I don’t often see beef consomme used in recipes anymore, do you?  Has it been replaced with beef broth?  If anyone is still attempting to make consomme at home, I can see why we don’t see it around too much.

Consomme is actually a brown soup stock that has been “clarified.”  The method to clarify your brown stock is tedious and slow.  It involves stirring in an egg white and, believe it or not, the egg shell.  Then simmering the stock very, very, very slowly until a foam forms on the top and then straining it through some clean cloth into a bowl all the while not disturbing the foam.  Good heavens!

Anyway, I do happen to have a can of beef consomme in my cupboard so, of course, I’m wondering if anyone has seen a recipe that calls for it.  I know consomme is a very rich and clear stock, basically.  The flavor seems to be a bit more intense, making it better no doubt when used in casseroles and pot roasts, and not so much soup.

What do you think?  Does anyone happen to have a good recipe that uses beef consomme.  And, just for fun, has anyone tried actually making beef consomme from scratch.  I’d sure like to hear from you!

Other than tomato soup, that is.  I must say, though, that since I found a sale on tomato soup and filled my pantry with a good supply of the stuff, I’ve seen several recipes that use tomato soup.  I normally find recipes that call for tomato sauce, but suddenly I see tomato soap instead.  Wonder why…

To me, canned tomato soup is very sweet.  The one recipe that this additional sweetness sort of made sense in was a recipe I saw for Sweet and Tangy cabbage soup.  It was from one of those old time recipe magazines from I don’t know how long ago, so it is really nice and simple.  This is how you make it:

1 medium head of cabbage, cut fine
2 quarts of chicken stock or broth
1 small onion, diced fine
1 small can tomato soup
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper to taste

Throw everything in a soup pot, bring to boil, and simmer until cabbage is tender.

You can’t get much simpler than that!  I love a recipe I can remember off the top of my head.  If you have any ideas about either how to dress up this soup, or create anything else with cans of tomato soup, I’d love to hear from you!

This may seem like a pretty unusual question, but I actually do have some salt pork in my refrigerator.  A friend of mine loves collard greens and uses salt pork when she fixes her family’s favorite recipe.  She ran out of collard greens before she ran out of salt pork and asked me if I wanted to use up her extra salt pork.  Well, never one to turn down a challenge, or free food, I said “Sure!” 

Now I have a nice package of salt pork and would like to make something really good with it.  I would also like to stick to a more traditional recipe, one that the settlers might have made with salt pork, since it is sort of an “historic” ingredient.

I’ve been looking at old cookbooks and it looks like salt pork was used a lot in bean or potato soups and chowders.  Comparing those recipes with more modern ones, it seems at some time a switch to using ham occurred.  I’m wondering if I could take a more modern chowder recipe and just replace the ham with salt pork?  What would be the difference?

I would really love to hear from anyone who has an old soup or chowder recipe that was passed down through generations.  That would be the best… a real tried-and-true recipe!  Looking forward to your input!

Guess who lost track of a big bag of onions in her pantry?  You’ve got it… yours truly.  They have just the first signs of sprouting so it’s not a total loss, but now I’ve got to use them immediately.  So, what do you suppose I should do?

The easiest thing that comes to mind is make some French Onion Soup.  I’ve only made this a couple times in my married life as my husband doesn’t seem to rally around meatless meals. 

The quick and easy method I use for French Onion Soup is this:

Peel onions and cut into circles.  Throw in a big pot with some oil and a little butter and saute until transparent.  Then add some canned beef broth until it looks like you’d expect French Onion Soup to look like.  Pretty simple.  Then to serve, lay a toasted piece of hearty bread with mozzarela or parmesan cheese on top. 

You see why I’m looking for help.  Not very imaginative.  It’s okay, but how would you make onion soup or any other onion dish that’s really spectacular instead of just edible?

