Potato Soup

If ever there was an opulently opossumish dish, this is it: It is humble, it is sublime. I have based my recipe on a few versions of it that Sue’s mom has provided. I feel justified in offering my own rendition because Sue’s mom has tinkered with the recipe plenty herself.

This is a perfect supper for a cold wintry night! So comforting and warm!

I encourage you to improvise your own version, too. After my version of the recipe, I’ll provide two of the potato soup recipes just as I’ve received them from Mrs. Ferber, so you can get ideas for alterations, substitutions, and shortcuts.



Julie’s Potato Soup

2 pieces of bacon
1 onion (white or yellow), chopped
1 carrot, coarsely grated
2 or 3 potatoes, peeled and diced into bite-size pieces (Yukon golds are good)
3/4 tsp. salt (or to taste, remembering that bacon adds saltiness)
1/2 tsp. pepper
water or chicken or vegetable stock
1–2 tbsp. cornstarch, mixed into a pourable slurry with about 1/2 cup water
milk
1–2 tbsp. butter
parsley (or other herbs—summer savory? basil? oregano?) for garnish

In a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan or soup pot, fry the bacon until crisp. Put it on a paper towel to drain and set aside. Pour off the grease into your grease jar. (You do save it, right? I mean, you’ll need it later when you want to cook kale!) Don’t clean the pan; leave the cooked bits of bacon and some grease at the bottom.

Put the onion and carrot into the pot and sauté them in what’s left of the bacon grease. As moisture comes out of the onions, scrape the bottom of the pan to liberate the bacon goodies. You might add a little water to help the process. When that’s accomplished, add the potatoes, salt, and pepper, and cover with water or stock. Cook on medium, covered, until the potatoes are done.

While the potatoes are cooking, crumble up the bacon—it will be a garnish. This is the time to make the cornstarch-and-water slurry if you haven’t already. Also, get out the saltines (or Chicken in a Biskit crackers; both are traditional), pieces of cheese or summer sausage, pickles, and whatever else you’ll be having. Set the table. Get the drinks ready.

Once the potatoes are cooked, stir in the cornstarch slurry and cook to get it really pretty thick; then stir in some butter, and thin it out with milk to get the consistency to your liking. Make sure it’s heated through, stir in any parsley or other herbs you want, and then serve. Garnish with the crumbled bacon.




Betty Ferber’s Potato Soup (Version 1, her preferred way)

2 nice-size Idaho potatoes (or less)
1 onion
coarse-grated carrot
salt, pepper
chicken stock (or water)
cornstarch
milk
margarine (Parkay)
crumbled bacon (optional garnish)

Peel and dice about 2 potatoes. Chop the onion. Add carrot, salt, pepper—cook until done in water or chicken stock. Thicken with cornstarch—get it really thick—then add milk to get consistency right. Add a hunk of margarine. Garnish with crumbled bacon; serve with saltine crackers.

Betty Ferber’s Potato Soup (Version 2, as of Dec. 2006)

1 onion (white)
water
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
about 5 lbs. (4 large) potatoes (Irish) (or more)
parsley
milk
1 stick butter or equivalent of “I Can’t Believe”
cornstarch (note, as of 2015: Mrs. F says you can use some instant potato flakes instead of cornstarch)
milk
crumbled bacon (optional, for garnish)

Chop onion and add to soup pot. Cover onion with water; add salt and pepper. Peel and dice potatoes, cover with water. Add parsley to make it pretty. Add thickener (cornstarch)—get it pretty thick, then add milk to make it the right consistency, and add the butter/margarine. Garnish with bacon crumbles. (Sue likes to ladle the soup over some crushed saltines in the bowl.)

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. . . And now, a bonus related recipe from notes I made during an Ohio visit during Christmas 2013: it’s very, very easy to make, though the sodium is probably frightful. Still, when you’re both disabled, can’t drive anymore, it’s cold out, and you’re eating out of the cupboard, this hits the spot! It’s probably from the back of a scalloped potatoes box.

