Ground turkey and vegetable soup #Recipe @PegCochran

 

Is it cold and snowy or icy where you are?  If so, this soup will warm you right up.  It makes a quick dinner--add some crusty bread if you like--and leftovers are great for lunch. And if you are in a state experiencing power outages and lack of water, you have my sympathy and prayers.

The basis for this soup comes from a recipe on the Roasted Root blog.  I adapted it to suit what I had on hand.  I omitted the potatoes because I was out and added about 1/2 a cup of elbow macaroni to finish off a box I had in the pantry.  I also chopped the carrots to make a sort of mirepoix sans celery, which I also didn't have.  And I omitted the zucchini because we didn't have any.  I would have omitted it anyway because I would be afraid it would get mushy in the soup and create an unpleasant texture.  I used lite coconut milk because that is what I had instead of full fat and I can't imagine there's much of a difference.

The recipe below is the original with notes of my changes.

Ingredients

4 slices thick-cut bacon, chopped (I used center cut)
1/2 yellow onion, diced (I used a whole onion)
1 lb. ground turkey
3 small yukon gold potatoes, chopped (optional)
2 large carrots, peeled and chopped
1 medium zucchini squash, chopped (optional)
4 cups chicken broth
1 15 ounce can coconut milk (lite is fine)

1/2 cup elbow macaroni (optional)
3 cups baby spinach
salt to taste

 

Heat a large pot over medium heat and add the chopped bacon. Cook until most of the fat has been rendered. 

 

 

 

Add the onion and carrots and cook until translucent. 

 

Push onions to the side of the pot and add the ground turkey.  Brown turkey on both sides and break into small pieces.

 

 

Add the remaining ingredients except the spinach, cover the pot and bring to a full boil. 

 

 

 

Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for 20 to 30 minutes, until potatoes are cooked through. (If you are adding elbow macaroni, add it now and cook until al dente--about 7 minutes.) 

 

Stir in the spinach and cook until wilted, about another 2 to 3 minutes. 

 

 

Murder in the Margins has everything: England * Charming town * Book shop * Writer-in-residence * Royalty * Cute detective * Murder!

 

 

The plot thickens for American gothic writer Penelope Parish when a murder near her quaint British bookshop reveals a novel's worth of killer characters.

Penelope Parish has hit a streak of bad luck, including a severe case of writer's block that is threatening her sophomore book. Hoping a writer in residence position at The Open Book bookstore in Upper Chumley-on-Stoke, England, will shake the cobwebs loose, Pen, as she's affectionately known, packs her typewriter and heads across the pond.

Unfortunately, life in Chumley is far from quiet and when the chairwoman of the local Worthington Fest is found dead, fingers are pointed at Charlotte Davenport, an American romance novelist and the future Duchess of Worthington. Charlotte turns to the one person who might be her ally for help: fellow American Pen. Teaming up with bookstore owner Mabel Morris and her new friend Figgy, Pen sets out to learn the truth and find the tricks that will help her finish her novel.

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Sort of Scottish Creamed Vegetable Soup #recipe @LucyBurdette

LUCY BURDETTE: One of my favorite things about traveling is the chance to try local specialties. On our dreamy trip to Scotland this summer, we weren't sure what food to expect. Probably the most common item on the menu was fish and chips with smashed peas.

But I doubt I'll try making that dish at home.

But there was almost always a wonderful-sounding soup on the menu, usually some kind of cream of vegetable. Served with scones, which I'll bring to you on another day...

This I could make! Here's my easy version of sort-of Scottish creamed vegetable soup.

Ingredients

One large leek, white and light green parts 
One onion
One clove garlic
2 tablespoons butter
Two stalks of celery 
One large turnip
Two medium potatoes
One celeriac root
One box good quality chicken stock
1 teaspoon white pepper
1/4 cup milk or to taste

Clean the leek well so you don't get grit in your dinner. Chop the leek, the onion, the celery, and the garlic, and sauté these in melted butter on low heat until soft.  Add the chicken broth. 

Add the remainder of the vegetables and simmer until soft. I simmered the celeriac for ten minutes before adding potatoes and turnip because it felt firmer when I cut it. 

When the vegetables are soft, stir in the pepper. Using an immersion blender, blend the vegetable mixture until smooth. Add milk to your preferred thickness. 

Taste for seasoning and serve with cheese scones and a salad. This was so yummy with a deep but light celery flavor. (It's so hard to take a good photo of soup!)

Look out for Hayley Snow visiting Scotland in a future installment--it was too wonderful not to use...

Lucy Burdette writes the Key West food critic mystery series, featuring fiesty food critic Hayley Snow. Number 9, A DEADLY FEAST, is in stores and online everywhere. THE KEY LIME CRIME will be published next summer. 


"Hayley and Nathan make an appealing pair, and the food descriptions and Key West atmosphere are equally enticing—a sure bet to draw readers of foodie mysteries."

—Booklist


Please follow Lucy on Facebook, Instagram, Bookbub, and Twitter!

I'm super-grateful to have my next book, THE KEY LIME CRIME (July 2020), available for pre-order!

You can order it at an independent bookstore, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and anywhere books are sold!

