Instant Pot Vegetable Beef Soup

We made a large pot of vegetable beef soup mostly following the crockpot recipe at Wellplated.  We used butternut squash, red potatoes and carrots; but we were out of celery. We also didn't put in peas. Otherwise, we mostly followed the ingredient list.

Jeff actually cooked the beef overnight in the Instant Pot on the sous vide setting. We cooked the onions, garlic and carrots on the Saute setting until the onions were soft. Then we added the broth, carrots and red potatoes and set them to Pressure Cook for 5 minutes before adding the rest of the ingredients. 

We added the canned tomatoes and roasted butternut squash and set the Instant Pot to Slow Cook for a couple of hours. It turned out quite tasty. 

When we make this one again, I don't know that we'd change anything.

Zuppa Toscana

Today we decided to make the Better than Zuppa Toscana recipe from the allrecipes website. To be honest, we loosely followed the recipe. We had less than a pound of sausages in casings so we cut those into fairly small pieces. And we had half the amount of bacon that the recipe called for and we cut that up and threw it in.

We also cooked it in the Instant Pot. Basically, we Sauteed the garlic and onions and then tossed the rest of the ingredients into the pot and added enough broth that the potatoes were covered and set it on Slow Cook then let it cook for more than two hours. 

When the potatoes were soft, we added the kale. We always use yogurt instead of sour cream in recipes.

I thought it tasted great. This is another recipe we'd be happy to repeat.

For next time, Jeff would like to take a cup or so, plus the yogurt, and run it through the blender and then add it back to the pot to give the soup a bit more body.

Instant Pot Broccoli Chowder

Today, we made Instant Pot Broccoli Chowder. I had originally planned to make the Instant Pot Corn Chowder recipe from Taste of Home but I discovered we didn't have any frozen corn. But we did have quite a lot of frozen broccoli, so Jeff suggested we substitute broccoli for the corn and that's what we did. 

We had to defrost the broccoli so we could cut the florets into smaller pieces and we also didn't have any fresh onions, so we substituted dried minced onions. Otherwise, we simply followed the recipe as it was written.

The light isn't good in the dining room so it looks rather unappealing in the picture, but it tasted delicious. I sprinkled a little salt on mine, but Jeff liked it as is.

If we make it again, we would run a portion of the chowder through the blender after the pressure cooking to eliminate some of the chunks and make the chowder a little more creamy. This recipe is another keeper.

Instant Pot Lemon Chicken Orzo Soup

Jeff has gotten a job at Intel so I (Sharon) need to start doing some of the cooking. It's been at least ten years since I've done any cooking and I'm not terribly good at it but I can usually manage to follow recipes, so I just need to find recipes I like. 

This post is the start of my effort to document my attempts at cooking recipes I find on the internet and how they turned out and what we would change next time, assuming we like the recipe enough to try it again. This information is mostly for me as the blog is a pretty easy way to keep track of past efforts.

Anyway, today I made my first pot of Lemon Chicken Orzo Soup. The original recipe was published on allrecipes, but I also archived a copy at Google docs, in case it gets pulled down. It calls for the soup to be made on the stove, but I wanted to cook it in the Instant Pot so we did our best to translate the recipe.

It doesn't feel right to plagiarize the original recipe; just click on one of the links above to see all the details. We had to make a few changes by necessity: 

• We didn't have orzo pasta so we used elbow macaroni. 
• We also didn't have any bay leaves, so we omitted them. 
• We used a blend of homemade chicken and homemade vegetable broth.
• And we had to use frozen spinach.

We heated the oil in the Instant Pot on the Sauté setting and then added the onion. After a couple of minutes, we added the carrots and celery and let it saute for a few minutes. Then we added the garlic and other spices and let it cook briefly before adding about three quarts of homemade chicken and vegetable broths. (We used a blend of them because that's what we had in our refrigerator.) 

We stirred in the dry pasta and then pressure cooked it for 5 minutes before adding the chicken and lemon and then we set it on Slow Cook until lunchtime. Shortly before lunch, we took off the lid and stirred in defrosted frozen spinach. It had a few minutes to come up to temperature before we actually served it up for the meal.

Overall, we really enjoyed the soup; the pasta seemed a little overcooked, but we can remedy that problem in the next pot. The recipe made 8 servings so we'll be having it a few more times in the next week. 

We served it with Asiago bread that Jeff made. Also amazing.

Next time, I'll try making these changes:

• Try skipping the pressure cooking entirely and go straight from sautéing to slow cooking.
• Substitute Herbes de Provence for the thyme and oregano.
• Add the dry pasta at the same time as the chicken. 

I expect I'll probably make it once a month from now on, whenever we have leftover chicken.

Turkey Soup from scratch

Well, mostly from scratch. And sorry in advance for the lack of pictures.

