Quick pepper, onion, and sausage soup

For quite a while I carried around the notion that soups had to be long simmered.  Soup was an all day affair.  But, I was wrong.

This soup uses boxed chicken broth and canned beans. It is not really a set recipe, more of a "fridge soup".  It started as a recipe from a camping magazine.  The main ingredients are peppers, onions and sausage.



Procedure:
*Brown 12 ounces (or more) of sausage.  This time I started with sweet Italian sausage, but I've used smoked sausage, or chorizo sausage.

*Reserve some fat and slowly cook thinly sliced onions until softened and slightly carmelized..

*Add sliced peppers. I used small sweet peppers.  I have used bell peppers and added hotter varieties.  Depends on what's on hand.

*Add 1 quart chicken stock.  Homemade stock is always best, but I seldom have it on hand. One of the characteristics of homemade stock is a high gelatin content.  Gelatin from the bones will often cause refrigerated stock to tighten up like jello. A bit of unflavored gelatin adds body to boxed stock.  I added one envelop when I added the stock. It's nice, but not necessary.

*Extras - I had about 6 ounces of cooked mushrooms from the night before.  They went in the pot. Sometimes we have an extra baked potato, it would have been a good addition.  Nancy likes more beans and would have added a second can.  Try something.

*Simmer until heated throughout.

Homemade Bean Soup

This is double homemade soup.  The beans all came from the garden.  Last years crop of green beans got ahead of us. Toward the end of the season we let the beans mature and dry.

Cooking the beans was fairly standard. At 8:00 A.M.,  I covered the beans with water and brought the pot to a boil.  After 5 minutes the heat was turned off and the beans soaked until 3:00 P.M.

The beans were rinsed and covered with fresh water.  Using/modifying a Mennonite Girls Recipe, I added several smoked ham shanks, 1/3 cup brown sugar and a couple of tablespoons of hot sauce.

The soup simmered for about 3 hours.  The shanks were removed.  I used an immersion blender to blend about 1/4 of the beans and thicken the soup. Remove the ham from the bones and put it it back to the soup.

Nancy made some corn bread muffins for a perfect supper.

Easy, cheap, and, slow.

While I was looking back on old blog posts to find my first Daily Sentinel link, I came across my first recipe post.

Easy, cheap, and, fast - What a man wants in a good recipe

I was going to title this post “Simple recipes for simple guys“, but She-who-must-be-obeyed gave me one of those looks. So, I hope she likes this.

Note to my male readers: A man’s ability to cook an edible meal and clean up afterward is an attribute highly valued by women.

There is no shortage of cooking shows, magazines and websites. So I say, “why not me too?” Too often recipes are unnecessarily complicated. There are too many ingredients, and too many pans. So let’s simplify it.

A couple of things stand out for me from that first post. It's still true that the ability to cook is a highly valued attribute.  It's also true that there is no shortage of  cooking shows, magazines and websites.  In fact the right hand column of this bog has a link that will list all the Grand Life Recipes  and the recipes are also aggregated on Grand Life Cooking.

But cooking is more than just following recipes.  After practice and trial and error efforts some skills emerge.  Some technique is important. And imagination is always the secret ingredient.  Can you imagine the taste?  What would it taste like if you added a bit of that spice?  Only practice gives a cook that.

Chefs are tasked with inventing a dish and then replicating it exactly the same night after night.  When you go to your favorite restaurant you often order something you have had before and you know exactly how it should taste.

A Cook is different. A good cook  can put together a good meal with items on hand.  General guidelines can serve as well as a detailed recipe.

Yesterday, She-who-must-be-obeyed said, "It's cold out - some bean soup would be good".  There are four or five bean recipes on this blog, and thousands on the internet.  But as the lady said, it's really cold out right now and this is the soup made from what's on hand. I did not want to go out to the store.

Recipe #48 Hambone, red bean and lentil soup.

Red beans and ham

1 cup (8 oz) red beans
3/4 cup red lentils
1 can diced tomatoes (with onion, celery and green pepper)
1 ham bone
water
splash of blackstrap molasses
dash of Worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper

That's the recipe list because that's what I had. I often use stock rather than water, but neither homemade nor canned was available. Fresh veggies were in short supply too. I often start with a Mirepoix (onions celery and carrots), but I had a can of tomatoes with stuff in it.

