Fresh Tomato Soup

When Ryan and I had a bunch of tomatoes from our garden, we thought that maybe we could try making some homemade tomato soup! It was a good way to use up a lot of the tomatoes we had before they went bad. After looking at the ingredients on canned tomato soup (yuck!), I thought homemade tomato soup would be a good idea. :) I searched the internet and found the recipe below (found here).


Ingredients:
3 medium tomatoes, peeled and quartered
1 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup chopped onion (1 medium)
1/2 cup chopped celery (1 stalk)
1/2 6 ounce can (1/3 cup) tomato paste
2 tablespoons snipped fresh cilantro or basil
2 teaspoons instant chicken bouillon granules
1 teaspoon sugar
Few dashes bottled hot pepper sauce
Snipped fresh cilantro or basil (optional)

Directions:
If desired, seed the tomatoes. In a large saucepan combine tomatoes, water, onion, celery, tomato paste, the 2 tablespoons cilantro, bouillon granules, sugar, and hot pepper sauce. Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer, covered, about 20 minutes or until celery and onion are very tender. Remove from heat and cool for 10 minutes.

Place half of the tomato mixture in a blender or food processor. Cover and blend or process until smooth. Repeat with the remaining mixture. Return all to the saucepan; heat through. If desired, garnish with additional cilantro.

Makes 4 servings (4 cups)


The nutrition facts on the website says that one serving (1 cup) of the soup is 53 calories. Just for fun, I looked to see how many calories canned tomato soup has -- 90 calories for 1/2 cup, which would be 180 for 1 cup. Crazy, the difference in calories between this homemade tomato soup and canned tomato soup! I made this soup twice and tripled or quadrupled it each time so that I could use more tomatoes. (I think I quadrupled it so I could use 2 full cans of tomato paste--since the single recipe calls for 1/2 a can.) The first time I made it, we didn't have celery. It was ok. The second time I made it, I added celery to it and it was a lot better! So I recommend the celery. Also, I didn't put as much hot pepper sauce in it the second time. It was a little too spicy the first time I made it, so just a couple of dashes of the hot sauce is plenty (when quadrupling it).

Chicken Chowder

I got this recipe from Ryan's sister, Julene, a couple of years ago but never made it until now. It's delicious! I love a nice hot bowl of soup on cold days, so since winter is right around the corner, I thought I'd post this recipe. :)


Ingredients:
4 chicken breasts cooked and chopped into bite size pieces (or about 8 chicken tenderloins)
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped celery
2 cups chopped potatoes
1 carrot chopped

Simmer vegetables in 4 cups chicken broth for 15-20 minutes.

Make white sauce while vegetables are simmering (combine the following ingredients in a large pot):
3/4 cup margarine (I used butter)
2/3 cup flour
1/2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 quart milk

Add vegetables with broth to white sauce, stir in chicken. Simmer 20-30 min. Thickens as it cools.


The directions weren't very specific, so I wasn't exactly sure what I was doing since it was my first time making it. Haha! I used chicken granules with water for the chicken broth, but you could use canned chicken broth. I boiled the broth first, then added the vegetables and turned it down to medium heat. Putting the white sauce together took a little while, so I think I actually had the vegetables simmering for 30-40 minutes. It still turned out great, though. One more thing... since the chicken granules have a lot of sodium, I omitted the salt from the white sauce. It's a delicious, creamy soup! I love it!

Homemade Chili

This is a recipe that I got from a cousin's wife. :) It's so easy to make and so good! If you like chili, you should try this recipe! Below is a single recipe, but I doubled it for this pot shown in the picture...


Ingredients:
1 can kidney beans
1 can black beans
1 can diced tomatoes (not drained)
1 16 oz. jar mild Picante sauce (we used medium Pace chunky salsa)
1 lb. cooked ground beef (doubling this, I only used 1 1/2 lbs. instead of 2 lbs.)
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
Chili powder
Onion powder
Directions:
Rinse off kidney beans and black beans. Heat in a pot with tomatoes and sauce (or salsa). Add cooked ground beef, cheddar cheese, and spices. Heat until cheese is melted.

That's about it! So simple and delicious! Instead of adding spices in at the end, we added spices in with the ground beef while we were browning it. Along with the chili powder and onion powder, we used seasoned salt, ground cumin, and minced garlic. You can add whatever spices you like to fit your taste! You can serve the chili alone or with chips and/or sour cream and/or guacamole and/or more shredded cheese on top. However you like to eat it! :)

Don't you love the plate of cupcakes in the background? Heehee! :)

Vegetable Soup

A friend came up with this version of veggie soup, since he can't eat any high-protein food. Of course, with any recipe, you can tweak it to your liking!

5 ½ c chicken broth
water
2 packets of country gravy mix
seasonings of choice
3 potatoes, diced

1 onion, diced

25 baby carrots, cut

1 head cauliflower, diced

1 can green beans, drained

1 can corn, drained

1. Pour broth into large pan or large slow cooker. Fill pan up to the half-way point with water. (Note: you don't need very much liquid when using a slow cooker; just fill with enough water to coat the veggies.)
2. Turn heat to medium. Add gravy mix. Stir.
3. Add seasonings to taste. Suggestions are: Italian seasoning, season-all, steak seasoning, garlic salt, onion powder, salt, and pepper.
4. Add all vegetables. Use these or any veggies of choice.
5. Cook until vegetables reach desired consistency.

Broccoli Cheese Soup

Ryan and I went out to eat at Brick Oven one day, and I got a bowl of their broccoli cheese soup. Ryan mentioned that his Grandma Adams used to make broccoli cheese soup quite often. I had him taste the soup to see if it tasted about the same as his grandma's soup, and he said it was really similar! I absolutely LOVE broccoli cheese soup, so I wanted to get the recipe from his grandma. After she sent me the recipe, I made it and it turned out SOOOOO good! This is a great recipe, especially during the winter when it's so cold outside! Mmmmm!


Bring to a boil:
4 qts. water
12 chicken bouillon cubes

Add 1 or 2 heads of broccoli (3 pkgs. frozen) cut into bite size pieces. Cook until tender. (See picture above.) Melt 3 sticks margarine. Take off heat and slowly stir in 1 1/2 cups flour. Add this mixture to liquid and broccoli and stir until smooth and thickened. Add 16 oz. jar cheese whiz. Heat until melted.

Sliced carrots, cubed potatoes, onion, or celery may be added. Ryan and I have made it with carrots added (we just took some baby carrots and cut them up in small pieces), and we made it a second time with just potatoes added. Personally I like it with the carrots better than the potatoes, but you can try anything and see what you like! This recipe is for a really big pot, so I usually do 2 qts. of water and cut the recipe in half. The pan below has 3 qts. in it which made it really full! We had leftovers for a few days! Yum!

Celery Soup

I usually don't like celery very much plain or with cheese or peanut butter on it. Yuck! The only way I really love celery is when it's in celery soup! I got this recipe from my mom. It's so good!


Ingredients:
celery
green onions
creamed soup (cream of chicken or cream of mushroom or whatever)
milk

Cut celery in half and then in little pieces. Cut up the green onion in small pieces. Boil in water until tender, about 15 minutes. Drain water. Depending on how much celery you use, put in any combination of creamed soup - 2 to 4 cans. However many cans of creamed soup you use, put in the same amount of milk (i.e. 3 cans of soup = 3 cans of milk, 4 cans of soup = 4 cans of milk, etc.). Heat it up.

Voila! You have made some delicious celery soup! You can eat it the way it is, or you can add anything you want to it to make it tastier - shredded cheese, salt, pepper. ENJOY!!