Corn Potato Chowder

3 tsp. margarine
1 small onion, chopped
1 box scalloped potatoes (yes, including the seasoning packet)
2 cups hot water
2 cups milk
1 can of corn (drained)

In a saucepan big enough to hold everything, sauté the onion in the margarine. Then add the rest of the stuff and simmer, covered, for 20–25 minutes.


Thanks Mrs. Ferber, for letting me share your recipes, and thanks much more for sharing them with me! (Susan says thanks, too!)

Yet Another Squash and Curry Soup

Seriously—does the world need another curried squash soup? Well, I thought this one was really good. I’m not lying, either, because I’m not much of a “soup” person. This made me happy! It turned out spicy-hot, the kind of heat that lights up the back of your mouth a few seconds after you swallow, which I adore! (A result of the type of chilis I used, no doubt; “your results may vary.”)

And it’s so creamy you’d almost think there’s cream in it, but there’s not even milk.

Vegans take note: With a few tweaks (substituting oil for the butter, and veggie stock for chicken), this becomes a perfectly vegan recipe! Anyway you go, it’s pretty low fat, and doesn’t need much salt due to all the lovely spices.

It’s based on a recipe in the Vegetarian Times Complete Cookbook, by the Editors of Vegetarian Times and Lucy Moll (New York: Macmillan, 1995). The recipe I used as my guide is called “Squash–and–White Bean Soup,” on page 172 of that volume. But you know . . . who follows a soup recipe exactly? I’m not a recipe tester!

The original uses curry powder, plus cumin and allspice. I used some curry powder, but I used even more of my homemade garam masala. What is garam masala? You could conceptualize it as the “curry powder” that actual Indian cooks use! You can get g.m. at grocery stores nowadays. It’s really fun to make your own, however, and then it’s fresh and you may end up using it more (and using salt less). All the Indian cookbooks have recipes for it.

The original (soup) recipe also has you throw in the spices and stock at once—but I use an Indian cooking technique that heightens the spice flavors by incorporating them into the oil: I sauté the aromatics in butter first, then add all the spices, stirring them into the oil to make a paste (kind of like a roux). Butter and curry spices love each other! After they make love for a few moments is when I add the stock and squash.

By the way, the butternut squash can, of course, be substituted with canned pumpkin puree, though it’s not the same. The squash is sweeter, I think.

The ingredients and method are interspersed with the instructions below.

1 butternut squash
—split in half lengthwise, bake in oven with a small amount of water until soft; let cool so you can handle it; spoon pulp out of skin and puree in a food processor until smooth. Yield is about 4 cups. Set this aside.

While the squash is baking, you can prep the other stuff.

Chop up aromatic veggies and set aside in a bowl:
1 medium onion, chopped
1 cup sliced celery (soup is a good way to use the leafy, pale inner parts of the celery that no one wants as crudité)
2 cloves garlic, pressed (or minced)
4 tiny hot chili peppers, with seeds, minced (I have a bag of little red cayennes in my freezer, harvested from my garden before the killing frost—but use whatever hot chilis you want—to taste)
1 or 1.5 T minced fresh ginger root (did you know you can process ginger way ahead of time and keep it frozen flat in zip bags? It’s very, very handy!)

Measure spices into a little bowl:
1 t dried thyme leaves
1/2–1 T store-bought curry powder
1–1 .5 T garam masala (I have 3 types, and for this I used mostly a kind I made that’s heavy on the cumin. If your g.m. doesn’t have a strong cumin presence, then add more cumin, about 1/2 t.; consider adding allspice, too)

Also have ready:
2 T butter
4 cups (32 oz.) chicken or vegetable stock

Finally, prep the ingredients that will go in last:
1 can white beans
2 big handfuls of chopped kale (stems discarded)
2 T fresh parsley, chopped

The soup will take about a half hour to cook; do it all in one big pot. Heat butter over medium heat, add aromatic vegetables and sauté until veggies are translucent and fairly soft. Sprinkle in a little water if it wants to stick. Add the spices and stir to make a paste. Then stir in stock and squash and bring back to a boil; reduce heat and simmer, stirring often, for 15 or 20 minutes. Add beans, kale, and parsley, and cook another 5 minutes, or until the kale is cooked and still pretty green. Add salt to taste.

