Avgolemono (Greek Lemon Egg Soup)

It’s Day Three of The Garden’s Bounty recipe series hosted by Savannah of Hammock Tracks.

Today we are sharing soup recipes.  Soup in the summer?  I know.  I get totally obsessed with soups in the winter, but hardly ever have them in the summer.  But guess what?  I have an awesome summer-friendly soup for you today.  It is super light and lemony and perfect for summertime.  It was March when I made this soup, but it was during that weird March heatwave, so it was like 84 degrees that day.

Have you ever heard of Avgolemono?  Click on that link to read all about it, but the gist of it is that it’s a Greek soup made up of lemon juice and eggs.  Orzo is cooked in chicken broth, then a mixture of lemon juice and eggs is added to thicken the broth.  Meat is optional; I chose some shredded chicken breast for mine.  Topping it off with fresh dill finishes it perfectly.

Avgolemono


6 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
½ cup orzo, dry
Salt 
5 eggs
¼ cup fresh lemon juice
2 cups shredded cooked chicken
Fresh dill


Directions:
In a large saucepan, bring the broth to a boil.  Add the orzo and cook until tender but still al dente, about 7 minutes. Season with the salt and reduce heat to low; let simmer.


In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs and lemon juice until smooth. Ladle about 1 cup of the hot broth into the egg-and-lemon mixture, whisking to combine.


Add the mixture back to the simmering saucepan. Stir just until the soup becomes opaque and thickens as the eggs cook, 1 to 2 minutes. Add chicken and taste for seasoning, adding salt and pepper if necessary.  


Serve warm.


Makes 4 servings.

I know that the dill is technically the only garden produce here, but if you live in Florida, you could count the lemon too. 🙂  This soup is just so perfect for summertime that I had to share.

Be sure to check out all the other great soups below and come back on Friday when I will share with you a delicious summery dessert.

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Corned Beef and Cabbage Soup

St. Patrick’s Day is coming up this weekend.  Are you ready?  I think it’s so fun to cook according to seasons and holidays. It’s a really great way to mix things up and make dinner a little bit more interesting.  That’s why I was so excited when my friend, Joan of Chocolate, Chocolate, and More invited me to be a part of her St. Patrick’s Day Blog Party today.  It’s just seven food bloggers all getting together and posting some kind of St. Patrick’s Day related recipe at the same time.

Before I get to my recipe, here’s what everyone else has to share with you:

Debi at Recipes for my Boys made Colcannon and Irish Stew

Carrie at Carrie’s Experimental Kitchen made An Irish Feast

Kimiko at Beachside Baker made a Shamrock Shake

Melissa at Chin Deep made Apple Bramble Cake with Bushmill’s Custard

Michaela at Affair from the Heart made Irish Cream Cheesecake

Joan at Chocolate, Chocolate and More made Grasshopper Pie

I can’t wait to check out all this yummy Irish and/or green food! 🙂

As soon as I got Joan’s email, I knew what I wanted to make.  I saw a recipe for Corned Beef and Cabbage Soup in the March issue of Food Network Magazine.  It looked pretty simple and I couldn’t wait to try it.  I made a few changes to the original recipe (of course!), and I think my version is even more simple.  Here’s how I made it.

Corned Beef and Cabbage Soup

Ingredients:

2 tbsp olive oil

1 medium onion, diced

1 cup matchstick carrots

¼ tsp ground allspice

1 (15 oz.) can petite diced tomatoes, drained

3 cups low-sodium beef broth

4 cups green cabbage, chopped (about ½ small head)

½ lb. potatoes, peeled and diced

¾ cup quick-cooking barley

4 cups water

½ lb. cooked corned beef, cut into thin strips and chopped

Kosher salt

Directions:

Heat oil in a large soup pot over medium-high heat.  Add the onion, carrots, and allspice and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are slightly softened, about 5 minutes.

Add the tomatoes, beef broth, cabbage, potatoes, barley, and water; cover and bring to a boil. Uncover, reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until the potatoes and barley are tender, about 20 minutes. Stir in the corned beef and season with salt.

Makes 6 servings.

This is one hearty soup!  I love how it is packed with four different veggies AND potatoes and barley AND the corned beef.  It’s a complete meal in and of itself.  Although that didn’t stop us from enjoying some freshly baked rolls with it! 

The original recipe called for pulsing the veggies in a food processor before adding them to the pot, but I don’t have a full-sized food processor, so I just diced my veggies and added them that way.  Again, I highly recommend the convenience of matchstick carrots.  They are so perfect for soups.  

