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Tag Archives: chicken broth

Pumpkin Soup with Bacon and Croutons

30 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by BakedNorthwest in Entertaining, Events, Holidays, Main Dish, Soups

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

autumn, bacon, carrots, chicken broth, croutons, fall, goat cheese, nutmeg, October, onion, pumpkin, pumpkin seeds, soup

Nothing says Fall like a warm, hearty bowl of soup. Pumpkin Soup with Bacon and Croutons, however, takes Fall to a whole new level.Pumpkin SoupI was blown away with how this soup turned out. Normally I associate the canned pumpkin with sweet treats and desserts, but this soup has changed my mind. I also couldn’t help but think baby food as everything was cooking down (aren’t I super good at convincing you to try my recipes?)…but dammit, it’s a really freakin good adult version of baby food that I would be proud to feed my baby/kids someday (showing them this blog with all the swearing probably won’t be on my list though).Pumpkin SoupAnyways, Pumpkin Soup ended up being a huge success! The bacon and croutons are a must – so was the sprinkling of goat cheese on top. Another thing that blew my mind was the soup was even better the next day. I think this soup will become a yearly October tradition in our house. Next time I will likely double the recipe since the soup is great as leftovers. I also see new versions of this soup surfacing in the years to come, and I can’t wait!Pumpkin Soup

Recipe
Pumpkin Soup with Bacon & Croutons
Serves 4

Ingredients

  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 1 cup chopped carrots
  • 1 (15 oz) can unsweetened pumpkin
  • 2 cups cooked, diced bacon
  • pinch nutmeg
  • 32 oz (2 lbs) low sodium chicken broth
  • dash thyme
  • dash red pepper flakes
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 4 – 6 slices day old bread, depending on what size of loaf you are using (I used a few slices of a crusty artisan loaf)

Additional Garnishes:

  • Goat cheese or sour cream
  • Toasted Pumpkin Seeds

Directions

1. Heat the oil in a large pan. Add the chopped onion and carrots and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, for 5 – 10 minutes or until softened. Add a few dashes of salt and pepper while the veggies are cooking down.

2. While the vegetables are cooking, dice raw bacon into small pieces and add to a separate pan. Cook on medium until bacon pieces get slightly crisp. Set aside and drain on paper towels. Leave remaining grease in pan for the croutons. To make croutons, cut bread into small squares and cook on medium-low in the bacon pan until brown and crisp. Set aside to drain on paper towels.

3. Add the pumpkin, half of the cooked bacon (about 1 cup), and nutmeg to the carrot and onion mixture, stirring well. Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 5 – 10 minutes.

4. Pour in the chicken broth, increase the heat to medium, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for at least 15 minutes. Add a few dashes of thyme and red pepper flakes, season to taste with more salt and pepper if needed.

5. Remove the pan from heat and let cool slightly. Use an immersion blender to blend up the soup until smooth. If you don’t have an immersion blender, I highly recommend you get one…but transferring the soup to a food processor or blender and blending in batches also works fine. If so, return it to the pan and reheat.

6. Serve soup with the reserved bacon bits and croutons. Soup is excellent with a few sprinkles of goat cheese on top, or sour cream. Toasted Pumpkin Seeds add a nice seasonal flair as well.

Tomato Basil Soup

15 Monday Oct 2012

Posted by BakedNorthwest in Easy, Entertaining, Healthy, Main Dish, Side Dish, Soups, Weeknight Meals

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

basil, chicken broth, garden tomotoes, garlic, onion, thyme, tomato

Homemade tomato basil soup, with a dollop of ricotta and some sourdough to dip.

Upon tasting this fresh homemade tomato basil soup, I thought to myself, “why haven’t I made this before?!?”

Fresh & Natural ingredients simmer together to make this soup.

It’s a question, after some un-publishably bad recipes, I wish I was asking myself more often. I recently had some high hopes for a vegan pumpkin bread, but it didn’t hold a candle next to my mom’s buttery non-vegan bread. Another disappointment was a favorable biscuit recipe on Pinterest that everyone seems to love, but I found I was trying to convince myself they were sooo good I wanted to go back for more.

Once the roasted tomatoes are added, it starts looking more like a soup instead of a chunky stew…And your house will start to smell really good.

Anyways, bombed-recipes tangent aside, I’m glad I’ve redeemed myself with this classic! Ina never fails. I love her. I am so excited to never buy canned tomato soup again. I’m already dreaming about how good this is going to taste tomorrow at lunch. Cause you know, most soups are always better the next day.

Use an immersion blender to puree the soup to your desired thickness. Ina uses a food mill to make a very chunky soup, but I don’t own one. This option still worked wonders.

Recipe
Tomato Basil Soup
Barely adapted From The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook
Makes 6-8 Servings

Ingredients

  • 3 pounds ripe plum tomatoes, cut in half lengthwise (I used a variety of tomatoes from my garden)
  • 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons good olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon kosher salt
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
  • 2 cups chopped yellow onions (2 onions)
  • 6 garlic cloves, minced
  • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
  • 1 (28-ounce) canned plum tomatoes, with their juice
  • 4 cups fresh basil leaves, packed (I didn’t use quite this much basil, maybe only 2-3 cups)
  • 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves (I used dried thyme)
  • 1 quart chicken stock or water

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Toss together the tomatoes, 1/4 cup olive oil, salt, and pepper. Spread the tomatoes in 1 layer on a baking sheet and roast for 45 minutes.

