I’m not sure WHY we got a shrimp ring this year – but we had lots of leftover shrimp too.

Here’s the recipe – DO NOT put leftover fish sticks in your chowder!

Ingredients
4 leftover poached salmon pieces
1 shrimp ring (remove tails)
1 onion (chopped)
3 celery stocks (chopped)
4 cups chicken or fish stock
2 cups leftover mashed potatoes
2 potatoes (chopped)
2 cups leftover cooked carrots
1/2 red pepper (chopped)
Bay leaf
1 tbsp dill
Milk

Recipe
Makes 6 servings

1. Saute onion and celery.
2. Add broth, bay leaf, dill and mashed potatoes.
3. Add chopped potatoes and simmer 10 minutes.
4. Add salmon, shrimp, red pepper and simmer 15 minutes.
5. Mix in chopped cooked carrots and remove bay leaf.
6. Reheat and add milk to thin to desired thickness to serve.

Lentil Soup & Samosas - Mmmm

This is the best lentil soup ever. A great place to go for lunch.  Soup, samosas and chai for under $10. I could eat here every day.

I’m still trying to reverse engineer the soup recipe – don’t worry Vijay if I figure it out I promise not to share it + I’ll keep coming back for the samosas.

Ingredients for Squash and Capricollo Soup

I invented this one because I had left over capricollo to use up. You could substitute ham – good ham not that crappy fat-free ham.

Ingredients
4 cups diced squash (I used Hubbard but butternut or acorn would work great)
1 onion chopped
6 cups water
1 to 1.5 cups sliced capricollo
1 cube veggie boullion
pinch of dried parsley
tablespoon olive oil

Instructions
1. Saute onions in olive oil until transparent.
2. Add water, squash, capricollo and seasonings.
3. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 20 – 30 minutes.
4. Let cool to room temperature.
5. Remove all pieces of capricollo.
6. Puree soup.
7. Chop capricollo and return to soup.
8 . Reheat soup and serve.

Mmmm Squash and Capricollo soup!

Butternut and Delicata Squash Posing with Soup

Snowman Soup may not appear exactly as shown

A Christmas project – make a bunch and give them out instead of Christmas cards.

1 pkg white hot chocolate
1 candy candy cane
2 chocolate kisses
1 piece mango licorice (or try to find another orange candy that looks like a carrot)
small handful of mini  marshmallows

Assemble packages of snowman soup using small sandwhich baggies and homemade labels. Give away. Merry Christmas.

package of snowman soup

Melting…

melting

Melted…

melted

* No snowmen were injured or harmed for this blog post.

Its a Doukobour style borsch. I’ll write a whole other entry about Doukobour borscht another day.

Anyways here’s the recipe. A warning though: it’s a classic grandma recipe – some ingredients may appear to be missing or unaccounted for or appear later and surprize you.  You may have to wing it but that’s what soup’s all about.

3 quarts water
1 1/2 tsp salt
8 medium potatos
1/2 cup shredded carrots
1/2 cup chopped carrots
1 medium beet
1 cup chopped onion
6 cups shredded cabbage (firmly packed)
1 cup sweet cream
3/4 pound butter
4 cups canned tomatos
1/2 cup green pepper
2 tbsp fresh dill

1. Put 4 cups tomatoes in a pan, mash, add 2 tbsp butter and boil until thick.

mashing tomatoes for borscht

2. Put 1/2 pound butter, 3/4 onions and 1/2 cup shredded carrots into a frying pan. Fry but don’t brown.

3. In a separate frying pan, fry 3 cups of cabbage in 1/4 pound of butter.

three pots already dirty

4. Boil 3 quarts of water in a large pot, add 1 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 cup cream, 1/2 chopped carrots, 6 potatoes (quartered about 2 cups) and the beet (cut in half). Boil until potatoes are tender. Remove and mash with 2 tbsp butter and 1/2 cup cream.

soup pot

5. Add 1 1/2 cups potatoes and 3 cups shredded cabbage into the potato stock and boil until tender. Pout the mashed potatoes back into the stock. Add fried onion, carrot cabbage, and tomato sauce. Add green peppers and dill, bring just to a boil then turn off heat. Remove beet and discard.

Serves 12.