My Mom’s Ham and Bean Soup

It’s been a while since I’ve shared a recipe with you, but with the transition from “red autumn” to “gray autumn,” the installation of the storm windows, the bringing in of the houseplants, and this onslaught, now, of cold, rainy weather, it’s truly feeling like we’ve entered the cold time of year. Winter!

And what better way to battle the chill than with a nice big pot of ham and bean soup?

File this under “opulent opossum”—it’s one of those simple, homey, perfect things we have here in the Midwest. One of those absolute glories that we take too much for granted these days. It has no gourmet ingredients in it, so it’s not “cool.” Frankly, though, we should be celebrating good ol’ ham and bean soup, holding it up as a healthful, delicious, cherished dish. The food of our people!

This is not a fancy recipe—it’s basic. And for me, it’s home, because this is my mom’s recipe. I’m not sure where it came from originally, but I have noticed the same recipe available online—for example, here.

Maybe it came from the back of a package of beans. Or maybe it’s from a popular cookbook or ladies’ cooking magazine. One time I had ham and bean soup at a café, and it tasted just like this! (Naturally, I thought it was ex-cel-lent soup!) Wherever the recipe first appeared, and regardless of how many other people also use it and call it their family recipe, for me, this is the one. So file it also under “mom recipes”!

We all have foods like this—scenes and images from home waft into the mind just as the cooking aroma penetrates the home. I think of coming home from school on a drizzly fall day, and mom would have this soup on the stove, and corn muffins keeping warm above the stove’s pilot light. Or maybe it’s been a snow day, and my brother and I have spent the afternoon reading comic books or playing outside in the snow. Sometimes, I think of college days, when I’d come home dog tired, and there’d be that soup, which both comforts and revives.

Note: At my mom’s house, the accompaniments always include corn muffins (sure, you can use Jiffy mix), butter, and jam. Or a few little pieces of cheese. Pickles and olives go well, too!


Ham and Bean Soup

2½ cups (16 oz.) dry navy (or northern) beans
3-pound meaty ham bone
3 quarts water
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1 cup chopped celery
1½ cups chopped carrots
1¼ cups pared, chopped potato (1 large)
1¼ cups chopped onion (1 large)
½ teaspoon (or more) salt (to taste)
¼ teaspoon pepper
3–4 dashes bottled hot pepper sauce

Rinse beans; place in large Dutch oven with the ham bone and water. Bring to boiling; reduce heat and simmer, covered, till beans are tender, 3 to 3½ hours. Remove ham bone and meat; cool till it can be handled. Coarsely chop meat and return to soup along with the remaining ingredients; discard the bone. Simmer 30 minutes more or till vegetables are tender, stirring occasionally. Makes about 3½ quarts.

Julie’s Vegan Posole

I’ve been making posole for years, but this is the first time I’ve made it without pork. I think it turned out well! Plus, it was easy to make!

This is what I made for the soup party last weekend.

Here’s my recipe for porkless posole. Posole is a Mexican hominy soup eaten traditionally at Christmastime, but it tastes great in all sorts of cold weather. If you can find dried posole (hominy), by all means, use it. (Like dried beans, it takes a while to cook and soften, so as a shortcut, I often use canned hominy.)

Use your own judgment about how much of what kinds of chiles to use, based on your preferences. I love the rich flavor of Chimayo chile powder, which I bought from the Santa Fe School of Cooking. You could substitute any other rich dried red chili powder, per your preference.

The canned chipotle, being smoked, adds an almost bacon-y flavor to help replace the pork that we’re missing so bad. Smoked paprika would be a good idea, too, I’ll bet. Of course, adjust all the spices and seasonings to your own taste.




