Why I Love Soup

....because I almost always have ingredients on hand for delicious soup.


....because it's a good way to get veggies into my kiddo.


....because it's easy to make a whole bunch at once.


....because soup usually freezes well.


....because if it doesn't taste great at first, there are easy ways to make it tastier (although not necessarily healthier, but refer to #2 to clear your conscience about that).


Ok... so now for the only reason I don't like soup: I don't really know how to write a recipe for my favorite soups because I just sort of make them. You know? So, here's my disclaimer: if you are a comfortable cook and you don't need a line-by-line recipe, keep reading. If you don't know your way around the kichen so well yet, come back another day for a real recipe. Or come over and watch me :)

So let me tell you about one of the new soups that I tried recently that my whole family loved (kind of a big deal). I called my mother-in-law the other day and as often happens with her and I, we ended up talking about yummy things we've recently made. She told me about a squash soup that immediately got my attention because we'd been getting a lot of yellow squash in our produce co-op and I was growing weary of sauteeing it or dipping raw pieces in ranch. I modified her recipe based on what I had and what we like, and here's what I did:


Squash Soup

1) Cut 2 pieces of bacon in small pieces (I use my kitchen shears to make it an easy job) and sautee with a diced onion (I sometimes use frozen chopped onion if I'm in a hurry. Or feeling lazy.), carrots and celery.

Optional: Add about 2 T. of flour and stir constantly for about 3 minutes. Add about one cup of broth and stir until smooth. This will make the soup a little thicker, and I don't always do it.

2) Add however many diced yellow squash, zucchini and sweet potatoes you have (I used 3 yellow squash and 1 sweet potato, but you can adjust according to your family's taste or according to what you have on hand) and sautee for about 10 minutes, or until the veggies get soft-ish).

3) Add the remaining broth (I used 2 cartons total) according to how much soup you want and how chunky you want it to be

Optional: Add half and half or heavy whipping cream according to taste, to make a creamy soup (And to get some extra calcium, or at least that's how I justify it). I used about 1/2 cup of heavy whipping cream because that's what I had on hand.

Optional: Add a dash of cayenne. I think this is what made the soup so yummy, and the heat can be as mild or intense as you want. My family loves heat so I used a generous dash and everyone was happy. A scant dash would still be kid-friendly.

4) Let it simmer for about 30 minutes.

Optional: I like to smash up some of the vegetables to make a thicker soup and to make sure my daughter doesn't pick them out. I wish I had an immersion blender but I don't, so I just use a potato masher until it looks the way I want it to.

Serve with parmesan cheese. Delicioso!

I had planned on this soup being enough for a couple of meals, but it was such a hit that it was gone in one night. Lily, 3, who sometimes consumes less than 10 calories a day, ate 3 bowls! Kyle, who usually groans at soup, gave it a glowing review instead of his normal pat answer about soup being just alright (he gets points for being honest).

This soup has three of my old standbys for making soup extra delicious, plus one new one. My old ones are bacon, cream and parmesan, which would even make my shoe tasty. My new one is cayenne. I think it added a great element to otherwise ordinary ingredients and yet didn't make it too exotic, and thus unedible by the fam.

Let me know what your "old standbys for deliciousness" are, and what variations you've tried for a soup like this.

The Cookies I Cannot Resist

I do not have a sweet tooth, I have a butter tooth. And a salt tooth. And a brown sugar combined with butter and salt tooth, but not a sweet tooth by itself. I can take or leave most desserts. A package of cookies can remain untouched in our pantry for months. (Unless Kyle knows it's there or Lily can reach it, in which case it is gone before light can travel across the room).

But there is one cookie I cannot resist. I am powerless against the lace cookie. It's no mystery why I love these cookies so- they have more butter in them than our corner store's refrigerated section. They are sweet and rich, carmely and crisp, and have just enough salt to make that tooth happy too. A Costco-sized tin of Lacey's has little to no chance of lasting through the weekend.

Imagine my delight when I realized you can make these bad boys at home. I shopped around for recipes and ended up with a combination of the recipes I read. I had a couple of criteria: I didn't want to have to go to the store- I wanted to use ingredients I already had, including a bag of mandarin oranges that we are unlikely to eat in the next couple of days (we have been eating so many lately that we're all kind of over them). It seems like a miracle at first glance that you could possibly have all the ingredients for such a delicious cookie on hand, but on second thought-- not such a biggie when you realize that these crispy delights only have 6 ingredients, 4 of which are flour, sugar, butter and salt. Love. that.