The original recipe said that this makes 4 servings, but I think it makes WAY more than that.  I put down 6, but it could very easily be even more than that.  It would be a great soup to make for a crowd.  Also, the barley and potatoes will soak up some of the broth when you put the leftovers in the fridge, so keep that extra 1 cup of beef broth to add to it before reheating.

This would be a great soup to make the day after St. Patrick’s Day if you have made a nice corned beef roast, since it calls for cooked corned beef.  I bought a roast, and cooked it simply according to the package, then sliced it up.  The original recipe called for only ¼ lb. of meat, but that didn’t look like very much, so I doubled it.  Glad I did because it was perfect.

So if you don’t have any plans for what to make on St. Patrick’s Day, check out the blog posts listed above for some great recipes.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

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Barbecue Chicken Soup

I’ve got another great soup recipe to share with you today.  Remember how I mentioned in an earlier post how much I love soups that can be made by dumping the ingredients into a soup pot and heating it up?  They are great because they are literally hardly any more work than opening up a can, but the taste is beyond compare.  It’s so easy to throw together a homemade soup.  Here’s another one of these “dump and heat up” soups that I came up a few months ago.  The inspiration came from Blog is the New Black, but I ended up changing it quite a bit to suit my tastes and to make it easier.

Barbecue Chicken Soup


Ingredients:
2 cups cooked chicken breast, shredded
1 (15 oz.) can corn, drained
1 cup canned baked beans
3½ cups chicken broth
½ cup barbecue sauce
Salt, as needed
Shredded Monterey Jack cheese
Fresh cilantro, finely chopped


Directions:
Place chicken, corn, beans, broth, and barbecue sauce in a soup pot.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for a few minutes.  Taste for seasoning, adding salt if necessary.


Ladle into bowls.  Top with shredded cheese and cilantro.

Makes 4 servings.

Easy, right?  And it’s the perfect little taste of summer in winter form!  I love it.  Use your favorite barbecue sauce, but make sure it’s not overly sweet.  Our favorite is Sweet Baby Ray’s Honey Chipotle, and it’s perfect in this soup. 

Last month, I made a soup using the exact same method, but with a different flavor profile.  I had some leftover teriyaki chicken, so I used that, with some matchstick carrots instead of the corn, and teriyaki sauce instead of the barbecue sauce.  That was really good too.  

So the next time you are craving soup but don’t feel like spending an hour in the kitchen, try one of these “dump and heat up” soups.  You’ll probably never buy another canned soup again!

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Secret Recipe Club: Creamy Chicken & Wild Rice Soup

It’s time again to reveal our picks for the Secret Recipe Club.   The Secret Recipe Club is a group of food bloggers who secretly make one of someone else’s dishes and post them all on the same day at the same time.  It’s really fun, choosing a recipe to make, making the recipe, then reading about everyone else’s recipes.  It’s a great way to “meet” other bloggers and check out some great blogs that you never knew about before.

I was very pleased to be assigned Dinners, Dishes, and Desserts this month.  I have been reading Erin’s blog for quite a while now, so I was pretty familiar with it and knew I would have a ton of great recipes to choose from.  I had a really hard time narrowing it down! She has tons of drool-worthy desserts, like Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Brownies and Cookie Dough Truffles.  I bookmarked several main dish recipes too, Taco Pizza, Spicy Asian Noodles with Chicken, and Chicken Burrito Pizza.  In fact, I was so indecisive, that I ended up making two of Erin’s recipes this month.  I made her Smokey Garlic Chicken Pasta, which is amazing!  My family couldn’t get enough.  Even though we are having a very mild winter here in Michigan, I am still in soup mode, so I chose her Creamy Chicken Wild Rice Soup for the reveal.

Creamy Chicken & Wild Rice Soup

Ingredients:

¼ cup butter

½ large onion, chopped

1 cup matchstick carrots

½ cup flour

6 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth

3½ cups wild rice, cooked

2 cups chicken, cooked and chopped or shredded

Salt, to taste

12 oz. evaporated milk

Directions:

Melt butter in a large soup pot over medium heat.  Sauté onion and carrot in the butter until soft and tender, about 5 minutes.  Stir in flour until blended.  Slowly add broth.  Stir in rice and chicken.  Bring to boil over medium heat.  Cook for a few minutes until it starts to thicken.  Stir in milk and cook for 3-5 minutes.  Taste for seasoning and add salt if desired. 

Makes 8 servings.

