Stuffed Cabbage Soup

Well life kind of got away from me yesterday, so this is a day late, but here it is!

Stuffed Cabbage Soup

1 medium Yellow Onion

1 tbl Olive Oil

1 tsp Salt

1 tbl Minced Garlic

1 small Butternut Squash (peeled and cubed)

1 lb Ground Beef

2 tbl Italian Seasoning

3 cups Cabbage/kale

1 can Tomato Sauce (28 oz)

2 cups Chicken Broth

1 cup Rice (Brown)

Heat the olive oil in the pot and add onion and salt. Allow to saute for a few minutes. Add the garlic and butternut squash, the squash is optional, but its a great way to get the kids to eat more veggies. It was Lulu’s favorite part of the soup, she thought they were potatoes. If you don’t have squash add some carrots instead.

Sqoosh all the veggies over and brown the meat on the other side of the pot.

You could also substitute the beef for turkey.

While the meat is browning add salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning. When the meat has cooked through add the cabbage, I used cabbage and kale.

Allow the cabbage to wilt only slightly before adding the tomato sauce and chicken broth.

This is our favorite kind of tomato sauce, if you are going to use canned. A lot of canned sauces taste overly sweet and you have cook them even longer to reduce that sweet flavor.

If you are using instant rice go ahead and let it cook in the sauce, if you aren’t I recommend cooking the rice according to the package before adding it to the soup. Hard rice is sad rice.

And there you have it, Stuffed Cabbage Soup. I like to add a bay leaf while it simmers.

Advertisement

Butternut Squash Bisque

I had some butternut squashes from our organic grocery delivery service, shout out to http://www.doorganicsgr.com, so I decided to make some butternut squash bisque to accompany the meatloaf my husband was making. After church on Sundays you would be hard pressed to get our family to leave the house. It’s our day to relax, and when we relax we generally are cooking.

Butternut Squash Bisque

2 butternut squashes

1 medium yellow onion

1 medium apple

3 carrots

2 tbls butter

1 clove garlic minced

1/2 tsp cayenne

salt & pepper

 vegetable broth

1 tsp nutmeg

whole milk (cream or 1/2 & 1/2 will work also)

Cut squash in half, drizzle some olive oil and season with salt & pepper, then roast at 425 for 45-60 minutes. While they roast chop the onion, apple and carrots.

or have your handsome assistant chop them for you.

Melt butter in a pot and add chopped items, garlic, and cayenne. Leave over medium heat covered, and stir often.

Once the squash have cooled a bit, spoon out the squash from their peel and add to your pot with the apple and veggies.

Add 2 cups vegetable broth or enough to cover the squash. Then I grate some fresh nutmeg into the soup.

Aren’t hazelnuts pretty?

I use an emulsion blender to combine my soup, you could use your food processor or regular blender as well.

Now is also a good time to see if you need a little more salt & pepper. When you are ready to serve the soup add the milk and mix it through.

Here is the final product! We brought the bisque, meatloaf, and potatoes to our neighbors for Sunday football. I used the soup as a gravy on my 14 month old’s serving of meatloaf and he ate TWO bowls!!

Chicken Sweet Potato Soup with Rice

Nothing like a little inspiration from your butter before you start cooking.

Chicken Sweet Potato Soup with Rice

2 Tbl Butter

1 medium Onion (I used a yellow)

4 medium Carrots

2 small Sweet Potatoes

2 Tbl minced Garlic

2 tsp Italian Seasoning

1 tsp Thyme

1 lb Chicken (I used tenderloins)

1 1/2 cups Brown Rice

1/2 cup White Wine (I had a Riesling open, just use what you have)

2 1/2 – 3 cups Chicken Broth

1 Bay Leaf

Saute onions, butter, salt & pepper until onions become translucent. Add garlic and saute until fragrant.

Chop carrots and sweet potatoes and add to onions.

Push the veggies to one side of the pot and brown chicken on the other, I cubed the chicken up before browning it. Once chicken has cooked, I deglaze the pan with the white wine. Which is just a fancy way of saying, scrape the brown chicken and veggie bits off the bottom of the pan because they add a lot of flavor and you want that in the broth. Allow the wine to cook a bit before adding rice and chicken broth, maybe 2 minutes. I add enough broth to cover the rice, and once the rice cooks you may want to add a little more. Add a bay leaf while the rice simmers, depending on what type of rice you use this could be ready to eat in about 10 minutes, but with most things in life…the longer it cooks the better it tastes.

Enjoy and please share how your soup turns out! What did you garnish your soup with?