out so well since Mr. Soup picks up the mail.)

But I've hit on a new soup strategy that has me more excited about soup than any other. Deliberate leftovers.

Take for example, today's soup. A Slow-Cooker Ham and Great Northern Bean Soup. I originally saw a picture for this here on Plain Chicken. You might remember Plain Chicken. She's the one that inflicted introduced us to Crack Bread. I won't even 'fess up to how many times I've found an excuse to make that since last Super Bowl. Woe.

But back to the soup. The picture was amazing. I wanted that. Bad. It looked like one of those things where the sum was much much greater than the parts. Just a few ingredients to simple peasant-like deliciousness. All I needed was a ham bone. Pay attention now, this is where the genius comes in! I bought a ham.

You're not impressed, I can tell. "Genius?" you're thinking, "Hardly." But you see, my family LOVES ham. All right, fine, everybody loves ham. But my family ONLY loves ham the first night hot right out of the oven. None of the crazy people that live here will lovingly take it out of the fridge on subsequent days and slice off sliver after sliver and eat it straight off the knife. (Okay, maybe one person that lives here will do that.) So when I make a ham, I get an excellent family dinner and then I have all the rest of the ham to myself. Ham joy. And yes, genius.

Slow-Cooker Ham and Great Northern Bean Soup
Adapted from Plain Chicken
Serves 6-8

1 lb. dried Great Northern Beans
1 meaty leftover ham bone
1 large onion, diced
1 t. crushed red pepper flakes
6 cups water

Sort through the beans to check for any small pebbles. Side note: I have always done this and have never once found a darn thing. Until now. Sure enough, there was an itty bitty rock in the bag.

Cover the beans with 2 inches of water and soak for a minimum of 4 hours. Drain and rinse well. (The original recipe doesn't call for the beans to be soaked at all, and I wasn't in the mood to soak overnight. Still, I worried they wouldn't truly get soft without some sort of soak. I opted to soak them for about 4 hours in the morning before I started the slow cooker up.)

Add beans, onions, and red pepper flakes to slow cooker and stir together. Nestle the ham bone into the mixture and add the water. Cook on low for 8 hours. Remove ham, let cool slightly, and then shred the meat and add it back into the pot.

That's it! 5 simple ingredients that cook all day without tending. It doesn't get much easier than that.

Back-to-School: Split Pea Soup with Shredded Ham

This time of year is getting a little bittersweet for me. First, our girls are getting so old! The oldest is starting her junior year in high school this year, and the youngest is entering 8th grade. Next year we'll have two at the high school! Me, the mother of two high school students. Huh. And the year after that? I'm not ready to mentally go there yet.

Second, I always spend the entire month of August hiking as much as possible in the annual Hike-a-Thon for Washington Trails Association. This year I hiked 70 miles in August alone, with a total of 11,500 feet of elevation gain. When September 1st hits, it's a hiking buzz kill. Not that I can't hike other times of the year, but in August I can literally hike to my heart's content, neglect all household duties, and feel not one whit of guilt! Powerful stuff.

I started back-to-school soup prep with a tasty split pea. I had a generous portion of leftover ham on the bone, and my fashion blogger friend Ellbee from a little blog told me keeps tweeting about eating split pea and frankly, the stars just seemed aligned.

There's just one problem. In general, I don't love split pea soup. I will not eat, nor tolerate, a split pea soup that is a bowl full of thick green mush. I've seen split pea that would hold a spoon vertical. That's just wrong, people. If you are that kind of split pea "soup" eater **coughMollicough**- move along. Nothing to see here folks!

This. Is. NOT. Soup.

I like brothy soups best, and I see no reason why split pea can't fit into that category nicely. So today I set out to make myself a split pea soup that suits my tastes. Hey, if I have to face children who keep getting older without my permission as well as end my wanton hiking orgy, I really have no choice but to indulge myself in soup done my way.

Now, this is soup. See, it needs a spoon!

