{Eat This}: Soup Recipes.

It's cold out there - time for soup! We just made our first soup of the season earlier this week. If you're in the mood for soup too, here are six recipes I've tried and liked:

Pioneer Woman's Chicken Noodle Soup:

Weight Watchers 3-ingredient Potato Soup:

Carraba's Copy Cat Italian Chicken Noodle Soup:

Taco Soup:

Southwestern Skillet Chicken Chili:

Mom's Chili:

In soup broth,

{Make this}: Pioneer Woman Chicken Soup.

Last week when it was so so cold (we got ice), I was craving soup. Pioneer Woman had just posted about her Italian Chicken Soup and so I knew that was going to be a great recipe to try out.

Our version of Pioneer Woman's Italian Chicken Soup

We didn't have ditilini so I just substituted it with my favorite pasta, wagon wheel pasta. Any shape pasta would do.

I highly recommend this recipe! A very tasty chicken noodle soup - it has some flavor and heat. It made enough for leftovers for days - I'd say probably about 8 servings. Try it out for yourself.

In pasta and (and in) soup,

{Make this}: Accidental Mexican Soup.

As the name of this blog post implies, this soup was a total accident. A happy one. I had been browsing through Real Simple's recipe page (I love their recipes) and found this one for Chicken with Creamy Spinach and Shallots. The recipe itself looked great (who doesn't love a way to jazz up spinach?) but I was actually eying it as a base recipe by which to try to replicate my favorite Mexican dish from El Mezcal, a chicken and rice concoction with spinach and a sour cream cheese sauce.

So we changed around some ingredients, started cooking, and once we got to the end, realized the cream sauce was entirely too runny so we put it over rice in our bowls and realized we actually had a pretty delicious soup on our hands.

With that in mind, the recipe and instructions below will be for our Accidental Mexican Soup, which has chicken, rice, and spinach. We'll be making it again - this time on purpose.

You'll need:

• Mexican Rice (we bought Knorr but Goya would be great if your store has it)
• chicken, chopped into small pieces (we used boneless skinless tenderloins)
• spinach, torn and destemmed (is that a word?)
• sour cream, about 1/2 cup
• 3 large shallots, thinly sliced
• jalapenos (we used jarred chopped ones)
• chicken broth (ignore the picture of the wine, we decided against it)

What you'll do:
1) Cook your chicken - we cubed the tenderloins, salted and peppered them, and then cooked them in olive oil in a skillet - set the chicken aside but keep the juice in the skilled when done.

2) Cook your rice - this part will probably take as long as the rest of these steps. Follow package directions.

3) Cook your shallots in the olive oil from the chicken, stirring until they soften

4) Add in your sour cream and chicken broth (we used about 1/2 this box of broth), as well as your spinach, some chopped jalapenos, and some salt/pepper.

5) Toss gently until spinach wilts. Let cook for about 5 minutes.

6) Put Mexican Rice in the bottom of your bowls (about 1/3rd full) and spoon chicken/spinach into bowl. Then pour broth/sour cream mixture over that. The spices from the Mexican Rice will mix with your sour cream and chicken broth to create a soup broth that is tasty.

So sometimes messed up dinners end up surprising you. This one was a strange accident but worked out well. Give it a try!

In creative cooking,

Make this: Taco Soup.

New year, better eating. More homemade meals, less calories. This is the mantra of a lot of people (me included). After all, we've got to keep ourselves in check after a gluttonous Christmas season (bacon-jalapeno bites, anyone?).

I sifted through my google reader to find a recipe I wanted to make on the cheap and found this Taco Soup recipe from a foodie blog favorite, Our Best Bites. We made it the other night, not realizing that this recipe makes enough for a small army. No, really. It made about 14 servings of soup.

Pros of this recipe - economy, calories (it is a weight watcher, supposedly 4 points of 188 calories per serving), easy to make, and freezes well.

I followed the recipe straight on so follow the link above for details. Here's our results:

Ingredients - diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, corn, kidney beans, taco seasoning, onion, garlic, and beef. 

 Step One: brown your meat and saute the onions and garlic in with it.

 Step Two: Add rest of ingredients and heat, then simmer covered.

 Step Three: Serve (toppings optional and worth more calories

And because they are cute, my pups, being sweet to each other.

And now, to eat on that soup for days. And peddle it to friends and family. Seriously - 14 servings.

Easy Potato Soup, take two.

I blogged here a few weeks ago about an easy and delicious potato soup recipe my friend Chan made for our polish swap party during the holidays. Well the other day I decided to try out the recipe for myself. Since I didn't give the greatest instructions on the last post, I wanted to share those here.

This soup is billed as a Weight Watchers Soup (though I don't follow WW, I do appreciate a good, healthy meal) and I love it because you really only need three ingredients.

You'll need:
1 bag frozen hashbrowns (you'll use about 2/3rds of the bag)
1 packet white country gravy mix
2 cans low-sodium chicken broth

This makes enough for about 6 servings of soup. If you want, you can increase by adding another can of broth, another packet of gravy, and use all the potatoes.

1) Pour 1 whole can and half your other can into your pot, adding the hashbrowns and stirring/mashing as you go. Let this cook on medium high. Occasionally stir.

2) While that is cooking on medium high, prepare your gravy by mixing the rest of the broth and your packet of gravy in a smaller sauce pan.


3) After about ten to fifteen minutes, you'll notice that your potatoes are a soup-y consistency. It is time to stir in the gravy mixture. Let that heat for a few minutes and then you're ready to serve!

