Recipe: Smooth & Creamy Root Vegetable Soup

They go together like....carrots & parsnips?  This perfect pairing is packed with earthy fall flavors and healthy antioxidants - plus it's super simple and simply delicious! With just a few simple ingredients, you can make a creamy and tasty fall soup that goes great on the side with a fall veggie salad or sandwich.

Smooth & Creamy Root Vegetable Soup
(Serves 2-4.)

(Image courtesy of tiramisustudio at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.)

Ingredients:

3 medium size carrots
3 medium size parsnips
6 cups vegetable broth
kosher salt and black pepper to taste
1/2 lemon, juiced
1/4 tsp marjoram or 1/4 tsp thyme

Directions:

• Peel and dice the carrots and parsnips, then put in a big soup pot with the vegetable broth; add salt and pepper to taste.
• Turn heat to medium-high and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer gently for 15 to 20 minutes or until vegetables are very tender.
• Remove from heat and let cool slightly.
• Ladle the mixture from the pot into a blender and puree until smooth. Add only enough cooking liquid as you need to make the soup a nice consistency, to your liking. Return the puree to a soup pot, stir in the lemon juice and herbs, then put over low heat and bring back up to temperature and serve hot.

Recipe: Turkey Cabbage Soup

This is a warm, brothy soup that will hit the spot on a cold day! Simple and easy to make, yet tasty and satisfying, this is also a good one if you're feeling a little under the weather. Turkey and fresh veggies make this the perfect healthy and delicious fall soup.

Turkey Cabbage Soup
(Serves 4-6.)

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp olive oil
1 lb ground turkey
2 celery stalks, diced small
1 medium size yellow onion, diced
1 can (15 oz) petite diced tomatoes
4 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1 medium head cabbage, shredded fine

Directions:

• Put oil and turkey in a large soup pot over medium-high heat. Cook the turkey until no longer pink, breaking into pieces as you stir.
• Add the celery, onion, tomatoes, and broth to the pot, stir, bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low.
• Add the cabbage, cover pot and simmer slowly for about 15 to 20 minutes or until cabbage is tender.
• Serve hot with crusty bread.

Create Quick Harvest Soups With These Kitchen Staples

Have you ever had a quick and easy soup recipe become slow and difficult? It's usually not that the recipe is more complicated than you thought, but that the kitchen is missing a few ingredients. Yes, those simple soup recipes are often written by folks who assume the cook has prepared their kitchen with the basics. But unfortunately, too many of us have not.

In order to make simple recipes work, there are some basic ingredients you'll need to keep in your kitchen. Let's take a look at kitchen staples that will help you speed through any simple soup  recipe and make it even simpler.

Broth

(Image courtesy of Apolonia via FreeDigitalPhotos.net.)

This ingredient seems almost like a given, but some cooks still have not gotten used to having chicken, vegetable, or beef broth on hand at all times. You can, of course, get by with water as a base for your simple soup recipe, but broth adds so much flavor it would be a shame not to take advantage of this kitchen staple. You can buy canned or boxed broth, but you may want to make your own to save money - it's so easy to make, and it tastes better too! Plan a day to simmer chicken, vegetables, or a beef bone for hours and you'll have a rich broth ready when you are. Then cool, strain into freezer-safe containers, and freeze until needed.  If standing over a pot doesn't thrill you, just throw the ingredients in your crockpot and let it cook all day. Either way, creating big quantities of broth and having it in the freezer is a big help when it comes time to make your quick soups and stews.

Chopped Vegetables

Soup making time can be cut drastically when you prepare at least some of the vegetables ahead of time and store them. These vegetables would include the ones we use most often as the basis for any soup – onion, celery, carrots, etc. As soon as you get home from the grocery store, wash and dice these vegetables, then store separately in zipper food bags either in the refrigerator or in the freezer. Then, when the recipe calls for the standard “saute onion, celery, and carrots” step, you are ahead of the game. Stopping to chop these basic vegetables takes time, which is something we are trying to avoid by making simple soups to begin with. This is a kitchen staple everyone needs to keep on hand. If you're harvesting them from your garden and you have a lot of them, you can also dice and freeze in freezer bags for winter.

Seasoning Blends

It doesn't matter what the blend is, having a favorite pre-mixed seasoning blend of any kind or flavor helps the busy cook with the creative process. Instead of stopping to search, measure, or think about substitutions, grab a seasoning blend you like and sprinkle it in the soup. It's like decorating a house; if you buy the styles you like, the house will look nicely decorated. That's because we all tend to lean toward the same styles over and over, making the house unified and pleasing to your taste. Likes and dislikes in flavors and seasonings are the same. Use seasonings you find tasty and your soup will please you, too. Once you find a seasoning blend you like, or several blends you like, stock up - or make your own. Now when you are following a recipe that has a list of spices as long as your arm, you can skip the frustration and grab your favorite seasoning blend and move on.

Any Starch

A quick and easy soup recipe can sometimes be on the watery side. Part of this may be because there just isn't a lot of cooking time involved, or a lot of ingredients, or both. Some recipes solve this by turning the soup into a blender to puree. This works just fine, but there are soup recipes you might want to serve chunky. Keep potatoes, pasta, and rice on hand to add body to your soup. These starches will thicken the broth without adding a lot of extra work. Both pasta and rice can be added to the soup raw or cooked, but raw will provide a little more thickening power.

These kitchen staples are particularly helpful when making simple soup recipes. Be sure to have the basics on hand in your pantry, refrigerator, or freezer and you can have your soup on the table quickly and easily, just like the recipe says!