Some years back I signed up (online) for Cook’s Illustrated’s weekly email newsletter. I’ve made plenty of recipes from reading those newsletters. This last week I made yet another. It wasn’t a new recipe – – they recycle them, and this one was from 2007.  In the blurb about it, they said that so often white chicken chili ends up being kind of insipid, totally lacking in flavor, so the innovative chefs in their kitchens decided to do something about it.

In the write-up, they headed this part with Why This Recipe Works: (I’m paraphrasing here) you (1) puree some of the beans with the flavor-providing green chile/onion mixture (to give the soup more substantive texture); (2) brown, poach and shred or cube up the quickly-cooked chicken to add in later (so it doesn’t get dry or rubbery); and (3) use a variety of three chiles – poblano, Anaheim and jalapeno.

Now, they used chicken breasts, skin on, cooked it, then cooled it, removed the skin and shredded it. I had defrosted boneless skinless chicken thighs, and I had some white meat chicken in the freezer (cooked), so I combined them both. I used the same techniques, but cooked the chicken thighs a bit longer, that’s all. Meanwhile you combine a couple raw yellow onions and all the green chiles in a food processor. That gets whizzed up in the food processor – not to a puree – it needs more texture than that, but not much. Then everything is simmered for awhile with some chicken broth, garlic, cumin, ground coriander. I cubed up the chicken thighs in bite-sized pieces and it simmered for about 30 minutes. The already cooked chicken I had was added in just long enough to heat it through. Some of the cannellini beans were pureed with the onion/pepper mixture; the rest of them were added in during the 30-minute simmering portion. You add in some fresh lime juice at the end, and I garnished the chili with cilantro, minced radishes, some red bell pepper and some minced green onion. Those were my additions. The recipe includes cilantro and onion, but they stirred those into the soup just before serving. I wanted more crunch, so that’s why I included the radishes and red bell pepper and added all of those things as a garnish. The 2nd time I served this I crumbled up some tortilla chips on top too – that gave it lots of crunch. And I added a big mound of thinly sliced Romaine lettuce.

What I liked: the mellow chiles; there are a lot of chiles in this recipe and you might think it would be hot, but it wasn’t. Now, I did use just 2 jalapenos, and I think that was enough. If you want more heat, add a 3rd one. I also liked the crunch of the garnishes, but that’s totally up to you. I really liked the flavor.  It’s also quite low in calories and fat.

What I didn’t like: well, I whizzed up the chiles and onions too much. You want it to be chunky like salsa – I pulsed that food processor a few times too many. I’d have liked a bit more texture in the chili part. Just keep that in mind.

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Do you still have leftover turkey in your freezer, needing some way to use it? Try this delicious, head-to-toe-warming soup with lots of full-bodied flavor.

As soon as I read this recipe over at Kalyn’s Kitchen, I knew I’d be making it – what with leftover turkey in my freezer and all the ingredients I needed to make this.  Kalyn said the original recipe came from a Sunset cookbook. She adapted it some, and I did too. We all put our own little twist on things, don’t we? I added some peas. Some of the packaged “Minted Peas” from Trader Joe’s. Those little guys are really delicious – they’re nothing more than plain frozen peas with a few little cubes of butter with some minced mint in it. As it cooks the butter melts and provides flavor. If you don’t have a TJ’s or can’t find the minted peas, just add regular frozen peas and some fresh mint (probably about a tablespoon) in addition to the fresh cilantro. I doubled the recipe and used the full 15-ounce package of peas. Use less, or whatever you’d prefer. Another great addition to this soup would be some sugar-snap peas or Chinese pea pods (chopped). I always try to figure out a way to add some other vegetables to soup. This soup is fairly carb-centric if you don’t. And peas just added to the carbs as well.

The making of this soup is a slight bit different – you start with some chicken broth – add some coins of fresh sliced ginger and fresh garlic – plus some soy sauce and freshly squeezed lime juice. That simmers for awhile, then you add in light coconut milk, some brown sugar or Splenda, the cubed or shredded turkey or chicken meat and allow that to simmer briefly. Add in a few seasonings, then the cooked rice only long enough to heat it through. That’s when I added the peas – but I really dislike peas that have cooked much – they turn gray. Not appealing. So in this soup you heat through the peas and serve it right away quick with some fresh cilantro sprinkled on top. This soup came together in less than 30 minutes. I served it with a slice of fresh ciabatta bread and that was dinner. I have enough leftover for another dinner for 2 and a package I’ll freeze to serve 2. Doubling the recipe serves 6 if you’re eating it as dinner.

