Italian Potato Soup

I tried to re-create a soup we had at an Italian Restaurant. It turned out easy and tasty!

These are the ingredients:
1 package Italian sausage (1 to 1 1/2 lb)
1 onion
1 3 lb bag red potatoes
soup base, or bullion cubes, or broth (I use Better Than Bullion chicken or vegetable flavor)
1 pint half and half ( or milk)
2 oz arugula
oyster crackers

Here's how to do it.
Break the sausage into small pieces and cook.
Chop the onion and add to the sausage toward the end of the cooking.
Wash and slice the potatoes and add to pan after onions are translucent. Add enough water to barely cover (about 4-5 cups) and some soup base (about 2 Tbs) and cook until the potatoes are done. ( about 10 mins or so).
Add the half and half.
Add about 2 oz of arugula. (that's about half of a bag)
Serve with oyster crackers.
This makes about 8 servings.

Very Tasty Curry

Several years ago a friend from Hong Kong showed me how she made curry. Joelle and I made it together recently and it was the best we'd ever made!

We used the list of ingredients from my friend's curry and added a few touches of our own. Here's what we did.

First we chopped half an onion, a shallot, half a yellow pepperand minced 3 cloves garlic. Then we heated olive oil in a large pot and sauteed them.

Then we chopped 3 chicken breasts and 6 or 7 small white potatoes into bite sized pieces and added them to the pot, and stirred it all for a few minutes.

Then we added enough water to cover the chicken and potatoes, and 3 tablespoons soup starter and brought to a simmer. (You can use bullion cubes or broth if you want to.)

When the potatoes and chicken were cooked, we added:
one can of coconut milk
one medium sized tomato, chopped
a half cup of frozen peas
one tablespoon thai curry paste
one teaspoon of yellow curry powderAnd cooked this until it was all warm.

We served it over jasmine rice.Yum!!!

This is about four generous servings.

Moroccan Style Chicken Soup

I made this up just to have a change from chicken noodle soup.

I'll give a recipe for about 8 servings, because when I make soup, I like to make a big pot so we can have leftovers once or twice. Cut the recipe down if you want a smaller amount, or if you don't have a nice big pot to make it in.

Chicken Soup, Moroccan Style

I used 3 chicken breasts. Cook them anyway you like and cut or tear the meat into small pieces. If you cook it in water, save the broth to add to the soup. (I had about 5 cups meat - but you could use a lot less or even leave it out.)

Chop the following and saute in olive oil:
3 stalks celery
4 carrots
an onion
a sweet pepper, any color you like

(If you cook the celery and carrot alone for first for a few minutes, then the pepper and onion won't get too overdone.)

Add water, (use the water the chicken cooked in.) I think I added about 9 or 10 cups water total, but you don't need to start with that much, 6 is probably enough to finish cooking the carrots and the pasta. Add soup base, probably 2 Tblspoons now and 2 later, as you adjust the seasonings. (You can use bullion cubes instead of soup base or you could use broth.) Bring the water to a boil and add 1 1/3 C orzo. (about half a 1lb box). Cook 10 minutes.

Add
2 large cans diced tomatoes
2 cans garbanzo beans
1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons of ginger and cumin
3/4 to 1 teaspoon cinnamon
pepper to taste, maybe a heaping 1/4 t
a couple more Tblspoons of soup base
you probably don't need any salt
more water if you need it

(The orzo absorbs the water and the soup gets thicker after a little while. And especially in the refrigerator overnight.)

Heat through.

I like this soup because it smells fantastic and the flavor is so interesting. And almost all the ingredients can be found in the pantry. I hope you like it too.