'Tis the Season for Soup
If I am honest with myself the weather really isn’t soup appropriate quite yet, at least not for us here in the Central Valley of California.
However, a little white lie never hurt.
As soon as the first (very minor) chill hits the morning air, fall decorations take over the aisles of all my favorite stores and football takes over my television . . . soups on! Funny thing growing up and as a young adult I was never found of soup all that much. Mainly because I was fed the basics, the “borings” you know, the soups from a can. As an adult I can now appreciate the delicious and often fatty soups that are comforting, delicious and in our small family can last a few days which is even better.
My favorite seasonal soups are butternut squash and apple, taco soup, chicken noodle, loaded potato and well I think I like them all but those are the toppers!
As I mentioned above my batches of soup can often last for days. At least three days. Much like relationships; after the same thing for too long you gotta spice it up a bit, make a change, do something different. Chicken noodle soup for instance is delicious the fist night, the second night its OK but by the third? Yeah, it’s not happening. So, here’s what I did recently. The first night I served my homemade chicken noodle soup I served with yummy homemade foccacia bread warm bread. The second night I served it with well the same and I added salad! But alas, there was still more soup so I made a roué which is my absolute favorite thing to do because it makes a healthy soup just a little fatty and a lot of tasty. I added the roué to my soup and ta-da we had creamy chicken noodle soup and it made the third night much more enjoyable and made me feel good about being resourceful and not wasting food.
A few days later I was back at it with my favorite butternut squash and apple soup! This baby is always delicious and feels so healthy to eat even though I always make it creamy with butter and milk! It can’t be all that bad considering the 2lbs of squash, apples and celery that went into it! Anyhow this is another one that usually lasts for a while yup another three-day soup my friends! Considering this soup is not as hearty as say a chicken noodle soup I prepared baked chicken with a creamy mushroom sauce and cheese which I served it with for the first two days. The third day I made super yummy grilled cheese sandwich which complimented the soup wonderfully.
The last soup I have made so far, this fall season is taco soup which apparently was great timing as national taco day was this week. This soup is essentially a chili but I prefer taco as the descriptive word since it’s so much more fun. I serve the soup with chips and
change the toppings I serve on it. I like adding shredded cabbage, cilantro, sour cream, cheese and avocado. Versions of the soup can be made with macaroni noodles. This time around I forgot about them so they were used to “spice up” the soup for the second day. Other types of soups could have rice added to them instead of noodles or added for the second day of eating to change the meal.
The best thing about a lot of these is that they really don’t take a lot of prep work, most of them only use one pot and for the second or third day simply heating is all you HAVE to do. Unless you want to make it a bit of a different meal for the family to enjoy and for the sake of stretching leftovers.