If these flavors appeal to you, I’m sure you’ll like it. Thanks, Kalyn, for a great recipe.

What I liked: how easy it was to put together. It’s full of flavor too. Loved the peas in it with the addition of mint. And a great use of leftover Thanksgiving turkey!

What I didn’t like: nothing at all.

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There are a couple of secret ingredients in this soup that help to make this soup an over-the-top version. First – a tiny little glug of soy sauce. Second – a little amount of dried porcini mushrooms  that are ground up to a powder. Who’d think those two things could make such a difference?

When I made this about a week ago, I was recovering from a cold, and some good, hot vegetable soup sounded so restorative to me. And I had about a quart of turkey stock in the refrigerator, leftover from Thanksgiving. It needed to be used, or else frozen. Then I read my most recent issue of Cook’s Illustrated (the Nov/Dec 2011 issue) and there was a long article about vegetable soups. I read it from beginning to end. In it, the author labored long and hard over how to enhance a vegetable soup. He added this and that. He discarded a number of sample batches. But he finally determined that adding in a hint of soy sauce just gave the soup that umami taste we’re all looking for. And the same with the porcini mushroom powder. I’ll have to remember that idea because you could easily add some of that to almost any soup.

So, for this big batch of soup that serves at least 6-8 for a dinner meal, you add just two teaspoons of soy sauce and also 2 teaspoons of porcini mushroom powder (you make this yourself in your spice grinder). That’s not much – but I assure you, it makes a difference. The recipe also has you make a little compound butter (butter, lemon zest, fresh thyme and a tiny bit of lemon juice) which you can spoon onto the top of the soup when it’s served. The butter is hard to see it in my photo at top – it’s just to left and slightly below the center of the soup bowl. And to tell you the honest truth, I couldn’t taste the butter, but there’s only 2 T. of butter used to sweat the veggies at the beginning – that’s it. A very low fat soup! I also added some shiitake mushrooms to this soup. Those weren’t in the original recipe, but I had them on hand and they needed to be used up. Other than that one thing, the recipe below is made exactly to the Cook’s Illustrated one. The soup has a lot of carbs in it – potatoes, turnips, carrots, barley (I used farro because that’s what I had on hand) and peas.

What I liked: doesn’t it always end up being about the taste? It does for me. As I write this, we enjoyed this soup just last night but this won’t post until next week sometime. But I can’t wait to have it again. Fortunately there’s a lot of it. I may freeze one bag and eat the other one sooner rather than later. I may add some green veggies to it next time (like some sugar snaps, maybe green beans just at the end). I like a veggie-laden soup and this one is more carb-laden. Serve this with some bread, or maybe a toasted cheese sandwich. Delish.

What I didn’t like:  well . . .when I make it again I’ll reduce the amount of soy sauce by just a little bit. I could taste it. It wasn’t bad, but I didn’t think I should be able to taste it! A great soup, though and worth making. It does take some time doing all the sous-chef thing with chopping, peeling, etc. Be prepared to spend at least an hour overseeing the cooking of it. If you have a kitchen helper, enlist the help to peel and chop!

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Our friend James, who used to be a professional chef, was telling me recently about his mother’s Chili Verde. I have a recipe for Crockpot Chili Verde on my blog already – also made with pork – and it actually has more ingredients in it than this one. It’s been awhile since I’d made it, so when James was describing his mother’s and how he slurped it up with some tortillas, it got my mouth to watering. A few days later James handed me his mom’s recipe and I set out to make this version.

Chili verde (green chili) is a moderately to extremely spicy Mexican and Mexican-American stew or sauce usually made from chunks of pork that have been slow-cooked in chicken broth, garlic, tomatillos, and roasted green chiles. Tomatoes are rarely used. The spiciness of the chili is adjusted with poblano, jalapeño, serrano, and occasionally habanero peppers. . .  this came from Wikipedia.

