Making Soups

I love making soup in the winter. I finally had some time the other day to do some cooking (it seems like it's been forever!) and I chose 2 new soups: Roasted Garlic and Potato Soup which I got from The Kitchn blog and also a Lentil Linguini soup from Food and Wine.

Kelly has been spitting her baby food at me, so I figured it was time to start to migrate her into some regular food. Soup is a good in-between transition food. I had some chicken stock in the freezer that my mom had made when she was here when Kelly was born - good Jewish chicken soup (dill, made with Flanken, yum). I cooked some pastina and carrots in it and she gobbled it up. I'm going to make matzo balls later today to finish the stock. She also inhaled the Italian Wedding soup Shelagh and I were eating last week - pasta, meatball, and spinach. Here's the pastina "soup" half-way gone.

I've been craving potato soup lately and this recipe popped up on The Kitchn in one of their "Best of 2009" lists. It was actually kind of light on the potato and heavy on the roasted garlic so it was thinner than I would normally like it. Along with it, Joe and I had grilled cheese made with cheddar, thick italian bread and some of the roasted garlic smeared all over it...dipped in the soup - delish! Despite calling it French Fry soup, Rory wouldn't even try it. Even with an ice cream sandwich as reward. Man can he dig his heels in.

Next was the Lentil soup. I've never made lentil soup, but I figured it would be a good way to use dried beans since you don't have to soak them. Plus, they are really small and get super soft and, as it turns out, they really heavily flavor the soup. The recipe called for water and not broth and you wouldn't have known it...the beans partially broke down and made a nice thick and savory base. I didn't put the linguini in - I usually put pastas/rices for soups in separately so they don't get soggy sitting in the liquid. I got lazy and forgot to make it. I did rip up some baby spinach leaves though and she liked that. Shelagh and I both liked this soup as well. I might add bacon next time, but it was great on it's own.

I have to say that Lentil soup makes me think of stinky hippies for some reason - actually that old show from MTV, the Young Ones, is probably why. Neil, the hippie character, used the blow up Lentil soup all the time. It was a totally weird, really funny show - not really Monty Python or The Kids in the Hall, but kind of in that vein. I couldn't remember the name of it just now - gotta love Google - I googled "MTV shows 80s" and it popped right up!