Wednesday, December 11, 2013

My pot runneth over

Hoarders, I have a problem.

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Over the weekend, I had the exciting task of cleaning out the deep freeze in the basement. It seemed to be bursting at the seems, and I was struggling to put in the weekly essentials (Mark's frozen meals + pizza).

I pulled nearly everything out - pizzas, meals, disgusting French toast sticks - and discovered that the bottom of the freezer was filled with milk jugs with ice. (We were instructed to fill containers with water and put at the base of the freezer if we couldn't fill it with food to save energy).

And, I found about a dozen plastic containers of soup. Give or take 10,000.

While I knew I had soup in the freezer - it's a great thing to have on hand as it makes for a quick grab-and-go lunch - I thought it was limited to just a few varieties with two bowls each. As it turns out, I have upwards of a half-dozen varieties with up to three containers of each. There's Sweet Potato Bisque, Smoky Corn Chowder, Baked Potato Soup, Chicken and Rice, White Chicken Chili, Spinach Lentil and Black Bean. Oh, yeah ... and the ham and bean I made this weekend.

It's more than enough soup for me, even as I follow the Shred diet that often has one bowl of soup on the plan a day, and I can definitely share with my mother-in-law without blinking an eye.

So what's the problem?

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I still feel compelled to make more soup.

After seeing Kim's post about zesty bean posole, I went to the international grocery to buy kidney beans and hominy so I could have my own. I'm pretending it's to fill my MIL's freezer as she's having a hip replacement surgery and it's a good way to use my canned salsa but I know I'm lying to myself.

It's because I've spent too much time watching "Alaska: The Last Frontier" and think I want need to have a buffet of soups to survive the winter.

Stay tuned: I'll be thawing some black bean soup so that I can share my once improvised, now documented recipe.


So tell me: What's your favorite soup recipe for cold winter days?

4 comments:

  1. I heart soup! Its hard to pick just one as a favorite. but I gotta go with black bean. If it is on a menu, I order it - ALWAYS

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  2. We're still paleo-ish here so we do a killer minestrone-inspired soup: Italian sausage and about 9 different vegetables (parsnips, golden beets, green beans, broccoli, peas, potatoes, carrots, celery, onions, garlic...) Black beans optional. You could add pasta if you're into that. Cheese tortellini is good in it.

    We also do an awesome squash soup -- pureed roasted pumpkin or squash, Thai red curry paste and coconut milk. Add a couple cans of chickpeas or cut up roasted chicken to make it more hearty.

    Finally, there's an amazing curried squash, ginger, and white bean soup in the Horn of the Moon cookbook. Actually, now that I have an immersion blender, I should do this one again. It's incredible. Yummmmmmm.

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  3. Giada's Hearty Tomato Soup is my all-time favorite. I love it!

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  4. We had so much food in our freezer I started a list that lives on our fridge so that I didn't forget what we had in thre. I'm all about soup when it's cold outside. I made a potato soup that was just eh ok this week. I'm craving chili and I think i'm going to have to make my go to black bean soup soon.

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