Stating the obvious, of course, is soup.  But, I’m stuck.  I’ve been making the same old turkey soup with vegetables and egg noodles for years.  What else can I make with it?  My family likes my standard turkey soup, but I’m getting tired of it.  Just in case you are looking for a plain ol’ turkey soup, here’s my quick and easy method:

In large soup pot, pour in a little vegetable oil (just enough to coat the bottom of the pot), throw in some nice bite-size pieces of celery, salt and fresh ground pepper and let cook a little until celery just starts to soften.  Then throw in some cut up carrots, and let those cook just a minute or until they start to soften.  (Don’t use baby carrots; use the real full-grown ones, peeled and cut.  Baby carrots don’t have enough flavor to stand up to soup.)  Now add some diced onion and some minced garlic.  Continue to saute all these veggies until onion is just starting to get transparent.  Pour in your turkey stock, taste for seasonings, and add a little more salt and pepper if needed.  Cover loosely and let simmer.  Don’t let it boil!  Meanwhile, cook some egg noodles in another pot according to directions BUT do not cook until they are soft.  They should be a little undercooked as they will cook a bit in the soup. Drain the noodles and add them to the soup pot.  Stir everything together, simmer for about 3 – 4 minutes or just until the noodles are done cooking.  It’s soup time!

You’ll notice that measurements for the ingredients are nonexistent.  This is one of those “make it as you please” recipes.  If you like a lot of veggies in your soup, add a lot.  If you’re a noodle fanatic, add a lot of noodles. 

What I’m lacking here is variety and ingenuity.  I would love to try an Asian inspired dish, like “Hot and Sour” soup, which should hold up very well against a rich turkey stock.  I’d also like to find out if anyone has ever attempted an “Egg Drop” soup.  What about some unusual vegetables in a turkey soup?  Are there some Autumn vegetables that stand out and are a little more inspiring than celery and carrots?  Any ideas are welcome!

We had a chili cook off at work this Fall, and I was left with an abundance of kidney beans.  Making more chili to use up the kidney beans is out of the question, so I’ve been trying to create some different uses for kidney beans… and failing miserably. 

The classic bean soups just aren’t working for me right now.  If I add black beans, the kidney beans just sort of disappear.  Black beans do tend to take-over any dish of which they are a part; both in color and flavor.  So, avoiding black beans, I’ve tried navy beans, butter beans, and pinto beans, which were all okay with my kidney beans, but I still haven’t come up with an idea in which to use JUST kidney beans, and use them up in a big way. 
 
I do, however, remember a really fantastic salad that my daughter used to make when she lived on the West Coast.  She mixed up a salad of kidney beans (drained and rinsed well), some finely shredded medium cheddar cheese, chives or green onion, a little salt and pepper, and mix it all together with either taco sauce or her favorite salsa.  Then she peeled and halved nice, ripe avocados and sprinkled them with a little lemon juice and set them on small plates. To serve she just spooned the kidney bean salad mixture into the avocado halves.  That was yummy, indeed!  

There is also a fabulous Three-Bean Salad that I’ve enjoyed many times at potlucks, but, to this date have not gotten a recipe.  I would love to have a really great recipe for a Three-Bean Salad that I could call my own.  Any suggestions?

Back to my dilema… are there casseroles, soups, or salads that use a good amount of kidney beans?  I’d love to surprise my family by cleaning out the stack of cans of kidney beans that are piled in my pantry.  Your input is greatly appreciated!

This may seem a strange problem, but I have way too much milk in my refrigerator after every Holiday.  You see, I buy gallons of milk for all the young family members that join us for our meals over the Holidays, and then end up with leftover milk.  I could just buy less, but I hate to run out and disappoint a sweet child who just wants a little more milk to dunk their Christmas cookie.  That would be just too sad.  So, I end up with extra milk.

My husband and I can drink a little in our coffee, and I can make some creamed soups, but I’d like to find a real knock-out recipe that would make me happy I had all that milk leftover. 

My last attempt at Oyster Stew didn’t turn out so good.  That’s really my big “use up the milk” strategy, but the recipe failed me.  There’s probably an old family favorite Oyster Stew recipe that is not in the cookbooks anywhere.  That would be a real find if anyone could share their own family recipe for Oyster Stew or even any other milk-based seafood chowder, soup or stew.