Split Pea Soup with Shredded Ham
serves 6-8

1 T. olive oil
1 T. butter
1 large onion, medium diced (about 2 generous cups)
1 clove garlic, pressed through a garlic press
1/2 t. freshly ground black pepper
1/2 t. dried thyme
1/2 t. red pepper flakes
1/2 t. dry mustard
1 bay leaf
2 large carrots, diced
3 stalks celery, diced
16 oz. dried split peas
1 ham bone, with some meat still attached
10 c. water

Heat oil and butter over medium heat until hot, but not smoking. Add onion, and sautee until transculescent, around 6-8 minutes. Add garlic and sautee briefly until cooked, 30 seconds. Stir in all the spices and stir until the onion mixture is coated. Add the carrots and celery and split peas, and stir again until well mixed. Add in the ham bone, and then add the water.

Simmer, uncovered, until the ham is falling off the bone and the peas are just tender to the tooth, but not falling apart and getting mushy. About an hour to an hour and a half. Remove from heat. Remove ham bone from soup and let cool slightly. Shred the meat from the ham into nice chunks and stir back into the soup. Remove bay leaf and check for seasoning. I ended up adding about 1 t. salt at the end, but I didn't salt in the beginning because you never know how salty the ham will make your soup.

If you do like a thicker soup, feel free to add around 8 cups of water and simmer until your peas are mushy and thick. Just don't ask me over for dinner. :)

12 days of lunches, ready for the freezer! Soup stash joy.

Souper Bowl Sunday: Buffalo Chicken Chowder

We host a Super Bowl party every year. Some years it's just our family and our best friend and his son, and some years it's a full-fledged dealio. Either way, there are recipes I make just one time a year, and Super Bowl is that time. Chili-Bacon Breadsticks, Buffalo Chicken Dip, and my mom's deep fried Crab Puffs: these are foods you cannot eat every day.

This year, thanks to Pinterest, I added something to our annual menu that is so horrible for you that it just HAD to be delicious. A little something called Crack Bread from the blog Plain Chicken. Yeah, like you should make that a part of your regular diet! It was inhaled. Literally inhaled. The whole thing was gone in under 10 minutes and there was an actual hand slap involved when someone went for a piece that another person had their eye on. No lie.

To counteract the need for a defibrulator the Crack Bread might induce, I altered up my usual Buffalo Chicken Dip and turned those flavors - which I consider SO necessary during Super Bowl - into a soup! A chowder, to be precise.

A quick web search proved that I wasn't the first genius to come up with this plan. The blog Closet Cooking had a really good jumping off point for a version that would suit our tastes and the big game, really well.

I couldn't be happier with this Buffalo Chicken Chowder. It tasted so absolutely delicious. In fact, our best friend declared that he actually liked the soup better than our standard dip. There really can be no higher compliment! This is going to be a regular on my soup rotation. I won't even have to wait for Super Bowl to make it! Yay!

Buffalo Chicken Chowder
Adapted from Closet Cooking

1 lb. bacon, thinly sliced
2 T. vegetable oil
2 lbs. raw chicken, cut into bite-sized pieces
1/4 t. celery seed
1/4 c. butter
1 medium yellow onion, chopped (2 cups)
3 carrots, diced
3 stalks celery, diced
2 cloves garlic, pressed through a garlic press
1/4 c. flour
6 c. chicken broth
1/3 c. Frank's Original Hot Sauce (or more to taste - I ended up using a generous 1/2 cup but we like things spicy)
2 red potatoes, scrubbed, but not peeled, diced
1 c. heavy cream
4 oz. blue cheese (plus more for garnish)

Heat a wide-bottomed heavy soup pot over medium heat. When hot, add in bacon and sautee until crisp. Transfer bacon with a slotted spoon or with tongs to paper towels to drain. Reserve bacon. Wipe out the pot really well.

Heat the vegetable oil in the clean pot and when hot, but not smoking, add the chicken. Sprinkle the celery seed over the chicken evenly. Brown chicken on all sides, but don't cook it all the way through. It will get cooked again later when the soup is simmering and you don't want it to get tough. Remove chicken to a bowl, and reserve. Wipe out pot again.

Melt the butter in the pot. Add the onions and sautee until tender, around 5-6 minutes. Add in the celery and carrots, and sautee an additional 3-4 minutes. Stir in the garlic, and give a brief stir, then add in the flour and stir to coat the vegetables well and cook the raw taste out of the flour, around a minute or so.

