No, before you ask, I am not sick (but I do have a bowl of this reserved in the freezer, just in case).

Whenever I roast chicken, it always makes about four times as much chicken as Chad and I could reasonably eat. So when that happens, I like to shred the leftovers, to use in another dish later on — it works for risotto, soup, or even just heated in pasta sauce for some added protein in a quick, easy dinner.

This is actually a fairly traditional chicken soup recipe, although I swapped the usual celery for leek to give it a slightly more interesting flavor. Sometimes I wonder why I spend a decent amount of time making soup that looks relatively similar to what you get from opening a can, but I’d always rather eat the version where I know exactly what foods are used to make it, and I can both recognize and pronounce all its ingredients. Sounds like a simple thing, but it’s frightening how much food we all eat that don’t meet either of those qualifications.

So the next time you feel like a good, healthy bowl of chicken soup, whether you’re feeling under the weather or perfectly healthy, take an extra half hour, and make this one.

Chicken Leek Soup

INGREDIENTS

10 cups chicken stock
2 large carrots, diced
1/4 cup olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1 large onion, diced
1 tsp smoked paprika
Cracked pepper, to taste
2 large leeks, white parts only, diced
1 box spiral-shaped pasta (8 ounces)
3 cups roasted chicken, white meat only, shredded

DIRECTIONS

Briefly saute garlic in olive oil until fragrant. Add the chicken stock, and bring it to a boil. Add the carrots, onion, garlic and leek and boil for 10 minutes.  Taste and salt if necessary.  Add the pasta and chicken, and cook for another 10 minutes, stirring frequently, until the pasta is cooked. Allow to cool slightly, and serve.

You know your priorities are a little out of wack when you get really excited to buy two fresh lobsters… just to make stock out of their shells.

An article in the New York Times a few months ago discussed the falling prices of lobsters, but noted that home cooks were often terrified of boiling the lobsters alive to cook them.

I was a vegetarian for 13 years. Boiling a living creature is just not going to happen in my kitchen, not now, not ever.

But I’m also a bit of a hypocrite, because I love lobster. So, if you take our recently lowered prices and add on a few dollars to receive a cooked, whole lobster from your local fishmonger, you’ve got a serious dinner on your hands.

Unfortunately, though, buying precooked lobsters isn’t much to brag about on a food blog. So with our leftover shells, claws and lobster bodies, I made lobster stock.

Because lobsters are so low in fat, lobster stock is surprisingly easy to get right. It requires very little skimming to get a beautiful, clear stock, and just some thorough straining at the end. And you wind up with this beautiful base for soups and stews that would cost nearly as much as the lobsters themselves if you bought it in a store.

(And if you do insist on cooking them yourself, the New York Times suggests putting them in your freezer for 15 minutes, and then slicing them down the middle.)

Lobster Stock

INGREDIENTS
2 whole lobster shells, meat removed
1 medium-sized carrot, diced
1 small onion, diced
10 cups water, or more as needed

DIRECTIONS
Heat all ingredients in a stock pot on low heat, keeping the mixture at a simmer. Allow to cook for 60-90 minutes, or until the water is colored and fragrant. Strain thoroughly (I strained mine about 8 times), and then return the stock to the pot to reduce. When the stock is reduced to 4 cups or less, cool and refrigerate or freeze. 

See, I promised I would eventually do something relatively creative with root vegetables.

“Um, Katy. You boiled and pureed them. You basically made baby food.”

No, it’s a soup. That’s what soup is.

“That’s also what baby food is.”

Well. It tastes a lot better than baby food.

And with that, I will stop typing imaginary conversations with myself. (I don’t actually talk to myself, only, apparantly, in typing).

I debated calling this “Root Vegetable Soup,” but frankly, that sounds incredibly unappetizing. Sure, most of these ingredients are dug out of the ground, but you don’t want to have to actually *think* about that, right? So, this is my “winter” vegetable soup — although obviously, in winter, not much grows above ground. The “root vegetable” part is still implied, but I’ve decided not to beat you guys over the head with it.

Because besides a faint resemblance to baby food and a potentially unappetizing name, this soup was just plain delicious, and it’s an awesome way to use up all the CSA veggies we get at this time of year. Potatoes, turnips, parsnips, carrots — just throw them all in. Mix up a double batch and you won’t ever have to throw out a root vegetable again.

