Soup of the Week – Trifecta Edition
I skipped Soup of the Week last week because we were on the run.
We took Kidzilla to her first major amusement park one day and the next, we were just plain old exhausted. I have to report that Kidzilla has clearly inherited her Fab Dad’s daredevil streak and wanted to go on some crazy big kid rides.
The Fab Hub was thrilled. The Mamma was not.
Zilla may be tall enough (just…and probably only by way of her ponytail was my argument), but there is no way our wee little girl is bulky enough for those rides yet.
Anyway, with all the heat and humidity this last week, soup was the last thing on my mind. Today, however, despite humidity in the forecast for the foreseeable future, I have some vegetables that need to find a purpose in life or they are going to the great compost pile in the sky.
The Fab Hub and the Almost Brother-In-Law are installing our new basement floor this weekend and Kidzilla has been playing up a storm in princess land.
So today is marathon soup day.
First up, I’m pulling out my freezer bag of vegetable scraps to make homemade vegetable broth, which the Fab Hub fondly calls “garbage soup.” I’ve really been trying to waste less in the kitchen and this seemed like a really good option.
I have enough for TWO batches of this bad boy, and the first one turned out beautifully. It’s a rich amber color, smells awesome, and has absolutely no unpronounceable junk in it. I left it completely no-sodium on purpose, but with a little added salt, I’d drink a gallon of this stuff right now.
Instead, I am using a bunch of it for my next two projects.
Next, a batch of the Simple Summer Squash recipe from a few weeks ago to finish up the last yellow squash and the last zucchini. Perfect. That’s on the stove right now.
Update: The squash soup turned out nicely, if a little under salted. I purposely made the homemade vegetable broth salt-free, figuring I could then control my own salt in the later recipes. So it needed a bit heavier hand on salt and pepper at the end, but I think we’re good to go.
Finally, new find is a Roasted Green Pepper Soup from a new-to-me blog called BrokeAss Gourmet. Gourmet food for people who are broke. Meals cost less than twenty bucks. I know, how awesome is that? Go check it out – great food on the way cheap. Love it.
I roasted my green bell peppers, per whatever method I found via Pinterest – worked fine, but I beg to differ about the ease with which the skins are supposed to peel off the peppers. Pffft.
This is right up there in the easy category with the squash and zucchini soups. Roast the peppers, peel and roughly chop them, toss in the soup pot with some onion and garlic, add your broth (yup, more homemade vegetable broth) and you’re all set. The soup simmered away as directed and I just finished adding the last ingredient. The recipe called for half and half, but I used light cream because that’s what I had.
Holy hot and spicy soup, Batman! This stuff is delicious, but you definitely don’t want to give this to your five year-old. Not sure if the Fab Hub will try this one or not. That’s OK, I can totally take this one on alone. I’m not even a huge fan of green peppers and I love this.
Recipe says you can serve it hot or cold. I’m having a taste of it hot right now, with a dollop of Greek yogurt to help take care of the heat from the jalapenos. Wow! This could easily be done minus the jalapenos, though, to make it friendlier for those who prefer that their soup not punch them in the mouth. And I may or may not have used more hot peppers than was proportionately appropriate, so there is that.
The Fab Hub and I are both completely exhausted, but we have half of the basement floor in place and three kinds of soup. Well, two kinds of soup and a whole lot of vegetable broth…three four-cup containers and seven one-cup containers just went into the freezer. I’m thinking we won’t need to make any for quite a while.
All in all, a productive day.
Some final notes:
- You can grab the “recipe” I used for the vegetable broth on my Pinterest board labeled Food – Soup.
- If you need instructions for how to roast peppers (I did; don’t judge), you can find that on my board titled Food – Tips and Other.
- For the vegetable broth, I used my stock pot with the strainer insert – I have never loved that pot more than I did to make this broth. It saves you the step of removing and straining everything or bagging it in cheesecloth or whatever.
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I love the soups you keep sharing. I am terrible about adding salt and always seem to be a little underhanded with it. The good news is I can always add more.
Exactly – you can always add more, but once it’s oversalted, you’re kind of done. I love soup – looking forward to cooler weather and some more wintery recipes!
Every time my children were “just tall enough” to go on rollercoasters (and I did make sure that my husband wasn’t cajoling them to stand on their tiptoes at the measurement station!) I would make sure that I was seated next to them and held onto them for dear life. Yes, they may have been tall enough, but they were always skinny little things and the lap/shoulder bars always had so much air space that I never felt they were locked in safely. I was their “safety bar”, making sure they didn’t slip through the cracks!
Exactly! 🙂 We keep having the “she’s tall enough”/”just because she’s tall enough doesn’t mean she’s big enough” discussion. Baby years may have been easier!
I can’t get on your blog anymore, Heather – one day I could read, the next it wasn’t letting me. What happened?
I stopped blogging, Lisa. I’m not sure if it will be forever, but for now I’m done. If I ever start it up again, I’ll let you know. Thank you for all the support you gave me over there! I’ll still be reading your blog all the time. I’m glad that we were able to “meet” over the internet 🙂
Oh, gosh, I’ll miss your posts, Heather! So glad we connected, too! You’re one of my favorite readers (and posters). 🙂
I love spending the day deep in a project like this. The house smells good. You have the sense of keeping your family healthy. Plus all those containers in the freezer leave you feeling like you really accomplished something with your day.
Yes, and I love that lunch is pretty much handled for the next few days – just heat up that soup and you’re all set.
I just love your soup posts. Fall is coming, and I can’t wait to get my soup pot out.
I am so glad the soup posts make people happy. I love love love soup and having some on hand makes me happy. I’ve got some good things lined up…now all we need is FALL weather, not this tropical rainforest nonsense.
Yummy. Your soups sound totally appetizing and I would love to try them if only someone else would cook them. I HATE cooking and eat whatever is available for survival purposes. Thank God my husband brings meals home or either cooks them himself. I have one specialty that he will request once or twice a year and that’s my meatloaf; so I willingly but not happily prepare that for him when he asks.
Thanks, Renee. I love to cook – it’s therapeutic for me. It’s my stress relief. 🙂 Have to agree with your husband – there is nothing quite like a good homemade meatloaf!
I am a garbage soup gal, too! In fact, I’ll be making a batch tomorrow. Like you, I love that I get to control what is (and is not) in it. No chemicals, no salt, just veggie goodness. For me the added benefit is that these veggie scraps serve double duty: the yummy broth and then I can still compost them in my garden. They actually break down faster since they’ve been boiled.
I don’t have a garden or a compost pile, but I at least feel like I’ve given them second life by using for stock. And I definitely feel less guilty when I’m prepping meals and don’t just toss those ends of onions, etc.
it is way, way, WAY too hot for soup right now! you’re nuts!
but they do look delicious, and I like that you made a ton of broth to freeze – that will make future soups so much easier. i should really do this.
Hot, yes, but they both work OK cold, too! The pepper soup was ridiculous good – definitely making that again. The frozen broth makes me very happy. I already picked out my next soup and when I got to the line item in the ingredients about vegetable broth, I did a little happy dance. 🙂
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