Yield: 12 14 oz servings / 4.5 quarts
Calories: 250
Carbohydrates: 12
(approx)

This is close to the Christmas Soup I made a few weeks ago, which everyone liked a lot, but had quite a few carbohydrates in it. Since we’re cutting back on carbs for a while, I thought this would make a good low-carb soup if we just left out the potatoes and held back on the beans a bit. Continue reading →

The New Year is upon us, and for me it’s going to be the year of soup. Every week, or as near as I can manage, I’ll be making soup, and sharing it with friends.

The same time I decided to soup my way throughout the year my gal informed me that she wanted to see less of both us. Like ninety percent of the population, we each need to lose fifteen (or in my case a bit more) pounds, and the start of the new year is the start of a new resolve. Continue reading →

The day after Christmas was going to be a Sunday, and EJ and I were taking leftovers to a friends house for a post Christmas pot luck get together. We did bring some leftovers, roasted vegetables that may yet find their way to a soup, but I wanted to make a Christmas soup, assuming that one existed. Actually lots of them exist, but this one, from Alton Brown, featured beans, kielbasa, and kale…and sounded great. It turns out to be both easy, and one of the best received soups I’ve made so far. When I served it out it was some time before any sound other than spoons scraping against bowls could be heard.

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Getting up the other morning I decided I really wanted to take some soup for lunch. Thirty minutes later (shower included) I had a soup that every one raved over. You could easily make this without meat, but as I had a little ham and bacon around, I added them in.

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2 slices of bacon (chopped)
1 cup onions (chopped)
1 cup celery (chopped)
1 cup carrot (chopped)
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 can white beans (Great Northern or Navy)
1 qt chicken stock
1 slice of ham

Saute bacon
add 1 tbsp oil
Add vegetables and saute for 5 minutes
Add beans
Add ham
simmer twenty minutes
puree lightly with hand blender

Notes:

Since we don’t eat bacon all that often, I it frozen in two strip bunches for cooking. It chops fine, and is alway there when I need it. All the vegetables in this soup were chopped to about 1/4 inch, smaller than I usually chop things, but the beans are the focus and larger pieces would interfere with that.