After you have cooked a few pots of beans you know what to do.  Beans take a long time at high altitude whether you pre-soak or not.  I just started these dry right after lunch.  Cover the beans with a couple of inches of water and bring to a boil - then let them simmer.  A couple of hours before dinner add the ham bone and some lentils.  The lentils will cook faster than the beans and fall apart to thicken the soup.  In the last hour sample the broth and add salt and pepper. Remove the bone and chunk up the meat.  Fifteen minutes before serving add a couple of tablespoons of blackstrap molasses (if you have it) and a few shakes of  Worcestershire sauce.  Blackstrap molasses is not particularly sweet, but it does add a nice complex flavor.  The cornbread muffins are straight out of the Jiffy cornbread box. 

I used only half a package of beans because there are only two of us. The general rule is 1 cup of dry beans yields 3 cups of cooked beans.  Note that the lentils have disappeared into the broth. I was using a five quart pot so I made 2½   or 3 quarts of soup. That's enough for dinner and lunch the next day.

Roasted squash soup

Fall is here.  The cooler weather means a change in cooking styles for me.  Soups and stews and slow roasted meat are all on the menu.

Last night we made a pot of roasted squash soup.  Thanks to neighbors we have lots of fresh squash and tomatoes.   There is a lot of possible variation for this recipe, use what you have.  I recently roasted a small turkey and made stock with the bones.

Recipe # 47  Roasted Squash Soup with Turkey

3 to 5  fresh squash - yellow and/or zucchini
2 handfuls of grape tomatoes
carrots
onions
2 quarts turkey stock (or chicken stock)
cut cooked turkey or chicken
garlic
fresh basil
oregano
rosemary
olive oil
salt and pepper

The sequence: cut, seasoned and roasted.

Peel and seed the squash. Spread cut squash on a cooking sheet. Add the rest of the vegetables.  Drizzle olive oil over the vegetables and mix to coat. Season to taste. Put the sheet into a 425 degree oven. Roast about 30 minutes or until vegetables start to brown. Stir after 20 minutes.

When the stock is hot and the vegetables are done add a quarter to a half to the pot and blend with a immersion blender.  This will thicken the broth and provide a favorable base to the soup.  Add the rest of the vegetables and cooked-cut chicken or turkey to the pot and heat through.

Soup and stocks

In his book Ratio, Michael Ruhlman makes the proposition that it is stocks that separate good home cooks from great home cooks.

A good can always use canned broth, but homemade stocks are easy, inexpensive and really do add to the taste of food. They also add character and body to the dish.

I use two easily prepared stocks.

Recipe 25a Basic Chicken Stock

Bones from a cooked chicken (home roasted or rotisserie)
1 large onion
2 or 3 carrots
celery stick
salt
add any additional spices you like or add them later

Put bones and leftover attached meat in a 2 or three quart. Add the other ingredients and cover with water. The basic ratio for stock is 3 parts water : 2 parts bones. Three pints of water will weigh 1 1/2 pounds. That pairs with the approximate pound of bones from one chicken. Exact ratios are not critical. Cook on low heat - 190 or a very low simmer for several hours. Strain or pour off the liquid. It can be used or frozen. Cooled gelatinous stock can be spooned into freezer bags. Freeze in sizes useful to you.

Once frozen stock is available, soup is easy. Just add some chicken, and pasta, or vegetables.

Recipe 35b Beef Stock
3 pounds water (3 pints)

2 pounds roasted bones
Carrots
Onions
Celery

If the bones are not cooked, roast them first. Put bones in a roaster and add the vegetables. It is not necessary to peel the vegetable since they will be discarded. In fact thrifty cooks use peel, tops and otherwise unused vegetables for flavoring stock. Good beef stock requires some meat. About a third of the bone weight should be from meat. You may wish to add a bit of inexpensive cuts to the pot.

Start roasted bones in cold water and bring to 190 degrees or a very low simmer. Cook for several hours. Like the chicken stock, beef stock can be used immediately or frozen in conveniently sized packages. The stock makes a wonderful braising liquid or soup base.


Some fresh bread, four or five onions and homemade stock, all come together for the best French onion soup you will ever have.

Four Bean Stew

It's four beans because that's what I happened to have on hand. My mixture consisted of red lentils, black-eyed peas, small white beans , and red beans. It could just have easily been 5 or 6 different kinds of beans. Back in 2007, I posted a recipe for ham and black eyed peas. I think I've added to my cooking skills since then. So, here my 2010 recipe for ham and beans stew. I'm calling it a stew because it is thicker than a soup. We cooked a a shank end ham for the holidays. The nice thing about a ham is that so many meals can be made, there is lots of ham for sandwiches, and the bone anchors a great soup or stew.


