Tag Archives: winter soup

Leek Soup with Fried Sage

Posted on by October 31, 2015

This Leek Soup with Fried Sage is velvety, savory, smooth, and delicious. It’s easy to make in the large quantity I have it scaled for in this recipe. This way you can eat what you like and the freeze the leftovers. This Leek Soup with Fried Sage freezes really well, like many soups, for that matter. In fact, I made this soup a couple of weeks before I needed it for my Scandinavian Thanksgiving Menu and simply pulled it out of the freezer and reheated it the day of the feast. I love cooking ahead for big deal meals; it’s so helpful for stress management a.k.a. hanging out with your guests drinking Rhubarb Lillet Rose Aquavit Spritzers, which is really what you should be doing anyway when you have a big party, right? The good news is that you can make the garnish ahead of time as well. The pretty green sage provides some visual interest and awesome texture, but this simple soup is still delicious without it if you want to keep it really simple or sage isn’t your thing. I think it would be great to try this Leek Soup with Fried Sage with other fried herbs. In … Continue reading →

Chestnut Soup for Anna

Posted on by January 13, 2015

Not only is December chestnut season, and not only do I love them and all excuses to make chestnut recipes, but my dear friend Anna has just given birth to a beautiful son, and the only thing she has ever asked from me (from a culinary perspective) is for Chestnut Soup. Okay, that’s not quite the whole story, she actually said that the soup was so good that it inspired her to want to bathe in it, and gee, could I make that happen? So when her son was born, I knew just what to do, and I bet you have already guessed that it involved this Chestnut Soup for Anna. You know how you’re supposed to bring presents and casseroles etc. when your friends give birth? And then everyone brings lasagnas all at once, right at the beginning while the mother and the mother-in-law are still hovering close by? Well, that’s not when I stop in with food. I wait. I wait until the mothers have left and maybe dad is back to work and then I bring soup. In perfect single serving containers and I fill the freezer with it. So for Anna, it had to be Chestnut … Continue reading →

Kitchen Sink Black Bean and Ham Soup

Posted on by January 26, 2015

When it comes to using up leftover Easter Ham, it doesn’t get much better, or much easier than Kitchen Sink Black Bean and Ham Soup. And I got to run down some of the odds and ends I’d stashed in my freezer. That’s not to say that this improvised cooking project didn’t require a little creativity and flexibility. In one of my previous lives, I was a high school English teacher, and I taught Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. To introduce the book, I’d always start with Robert Burns poem, To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough. I often quote from his beautiful poem, (from which Of Mice and Men takes its name) when things don’t work out as I’ve expected. In my terrible Scottish accent I say, “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men Gang aft agley.” That phrase inspired a whole category of recipes I call “Gang aft agley” and it includes Beet Gnocchi, an amazing artichoke tale you can read all about before making Artichoke and Preserved Lemon Soup and to a lesser degree, this Kitchen Sink Black Bean and Ham Soup. I started in the crockpot, but I didn’t end … Continue reading →