I also wanted something that could be dressed up cute enough to bring for end-of-year treats for all the people who have helped me at BSF this year, and adding a decorative drizzle of dark chocolate over the top does the trick. Plus it gives me an excuse to enjoy one of my most favorite flavor combinations ever, orange and chocolate. What's better, these cookies contain a bunch of almonds so along with all of the butter, there's also a generous dose of the good fat. Add that to the orange zest and it's a veritable granola bar. Well played, if I do say so myself.

Orange-scented Lace Cookies
2 1/2 sticks of butter
3 c. finely chopped almonds (I food processored them)
1 1/2 c. sugar
2 T flour
2 t. orange zest
1 t. salt
2 eggs, beaten

Chop the almonds in a food processor. Add the sugar, flour, orange zest and salt. Meanwhile, melt butter and add to dry ingredients. Add beaten eggs and combine. Put batter in a squeeze bottle to drop even amounts, about the size of a half dollar, on parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake at 325 for about 8 minutes, or until light golden brown. Melt your favorite chocolate and drizzle onto cooled cookies. You can also place chocolate chips on the cookies as soon as they come out of the oven and make sandwiches out of them.

Caution: don't make these when anyone's home or you will have none to give away.

Tuna Hot

If the question of what to have for lunch vexes you like it does me, then you can imagine my delight when Kyle came home from a business trip with a great new idea for lunch. What, your husband doesn’t share recipes with you?? Ok, so mine doesn’t either.

Here’s what happens when Kyle goes on business trips: when he goes to his company’s headquarters, he usually stays with our good friends, Kristian and Brandi. And let me tell you a little about Miss Brandi. You would hate her for being so perfect if not for the sweetness and humility that pours from her. Besides the God-given ability to effortlessly pop out gorgeous children every 10 minutes or so, she (along with her equally talented husband) can design and decorate a ready-for-a-magazine house (it really has been in a magazine), and so important to this hungry family, the girl. can. cook. So Kyle always comes home will a full meal report and firm instructions to obtain specific recipes (more on that in a minute). Not only can this mama cook, but she can cook for days on end for many gaggles of people, all without breaking a sweat or forgetting to smile or ask you penetrating questions about yourself. See what I mean? Oh, and I’ve seen her do all of this like 45 weeks pregnant. I’m not kidding. To make it worse, she weighs like 100 lbs even after all those kids, and she’s a total fashionista. AND… she homeschools and loves Jesus. I mean… really.

What’s even better, she invented something for lunch that my husband loves and is not too difficult for me to replicate at home when I’m in the mood to make him something yummy. This, ladies and gentlemen, is what I most admire about the lovely Brandi.
So here’s what she did. She mixed up some tuna salad (Kyle likes it with mustard, a tiny bit of mayo, salt and pepper) and stuffed it into these cute little peppers, and voila-- lunch is served. I normally like to put celery and onions in my tuna for some crunch and spice, but the peppers cover both bases, and less chopping = one happy, hungry mother. You can use any type of peppers- I chose these Anaheims but you could use bell peppers, and I think Brandi used the small stoplight ones you can get in big bags at Costco. That makes for a very pretty presentation.
Another favorite part of this lunch is that I get to sing that rockin Kool and the Gang song from the 80s, "Too Hot" because my brother, who was very little at the time, thought they were saying, "Tuna Hot." And that's just what you're gonna think of these little numbers.

Sweet and Savory Pancakes

To satisfy my family's sweet tooth and my salt tooth, I made two types of pancakes this morning. Wait-- I know what you're thinking: "I ain't no short order cook!"-- me neither (although my dream is to someday work the flat-top at a diner), but I was able to easily customize our pancakes with stuff I already had laying around.

For my sweeties, I chopped up some strawberries and sprinkled them, along with some chocolate chips, right on half of the pancakes. To make sure I got an adequate fix of salt and pork fat before church, I crumbled up some leftover bacon and sprinkled it along with some sharp cheddar on my cakes. I put in the goodies after I poured the batter on the griddle (rather than mixing it in the batter), so I could easily control how many of each I made.

They were so good that The Girl Who Barely Eats ate three, and her Very Picky About Pancakes father ate a whole stack. Everybody was happy and well-nourished in time for church-- mission accomplished.