And yes, that describes it perfectly! Chunks of pork (shoulder or stew meat) that’s cooked with some broth, onions, garlic, cumin. After browning the meat well (which will give it plenty of flavor) you add in all those other ingredients and simmer for half an hour. Then you add in some poblano chiles, a jalapeno or two, a yellow bell pepper (gives it nice color) and a whizzed up mixture of fresh tomatillos and cilantro. That simmers for 30-45 minutes and it’s done. Since I always think stews and soup mixtures taste much better the next day, I made it a couple of days ahead, actually, through the first simmering instructions. Then I added the fresh chiles, tomatillos and cilantro and finished it off.

I had on hand some really good tortilla chips, so they were crushed in my hands and sprinkled on top, along with some shredded Jack cheese and a little sprinkling of cilantro. And I served it with a buttered flour tortilla on the side. Delicious. The only change I made to the recipe was using pork broth (I have one of Penzey’s jars of pork soup base) but chicken broth is what’s in the original recipe. Don’t overcook the pork – it will get dry and stringy. Total cooking time is about an hour or so. After the stew was cooked, I cut the pork chunks into smaller bite-sized pieces, and removed the last traces of fat.

What I liked: the rich flavor – much of it from browning the meat very well – that fond in the pan provides so much good taste. It was easy to make too. Great as a leftover meal as well.

What I didn’t like: really nothing. Know that the broth is just that – broth – it isn’t a thick soup, although the tomatillos and cilantro add some good texture to it. That’s why I added the crushed tortilla chips to the soup – they give it texture as well.

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To tell you the truth, a potato-based soup isn’t one of my favorite things. Not that I don’t like potatoes. I do. But I don’t eat them all that much. I actually try not to eat them. And potato soup sometimes is so bland that I’d just as soon not have it. It’s like a waste of calories for me. So, I wasn’t expecting great things from this soup, made by Tarla Fallgatter, at a recent cooking class. And, in fact, when I had it just after it was made, I was under-whelmed. But because the class was held at my house, I got to keep the leftovers. This bowl shown above resided in the refrigerator for 2 days and I heated it up for my lunch. And it was really, really good. Good enough that I decided you should have the recipe. And good enough that perhaps I’ll make it one day soon on a coolish Fall day.

The soup is very simple to make. Really. It’s just apples, fennel, leeks and potatoes, almost in equal quantities, with some parsley, chicken stock, a little splash of cream, salt, pepper and butter. See? Easy. You do puree the soup in a food processor, and it’s nice if you have a little bit of reserved fennel fronds, plus a couple little chunks of fennel and apple to sprinkle on top. That’s it. Delicious. Hearty.

What I liked: comfort food. Easy to make. Do make it a day ahead, however. Remember that part.

What I didn’t like: nothing really. Flavors are subtle, perhaps, but that’s not really a detriment.

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What better way to use leftover pork chop meat than in a soul-warming soup with onion, carrots, celery, garlic, ginger, lemon grass, some Italian sausage, flavorful broth and garnished with fresh, crispy raw radish slivers and cilantro. And laded onto a nice piece of bread (underneath the soup). Yum!

Do you despair sometimes with what to do with leftovers? I certainly do. And pork roast is right on the top of my list. My choice is always to have just enough pork roast or chops for that one meal. But, alas, I don’t always plan quite that well, and I suspect you probably don’t, either. In this case I had a big pile of pork chop meat – it was beautifully tender and still pink inside. We’d already had the actual pork chops for a company meal, then two more evenings I’d reheated them. So I was fed up with having that kind of preparation. What to do?

Well, I went to Eat Your Books and searched through my own cookbooks to see what kind of recipes I could find. I didn’t want to continue to cook the meat – it was premium quality meat, tasty and juicy. See in the photo how nice and pink the meat is – perfectly tender. You don’t want to cook it hardly at all! So I needed some quick – flash – prep. Soup. That was it. I’d make soup. I read through all of the pork soup recipes I could find. Nothing quite seemed to fit. Parts of one and ingredients from another, an idea began forming of a mélange of flavors. Yes, I had a little bit of Italian sausage in the freezer too. Dave went to the market and got some fresh Napa cabbage and some radishes. And I made a delicious soup. Perfectly rounded out with flavor from the sausage, the cabbage, the onions, celery and carrots. I added in one of my favorite Penzey’s products, their soup bases  (both pork and chicken), some sugar snap peas as well. I cut the pork chop meat into little slivers (see photo) and just barely heated it in the hot soup then poured it over a piece of toast in the bottom of each bowl and garnished with the radishes and cilantro. Delicious!

