Creamy Slow-Cooker Tortellini Soup

I am in love with my slow cooker, like many people I have such a busy life that I sometimes feel like coming home to cook is a more of a burden than it should be. To save myself money, whenever I'm in for a long day instead of going to get fast food after work I just put together a slow cooker dish in the morning.

I misread the directions for this recipe when I made it, so do as I say, not as I did!

This recipe comes from Heather Likes Food.

Ingredients:

-24 oz jar prepared spaghetti sauce 

-1/2 bag (4.5 oz) fresh spinach leaves

-4 C vegetable broth

-8 oz cream cheese

-8 oz sliced fresh mushrooms

-16 oz frozen cheese tortellini

Mix together the broth, spinach, mushrooms and cream cheese in a crock pot.
Cook on low for 5-6 hours.
Turn the crock pot to high and add in the tortellini 20 minutes before serving.

Enjoy with a salad or some warm bread.

As I mentioned above I misread the directions (it happens!), so my tortellini cooked for six hours and was a little soggy when it came out. This soup smelled divine though, removing the lid from the crock pot to stir it was heavenly. I thought the mushrooms cooked down to the right size and if I hadn't added the tortellini for so long it would have been better. If you have leftovers this will turn into tortellini with a sauce, it doesn't seem to be able to go back to a soup due to the cream cheese.

Piquant Radish Soup with Sour Cream

                                    

This recipe comes from Vegetarian Times magazine and can be found in the April/May 2013 issue on p. 64. I was drawn to this recipe because of the color of the soup, I like radishes in my salad, but I've never had them on anything else before. The recipe in the magazine called for crème fraîche instead of sour cream, but I couldn't find any crème fraîche in the grocery store and I already had all of the ingredients that I needed to purchase. I don't think the sour cream detracted from the soup, you can use either.

Ingredients: 
-1 lb. radishes, halved (3 cups)
-1 medium russet potato, peeled and cut into chunks
-1 medium white onion, quartered
-1 Tbs. unsalted butter
-3 1/2 cups of water
-⅛ tsp. white pepper
-1 Tbs. prepared horseradish sauce
-2 Tbs. sour cream, plus more for garnish, optional

Process all of the vegetables in the food processor until they are in small pieces. The onion should be done first, then the food processor should be wiped out and the potato and radishes done (this can be put in a bowl together). I did my vegetables in the Magic Bullet in small batches and it turned out fine.

Saute the onions in the bottom of a large pot, until the onions are golden brown.

Add the radishes, potatoes, 3 1/2 cups of water and white pepper.
Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and simmer covered for thirty minutes.

Remove from the heat and add the horseradish, puree with an immersion blender.
Add some sour cream and puree again.
Season with salt if desired.

Serve with radish greens, radishes and sour cream if desired.

I was a little disappointed in this soup -- it wasn't bad but it was a little flavorless. If you're looking to make this soup I would recommend adding a little garlic into the soup with the onion, or perhaps subbing a little vegetable broth for part of the water. The soup is meant to be a pretty pink so you don't want to ruin that by putting in too much broth, but I think a little broth or a vegetable bouillon cube would let the color to still shine through.

April Asian Navarin

So, it’s April. April is a bittersweet time, a ying yang month if there ever was one. Today’s cloudy and 46 degrees, tomorrow’s sunny and 65. The backdrop of it all is naked trees and tender buds, tough bulbs and nodding flowers.

To comfort myself on a cool day, I make a spring navarin. Unlike traditional French navarins, this one isn’t a stew. The secret here is actually the opposite, cooking the vegetables just past raw, but not quite tender.

Timing is everything here, so don’t make this when you’re in a rush. It’s perfect for a lazy Saturday or Sunday. I should also say it’s really important to get fresh vegetables here. It’s probably too early for any of this stuff at the farmer’s market, except maybe the escarole, so the higher end veggies in the supermarket will have to do.