Julie’s Vegan Posole

1½ cups chopped onion
2–3 cloves garlic, minced or crushed
2–3 Tbsp. olive oil
1–2 Tbsp. canned chipotle (crushed or chopped) with adobo sauce
1–2 Tbsp. Chimayo chile powder
1 whole chile negro, dried, ground up in a spice grinder (ca. 2–3 tsp. ground)
½–1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. crushed dried oregano
4 16-oz. cans white hominy, drained and rinsed
1 16-oz. can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
2 32-oz. tetra-pack boxes of vegetable broth (such as Swanson’s)
1 zucchini squash (ca. 9 in.) (quartered lengthwise and chopped into ½-inch chunks)
1 yellow squash (ca. 9 in.) (cut same as zucchini)
2 tsp. cornstarch
1 cup fresh, chopped cilantro (you can include some of the stems, chopped)
salt (to taste)

Garnish:
Cilantro sprigs and wedges or thin slices of lime


In a large stock pot, sauté onions and garlic in the olive oil until translucent. Add chipotle and all the spices and stir to distribute. Add hominy and stir to coat. Add beans and broth and heat to boiling; reduce to simmer. Cook for about 10 minutes to make the flavors meld. Add chopped squashes and cook another 10 minutes or so, or until squash is tender.

Place cornstarch into a cup, jar, or bowl; ladle about ½ cup broth into it and stir or shake well to mix. Add cornstarch mixture to the soup and stir to mix (the cornstarch will thicken and silken the texture of the broth, to replace the gelatin that meat would have provided; adjust the quantity of cornstarch per your preference).

Add salt to taste; finally, stir in the cup of chopped cilantro, which requires the least amount of cooking.

Serve garnished with pretty sprigs of fresh cilantro and wedges or thin slices of lime.

This soup is usually served with a salad/garnish of chopped lettuce, thin-sliced radishes, chunks of avocado, and/or sour cream.

Soup Soiree

File this under “foodie fun.” Sunday evening, we got together with some friends who have started a new kind of midwinter get-together.

They explained that for several years, they had been doing a pre-Christmas cookie swap—you know the kind—where each person makes up a big bunch of one kind of cookie, brings several plates of these to the party, and everyone gets to bring home a plate of each kind. Thus you have a nice variety for the holidays. Sounds great, huh?

But let’s face it: December is a busy, hectic month, and we all really ought to cut down on the cookies—whether for the calories, the carbs, the fats and butter, or whatever. So these women got the bright idea of moving the party to January, and making it a soup swap.

So everyone makes a big pot of some kind of soup, divides it into plastic containers (ca. 25 ounce) (think “GladWare,” or whatever), enough for all the participants to get some. When the party’s over, everyone takes home a container of each kind of soup.




With about seven participants, that’s lunch for every day of the week!

If you want to try this, establish dietary and other ground rules ahead of time; in this particular group, the soups were all vegan (no meat, no dairy, no eggs). I could see other groups deciding that each member should bring photocopies of the recipe, or picking a theme ingredient for each gathering, or stuff like that.

One group member had gotten too swamped with work to make up a big pot of soup but came in the door with a bag bearing cans of Progresso for everyone! We all laughed with her good-naturedly and took pity on her. We all simply felt glad that she got to go home with some nourishing homemade soups. We’ve all had those kind of weeks!




My contribution to the soup exchange? For the first time ever, I made up a big pot of vegan posole—I’ll tell you about in my next post.

During the party we enjoyed carrot-ginger soup and beer soup (made with whole wheat pasta, tofu, and veggies), a big pot of each, contributed by one group member, along with nice warm bread, snacks, and beverages.

But of course, the best part—as with all such gatherings—was the conversation, fellowship, the telling of stories and jokes, and the connections and reconnections.

Sue and I were the newbies to this group—I hope we’ll be invited to the next soup exchange! I’ve got some ideas for a dynamite tomato soup, and another based on Indian ingredients and spices!