Recipe #34 Ham and mixed bean stew

Ham bone
1 pound cooked ham
2 cups mixed dried beans (about one pound)
1 chopped onion
1 chopped celery stick
1 chopped carrot
2 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons molasses
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon cooking oil

(1)Soak the beans first. This hot-soak method is from the Central Bean company page.

After sorting and rinsing the beans, in a large pot add 10 cups of water for each pound (2 cups) of dry beans. Bring to a boil. Boil for 2 or 3 minutes, remove from heat, cover and stand at least 1 hour (quick-soak method), but preferably 4 hours or more; maximum 24 hours. (The longer soaking time is recommended to allow a greater amount of sugar to dissolve, thus helping the beans to be more easily digested.) Whether you soak the beans for one hour or several, discard soak water; rinse beans and pan. Return beans to pan, add fresh cold water to fully cover the beans.

The sugar they are refering to, is the undigestable sugars that can cause gas. This method reduces those sugars and softens the beans. Long cooking also reduces the problem.

(2) When the beans have soaked and are ready to cook add a small amount of oil to your cooking pot. Cook the chopped vegtables. Add the chunks of ham and the bone. If you have a few peieces of the rind with attached fat, throw those in the pot too. A little fat will add a lot of flavor.

(3) Add the rinsed and soaked beans. Add only enough water to cover the beans. Add the molasses and sugar. These will help maintain the structure of the beans as they cook. Simmer gently for 3 or more hours. Cooking times vary, some recipes give times of one or 1 ½ hours, but the high altitude of Colorado generally requires more time.

(4) When the beans are cooked to your liking, remove the bone and larger pieces of meat. Cut meat into bite sized chunks. Before returning the meat to the pot use a stick blender to puree some of the beans. This will thicken your dish and give a nice texture to the soup/stew.

Black-eyed peas

Here is a recipe for using that holiday ham bone. This recipe was first published on Grand Life back 2007.

Recipe # 12 Ham and Black-eyed Pea Soup

1 pound of ham and ham bone
8 oz black-eyed peas
1 large onion - diced
2 large carrots - sliced
2 stalks celery - diced
2-3 tomatoes - chopped
1-2cloves of garlic
4 cups (2 cans) chicken stock
Salt and pepper

Soften the beans prior to starting the soup. To quick start this process, place beans in a pot and cover with water. Bring the pot to a boil and continue boiling for 5 minutes. Remove and let the beans soak for one hour. Rinse beans and they are ready for the soup pot.

Heat a large soup kettle and sauté onions, carrots, celery and garlic. When the vegetables soften, add bits diced ham and stir together. Season with salt and pepper. It is not necessary to cook the vegetables first. All the ingredients can be put in the pot and heated. However, a quick sauté will bring out the aromatic qualities and make the kitchen smell good. It doesn’t take much time and you can add the ingredients as you chop them up.

You’ll notice a bottle of wine on the counter. This recipe does not call for wine to be added to the pot, but it doesn’t hurt to add a bit to the cook.

Once the vegetables and ham have cooked a few minutes, add tomatoes, softened black-eyed peas (any variety of bean will do) and 4 cups of stock. Add additional water to cover all the ingredients.

Bring the soup up to a boil, and then reduce the heat. Let it simmer for about three hours. My stove has a simmer control that works well for soups. This recipe also works well in a slow cooker or crock pot.

Soup always goes well with good bread. An easy favorite in our house is garlic toast.
Start with thick slices of French bread. Heat butter, olive oil and chopped garlic in the microwave. Brush each slice with the mixture and place on a baking sheet. Sprinkle each slice with a little parmesan cheese and a little dried parsley. Broil one side until heated and slightly toasted.

Is it soup yet?

The family is gone and the remaining turkey is packed away for leftovers and sandwiches. Now it is time for soup. Turkey bones and bits, onions, carrots, and celery in big pieces all go into the pot. Add some salt and pepper, some garlic, and a few favorites herbs. Let it simmer a few hours.

The basic stock can be frozen in smaller containers. Separate soups can be made with noodles, or rice, or vegetables. It's good stuff.