Ingredients:

-Enough neutral oil to coat the bottom of a 2 quart pot

-1 Tsp. crushed black pepper

-1 head of garlic, plus half a head, crushed with the flat edge of chopping knife

-1 medium parsnip, cut into thirds

-2 tbs. good quality soy sauce

-About an inch cube of peeled ginger

-¼ c mirin (rice wine for cooking, sold in most grocery stores in the Asian section)

-1 Tbs. dark miso

-6-10 fresh shitake mushrooms

-2 small, “good” carrots cut into matchsticks (use the ones sold with the tops attached)

-4-5 leaves of escarole, torn into pieces

-About a quarter of a large, sweet onion, cut into thin strips. (Green onions would also be good, cut into -matchsticks)

-Firm, good quality firm tofu, cut into squares

-Rice noodles (a small handful)

-Chili sesame oil, to taste

Method

Bring to medium-low heat a heavy bottomed 2 quart pot and add oil. Add 1 head of flattened garlic. Cut the mushrooms into strips and add them and their stems when the garlic starts to sizzle. Add the black pepper and soy sauce and a little water if the pot is dry—mushrooms tend to soak up oil. Place the top on the pot. When the mushrooms have released some of their liquid, add the parsnip and ginger and cover again. For the next 7 minutes or so, allow the vegetables and mushrooms to sweat, tossing occasionally to keep them from sticking. When they begin to stick, add the mirin and take the top off the pot. When the wine is reduced and the vegetable start to look sticky, add about 1.5 quarts of water. Add the dark miso, and the half-head of garlic, cover and raise heat to medium high. Watch the pot carefully—you want to treat this like a tea—you don’t want it to boil, but to nearly boil. When the miso has melted into the water, start tasting. The longer you leave it on, the more intense it will get—until it starts getting weak. Your goal is to pull it off the heat at the moment when it tastes perfect to you.

Strain the broth. Because I really like mushrooms, I went into the strainer and fished out a lot of the mushroom strips and put them back into the strained broth—shitakes can stand up to this kind of treatment.  Don’t use the stems though---they are usually very tough.

Put the strained broth back into the pot and bring to a near boil again. Add sea salt to your taste, and a few drops of the chili sesame oil. Add the tofu and let that steep for about 5 minutes. Add the carrots, onion, and noodles and take off the heat. Cover for about 1 minute, then add the escarole. Cover for one more minute. Serve hot from the pot and eat it immediately. Noodles should be al-dente. If they are too hard for you, don’t worry, they’ll soften up!

Hint: You can make the broth ahead, warm to near boil and add vegetables. This makes an easy dinner during the week.

Note from Alecia: This is a guest blog from the amazing Danielle Cordaro, the recipe and photo both belong to her. We haven't had a guest blog since before Becky became a regular poster, if you enjoyed this recipe, please let me know and maybe we can have some other great guest blogs in the future. 

Brie Soup

Alecia and I both really love brie, so any new way to use brie in a recipe we have to try. We both agreed on this on that it was better as just a cup of soup as an appetizer rather than a bowl for a meal. The taste of wine and vinegar was pretty strong, but it was really good to have a bite of bread with the soup. This one comes from recipe.com.

Ingredients:

-1 1/2 cups dry white wine
-1/2 cup white wine vinegar (I substituted
-1 quart heavy cream
-12 ounce round Brie cheese (cut off the rind and cut into 1-inch pieces)
-1 clove garlic, minced
-thyme
-basil

-salt and pepper
-french baguette

Bring the wine and vinegar mixture to a boil, and simmer for 8 minutes.

Add the brie, cream, and seasonings. Cook until the chunks of brie
are cooked down.
After the soup is cooked, strain it before serving.  I thought this was
unnecessary at first, but there were bits of cheese that didn't
get cooked down that strained out.

Pour into small individual bowls.

Add slices of bread.

I didn't have white wine vinegar, so I substituted a mix of vinegar and extra white wine. This had a pretty strong taste of vinegar and wine, but besides that it was good. It was a little difficult to remove the rind from the brie, but besides that it wasn't too hard of a recipe.