In an 8-quart stockpot over medium heat, saute the onions and garlic with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, the butter, and red pepper flakes for 10 minutes, until the onions start to brown. Add the canned tomatoes, basil, thyme, and chicken stock. Add the oven-roasted tomatoes, including the liquid on the baking sheet. Bring to a boil and simmer uncovered for 40 minutes. Use a hand/immersion blender to lightly puree the soup. Make sure the immersion blender is at least an inch deep and close to the bottom of the pot – you don’t want soup exploding everywhere! Taste for seasonings. Serve hot or cold with grated parmesan, a dollop of ricotta, or crusty bread. Just about anything tastes good paired with this soup!

Pineapple Cilantro Quinoa

30 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by BakedNorthwest in Easy, Healthy, Side Dish

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

chicken broth, cilantro, pineapple, Quinoa

A super easy, summery, and fresh quinoa dish! 

Minimal ingredients…tons of flavor.

Recipe

Pinapple Cilantro Quinoa

from Sing For Your Supper

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup quinoa, thoroughly rinsed
  • 2 cups chicken broth
  • 1 cup fresh pineapple, diced
  • 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
  • salt

Bring the chicken broth and quinoa to a boil, then reduce heat to low and cook for 20-30 minutes, until the quinoa is tender and has soaked up all the liquid. Stir in the pineapple and cilantro. Serves 4.

Chicken and Dumplings

23 Thursday Feb 2012

Posted by BakedNorthwest in Bloggerific, Chicken, Main Dish, Soups

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

bisquick, carrots, celery, Chicken, chicken broth, cream sherry, dumplings, onion, soup

Ok. Chicken and Dumplings are good. Really good. Even when you kind of screw up the recipe…

This is one of the only pictures I got. The dumplings are boiling to their death...

I went off of an awesome recipe from Culinary Cory – but I should have stuck to it more. I decided I was going to add more veggies, but not add more broth to the recipe…

the mound of extra veggies that I thought was a brilliant idea.

Everything was looking good…I added a splash of cream sherry to liven things up a bit…

Looks amazing right now, right?

Things went downhill as soon as I added the dumplings and brought everything to a boil. First of all, the dumplings soak up a lot of broth while they are cooking, so having enough is important. Then, while the mound of veggies were suffocating under the dumplings, I kind of burnt the bottom of the pan…sigh.

This was the end product. More of a stew than a soup...not the most gorgeous photo or dish. But I swear it still tasted great!

Luckily, the end product still tasted good besides a few burnt chunks that were encountered. The pot I used is pissed though. Thank God the friends that ate this didn’t mind a chicken and dumpling stew…We have coincidentally nicknamed the dish “chicken and dumps.” Not because it was bad – just because it’s hilarious.

Despite my mistake, this all got scooped up pretty fast. I didn't have time to take a picture after it had stopped boiling...mmm doughy chunks.

This is just one of those things I guess – a learning experience. “Winging it” and adding tons of extra veggies wasn’t the greatest idea ever. So, here is the lovely recipe below, and for the love of god, either follow it or DOUBLE it or TRIPLE it…Don’t wing it like I did!

Recipe

Chicken and Dumplings

adapted from Culinary Cory

Serves 2 (with leftovers)

Chicken and Dumplings
Soup:
1 Tbl. olive oil
2 uncooked chicken breasts, boneless and skinless
½ tsp. dried thyme
½ tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. pepper
¼ tsp. garlic powder or garlic salt
¼ cup butter, unsalted
¼ cup celery, small diced
¼ cup yellow onion, small diced
¼ cup carrot, small diced
3 Tbl. flour
2 (15 oz. can) chicken broth, low sodium
¼ cup frozen peas

splash of cream sherry (optional)

Dumplings:
1 ½ cup baking mix, Bisquick
2/3 cup milk

In a small Dutch oven or heavy stock pot, preheat the olive oil on medium high heat. Dice the chicken breasts into medium sized pieces and slowly add them to the oil. Add the thyme, salt, pepper and garlic powder to chicken. Sauté for 2 – 3 minutes or until the chicken is completely cooked though, but not brown. Remove and set aside.

To the same Dutch oven, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the celery, onions and carrots to the butter. Stir occasionally for 4 – 5 minutes or until the onions are slightly translucent. Next, add the flour and stir for 1 minute until the flour has completely absorbed the butter. Stir in the cooked chicken and slowly add the chicken stock. Make sure you stir while adding the stock to prevent the flour from causing lumps.  Add the frozen peas to the broth.

In a separate bowl, combine the baking mix and milk until well incorporated. Bring the broth to a boil. This is important for the dumplings to steam properly. Drop large tablespoons full of the dumpling batter into the boiling broth. Continue to boil for 10 minutes, uncovered. Cover the soup and reduce the heat to medium low. Cook for an additional 10 minutes, covered.

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