Soup

It's the season for soup, isn't it? The weather is cold and it's cozy to have a pot of soup cooking in the kitchen. Soups also tend to be an economical meal, which is a big reason why we've been having quite a few of them recently. (The checkbook is not happy right now.) 

There have been a few in the past week or so that are so good, I thought I'd share them. (Don't get too excited, though, you're going to have to check a couple of books out of the library because I don't share copyrighted recipes.)

The first is Julia Child's onion soup recipe from her book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Don't let the book intimidate you, because it's really not difficult, it just takes a longish cooking time. But it is so good! While I rarely follow a recipe exactly these days, on this one I do. It is worth it. Even my children who have a tendency to pick out onions from their food eat this soup. Really, just try it.

The next is one we made a few days ago: Creamy Sun-dried Tomato Soup with Ravioli.  I came across this awhile back, and when I had some frozen sun-dried tomatoes as well as vacuum packed ravioli in the pantry, it seemed like the perfect choice. Plus it used up the leftover cream that was in the refrigerator. (I buy the large jars of sun-dried tomatoes at the big box store turn divide them into usable portion and freeze them. The pasta I stock up on egg. Aldi puts them on sale.) This was also a really good soup, plus it was fast and easy. 

Finally comes the soup we had tonight. D. had wanted beef stew so I looked through some cookbooks and landed on the beef stew recipe in Alice Waters' book, The Art of Simple Food. D., G., and I threw it together this afternoon and it cooked in the oven for several hours. It truly made the house smell delicious. And even better, it tasted as good as it smelled. We will definitely be making this again. Once again, I followed the recipe except for two changes. It calls for three pounds of stew meat for four servings. I rarely use the amount of meat called for in any recipe. Instead, I used one pound (because that's what the stew meat in my freezer is packeted in) and quadrupled the vegetables and doubled everything else. We also used a whole package of bacon. The other change was that I substitute port for cognac because when D. went digging through the dusty liquor bottles in the very back of the pantry, that's what we had. Once again, it was simple to make, but just needed a long cooking time. 

If you checkout a copy of Simple Food, then you can also try her recipe for spicy cauliflower soup, which is also very, very good. Actually, I haven't been unhappy with any recipes we've tried from it. Not bad for a book I picked up for a dollar, huh? 

So there, I've given you four meal ideas. Now, hop on your library app and put the books on hold so you can enjoy them, too.