Pumpkin Bisque with Smoked Gouda

Our favorite first day of Fall soup, originally found here.

Ingredients

• 4 bacon strips, chopped
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 6 cups chicken broth
• 1 can (29 ounces) solid-pack pumpkin
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/8 teaspoon pepper
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1 cup shredded Gouda cheese
• 2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
• Additional shredded Gouda cheese, optional

Directions

• 1. In a Dutch oven, cook bacon over medium heat until crisp. Remove to paper towels with a slotted spoon; drain, reserving 1 tablespoon drippings. Saute onion in drippings until tender. Add garlic; cook 1 minute longer.
• 2. Stir in the broth, pumpkin, salt, nutmeg and pepper. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes. Cool slightly.
• 3. In a blender, process soup in batches until smooth. Return all to pan. Stir in cream; heat through. Add cheese; stir until melted. Sprinkle each serving with parsley, bacon and, if desired, additional cheese. Yield: 9 servings (2-1/4 quarts).

Improvisational Soup

Well. It has certainly been a while since I've posted any recipes. Oops. Oh well. This blog is mainly for my own reference. I've certainly used it since May 2011!

Anyway, today I was feeling a bit guilty about all the bacon I've eaten over the past couple of weeks, and also craving some vegetables.

Boom. Improvisational soup is born. I will attempt to write down how I made it...though in the improvisational nature of it, nothing was measured, and everything relied upon what I already had in the kitchen.

Ingredients
1 giant clove of garlic
1 good sized carrot
3 medium potatoes
Couple handfuls of frozen broccoli
Small handful of spinach
Couple of teaspoons of chicken soup base (next time I might use homemade chicken stock)
Couple of glugs of milk
A few fingerfuls of whatever finely shredded cheese you have in the fridge (today was 4 cheese Mexican blend)
A sprinkle of pepper

Directions
Cut up the clove of garlic, peel and slice the carrot (doesn't really matter if you cut these very small, as you'll see later), peel and cut up one of the potatoes, throw everything into a pot of water and boil. Add some of the frozen broccoli. I just fished out a handful of the butts (the non-tree parts) and threw them in the water.
Set the timer for 15 minutes. After that's done turn the heat off and throw a small handful spinach in the pot. Assemble your blender (I use our blender at least once a day, so it is always either sitting in the sink waiting to be washed, or in the dishwasher waiting to be used). Strain the vegetables and put them in the blender.
In the same (now empty) pot, start boiling some more water. Peel and cut up the other two potatoes and throw them in. While they're boiling, blend/puree the vegetables in the blender. Add a ladleful of water from the pot of boiling potatoes as needed to help get things going.
Add some more broccoli trees to the pot of boiling potatoes.
Pour the blended vegetables into another small pot. Heat on medium/low heat. Add a couple of glugs of milk to make it the thickness you would like. Stir frequently (heating up things with milk too quickly can get gross, so don't be too impatient). Add the couple of teaspoons of chicken soup base and keep stirring. Add a few sprinkles of pepper too (no need for salt, you just put soup base in your soup, after all).
When the potatoes and broccoli are boiled to your liking, strain them and add them to the blended vegetable mix. Stir.
Add a few fingerfuls of the finely shredded cheese to the pot, stirring each fingerful in before adding another. I think I did about 3-4 fingerfuls.
Stir some more until it is a good temperature.
Pour into a bowl and eat.
Serves one hungry person (but of course you can always make a giant batch to serve more, this was just an experiment).

Yum.

Tortilla Soup with Chicken

Chicken Tortilla Soup

Ingredients:

One tablespoon olive oil

One handful of tortilla chips, crunched up

1 large onion, sliced

3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

6-8 tomatoes, chopped

1 red pepper, chopped

1-3 jalapenos, seeded and chopped

1 poblano pepper, chopped

6 cups chicken broth/stock

1 rotisserie chicken, shredded, bones removed, etc

1 lime

Garnish ideas:

Shredded Cheese

Avocado

Sour Cream

Cilantro

Tortilla Chips

Instructions:

On medium heat, saute onions, garlic, and red pepper in oil about 5 minutes. Add tomatoes, other peppers, and handful of chips. Cook for 5 more minutes. Add broth and bring to a boil. Simmer for 15 minutes.

Cool slightly. 

Using an immersion blender or upright blender, puree the mixture until smooth. Return to medium heat, stir in chicken and heat through.

Squeeze lime over the soup and stir.

Serve and garnish as you like.

Edit: February 2013
Some Pictures. As you might be able to see, we have been just adding whatever peppers we could find that looked good, and regular stemmed tomatoes instead of the canned stuff (about 10 or so). Still one of our favorites!

Peppers, onion, garlic. Sauteing in olive oil.

With tomatoes added.

With broth and chips added.

With chicken. Nearly done!

With fixings (chips are crushed up on the bottom of the bowl). YUM.