Black Bean and Chorizo Soup with Rice

This is a recipe I found on Pinterest and slightly altered. I made this once before and really enjoyed it, so I decided to was time to share it with you.

2 cans of seasoned black beans (drained, not rinsed)
32 oz chicken broth (one carton)
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
2 cloves of garlic minced
2 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp cumin
1 lb chorizo
white rice cooked according to package directions
fresh cilantro

The first thing I did was remove the chorizo from it's skin. Then I chopped it up in a pan while browning it. 

 
While the sausage is browning, put some olive oil in a large pot and add the onions, garlic, chili powder and cumin. Cook until the onion and garlc begin to soften and release their juices.

 Add the chicken broth and the black beans. Let everything simmer for about a half hour on low heat. 

While the soup is simmering, cook the rice according to package directions. Using an emersion blender, blend up some of the soup mixture to get a creamy consistency.  If you don't have one, you could move some of the soup to a regular blender or a food processor. I probably was a little over zealous, but it was still wonderful.

Once it's nice and creamy, add the sausage to the soup.

For serving, put a little rice in a bowl...

Top the rice with a large ladle of the soup...

Garnish the soup with some fresh cilantro, and enjoy!

*I made this over a month ago, but just finally got around to adding the photos and posting it. Now I wish I had made this soup today so that I could eat some right now.


 

Slow Cooker French Onion Soup

Week four of the challenge is to cook something inspired by music. All I kept thinking about was "Rock Lobster" by the B-52's. Alas, rock lobsters aren't easy to find in Maryland, in January. After doing a little googleing, I decided to use "The Onion Song", by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell as my inspiration. It's also a super cold day here, so I really want some soup for lunch.

Here is the cast of characters...

3 small yellow onions, sliced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
4 tbsp of butter, cut into chunks
1 tsp cooking sherry
1 tsp Worcestershire
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp dried parsley
1 bay leaf
bread for croutons
shredded mozzarella cheese

Slice the onions and place them on the bottom of the crock.( I used my small slow cooker for this because I'm the only one who is going to be eating this. If you have a lot of onion soup lovers in your house, double or triple the recipe and use a large slow cooker.)

Peel and mince the garlic and sprinkle that on top of the onions. Then add the butter. Set this up to cook on high for about four hours, stirring every hour. The onions will get nice and caramelized.

After four hours, add the sherry, Worcestershire, thyme, parsley, and bay leaf. Continue cooking on high for 2 hours.

Ladle the soup into a bowl, then top it with your croutons and some mozzarella cheese. Usually, you should broil this for a few minutes to get the cheese nice and brown. I didn't do that because I don't know if my bowls are oven safe and I didn't want it to break.

I made this Tuesday when it was super cold outside. I wished it had more flavor. It was good, but it lacked the richness you usually want in French Onion Soup.

Summery Chicken Stew?

This week's challenge is "One Pot", so all week I was thinking "bean and ham soup" so that I could use the ham bone from our Easter dinner. Dad's lower digestive system has been pretty unhappy this week, so I figured bean soup would be a bad idea. Then I started thinking "chicken stew", but the weather suddenly decided to get nice and warm and all day I've been thinking "I don't want to make stew!". I'm going to give it a shot anyway, but I'll try to make it a little more summery. I'm making this up as I go along, so it may fail. Here goes...

Dice a few red skinned potatoes and toss them in a pot.

Next, slice and dice a little yellow onion.

Now add a little diced carrot and celery.

Cut up some broccoli and mince a little garlic, or a lot of garlic.

Add sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, then about 3-ish cups of chicken broth. Mine is in ice cube form, so I don't really know how much is there.

Now put it over low heat to melt your chicken broth ice cubes. :)

Here comes the summery part...Add the juice and zest from a lemon. It will make the whole thing taste like sunshine. I hope. It's also a great way to find out if you have any teeny tiny cuts on your hands. I've also been holding onto the rind from some Parmesan for a while, so I'm tossing that in for extra flavor.

Next I diced a couple of chicken breasts and added them.

Now mix it all up, cover it and let it simmer on medium-low heat stirring once in a while. I also decided to add some fresh parsley from my garden. After a while you may want to turn it down to low. Let it simmer on low for a couple of hours. Serve with bread, fresh from the oven!