 *We wanted to add bacon and shredded cheddar cheese so we cooked up several slices of bacon in the skillet. Also you'll notice in the picture below, my masher I used some instead of stirring.

 And the final product! We served with a mixed greens salad with almonds and gorgonzola cheese.

In easy and good meals (preferably together),

Make this: Easy Potato Soup

Gotta love those holidays... parties everywhere and with parties comes food that is bad for you... right? Not necessarily. My bff Chandler threw a fabulous little nail polish swap for a few of our friends the other night. We each brought a nail polish wrapped to play dirty santa with. It was a great time - and what we ate made it even better! It was the only party so far that I haven't felt like slipping into a food coma afterwards. Granted what I made risked that (jalapeño bacon bites - more on that tomorrow) but everything else was great!

Jennifer brought pretzels and hummus (love) and Chandler made a walnut, craisin, and blue cheese salad with an olive oil and vinegar dressing that was delicious. But the main course, the potato soup with toppings bar, is what I'm blogging about. Because it was awesome and awesomely easy. Chan got it from her fabulous friend, Melissa, who got it off the world wide web (gotta love that place):

To make this soup, you need:
a bag of frozen hash browns or other "mashing" potato frozen item
3 cans or two large boxes of chicken broth (although Chandler used stock and it was great)
2 packages white gravy mix

1) Put the potatoes and half the broth into a pot and boil
2) In a smaller pot, mix the rest of the broth and  the gravy
3) Once the potato mix is boiling, stir in the gravy mix
4) Serve!

Chandler served with shredded cheese, sour cream, bacon bits, and tortilla strips to top with. It made a delicious and pretty healthy soup (I've been told a cup of it is actually 1 WW point).

After eating, we drew numbers and swapped our polish -

McRae drew first and got this nail polish -

 But I stole it with my number 6! Here are some of the girls and our polishes:

 And here are my nails once I got home -

In good parties and good friends,

Make this: Southwestern Skillet Chicken Chili.

 I love Pinterest. Love. I have a whole board of just recipes that I've pinned to make sometime. And I finally actually made one! I found this recipe for Southwestern Skillet Chicken Chili last week on there from the blog Picky Palate and knew immediately we needed to make it.

We didn't mean to but actually ended up making a few changes to the recipe that ended up being great - made it less of a pasta dish and more of a soup, which was appreciated with the wet, cold weather we've been having.

Our ingredients:

8 ounces wagon wheel pasta noodles*

2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 cup finely chopped white onion

1/2 cup finely chopped sweet peppers (or bell peppers)**

1 tablespoon minced garlic

2 cups cooked shredded chicken breast

1o ounce can Rotel diced tomatoes, mild

1 1/2 cups reduced sodium chicken broth

1/2 cup corn, fresh or canned

1/2 cup white beans, drained and rinsed

1 Tablespoon chili powder

1 Tablespoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon dry Ranch seasoning from packet

1/4 cup finely chopped fresh cilantro

 *We couldn't find wagon wheel pasta in our sorry excuse for a Kroger so we used Christmas pasta from TJ Maxx
** I don't like peppers so we omitted those.

The recipe calls to be made in a skillet so we got out my skillet, passed down from my mom:

But then we quickly realize since we messed up the recipe (well I messed up the recipe), we'd need a bigger pot so I got out our dutch oven:

The end product was delicious, filling, and there were LOTS of leftovers. Definitely a keeper:

(sorry about the cat butt - Tyson does what he wants)

So here's how you make this - and what we did differently:

1. Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain and run under cool water to stop cooking.
2. Heat oil in 9 inch cast iron skillet, add onions and peppers, stirring until softened about 5 minutes (we omitted peppers)
3. Add garlic and cook, stirring for 1 minute. (we used a lot more garlic than called for)
4. Add chicken, tomatoes, broth, corn, beans, pasta, chili powder, cumin, Ranch seasoning, and cilantro. Stir until well combined, reduce heat to low and simmer until ready to serve. (we used entire can of broth, beans, and corn, we used the whole packet of ranch seasoning)

In chili and fun pasta shapes,

Chicken Noodle Soup

I love Carrabba's chicken noodle soup so I went searching online to find a copy-cat recipe and ended up modifying one I found online with suggestions from various commenters. I used this recipe from food.com but I changed it a bit so I'll post it below with my changes. 

I really liked this soup and I'm pretty picky about chicken-noodle soups - the consistency has to be right and the noodles can't be soggy. This was just a little spicy, which is always good in my book. 

 You need:
5 celery ribs
4 medium carrots, peeled
1 large onion
2 medium potatoes, peeled
1 (14 ounce) can whole peeled Italian tomatoes  
1 rotisserie chicken
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 large cans of chicken broth
cajun seasoning
salt and pepper
short pasta

1. Dice celery, carrots, onion, and potatoes into 1/4-inch pieces.
2. Chop tomatoes; reserve all juice.
3. Place vegetables, tomatoes with their juice, chicken pieces, and garlic in a stockpot.
4. Add water. Season with salt, pepper, and Cajun seasoning.
5. Slowly bring soup to a boil over low heat.
6. Skim off foam that rises to the surface; may have to skim 2 or 3 times.
7. Partially cover pot and simmer 2 hours.
8. Mash vegetables in the bottom of the pot with the back side of a large cooking spoon or a potato masher.
9. Notes: Soup is best served the day after it is made.

  We used ditalini pasta in it, boiling it separately and adding it right before serving so it doesn't get soggy. I might add cayenne pepper next time too, to spice it up more. 


This made enough for probably 8 servings, so we'll have soup for a while. Probably will freeze some!