Soup For The Soul

As the sun lightens the sky this morning, it reveals a low fog that has settled over the lake during the night.  The tree tops of the offshore islands are just barely visible, with nothing to see below but fog.  It blends with the calm waters of the lake making for an eerie and ethereal landscape.  A Blue Jay screams good morning as he lands on the bird feeder, breaking the silence.  Good morning to you too I reply.

With the temperature hovering around 46F and my hands firmly wrapped around my mug of hot tea.  My thoughts wander to soup.  Soup is great for days like these that start off chilly, foggy and damp with dew so thick you can see the large water droplets clinging to the leaves and grass blades.

I am heading to the market this morning and the first thing I will be buying is a butternut squash.  Butternut squash soup is just the ticket to warm you to your toes on frosty, chilly Fall days.  Or how about sweet potatoes?  My Caribbean inspired Sweet Potato and Black Bean soup is sure to tantalize your tastebuds and transport you to the islands.

Caribbean Black Bean Sweet Potato Soup

What are your favourite soups for Fall?  If you have a really good one to share, write it up below in the comment section as I am always looking for new soup ideas.  They freeze well and you can pull out individual servings for busy lunches on the go.  Bonus points for healthy, cream and fat free recipes!

Go ahead, pull out that soup pot and make your kitchen smell fantastic.

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9 thoughts on “Soup For The Soul

  1. LOL….sorry, left before I finished what I was saying! my pups were pressuring me to go outside while I was typing, and I don’t work well under pressure! LOL.
    soooooo as I was saying, I don’t think I was clear in my recipe that if you’re using bacon, skip the oil. if you’re using smoked turkey add after you’ve softened the onions and garlic etc. I LOVE soup too. made some beef barley yesterday with the left over pot roast we had on the weekend! mmm, mmm , mmm! have a great day deb 🙂

    • Hey Weebs! long time no hear! 🙂 This soup looks divine! I love hearty, Italian inspired dishes and I will definitely be looking to make a pot of this soon. I may sub the Romano beans with Navy Beans or Pintos as I have both of those on hand. Pancetta is good stuff too 🙂 Thanks a bunch!

  2. I too love soups…………anytime!

    When I make a pot though, I tend to throw so much stuff into it that I wind up with enough soup for 10 people to eat for a week. Freezing is a great option but I add potatoes to every pot (because we grow a huge crop each year and hubby is a potato and meat farm boy), and as we all know, chunks of potatoes do not freeze well.

    I was given a stack of back issues of Country Woman and Taste of Home magazines, to add to my own collection, and in one issue, I came across the hint that I will use next time I have an urge for a large pot of soup.

    Make the soup as before but omit the potatoes, then freeze in meal sized portions. When ready to use, microwave enough potatoes for that meal, heat the soup and cut up the potatoes into it. Voila!………homemade soup, potatoes and all without the mushy, frozen potatoes.

    I’m making my next pot with everything but potatoes, which will be added as the soup thaws and heats.

    • Excellent tip on the potatoes, I typically don’t put taters in my soup unless it is a specific soup type that calls for them. I would like to try growing potatoes…problem is I don’t have any extra space for them, nor where to begin with learning what their requirements are! 🙂

  3. Potatoes do need room but there are ways to grow lots of potatoes in a limited space that we learned from a woman that went to Africa years ago to help the people grow their own food.

    She said the people planted a potato inside an old tire that had soil in it up to the rim. When the plant got to be about a foot and a half tall, another tire was put on top and filled with soil. This was repeated until they had a tower of tires and when it was time to harvest the crop, the tires were removed one at a time, the potatoes gathered until they got to the bottom.

    Potatoes are easy to grow but you have to keep them watered and watch for potato bugs, that can strip the leaves off the stalks bare.

    Of course we have lots of land for growing here so I have no need for the tire stacking but the black tires would attract the heat, which all plants need, and by watering them, they would grow beautifully.

    Potatoes will keep growing up the stalk as long as they are covered by earth, that’s why we have to hill them throughout the summer. With the tire stacking, you just add the earth inside the tire and there’s no need to hill them. Also, the ones on the bottom get bigger than the ones on the top so you get lots of potatoes from one plant.

    PS: Be prepared to take potatoes home from the visit……….we had a great crop this year, more than we could eat until next year’s harvest.

    • Woo-Hoo! free taters! 🙂 I am copying/pasting your potato growing advice to print and keep with my gardening journal. Maybe next year I will try my hand at some! 🙂 Thanks!

  4. First let me say that the tire trick is tried and true, and sure as shootin’ correct method to grow potatoes in limited space. I have grown them and they really are fun to grow because they really require not a lot of attention. Water and sun. Bingo, you are in. And really potatoes are so incredibly good when just harvested. In the spring time, go and buy seed potatoes if you want but you can use store bought potatoes just as easily. All you need is an eye to get started. If you have a large potato, cut it so that you have an eye and bury it about 6 inches deep or so, then as they grow, mound dirt to hill them. The hardest part is ignoring them and letting them fully develop and grow to a usable size. Now then, on to the real reason you posted…

    I love soup too and one of my favorites is, http://allrecipes.com/recipe/chicken-wild-rice-soup-i/detail.aspx . It’s really a good one and screams fall to me. Another one is a personal favorite and one of my own: http://allrecipes.com/personalrecipe/62612805/wanton-wonton-soup/detail.aspx . I just made this last week as a matter of fact. It makes a lot and it really is good.

    • You are just full of great news Anne when I opened this comment this morning 🙂 Thanks for the tire testimonial! All I need is some old tires and I am all set. The soups? Look divine! I just bookmarked both pages and am anxious to try the chicken wild rice one as I love wild rice! Thanks so much for throwing your nickel’s worth in! 🙂

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