Add in the chicken broth and scrape the bottom of the pot well. Stir in the Frank's Hot Sauce. Add in the reserved chicken and the potatoes. Bring to a simmer, and simmer 20-30 minutes, or until potatoes and chicken are cooked through.

Stir in the cream, and crumble the blue cheese in and stir until melted. Remove from heat. Add most of the bacon back into the chowder, reserving a little bit for garnish.


Serve, garnished with additional blue cheese crumbles and crispy bacon.

*** If you chill this overnight, the spice will mellow. Add additional Frank's to bring back that unmistakable Buffalo Wing flavor.

**** This makes a fairly thin chowder because that's how we like it. If you like a thick-cling-to-your-spoon chowder you can decrease the broth and/or increase the amount of roux (flour & butter mixture) you stir in.

A Chili By Any Other Name: Smoky Chipotle Pork Chili with Beans

This. Is. Awesome.

This is so awesome that my entire bean-hating-won't-eat-chili family (who are these people?) scarfed down bowl after bowl of this.

Okay, fine, I had to call it "pork stew" until after they tried it and THEN I told them it was chili... but whatever works, right?

I'll be honest. This isn't the first time I've had to use lies word-play to get my family to eat something. Words are powerful. My daughters still turn up their noses whenever I use the word "squash," but they will happily eat a bowl of Harvest Soup. Main ingredient? Butternut squash. Several years ago, my youngest spooned suspiciously through her clam chowder and asked me what the "little meaty bits" were. With no hesitation, I answered "chicken" and we were good to go. And frankly, they still don't know that three Easters ago the steak they raved about was actually lamb.

They're teens now, and not as fussy as they used to be, thank goodness. But none of them, including Mr. Soup, will touch chili with a 10-foot pole. And with the epic snowfall the week before, I knew I wanted something hearty to serve to the people who came to the Soup Swap. This chili is absolutely perfect winter food. It has great depth of flavor, falling-apart tender pork, and the exact right amount of heat. The swappers loved it. And with a little mom-perogative treachery, so did my family. Yes.

Smoky Chipotle Pork Chili with Beans
serves 8-10

1 pound bacon, thinly sliced
6 pounds boneless pork shoulder, trimmed and cut into 1-inch cubes
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 large yellow onions, chopped
3 fresh jalapeño chiles, seeded and chopped (I left some of the seeds in)
4 large garlic cloves,  pressed through a garlic press
1 T. dried oregano, crumbled
2 T. chili powder (I used ancho chili powder)
2 T.  ground cumin
1/2 t. cayenne

1/4 c. chopped chipotle peppers in adobo  (this was around 5-6 chipotles plus 2 T. of the adobo or so)
1 26-oz box Swanson's Cooking Beef Stock
1 c. strong brewed coffee (I used a Starbuck's VIA for this)

12 oz. bottle of dark beer
3 28-oz cans of crushed tomatoes
2 cans red kidney beans, rinsed and drained

2 cans black beans, rinsed and drained

Cook the bacon in a large heavy soup pot over medium heat until crisp. Using tongs or a slotted spoon, transfer to paper towels to drain and reserve until later. Pour off all but about 2 T. bacon fat. Season pork cubes with salt and pepper. Add vegetable oil to pot and heat over medium heat until hot, but not smoking. Brown the pork in batches and transfer with a slotted spoon to a plate. Don't crowd the meat or you'll end up steaming it rather than browning. Add more vegetable oil if needed for the subsequent batches. Reserve pork for later.

Add the onion and jalapeños and sautee over  medium heat, stirring, until softened, around 8 minutes. Be sure and scrape up all the fond on the bottom of the pan so that it coats the vegetables. Add garlic, oregano, chili powder, cumin, and cayenne, and chipotles, then sautee, stirring, 1 minute. Return pork to the soup pot along with any juice on the plate and add the beef stock, coffee, beer, and tomatoes.

Simmer the chili, stirring occasionally, until the pork is very tender and falls easily apart, about 2 hours. Stir both kinds of  beans and the bacon back in, and continue to simmer 20-30 minutes longer, stirring occasionally.

Serve chili with the usual chili garnishes: grated cheese, green onions, sour cream, and don't forget the cornbread!