As always, I’d be grateful for any real great recipe you would be willing to share.

The produce aisle is once again bulging with those big, beautiful, and inexpensive heads of cabbage.  I can NOT resist them!  Nor should I.  For one thing, the nutritional value and fiber in cabbage is astounding.  And considering the price for a head of cabbage, everyone on a budget needs to consider the under-appreciated cabbage as a new staple in their home’s refrigerator. 

Now comes the hard part.  How many ways is there to cook a head of cabbage?  I’ve tried a couple basic, simple soups that are great.  But, I don’t want to get tired of my same old recipes.  And I certainly don’t want to bore my family so they stop eating cabbage altogether.  Also, there is the always popular Cole Slaw, which needs an update at this point.

I’ll share my very simple, but delicious, cabbage soup here for you.  You can follow these easy steps, but I suggest you add your own touches to make your Simple Cabbage Soup uniquely yours.

You’ll need:

1 nice head of cabbage, clean and cut into about 8 wedges, then cut in half again.
1 – 2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1 medium onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 tsp. black pepper, freshly ground
1 large can chicken broth
salt to taste

Basic steps:

In large soup pot, heat oil, add onion, garlic, and black pepper.  Heat over medium heat until onion just softens, adding a bit more oil if necessary.  Once the onion, garlic, and black pepper is nice and fragrant, add the cabbage.  Stir thoroughly, wilting the cabbage just a bit in the pot.  After the cabbage has cooked down a little, add the chicken broth.  Set pot to simmer, taste for salt, and cook until the cabbage is nice and soft, about 20 – 30 minutes.  You may need to add a little more broth, depending on the size of your head of cabbage.

That’s it.  The chicken broth gives the cabbage soup a real “buttery” taste.  With this basic soup, I create more substantial meals by adding a little fresh fish, or diced chicken, and maybe some carrots. 

What I would like is some recipes for casseroles, or some Asian inspired dishes that use cabbage.  I’d appreciate any ideas on how to use this gorgeous vegetable.

It’s October… all those beautiful, orange pumpkins are lined up on hay bales in front of every store, and I am trying to figure out what to make with a pumpkin other than a jack-o’-lantern.  Besides pumpkin pie, are there recipes for using fresh pumpkin in soups, casseroles, and other desserts?

One thing I know for sure is the pumpkin you carve into your jack-o’-lantern, or set out among your Fall decorations, must not be the pumpkin you cook.  If it has been out in the weather for awhile, it’s not suitable for eating.  After your carved pumpkin has done its duty decorating your landscape, please add it to your compost pile or feed it to the deer. 

Now, back to recipes… when I buy my fresh pumpkin and get it home, what will I make?  I’m partial to winter squash and have heard you can substitute pumpkin in recipes that call for squash.  Has anyone had success doing that?  Also, there were some dessert bars that I had at a potluck some time ago that were delicious.  I’m sorry I didn’t track that person down for the recipe.  I’m wondering if anyone has a great bar or cookie recipe using fresh pumpkin.  One more thing;  how does using fresh pumpkin differ from using canned pumpkin?  Hope there is someone out there who can help!

My Grandma made the best navy bean soup ever!  Period.  End of debate.  She called it Navy Bean Soup but we always referred to her masterpiece with a resounding “Ham On The Bone”!  Yes, she left the ham on the bone and left it in the soup.  Why waste a minute of that flavor soaking into the broth and beans.  You just sort of dug around in there, hoping to knock a few chunks of ham off the bone with the ladle and into your bowl. 

Any way you make it, Navy Bean Soup is probably one of the most satisfying soups there is on the entire planet.  Depending on the garden, my Grandma would add carrots, onions, parsnips, parsley, potatoes, and whatever she could dig up or snip off.  Now, I’ve made this soup a few times in my life, but it never, ever, will turn out as good as my Grandma’s Navy Bean Soup.  That’s just the way nostalgia works. I would, however, like to hear if anyone else has a favorite memory or recipe using navy beans.  I don’t know if it would be worth trying them in a casserole, or a salad, but why don’t you tell me what you think.