Winter Vegetable Soup

INGREDIENTS
4 large boiling potatoes, washed, peeled and cubed
3 carrots, washed, peeled and cubed
1 large turnip, washed and cubed
2 large parsnips, washed, peeled and cubed
1 large onion, washed and diced
1/4 celery root, peeled and cubed
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup olive oil
4 cups water
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp ground cumni
Salt
Pepper

DIRECTIONS
In a large stock pot, saute garlic and onions in olive oil until translucent and fragrant, over medium-low heat. Add water, carrots and celeriac and simmer for 5 minutes. Add salt and pepper as desired. Add potato, turnip and parsnip cubes, smoked paprika and ground cumin and simmer for 30 minutes. Taste for additional salt, season as necessary, and remove from heat. In batches, puree the soup in a blender or food processor. Transfer the soup back into the stock pot, reheat if necessary, and serve.
 

Serves 4-6.

Do you ever go to a restaurant and fall so hopelessly in love with a particular dish that you attempt to recreate it at home? This dish was a product of one of those impulses. At a dinner a month or so ago, Chad and I both ordered the same dish: corn soup.

Chad and I never order the same dish — I’m a former vegetarian with an entire mouth full of sweet tooths, he’s a Texan at heart who gags when I mention tofu. So when we both order, and both like, the same dish, that’s a big deal.

A big enough deal that I had to attempt this soup at home. I went into the recipe armed with a secret weapon — when I asked the waiter if the soup was cream-based, he told me the base was actually corn stock.

So corn stock I made. And corn soup. And I will be making it again, because it was fantastic. Light, healthy and incredibly flavorful, this is a perfect dish to celebrate our last few weeks of fresh corn this season. Make it now, before they’re gone!

Corn and Chive Soup

INGREDIENTS:
3 ears of corn
2 cups milk
1 cups water
1 small shallot, diced
2 tbsp chopped chives
3 large shrimp
1/4 cup heavy cream
Salt
Pepper

DIRECTIONS:

Cut the corn kernels from the cobs and reserve. Heat the milk and corn cobs to a simmer and let them simmer for ten minutes. Remove the corn cobs, and add the water, corn kernels, chives, shallot and salt. Simmer for 15-20 minutes.

Transfer the soup to a food processor or blender and puree it in batches until smooth. Stir in heavy cream, pour into bowls, and serve. Garnish with sliced shrimp and additional fresh chives.

Serves four.

I love cucumbers, but sometimes it’s hard to figure out what to do with them. When I get them from the farmer’s market, a lot of the time I just slice and eat them with a little salad dressing or tomato sauce (sounds gross, but it’s really good). But I wanted to do something a little special for this recipe.

And what’s better, in the summer, than a chilled soup? It’s easy to prepare ahead of time, and it’s colorful, fresh and delicious. I thought about naming this “diet soup” because it’s so low-calorie, but it’s only diet-type food by accident. It’s really so flavorful on it’s own that extra fat wasn’t necessary.

You could make this soup a little heartier by scooping out the seeds in the cucumbers, but I like it a little bit thin. I think this would make a great recipe for a light lunch or quick snack, since it’s really too easy to make — if I had a “5 minutes or less” category on this website, this recipe would be filed there.

So if you have a few leftover mid-summer cucumbers in your fridge and you’re wondering what to do with them, this is a fun, easy, and extremely healthy option.

Last, but not least, the winners of the Hola Fruta! giveaway are…

• Annalise, Comment 32
• Elizabeth, Comment 55

I’ll be emailing later today to get your addresses!

Cucumber Gazpacho

INGREDIENTS:
2 small shallots
1 large clove garlic
2 tsp olive oil
1 large cucumber, cut into 1″ sections
1 large anaheim pepper (I found these at the farmer’s market and love them!)
2 tsp good balsamic vinegar
1 tsp sea salt, or more to your preference

DIRECTIONS:
Saute the shallot and garlic over medium heat for about 3 minutes, until shallots have broken down and turned translucent. Meanwhile, cut the anaheim pepper into slices and remove all its seeds.

In a large food processor, puree the shallots, garlic, cucumber, pepper, vinegar, and salt together for about 2 minutes. Taste and add more salt if necessary. Pulse again, and serve.

Serves 2-3 as a side dish or first course.