I made just a few adjustments to Erin’s original recipe.  I used matchstick carrots instead of chopped, just because I love the convenience of them.  I omitted the celery because we are not big fans.  I used a wild rice blend instead of just wild rice.  The blend was so much cheaper at the grocery store, and I thought the textures of the different kinds of rice would be really good.  The blend that I used contained long grain brown rice, sweet brown rice, wild rice, whole grain Wehani rice, and whole grain Black Japonica rice.  It was really tasty!

This soup is so delicious and perfect for a winter day.  I made it the weekend my mom was visiting and she loved it, and I sent some home to my sister and she enjoyed it too.  I will definitely be making this soup again.  I’m always thrilled to add a new soup to my repertoire, so thanks for the great recipe, Erin!

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Crazy Cooking Challenge: Mini Chicken Meatball Noodle Soup

It’s time once again for the Crazy Cooking Challenge!  In this challenge, all the participants make and blog about the same dish each month.  Each blogger is to scour other blogs for the “ultimate” version of whatever that month’s dish is.  The goal is to highlight and promote personal food blogs. This month’s assigned dish was chicken noodle soup.  So we were to find the “ultimate chicken noodle soup” recipe, make it, and blog about it.

I found a recipe on Gina’s Skinnytaste for Leftover Turkey Noodle Soup.  Even though her recipe called for turkey, I really liked the simplicity of it and it sounded just like what I had in mind.  So I started with that, and changed the turkey to chicken.  I felt like mixing things up a bit, so I made mini chicken meatballs instead of chunks of chicken breast.  I made mini meatballs for a soup I created last month, and they were so darn cute, I just had to make them again!  The only other thing I changed was to use spinach instead of the traditional celery.  I don’t really like celery, but felt the soup still needed something green.  I’ve used spinach in soups before and I love it, so I went with that and it worked well.  Here’s my adaptation.

Mini Chicken Meatball Noodle Soup

Ingredients:
6 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
1 bay leaf
1 cup carrots, sliced
¼ large onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ lb. ground chicken
2 tbsp soft bread crumbs
½ tsp Italian seasoning (Penzey’s Tuscan Sunset)
½ shallot, diced
¼ tsp salt
2 cups egg noodles
1 cup fresh spinach, torn

Directions:
Fill a large soup pot with chicken stock.  Add bay leaf, carrots, onion, and garlic and simmer 10-15 minutes, or until the vegetables are soft. 

Meanwhile, combine the ground chicken, bread crumbs, Italian seasoning, shallot, and salt.  Form into 1 tsp sized meatballs.  Add them to the soup pot one by one, so they don’t stick together.  Stir.  Increase heat to high and add egg noodles and spinach.  Cook until noodles are soft and spinach is wilted.  Taste for seasoning, adding salt if necessary.  Remove bay leaf.

Serve hot.

Makes 4 servings.

This soup was a big hit.  My 19-month-old gobbled down every little bit!  I love how simple it is and how easily and fairly quickly it can be thrown together.  Admittedly, chicken noodle soup isn’t my favorite soup, mostly because I find it kind of “blah”, but using mini meatballs takes it up a notch in the “interesting” department.  

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White Bean, Sausage, and Kale Soup

I recently cooked with a veggie I had never used before.  Kale.  I don’t know why I had never used it before; I like leafy greens like spinach and Swiss chard.  So when Grimmway Farms sent me a coupon for free produce, I thought it was high time to give kale a shot.  It’s winter, so of course, my mind automatically went to soup.  Even though I had not had kale before, it just seemed like it would go well with beans and sausage.  Here’s what I came up with.

White Bean, Sausage, and Kale Soup


Ingredients:
1 tbsp olive oil
½ large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 lb. bulk Italian sausage
2 cans white beans, one drained and rinsed, the other not
4 cups reduced sodium chicken broth
6 cups red kale, chopped


Directions:
Heat oil in large soup pot over medium heat.  Add onion and garlic and saute until onion begins to get soft.  Add sausage and break up into chunks.  Cook until sausage is  browned and cooked through.  Drain off grease.


Add beans, broth, and kale.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover, and cook for about 15 minutes or until kale is softened.


Makes 6 servings.

It worked really well.  I made this soup when my mom was visiting and she had never had kale before either.  She heard other people say that it was kind of bitter, so she was a tad skeptical.  But we were all pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t bitter at all and had a lovely flavor.  Kale is much sturdier than spinach, and since my mom is not a fan of wilted spinach in soups, she liked it much better than if I had used spinach.  My husband loved it too and my 18 month old daughter gobbled it up!

I love having a wide variety of soups in my repertoire in the winter, so I am glad to have branched out and added a new veggie to the mix.  This is a nice, hearty soup for a cold winter day.