What I liked: it’s a low-calorie soup, for one. Delicious flavor too. And I now have a fantastic recipe for using leftover pork (roast or chops) that will become a regular part of my menus. The textures are great (with the raw radishes sprinkled on top) too. Other than the fat in the meat itself, the only other added fat were the 2 T. of oil to sauté the onions and celery.

What I didn’t like: gosh, nothing, really. If I had Texas toast, that would have been nice – what I had was tender white bread, so I put one slice cut in half and double stacked. Or a nice thick piece of French bread would probably be ideal (that’s what I put in the recipe ingredients below).

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Oh my goodness, was this good. Like liquid guacamole, in a way. Liquid avocado, piquant with lemon juice and a little honey. Crunchy with the bell peppers, green onions, corn and tortilla chips (my addition) and some freshly grilled chicken.

The recipe came from the August, 2011 issue of Cooking Light. Our daughter-in-law’s sister Janice emailed me to tell me how good this was and sent a scan of the page from the magazine. Since I had two avocados in the refrigerator, ready to be used, this was perfect. It’s a Mark Bittman recipe – he’s one good cook!

His rendition of this serves 4 people. If this were a prelude to a meal, or you were serving it with other things (I really don’t know what you’d serve with it, other than some kind of toasted bread), you could make this serve 4. But, as a full meal, it’s about right for 2, which is what I did. We had it for dinner. For 2 of us I used one ear of corn, less red bell pepper, one green onion and two very small chicken breasts.

As I was about to make the soup part, I went back to look at the recipe – as I stood over the blender with the water, lemon juice and honey in it, adding in the avocado cubes. My thought was that one avocado and 1 1/2 cups of water was going to make green water. I thought I must have missed something in the ingredient list. Surely that’s not the right amount? It was. It’s perfectly thick enough for a soup – trust me on this one. The recipe indicated just stirring in all the raw veggies (red bell peppers, corn, green onions) but I wanted it to be on top (like the photo shows in the magazine) so I added in those things as a topping instead. I forgot about the added lime wedge, but I didn’t miss it.

On the website several people commented about the use of orange juice (instead of lemon juice as I’ve done) – several thought it was too sweet. I’d think the same thing, so I’d definitely make it with lemon juice. But I did use Meyer lemons – they’re sweeter than regular lemons – so if you use regular ones, you might need to add just a smidgin more honey. Taste it and see. I barely added any salt and pepper – suit  your own taste.

This recipe is a keeper. If you’re fortunate enough to have an avocado tree, you’ll be in luck with this rendition. Do try it.

What I liked: just everything – the coolness, the avocado flavor, the fresh veggies on top, the piquant taste of the soup with the lemon juice. Everything could be made ahead except for the chopped avocado that goes on top – even grilling the chicken. Also really liked the silky texture.

What I didn’t like: nada, nothing. Will make this again for sure.

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With both cauliflower and carrots in my refrigerator, when I saw this soup prepared over at the TV Food Network, I decided I really needed to make it. Melissa D’Arabian made it sound so good. A friend of hers had served something similar and Melissa worked on the recipe to make it her own. This is a very healthy dish.

Onion is sautéed in olive oil, then you add chopped carrots and chopped-up cauliflower, along with a few red pepper flakes, some lemon zest, ground cumin (one of my favorite spices), a slug of chicken stock, and you let that simmer for about 30-40 minutes until the veggies are tender. I let it sit for awhile to cool down (using my blender with hot food is not one of my favorite things to do). It did take a couple of batches to do it all (actually I made a double batch, using up all of my cauliflower, so it took 3 batches in the blender to puree it all).

After the soup has chilled, add in some yogurt, pour out into serving bowls and top with more salt and pepper, if desired, a large dollop of yogurt, some minced onion, and I added some cilantro just to make it look pretty. It’s delicious. Solid and substantial, but since it’s chilled, it’s very smooth going down.