There is no better meal on a cold, winter day than a warm bowl of homemade soup.  And why, you might ask, is homemade soup so superior?  I’ll tell you one of the (many) reasons.  You can make any flavor you want!  You’re not stuck with “chicken noodle” or “chicken vegetable” or “chicken and beans” with tough, miniscule chicken bits that make you shudder when you guess what parts of the bird they’re from.  Or generic vegetable soups like, “tomato” or “butternut squash” or “cream of broccoli” where you wonder how a vegetable product can possibly be put into a form that is shelf-stable until 2025.

Instead, on those cold winter nights when you really want soup, I suggest this curried cauliflower soup.  I made it with golden cauliflower (which is probably quite apparent from the photo), but white would work just as well.  This made a great warm, nutritous winter lunch, and hopefully goes some of the way towards undoing the diet damage I’ve been doing lately.

Currried Cauliflower Soup

INGREDIENTS:
1 medium sized head of cauliflower (white or golden)
2 shallots
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
6 cups vegetable broth
2 tbsp curry powder
1/4 tsp cumin
2 tsp garlic powder
3 dried bay leaves
2 tsp fresh parsley, minced
1 cup whole milk (optional)

DIRECTIONS:
1. In a larce saute pan or stock pot, saute the shallots in olive oil and salt until tender but not browned.
2. Cut the florets off the cauliflower head. Remove the tough core of the head, and place any leftover pieces in a food processor. Puree leftover pieces until finely chopped.
2. Pour in vegetable stock, and add cauliflower and spices. Simmer 15 minutes, and then stir in parsey and milk. Simmer an additional 5 minutes, remove the bay leaves, and serve.

Serves four.

Last, but not least, I’m submitting this to Holler and Lisa’s No Croutons Required vegetarian soup roundup!  I’m excited to see what everyone comes up with!

I fell asleep reading bon appetit the other night (it happens…) and the last recipe I remember reading was for corn and crab chowder. So it was no wonder that I woke up this morning with an inextinguishable craving for corn soup. And, after about five hours of Christmas shopping in crowded stores (you haven’t truly experienced ‘crowded’ until you’ve tried to visit the stores in Rockefeller center at Christmastime), I felt like I deserved something extra delicious.

My soups are basically salads in a bowl. I figure, you don’t have to worry about losing vitamins through boiling vegetables if you’re eating the water that they boil in (i.e., soup). Of course, I’m not a nutritionist, so I could be flat out wrong. But until someone proves otherwise, I think veggie soups are pretty darn healthy. You could finish this with some cream, if you wanted a more authentic ‘chowder’ recipe.  But I thought it was great with just veggies!

Corn and Carrot Chowder

INGREDIENTS:
1 pound bag of carrots, peeled and diced
1 small onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic, diced
2 tsp olive oil
2 cups corn kernels (I used frozen, no need to defrost)
4 cups vegetable stock
2 tsp salt
1 tsp paprika
Pinch of saffron

DIRECTIONS:
1. In a large saucepan, saute onion and garlic in olive oil.
2. Add vegetable stock, corn, carrots, salt, paprika and saffron. Simmer 20 minutes, covered.
3. Strain soup into a large serving bowl. Reserve 1/2 cup of solids. Place remaining solids into food processor and puree until smooth.
4. Add puree and reserved solids back into broth, and mix until well incorporated. Serve.

Serves 4.

This weekend was the start of a major weather change in Manhattan — after a long indian summer, it finally got really, really cold.  It even snowed on Sunday!  And last night, it was frigid.  What’s a girl to do but whip up a big pot of warm, delicious, homemade soup?

I have been craving Manhattan clam chowder for a week or two, pretty much nonstop.  And ironically, even in Manhattan, it’s a hard soup to find!  There’s a canned version by progresso, but I wanted the real thing.  I spent yesterday thinking about which ingredients to use, and whether I wanted to deal with live clams (no).  I’d love to make this again for a dinner party, and use clams in their shells, but since it was just for me, I didn’t want to put in the extra effort.

I highly recommend this soup — it’s easy to make (3o minutes or so, from start to finish) and incredibly delicious.  Get some big chunks of bread to dip into the broth, because really, isn’t that the best part of eating soup?