Kim at Everyday Mom chose to make this recipe when she was assigned my blog for the Secret Recipe Club in January 2013.  Click on the button below to check out her post!

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Cheesy Chicken Potato Soup

It’s another chilly November day here in Michigan.  I woke up to snow on the ground for the second time this season.  I’ve got three new soup recipes that I have made recently, so I thought today would be a good day to share one with you!  This is an adaptation of a recipe I saw in the most recent issue of Everyday With Rachael Ray.

Cheesy Chicken Potato Soup


Ingredients:
2 lbs. potatoes, peeled and diced
4 cups chicken stock
1 tsp onion powder
1½ cups chicken, cooked and shredded
2 cups cheddar cheese, shredded
½ cup sour cream
Green onions, sliced, optional


Directions:
Combine potatoes, stock, and onion powder in a large soup pot.  Bring to a boil and cook until potatoes are soft.  Reduce heat to low and puree using a stick blender, leaving a few chunks of potato, if desired.  Add chicken, cheese, and sour cream and stir well.  


Serve warm with green onion sprinkled on top, if desired.


Makes 6 servings.

For some reason, chicken and potatoes don’t really seem to go together in soups, but this works.  I think adding cheese makes everything better!

This recipe is a little bit different from the one in the magazine.  That one had leeks, but I didn’t have any so I left that out.  I also used less cheese; that recipe called for 7 oz.  I weighed out 2 cups, and it was just over 5 oz., but that looked like plenty to me.  The green onions were my idea, but I didn’t have any the day I made this.  I will definitely use them next time though, because I love green onions with potatoes in almost any form.

This is a warm, comforting, easy to make soup great for a chilly day!

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Thai Chicken Noodle Soup

This is a really tasty soup that I discovered last year.  It is not to be confused with my Thai Chicken Soup; although their names are similar, they are very different soups.  This one is creamier and has peanut butter in it.  It’s like a Thai-flavored version of American chicken noodle soup.  I got it from the cookbook, The Six O’Clock Scramble.  Here’s my adaptation.

Thai Chicken Noodle Soup


Ingredients:
1 tbsp vegetable oil
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 lb. boneless chicken breasts, cut into ½” pieces (3 cutlets)
½ tsp turmeric
½ tsp Bangkok seasoning
4 cups chicken broth
¾ cup light unsweetened coconut milk
½ cup creamy peanut butter
2 cups thin egg noodles
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste


Directions:
In a medium stockpot, heat the oil over medium heat.  Add the carrot and cook until slightly softened.  Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute until it is a light golden color.  Add the chicken, turmeric, and Bangkok and stir fry it for 3 to 4 more minutes.


Add the chicken broth, coconut milk, peanut butter, and noodles.  Bring to a low boil, cover, and simmer for 15 minutes.


Add the sugar and cilantro.  Season with salt and pepper.


Makes 6 servings.

I made a few changes from the original recipe.  The Bangkok Seasoning (which is a Thai seasoning from Penzey’s) used to be cayenne pepper, so if you don’t have a Thai seasoning, you can use that instead.  Made with the Bangkok seasoning, the soup isn’t spicy at all, so if you like things spicy, add some cayenne anyway.  The carrots were my addition; after I made it the first time, I felt like it needed a little color and since carrots are a staple in regular chicken noodle soup, that was kind a no-brainer.  I also increased the amount of peanut butter, because we couldn’t really taste it the first time I made it.

The nice thing about this soup is that there is an easy shortcut way to make it.  The last time I made it (last weekend) I made it this way and it turned out great.

Thai Chicken Noodle Soup (Shortcut Preparation)

Steam 1½ cups matchstick carrots in the microwave for 5 minutes.  Meanwhile, in a large soup pot, combine 2 cups cooked chicken (diced or shredded), ½ tsp turmeric, ½ tsp Bangkok seasoning (or cayenne), 4 cups chicken broth, ¾ cup light unsweetened coconut milk, and ½ cup creamy peanut butter, 2 cups thin egg noodles, and 1 tbsp sugar.  When carrots are done, drain well and add to the soup pot.  Give everything a good stir to incorporate the peanut butter and bring to a boil.  Cover and simmer 5-15 minutes, until noodles are done.  Ladle into bowls and top with chopped cilantro.

Makes 6 servings.

Super easy and really pretty fast.  This method can get your soup on the table in under 20 minutes.  You can use any kind of noodle you like, just remember that the thinner the noodle, the quicker it will cook.  The soup in the picture above contains “fine egg noodles”, and those were done in 5 minutes.