Black Bean and Rice Soup

This is the final Soup Wednesday post! Thanks for hanging-out with us every Wednesday for the past twenty weeks. It will hopefully be warming up soon so we're going to start working on some great salad's for Wednesday's instead of soup recipes. This won't be your average salads though, these will be spectacular salads that will make you so happy to be eating vegetables! 

If you are looking for a good filling soup to eat as a meal this is it. The rice on the bottom of the soup was really a great touch from other bean soups I have had before. The lime gave it a good twist and it was a pretty simple soup to make. I got the inspiration for this recipe from Iowa Girl Eats.

You can also see our earlier soup Wednesday blogs: Week 19, Week 18, Week 17, Week 16, Week 15, Week 14, Week 13, Week 12, Week 11, Week 10, Week 9, Week 8, Week 7, Week 6, Week 5, Week 4,Week 3, Week 2, Week 1

Ingredients:

(This makes 2 servings)

-1 garlic clove
-1 teaspoon chili powder
-1 can black beans
-3/4 cup water
-1/2 cup vegetable broth

-1/2 cup long grain white rice
-1 cups water

-juice from half a lime

You can add some salt and pepper or seasoned black beans instead of plain if you want, but I thought this was really flavorful without it. The chili powder, lime, and vegetable broth made gave it enough flavor alone.

Heat garlic for about 5 minutes on medium heat.
Add the chili powder.

Add the black beans, vegetable broth, and water.
Heat for about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook the rice, according to package directions.
Add the lime juice and mix in.

Mix with an immersion blender, or add half
the soup to a blender, blend and return.
It seemed a little thin to me at first, but when
I put it in the bowl with the rice it was a good consistency.

Put the rice on the bottom of the bowl, then fill with soup.

This would be a great soup to make at any time of the year. It was easy, had only a few ingredients, and was great as a meal on its own.

Sopa de Ajo (Garlic Soup)

Happy Soup Wednesday!! This is the second to last Soup Wednesday post, but don't worry I've got something else planned for Wednesdays beginning in March.

This recipe comes from Cooking Light and you can find the original here. According to the original post this soup is meant to be an appetizer, but I thought it was enough for a light dinner.

Other Soup Wednesday Posts: Week 18, Week 17,  Week 16, Week 15, Week 14, Week 13, Week 12, Week 11, Week 10, Week 9, Week 8, Week 7, Week 6, Week 5, Week 4, Week 3, Week 2, Week 1

Ingredients:
-2 teaspoons olive oil
-5 tablespoons minced garlic
-1 teaspoon sweet smoked paprika
-3 cups organic vegetable broth
-1 cup water
-1/4 teaspoon salt
-1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
-2 (1-ounce) slices rustic bread, cut into 1-inch cubes
-8 large eggs
-2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Saute the garlic in the hot oil.
Cook for about five minutes.
Stir in the paprika.

Add the vegetable broth and the cup of water.
Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. 

Arrange the bread cubes on a baking sheet and toast for four minutes.
Place some breadcrumbs in each oven proof bowl. 

Crack and egg into each bowl.

Ladle half a cup of soup into each bowl.

Bake for twenty minutes at 350 or until the yolk is runny and the whites are set.
Sprinkle with parsley. 

Enjoy.

This soup was great, the garlic flavor wasn't too overwhelming (I was a little worried about that), it had a perfect balance of flavor. This got an A+ from J., he really liked that this soup was different than a traditional soup and I love eggs that are cooked to have a runny yolk. There was a really great balance with all of the ingredients and I will be making this again.  It's a perfect week night supper with not too much work.

Vegetarian Chicken Noodle Soup with Heart Carrots

Since it is soup Wednesday and tomorrow is Valentine's day, I thought I would try this cute soup idea. I learned how to make the heart shaped carrots from this sophistimom blog. I adjusted her recipe a bit to make a simpler vegetarian version of chicken noodle soup. I was a little scared off at first at the thought of making shapes out of vegetables. I thought it would be difficult and never turn out like the picture in the original blog, but this was actually pretty easy, and almost all the carrot slices turned out great.