What I liked: the smooth texture, the coolness of it on a warm, summer evening, the fact that it’s a very healthy soup, can be made ahead. Also loved the cumin in it – if there is a secret ingredient, that’s it. I really liked the silkiness of the added yogurt. It tamed some of the red pepper heat. I couldn’t pick out the flavor from the lemon zest, but am certain it added something.

What I didn’t like: the recipe calls for too much red pepper flakes. I think it needs no more than a pinch, so I’ve changed the below recipe to that effect. A small pinch, if there is such a thing. Since it simmers for awhile, those red chile flakes just permeate the entire pot.

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Maybe I mentioned before, that when I watched the Next Food Network Star last summer, I was rooting for Aarti Sequeira from day one. I was impressed with her good stage presence, her cheery personality, and thought her recipes sounded so interesting and full of flavor. Since her show has been on, I’ve made several and posted them here on my blog already. The other day she was making a cucumber gazpacho – well, really – it’s just a cold cucumber soup. But it has this interesting twist with lychees added into it. Who would have thought?

Since I’m not as inventive about cooking as chefs are, I’ve wondered if, when these TV (or other) chefs or cookbook developers start on a recipe, they have this line of unusual ingredients – let’s say a row of things all lined up on their kitchen counter. Like lychees in a can, anchovy paste, coconut milk, borage flower honey, jarred hearts of palm, Chinese five spice powder, dried figs, peppadew peppers, lemon grass, chili oil and vanilla beans.  And they try to figure out if any of those unusual things could go into a dish to make it really different. You know what I mean?

So, in this case, Aarti’s recipe used lychees. And oh, this soup is a cinch to make. It takes maybe 10 minutes, providing you have some toasted sliced almonds on hand. Otherwise you have to heat the oven and toast those first (about 9-10 minutes at about 400°). The soup is made in a blender or food processor: the cucumber (chopped up), the drained and rinsed lychees, fresh mint, fresh cilantro, some Greek yogurt, salt, pepper, and the toasted almonds. I also needed to add a slurp of water to the container to get it to puree. I tasted it for S & P, poured it into a refrigerator dish and let it chill for a few hours.

It became part of our dinner that evening and I wouldn’t tell my DH what it was – I made him guess, and he was completely baffled. He could see the tiny flecks of green, but he could not figure out what it was. Never guessed cucumber – probably because the lychees give it some sweetness. The nuts give it some finely-ground crunch, sort of, and there’s ample fiber from the pureed cucumber. I’d say it made about 3 to 4 cups of puree. I didn’t measure it, but in small little cups or glasses (I used small espresso cups), it surely would serve 5 or 6+ people. Aarti served this with a toasted baguette slice with some feta cheese and paprika on top. I didn’t do that part, and thought the soup was just fine as it was. I’d definitely make this again.

What I liked: the refreshing taste (from the cucumber), the crunch of the slivered almonds, and how EASY it was to make. A lovely first course for a weeknight or a company meal.

What I didn’t like: nothing at all. It was still delicious two days later too.

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A year ago: Crispy Fried Chicken
Three years ago: Grilled Chicken with Creamy Poblano Red Bell Pepper Sauce
Four years ago: Balsamic Fig Sorbet

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Sometimes, the recipe with the simplest of ingredients can produce the most scrumptious results. This tomato soup can be made in about an hour, with very little effort on the cook’s part, and it’s just full of good, homemade flavor. I do have a recipe on my blog for a really flavorful cream of tomato soup. It’s more labor intensive, and has lots of depth of flavor. This one, though, is easier to make, requires mostly canned ingredients plus an onion and celery stalk. Oh, and some fresh spinach. And it’s really, really good!

When Mike brought it over to us a few weeks ago we tasted it warm and it was really tasty. Then, a day or two later, based on Mike’s suggestion, I served the small amount left over as a cold soup, like a gazpacho. It was fantastic. Almost better than it had been served hot.

Mike has posted the recipe on his own website – he’s a exquisite woodworker – but he has 3 recipes on his website too, this one included. This soup is a winner.

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A year ago: Avocado Caesar Cream
Three years ago: Fiery Feta Dip

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