This is a great recipe to have on hand for busy weeknights.  

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Bleu Cheese Tomato Soup

Have you seen that new show, The Chew?  It’s on ABC during the day.  We don’t have the tv on during the day, but I dvr it and watch it after the kids go to bed.  It’s not your usual daytime talk show; almost every single segment is about food, usually one of the hosts preparing a dish right in front of the audience.  And you know the food is good because two of the hosts are Food Network Iron Chefs!  They make about 4-5 recipes per show and the segments that are not directly about food involve table centerpieces and other tips for entertaining.  I really enjoy it.  The other day, one of the hosts, Michael Symon, made a tomato soup with bleu cheese and hot sauce.  I love the canned tomato soup, but had never made it from scratch before.  But the idea of adding bleu cheese to tomato soup had me very intrigued.  I had my husband pick up some bleu cheese the next day so I could try it out.  I left out the hot sauce because I didn’t want it spicy.  I also made mine creamier by stirring the Greek yogurt into the soup instead of just using it as a garnish.  Here’s my version.

Bleu Cheese Tomato Soup


Ingredients
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp Italian seasoning
1 medium onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 (15 oz.) cans diced tomatoes with their juice
1½ cups chicken broth
½ cup bleu cheese, crumbled
1-2 tbsp Greek yogurt, plus more for garnish
Croutons, for garnish


Directions:
Heat the olive oil in a soup pot over medium heat. When the oil is hot, add the onion and sweat for 2 minutes. Add the Italian seasoning and the garlic and continue to sweat for 2 more minutes. Add the tomatoes, their juice, and the broth and bring to a simmer. Simmer for 10-15 minutes.


Add the blue cheese, then puree using either a stick blender or a regular blender in batches.  Stir in the Greek yogurt.  Taste and add salt if necessary.  


Serve with an extra dollop of Greek yogurt and croutons.


Makes 4-6 servings.

Oh man, this was so good!  I know that bleu cheese is one of those “love it or hate it” kind of ingredients,  so if you’re not a fan you probably won’t like this soup.  But I love it.  My husband liked it okay, but said it was a little “bitey” for him.  Canned tomatoes can be very acidic, so you can add a pinch or two of sugar to tone down the acidity if you need to.  I think that would have helped.  But I loved it as it was.  I ate so much of it that I got raging heartburn later that night!  It was so worth it though.

I served this soup with some sandwiches I made in the slow cooker.  I’ll blog about them later this week.  It was the perfect soup and sammie meal.  

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• Fusion Fridays at Jane Deere

Gnocchi, Sausage, and Spinach Soup

It is most definitely soup season here in Michigan.  Cold, rainy, windy weather makes me want to stay inside and make soup. I have a feeling we are going to be eating a lot of soup this winter; over the summer I bought two large soup cookbooks.  I haven’t made any of those recipes yet, but I saw one at Cinnamon, Spice, and Everything Nice and I moved it to the top of my list!  Here is my adaptation.

Gnocchi, Sausage, and Spinach Soup


Ingredients:
½ large onion, diced
1 tbsp olive oil
1 lb. ground Italian sausage
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp Italian seasoning
4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
⅓ cup frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
1 lb. gnocchi


Directions:
In a large soup pot saute onion in olive oil over medium-low heat until tender. In a separate, large skillet brown the sausage, breaking it apart as it cooks. Add garlic to onion mixture and saute until fragrant. 


Drain sausage and add to onion mixture along with the Italian seasoning, chicken broth, and spinach. Simmer for 15 minutes.


Add gnocchi, bring to a simmer and cook until gnocchi puff up and start to float (check package for cooking time). Serve warm.


Makes 6 servings.

This is a really easy soup to throw together.  The original recipe contained red bell pepper and was made creamy by adding heavy cream.  I thought about adding the cream, but after I put in the gnocchi, it looked so good the way it was that I skipped it.  I also used frozen spinach instead of fresh, just because it’s more convenient.

I used mild sausage in this soup, because that’s what we prefer, but if you like things spicy, use your favorite hot sausage.  I also used Penzey’s Tuscan Sunset for the Italian seasoning.  The original recipe called for dried basil, but I couldn’t find any in my spice cabinet, so that’s what I used instead.  

This soup is so good.  My one-year-old couldn’t eat it fast enough, and my three-year-old ate all the gnocchi out of it and asked for more.  That was her favorite part because there is a cat named Gnocchi on Curious George. 🙂

My husband raved about this soup too, so I’m sure I’ll be making it again during the long winter.  

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