Soup Challenged

November 11, 2011

I like to call myself soup challenged.  I love soup but have trouble making a good one.  It’s not from lack of effort, I probably try at least once a month through the winter, but all my attempts seem to fall flat.  My soups are blah . . . they just don’t taste great.

In general, I am a pretty good cook, and not afraid to try and learn new things, but curiously soups escape me.  As a child I traveled to France often and no matter where we were soup was always on the menu, and it was something I loved.  As far as I am concerned there is nothing better than a Potage de Legume (Vegetable Soup).  I am on a quest to make such a soup or for that matter any soup at all . . . so long as it’s good!

To my surprise, I have recently made a few soups that were actually quite good and was able to say “I made a good soup.”  My first was a Zucchini Soup, it’s a simple soup that has a lot of flavor.

The Pioneer Woman, one of my favorite blogs, recently posted a recipe for Corn Cheese Chowder.   Her photos are beautiful and also serve as a step by step how-to guide on making the recipe.  You get hungry just looking at the photos.  I decided to give this recipe a try myself.  I followed her recipe closely with a couple of changes: my kids don’t love peppers so I used 2 instead of 3, I didn’t have fresh corn so I used 2 bags of frozen, I added 3 chicken breasts cut into bite size pieces, instead of serving it in a bread bowl I had a good crusty baguette, and cooked it for longer.  The soup was wonderful, rich and creamy, and my soup dinner was enjoyed by all!

Ok, so the soup turned out great for dinner but what to do with the soup leftovers?  Soup has a tendency to thicken considerably while hanging out in the fridge . . . what to do to thin it out the soup without losing any flavor?   For this soup I added 2 cups of water, 2-3 chicken bouillon cubes depending on how salty your soup is, and half a bag of frozen corn.  Lo and behold the soup was still good, and lunch with the girls turned out great!

 

Thank you Pioneer Woman – I will be trying your Broccoli Cheese Soup soon.

Audrey Olmer

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