Asian Veggie-Full Noodle Soup #recipe @LucyBurdette

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LUCY BURDETTE: I generally like Asian pho style noodle soups, but often they are overly salty. I saw some beautiful pictures at Supper with Michelle blog and I decided I should try a version of this soup. I had some spicy chili spaghetti that I had ordered on a whim from Eataly, and decided these would be perfect for the noodle part. The vegetables I chose from what was available at the local organic market – these included spinach, mushrooms, sprouts, and cilantro. If your noodles are not spicy, you should feel free to increase the amount of chili sauce. We were glad I kept it to under a teaspoon! The soup clears the sinuses right out and was delicious. Next time I might slip in some tofu, but don’t tell my husband...





Wash and chop all the vegetables ahead of time and then the soup is easily put together. You could cook the noodles separately if you preferred, but I simmered them right in the broth.


Ingredients:

3 cups of broth (I used chicken but beef or vegetable would work too)

2 cups water

6 oz noodles or spaghetti--mine were spicy chili noodles

1 tablespoon of olive oil

1 clove garlic (minced)

1 inch ginger root, peeled and finely minced

2 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce

Tbsp or so Sesame Oil

1-3 teaspoons of Chili Garlic Sauce (or Sriracha Sauce)--to taste!

1 medium zucchini

6 oz spinach

3 large mushrooms

3 Green Onions

1/2 bunch cilantro

fresh sprouts (mine were pea shoots)

fresh mint for garnish


Saute the garlic, ginger and scallions for a few minutes in the olive and sesame oil



Add the zucchini and mushrooms and saute those, too



Add the broth and water, along with soy sauce and hot sauce, and bring to a boil. Add the noodles, simmer until almost soft. Add the spinach and cook lightly until it wilts



When you're ready to serve, heap the bowls with chopped cilantro and sprouts, and sprinkle fresh mint on top.

Death on the Menu, the 8th Key West food critic mystery, is available now from Crooked Lane Books. You can order it wherever books are sold! A DEADLY FEAST will be out in May, but can be pre-ordered now on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Indiebound, or wherever you buy your books.

And T-bone says please follow Lucy on Instagram and Bookbub!

Purple Soup

Winter is a good time for soup. It warms your body, and as it simmers it helps to warm (and humidify) your kitchen.

Soup can include almost anything—vegetables, meat, fish, beans, and whatever leftovers are lurking in your fridge.

But this one sneaked up on me. It started when my market had a batch of purple cauliflower recently. I like cauliflower, and the purple kind is so pretty! (I’ve also tried the golden kind, the green kind, and the pointy kind.) So I bought a head.

The next week the market had purple brussels sprouts. I didn’t even know they existed! Purple cabbage, sure, and red cabbage and crinkly cabbage? But colored brussels sprouts? Of course I bought a bag (these came from the Netherlands!).

And then I started thinking . . . What other vegetables are purple? Some carrots are. So are some potatoes (a gorgeous color). Peppers?

Who knew that purple veggies were taking over the world? 

Now I needed a recipe. but that’s the easiest part. It’s not surprising that there are plenty of Irish recipes that rely on potatoes and cabbage. Some recipes call for bacon or ham as well, but I wanted to highlight the vegetables. I didn’t want a recipe that called for cream or milk, because with all the purple ingredients, the milk would probably turn a muddy grey. So I combined a few recipes, and this was the result!

Purple Vegetable Soup

Ingredients: (Note: the amounts of the different ingredients are flexible!)

1 lb cauliflower florets
1 lb brussels sprouts [Note: one recipe called for roasting both of these, by lining a baking sheet with foil, spraying it with oil, laying the vegetables on it, drizzling with oil, then roasting in the bottom third of a preheated 450 degree oven until slightly browned. I can see that this would add a richer flavor to the soup, but I wanted to see how it would taste without this first.]
one half head of cabbage (purple, of course)
3 Tblsp butter
3 Tblsp olive oil
1/2 cup chopped shallots or one large onion (I used small red onions for color)
3-1/2 cups vegetable broth or chicken broth (or more if you need more liquid)
1 lb. purple potatoes, peeled and quartered
4 purple carrots, peeled and sliced
3/4 tsp salt
black pepper to taste

Heat the olive oil and butter over low heat. Add the onion and carrots and cook until soft, about 10 minutes. 

Add the potatoes and stock to the pot and bring to a boil. Simmer until the potatoes are tender, about 10 minutes. 

Add the brussels sprouts and cauliflower (and cabbage if you’re using it). Season with salt and pepper and simmer until the vegetables are tender.

I should add that an even simpler recipe calls for combining all the vegetables plus the olive oil, stock salt and pepper, and simmering about 20 minutes. Then puree in a blender until smooth.

As you can see, this is a very versatile soup (and it takes more time to chop or slice the ingredients than to cook it). And it’s purple!

