It's Soup Season

I heart my Dutch oven. And it's going to be getting quite a workout over the next several months, as we have now hit full blown soup season.

I'll make big pots of soup, strew, and chili all year long, but I definitely pick up the pace come cooler weather. There's something about the brisk Fall air that just begs me to simmer something on the stovetop. I have my favorite recipes that I find myself frequently going back to, but I also add a few new soups to my repertoire each year. Turns out this year I'm obsessed with lentils.

Last month I made an amazing pot of lentil and sausage soup that was a near-exact replica of our favorite soup at Carraba's. Just the other night, I had a cup of vegetarian lentil soup at Louise's that was almost as good and had me craving more. Lucky enough, I stumbled across this recipe in the latest issue of Taste of Home. This satisfied my lentil longing, with just a couple minor tweaks (theirs was also vegetarian, but what fun is that? I added sausage).

Lentil Tomato Soup
Ingredients:
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 Italian chicken sausage link, casing removed
5 cups water
4 carrots, sliced
1 onion, chopped
3/4 cup dried lentils
3 oz. tomato paste
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon dill weed
1/4 teaspoon pepper

Directions:
Heat oil in Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Cook sausage until no longer pink, about 5 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, remove sausage to paper towel-lined plate. Set aside. Do not clean Dutch oven.

Add water, carrots, onions, and lentils to Dutch oven. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer 20 to 25 minutes or until vegetables and lentils are tender. Stir in remaining ingredients, including sausage. Return to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer, uncovered, 5 minutes.

Super Soup: Chicken and Dumplings

I can feel a case of the soups coming on. It happens every year around this time ... the weather turns chilly and I'm suddenly compelled to make giants pots of soup in quantities large enough to feed an army. Never mind the fact that I'm just cooking for two. Soup is one of the only big-batch dishes I can make and never end up with leftovers. Bill and I love it that much.

Thursday night's supper (and it feels appropriate to call it that in true Southern fashion) may rank right up there with my favorites: Chicken and Dumplings. I have absolutely no recollection of the first time I had chicken and dumplings. You don't see it pop up on too many California menus and it's certainly not something my mom ever made. Maybe it wasn't until I moved to Wisconsin that I gave it a whirl. And even then, I'm sure I never tasted the real thing. But as far as imposters go, I think I've found a pretty good one.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have to note that this particular recipe requires a few shortcuts I normally wouldn't take. But for a hearty weeknight meal, I'm sometimes willing to resort to cans and boxes.

Chicken and Dumplings
Ingredients:
Cooking spray

1 cup onion, finely chopped 

1 garlic clove, minced

Salt and pepper

1/4 cup marsala wine 

3 1/2 cups chicken broth

1 can reduced-fat, reduced-sodium condensed cream of chicken soup, undiluted

1/4 cup water

2 tablespoons cornstarch

2 cups baking mix (such as Bisquick)

2/3 cup buttermilk

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch pieces

3 carrots, chopped

1 cup frozen peas

Directions:
Heat a Dutch oven over medium high heat and coat with cooking spray. Add onions and garlic and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, then add marsala, broth, and condensed soup. Bring to a boil.

In a small bowl, combine water and cornstarch; stir until cornstarch is dissolved. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, combine Bisquick and buttermilk. Stir until stiff dough forms; knead into a ball. Set aside.

Add chicken and carrots to pot. Stir in cornstarch mixture. Tear off 1-inch pieces of dough and drop into pot. Return to a boil, lower heat, cover, and simmer, stirring occasionally, until chicken and dumplings are cooked through, about 20 to 25 minutes. (Test dumplings for doneness by removing one and piercing it with a fork - they're finished when the fork comes out clean.)

Add peas to pot and cook soup another 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Serve piping hot in big bowls!

Worst. Recipe. Ever.

Have you ever come across a recipe that just kind of made you go "Huh?" You've probably all experienced this when it comes to the degree of difficulty involved in certain dishes. (Like, oh, I don't know ... bear claws?? Don't even get me started on that folding and rolling technique.) But when it's because the recipe appears to be missing steps (or even worse, ingredients), that's a whole other story.

I had a craving for soup the other night (big surprise there, right?) and potato soup sounded SO good. When I was flipping through my favorite soup book, I came across a photocopied recipe for baked potato soup that I had tucked into the pages. Score!

As usual, I did a quick scan of the ingredients and since I had everything I needed, I set to work ... without reading the directions. It's important to note that I often start cooking without reading the directions in a recipe, which is probably a mistake. But since I feel like I have a pretty good handle on this cooking thing, I usually don 't feel the need to study the steps before I get started. In this case, I should have.

I'm just going to reprint the recipe here, verbatim, and see if you can find the problem.

Baked Potato Soup
Ingredients:
6 slices bacon, slivered
1 cup chopped onion
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
6 cups chicken broth
4 cups diced baked potato
2 cups milk
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
2 teaspoons dried basil, crushed
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon minced fresh garlic
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup sliced green onion
Bottled hot pepper sauce
Crisp-cooked bacon (optional)
Shredded cheddar cheese (optional)
Sour cream (optional)
Italian parsley (optional)

Directions:
In a 4- to 6-quart Dutch oven or soup pot over medium-high heat cook bacon and onion until bacon is crisp. Remove with a slotted spoon; set aside. Reserve 2 tablespoons of the drippings in the Dutch oven. Use a whisk to stir flour into reserved drippings. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes, whisking constantly. Gradually add chicken broth, whisking to prevent lumps. Cook and whisk until mixture thickens. Add potato, milk, parsley, basil, salt, garlic, and black pepper to Dutch oven. Simmer for 5 minutes, stirring often.

Add the 1 cup cheese and the green onion to Dutch oven, stirring until cheese melts and soup is heated through. Season to taste with hot pepper sauce.

If desired, top each serving with additional bacon, cheese, sour cream, and/or Italian parsley.


If you're a professional communicator like me, resist the urge to break out your red pen and edit for inconsistencies in punctuation and phrasing, redundancy, and just plain poor writing.

And if you're a cook, resist the urge to point out the seemingly miscalculated ingredients (2 cups of flour?) and poor technique (cooking the bacon with the onion tends to steam it rather than crisp it!).

While all of those things made me twitch, they weren't the real problems with this recipe.

In case you haven't caught it, the most glaring problem is this: they never ask you to return the bacon and onion to the pot! What was the point of frying the bacon and onion if you're not adding it to the soup? I swear I read this recipe a dozen times thinking I was missing something before I was convinced it wasn't me. It was just the worst recipe ever.

As a side note, since I had started cooking before I caught this problem, I simply made adjustments to the recipe to improve it. And I'm happy to report that I was able to save it. It wasn't the best baked potato soup I've ever had, but I have some definite ideas about what can turn it from bad to fab. So stay tuned for my fix soon!