Check out our earlier Valentine's day recipes:

You can also see our earlier soup Wednesday blogs: Week 17,  Week 16, Week 15, Week 14, Week 13, Week 12, Week 11, Week 10, Week 9, Week 8, Week 7, Week 6, Week 5, Week 4, Week 3, Week 2, Week 1

This made about 2 servings of soup

Ingredients:

-2 carrots

-2 celery stalks

-1/2 Tbsp olive oil

-1 1/2 cups egg noodles

-15 oz (1 can) vegetable broth

-1 cup water

-parsley

-salt and pepper

-1/2 cup chopped "chicken"

(I'm new to using fake meat. Check out my previous post using meatless meatballs in Italian Wedding Soup. I was actually surprised how many options there were at the grocery store for versions of meatless chicken. I couldn't find just plain though, what I bought was lightly seasoned from MorningStar, it worked out fine. The instructions to cook were just to put in the chicken pieces in the  microwave for a minute, so I put the frozen chicken slice in the microwave for about 30 seconds, just so it was warm enough to cut into bite sized pieces.)

Peel the carrots.

Cut out a notch on the top of each carrot.
This took me a try or two to get a deep enough cut, but once
I did it was easy.

This was really the hardest part of making the shapes,
and it wasn't very difficult.

Use a potato peeler to round out the tops of the carrots.

Continue to use the peeler to cut away the sides into a point.

Slice the carrots.
I was pretty impressed with myself, I thought only the
first few I cut would actually look like hearts, but they all turned out great.

Heat the olive oil. Cook carrots and celery for about 5 minutes.

Cut the chicken into bite sized pieces. Mine were pre-cooked, so
I just added the chicken, broth, water,  and noodles all at once
and simmered until the noodles were cooked.
When you are ready to serve, add parsley, salt and pepper to taste.

This turned out really well. The hearts made this super cute for Valentine's day. I also liked the meatless chicken, I again couldn't really tell much of a difference between this and real chicken when it was in the soup.

Tomato Apple Soup

Happy Soup Wednesday! When J. and I went to Georgia last March we ate at this awesome restaurant in Augusta called the Boll Weevil Cafe. The fried green tomatoes were delicious and we shared this heavenly slice of lemon cake for dessert. Because we had an appetizer and dessert I had a bowl of their tomato apple soup for lunch -- it was so great the perfect amount of creamy and sweet. I tried to recreate the recipe from the Boll Weevil Cafe from this All Recipes Tomato Apple Soup recipe...it was good, but not quite as good as the original that I was trying to recreate. I'll keep searching for that perfect recreation, in the meantime enjoy this hearty soup which is perfect for all of the cold blustery weather that February has brought us.

Check out the past Soup Wednesday posts:
Week 16
Week 15
Week 14
Week 13
Week 12
Week 11
Week 10
Week 9
Week 8
Week 7
Week 6
Week 5
Week 4
Week 3
Week 2
Week 1

Adapted from All Recipes.

Ingredients: 

-2 tablespoons butter

-2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

-1 onion, chopped

-3 cloves garlic, minced

-2 Fuji apples - peeled, cored, and chopped

-1/4 teaspoon dried basil, or to taste

-1 pinch dried thyme

-2 cups vegetable stock

-1 (28 ounce) can diced tomatoes

-salt and ground black pepper to taste

Heat the oil and butter in a large pot.

Cook the onions and garlic until soft, then add in the seasoning and the apples.
Cook for about ten minutes.

Add the vegetable stock and tomatoes.
Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, cook for about twenty minutes.
Puree in a blender or with an immersion blender. 

Tomato + Apple = 

Soup!
 

Enjoy with grilled cheese.

Like I said in the introduction, this recipe wasn't quite what I was looking for, but it was still good. This recipe makes five servings, J. and I shared some for dinner and then I had the leftovers for lunch the next day. Sometimes leftovers can be disappointing, but the soup was just as great for lunch as it had been for dinner.