Roast Carrot Soup

I know, I keep giving you carrot soup recipes, but this one was just so gorgeous I had to share it. I found it at the Kalbos Café at the West Cork Arts Centre in Skibbereen (West Cork, Ireland), when I stopped in for a quick light lunch (I’ve eaten there before). The Arts Centre itself took years to build, and opened in 2015. It’s been a very busy place ever since, and it plays an important role in the local cultural community. Brilliant move to have an place to eat right alongside it. (I tried to find a picture that showed both, but the cafe is kind of tucked in and it's hard to get both in the same shot.)

You may think of vegetable soup as a winter dish, but let me remind you that it’s cooler in Ireland than in the US in summer. Plus this is not one of those you have to stew for hours (oh, well, there is that turning on the oven thing). There are plenty of carrots in Ireland, year round, as well as other hearty root vegetables. Kind of reminds me of Massachusetts, where summer vegetables don’t really appear at the farmers’ markets until June or even July, at least in my part of the state. 

The Kalbos Cafe soup

When I ordered the soup (the special of the day) I expected something bland and comforting, but what I hadn’t expected was an intense red blast of color. As you might guess, the “body” of the soup come from the carrots, but the color comes from beets (or beetroot, as they call it there--I had to ask). Both are root vegetables with a fairly high sugar content. Roast them and they caramelize a bit, adding a sweet element to the soup, and a deeper flavor.

I’ll confess, I looked for recipes online, but they all looked like ordinary carrot soup—orange. None had this wonderful rich red color. Let me add that the dominant flavor is carrot, not beet (as a child I used to gag at the taste of beets, so I’m still wary of them).

At the café it was served simply, with a piece of brown bread and some butter. If you want to dress it up, you could add a dollop of sour cream and a sprig of dill or another herb. Also note that this is vegan—all vegetable, unless you want to use chicken stock. It’s simple, healthy and tasty—what more could you ask?


Roasted Carrot Soup

Ingredients:

1 lb carrots, peeled and cut into chunks

1/2 lb beets, peeled and cut into chunks
1 medium onion, thickly sliced
2 Tblsp good olive oil

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. In a bowl, toss the carrots, beets and onion with the olive oil, then spread them in a single layer on a large rimmed baking sheet. 

Roast for about 20 minutes, stirring a couple of times (so they don’t stick), until they are tender and beginning to brown around the edges.

4 cups stock (chicken or vegetable)
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

Place the cooked vegetables in a large saucepan. Add the stock, cover and bring to a boil. Simmer over low heat until all the vegetables are tender (about 20 minutes).

Bought this at a yard sale across the street
for $3. I've used it a lot.

Puree the soup in a blender or food processor (to whatever smoothness you desire), or use an immersion blender. Keep the soup warm in the pan, and season with the salt and pepper. (If it's too thick for you, add a bit more stock, or even water.)

Serve in deep bowls. If you want to dress it up, add a dollop of crème fraiche and maybe a sprig of dill. Serve immediately. (This recipe makes about four servings.)

My nod to the Fourth of July: it's
red, white and blue!

Note: in winter you can add other vegetables as well—butternut squash, parsnips, sweet potato—to make it a heartier soup. You can also spice it up with a dash of pepper sauce or chile powder—it’s a very versatile recipe!

My feeble effort to add an Irish design

I'll stop rambling on about all things Irish soon, I promise. I am working on other books, really--the next Irish one (still nameless), another Orchard mystery, another Relatively Dead story, a short story or two...

Something Warm and Toasty—Easy Veggie Soup…in the Slow Cooker

It doesn’t take a whole lot for me to get in the mood for soup.

And when we suddenly experienced a 20 degree temperature difference in just a couple of days time (from the mid-90s to the mid-70s), I decided it was time to bring out soup ingredients!

Lest you think I’m a cold-weather wimp, it is going down into the 40s at night. We think that’s pretty chilly for October here.

But I’m still experiencing the fall-time-crunch. So I brought out my handy-dandy Crockpot so I could cook my soup slowly and really get the flavors mixing—and have the soup ready at the end of the day when it was time to feed hungry kids.

This recipe is a no-brainer. In fact…there really isn’t a recipe at all for me. I just put things in the pot until I’ve got the consistency where I want it. And the ingredients change, too—they’re just whatever I have on hand at the time.

The one special ingredient that this recipe has that I think helps out a lot with the taste is vegetable juice as the base. I use a low-sodium V-8 juice because, if you use canned vegetables at all then you’ll definitely get enough sodium. And the V-8 juice gives a nice spicy taste to the soup without the need to add spices.

This recipe makes a lot. I usually freeze about half of it. So you’ll want to adjust it down if you’d rather not freeze any.

Easy Veggie Soup

1 bottle vegetable juice (I used the 46-oz. size. It makes a lot.)
1 cup lima beans
1 small onion
3/4 can of beef broth
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup cubed, peeled potatoes
1 1/2 cups corn
2 peeled and sliced carrots
1 package frozen soup vegetables/mixed veggies
1/4 cup red wine

Put all the ingredients in the slow cooker and cook on low for 6-8 hours.

And enjoy the warmth! :)

Riley/Elizabeth
Delicious and Suspicious (July 6 2010) Riley Adams
Finger Licking Dead (June 2011)… Riley Adams
Pretty is as Pretty Dies –Elizabeth Spann Craig