We had some lovely carrots in three colors from our CSA that I wanted to use, but we had a busy day doing stuff, so I went with default plan: coarsely chop, roast at 425 in olive oil and roasting salt, checking every 10 minutes until they were done.

While that was going on I chopped some small onions and sautéed them in the soup pot in some bacon drippings.
When the carrots were done (about 20 minutes, though they could have gone a little longer if I wasn't so hungry),
I added them to the pot.
Then some chopped turkey breast.
Then some chopped oven-cooked-then-frozen bacon.
Once that got all nicely up to temp, I added some almond meal and a little bit of mashed potatoes (because I had them and need to eat them and don't really want to sit down to a giant pile of mashed potatoes).
Then I tossed in some frozen squash. Wasn't planning to do it. I just did. That's how I roll.
Over it all I poured in one 28 oz jar of homemade chicken broth that I had heated in the microwave.
Once that got good and steamy I added another 28 oz of hot water.
Turned it down to low, covered, and let simmer.

Later, I put half of the soup into the Cuisinart food processor with a TBS of Herbs de Provence.
Added this back in and served over 1 TBS of sour cream.
Made six hearty servings.

I've been trying to figure out how to cost out a dish like this. I'm not sure what to do about the carrots, which were part of our CSA basket. Or what to do for the chicken stock, which was made from the bones and leftovers from a roast chicken we had a couple days ago (and more veggies from the CSA). I think it worked out to less than $1.50 per serving all told. Which doesn't seem fantastically cheap for homemade soup, but seems reasonable considering the quality of the ingredients and that it tasted really good. ;-)

In particular, I'm glad I added the potato and almond meal. Neither came through as a distinct element in the final soup, but I think they added to the richness of the broth.

Chicken Soup

We have been fighting off colds so it seemed like a good time for some simple chicken soup.

A couple carrots, a leek, a potato, some leftover roast chicken and some good homemade chicken stock and a little water. Oh, and bacon.

While the carrots and leeks were sautéing in some bacon drippings. I diced and par-boiled the potato. Then into the pot with the diced chicken and diced, frozen, pre-cooked bacon.

Once I had a little browning I added some stock and equal parts water. Simmer and serve with salt and pepper.

Roasted Squash Soup

I have a lot of tromboncino squash and this got me thinking it would be good to make some soup. I found a nice recipe for squash soup from Alton Brown. I had roasted the squash earlier and frozen it while I was waiting for a batch of chicken broth that I didn't botch. (Note to future self: if you are going to simmer broth overnight, safer to do it in a crock pot than on the stove.)

The other nigh I had roasted another chicken, and so yesterday I made broth, and today I had broth to make the soup -- and that is just what I did. Ha!

Roast Chicken part To-matillo

I used the dark meat and broth from the Roast Chicken we made the other day to make some tomatillo soup.

• Brown the dark meat from one roast chicken.
• Set aside and shred.
• Saute an onion and some garlic.
• Add some diced tomatillos, roast carrots, and red pepper. 
• Add four cups chicken broth.
• Heat to a simmer and simmer 15 minutes.
• Process in batches in food processor.
• Reheat and add shredded chicken.
• Before serving add herbs (basil and parsley).
• Add a dollop of sour cream.

Serve. 

It was very tasty and pretty easy.

Next time: Actually process the soup in batches rather than seeing soup leak out around the sides of the food processor. 

Short ribs

We had some short ribs that I needed to figure out what to do with. Came up with two ideas. Both involved seasoning the ribs and browning them. 

First up Old-Fashioned Vegetable Beef Soup from the Fix it and Forget it cookbook.

Sweet potato and sausage soup

Sharon found an intriguing recipe for sweet potato sausage soup.
I pretty much followed the recipe, so you can just read it by following the link.
It make a tasty but not very photogenic soup, so no pix.

Next time: I think I would take the extra step of straining the soup after it has gone through the food processor, and pass the strainings back through the food processor a second time, just to make it nice and smooth. Also, I did use italian parsley as a garnish, but I left the leaves just coarsely chopped. I think it would be better to chop the parsley pretty fine.

Turkey soup with potato and apple

We had some family visit that brought us a turkey carcass (i.e., the leftover bits after carving a cooked turkey). It is not everyone that knows us well enough to know that a turkey carcass would make a lovely host gift. It wasn't half an hour before I had some turkey stock simmering away.

The Stock
In a large pot, pour a little olive oil and over medium heat cook until soft

• One onion hacked up

Then add .. 

• Four ribs of celery coarsely chopped

Meanwhile, use a mighty cleaver (or poultry shears) to cut apart the turkey carcass and cut through the bones exposing the yummy marrow bits inside. Reserve any large hunks of meat for use later in the soup.

• Add the turkey bones and cook until some browning has happened

Add enough hot water to cover (about 8 cups), bring to a boil then simmer until it be enough. 

Strain. Pour into mason jars, cool, then refrigerate. 

It made three mason jars of stock.