Manhattan Clam Chowder

INGREDIENTS:
1 28 ounce can of whole peeled tomatoes (san marzano, if you can find them)
1 medium-size white onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, diced
2 tsp olive oil
1 bottle clam juice
1 green bell pepper, cut into 1/4″ by 1″ slices
2 carrots, peeled and cut into 1/4″ rounds
1 small baking potato, peeled and cubed
1 tsp salt
1 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 can of clams, packed in water

DIRECTIONS:
1. In a large saucepan, saute onions and garlic in olive oil until tender and slightly browned.
2. Pour clam juice into water. Pour liquid from the canned tomatoes in with the clam juice.
3. Add potato, green pepper, carrots, salt, paprika and pepper.
4. Cut tomatoes into about 4 slices per tomato (this is messy — it works best if you cut them over the saucepan, rather than on a cutting board. Wear an apron!). Add to soup.
5. Simmer 20 minutes, covered.
6. Add clams (including juice) and simmer an additional 5-7 minutes, covered. Ladle into bowls and serve!

Serves 4.

My mother puts Martha Stewart to shame. Every time I go home, whether it’s for Thanksgiving dinner or for a random weekend, when my mother cooks, she goes all out. Beautiful, seasonal, organic ingredients, healthy preparations (mostly), and decorations that are almost as lovely as the food.

This soup was my favorite part of Thanksgiving dinner. And, frankly, I was a little troubled by the bacon ingredient, but when my mother asked me if it was ok, I wasn’t going to ruin everyone else’s soup just because I happen to be a vegetarian. BUT, you could easily make this soup without the bacon and it would still be delicious. In fact, I might just try to do a veggie-friendly version this week. But it was really, really yummy, and a perfect fall-inspired starter for a traditional Thanksgiving meal!

Butternut Squash Chowder

INGREDIENTS:
4 bacon slices, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 yellow onion, diced
2 celery stalks, diced
1 bay leaf
1 tsp chopped fresh sage, plus small sage
leaves for garnish
4 tsp kosher salt, plus more, to taste
1 tsp freshly ground pepper, plus more, to taste
2 russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1/4 cup white wine
3 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 jar (32 oz.) butternut squash puree
1/2 cup heavy cream

DIRECTIONS:
1. In a large Dutch oven over medium heat, cook the bacon, stirring frequently, until crispy, about 5 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the bacon to a paper towellined plate. Set aside.
2. Pour off all but 1 Tbs. of the fat from the pan and return the pan to medium heat. Add the onion, celery, bay leaf, chopped sage, the 4 tsp. salt and the 1 tsp. pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, just until the vegetables are soft, 5 to 6 minutes. Stir in the potatoes, cover and cook, stirring occasionally, for 3 minutes.
3. Add the wine and simmer, stirring to scrape up the browned bits, for 1 to 2 minutes. Add the broth and bring just to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and gently simmer until the potatoes are tender, about 12 minutes.
4. Add the butternut squash puree and bacon and simmer for 5 minutes. Stir in the cream and adjust the seasonings with salt and pepper. Remove the bay leaf and discard.
5. Ladle the chowder into warmed bowls and garnish with sage leaves. Serve immediately.

Serves 6 to 8.

This is a Williams Sonoma recipe — you can find the original recipe here.

So, back I went to the Thai market I discovered yesterday, this time in search of fresh lemongrass. Of course, they had it — seriously, this place is phenomenal. Moreover, the people working there are really friendly and very patient when I ask silly questions like, “this is lemongrass, right?” or “how much of it should I use if I’m making lemongrass soup?”

I literally used every leftover vegetable in my fridge to make this soup, and it turned out great. You could also throw in chicken, tofu, or noodles, if you want to make it more of a meal.

And I was about to write, “If you don’t have lemongrass, you can substitute…” But, really, if you don’t have lemongrass, why on earth are you trying to make lemongrass soup?

Thai Lemongrass Soup

INGREDIENTS:
6 cups vegetable broth
3 stalks fresh lemongrass
1″ square of fresh galangal, grated
1 tbsp nam pla (Thai fish sauce)
1/2 medium white onion, diced
1/2 of a 10 ounce box of baby bella mushrooms, sliced
1 red bell pepper, sliced into thin strips
1/2 can water chestnuts, sliced

DIRECTIONS:
1. In a large saucepan, bring vegetable stock to a simmer.
2. Add onion, lemongrass, galangal, nam pla, and water chestnuts, and simmer 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Add peppers and mushrooms, simmer 5 minutes. Serve.

Serves 4-6.