It doesn't look like anything special, but it sure was tasty!

Slow Cooker Left Overs/Suprise Soup

What do you have in the fridge that's left over from last week? What do you have in the freezer that you really need to use before freezer burn sets in? Lets put it all in the slow cooker and see what happens!

Yesterday I was trying to think of something to make for dinner tonight, so I started rooting around the freezer. That's when I decided to use up some things that needed to be used before they went bad. I had some bone in, skin on chicken thighs that had been in the freezer for a few months. I put them in a gallon size plastic bag and started adding stuff. I had about 1 1/2 cups of gravy from Thanksgiving that I had frozen in ice cube trays, so I added that to the bag. Then I started looking at my leftover, fresh veggies. I had carrots, some green beans, half a yellow onion, and two red potatoes, so I cut them up and put them in the bag. I added a little minced garlic and a tablespoon of dried thyme, but I wanted something more. I also had an open bag of peas in the freezer, so that went in the bag too. Next I added a healthy dose of freshly cracked black pepper, and I figured that was enough. Plus the bag was now too full to close.

This morning I dumped it all in the crock, but then I decided that it needed more liquid, so I also added a jar of gravy that was in my pantry. I set it on low and went about my day.

Eight hours later I checked the slow cooker. It was looking pretty good, but I decided to remove the chicken so that I could take off the skin and de-bone it. It basically fell apart. I put the de-boned chicken back in the crock and mixed it all up. Mmmm, things are starting to look pretty good in there!

Next I started a pot of rice to give it a little more body, then I skimmed the fat off the top. I added the juice from a lemon and called it "Chicken Stoup". It's not quite a soup, but not quite a stew.

This wasn't exactly impressive cuisine, but it was tasty and filling.

The Pioneer Woman's Friend Cathy's Sherried Tomato Soup

This is NOT my recipe, but my good friend Kelly introduced me to it and I had to make it. Plus, this is my soup for the 52 Weeks of Cooking: Week 3, Soups. Here is The Pioneer Woman's Friend Cathy's Sherried Tomato Soup.  I'm not even going to post the recipe, just the link and a picture of my soup, because I'm tired, and posting the recipe would be kind of redundant. I made it almost exactly the way it was written, except I did leave it on the heat for a little while, simmering while I waited for hubby to finish a project. When he was ready to eat, I added the cream and herbs. Super easy, and SUPER yummy!

The bread is one of those Fleischman's no knead bread mixes. I made the Italian herb. Also super easy and super yummy. I topped the bread with a little soft, herbed cheese so that I could get the feel of having a gourmet grilled cheese with my soup, but with very little effort on my part.

Slow Simmered Chili

It felt like a chili kind of day today...

1.5 lbs ground chuck
1 lb chorizo sausage
1 can tomato paste
1 can dark kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 can rotel diced tomatoes and green chilis
1 14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes
5.5 oz can of V-8
1 12 oz beer (I used Budweiser)
1 red pepper, diced
1 green pepper, diced
1 medium yellow onion, diced
5 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp cocoa powder
6-7 shakes of your favorite hot sauce, I used Cholula
4 dashes of Worcestershire
1 jalapeno, seeds removed, then sliced and minced

Brown the ground chuck in a large pan, then drain the fat. Move the ground chuck from the large pan to a large pot.

Next, remove the chorizo from it's casings, then brown that in the large pan, then drain the fat. Add this to the large pot.

So now you have ground chuck and chorizo sausage, browned and in a pot together.

Now it's time to start adding stuff. Add the Rotel, kidney beans, diced tomatoes, tomato paste, the beer, all the fresh veggies and the seasonings. Mix it all together really well. I still felt like this needed more liquid, so I added about a cup of water. The last thing you add are the dried chipotle chilies, just resting on top of it all. I kept mine at a low simmer for about 6 hours, stirring about every half hour. This gives everything time to really absorb all the flavors.

I served this with some simple corn bread topped with sliced poblano peppers and cheddar cheese, sour cream and scallions for garnish.

This is a modified version of Kenny G's recipe from the Big Green Egg Forum. I did not use my egg today, but I wanted to give Kenny G some credit for being my guide on this chili.