Soup Ideas | SouthernPaddler.com

Soup Ideas

Kayak Jack

Well-Known Member
Aug 26, 2003
13,976
171
86
Okemos / East Lansing Michigan
One of the best things I like about cooking and eating, is soup. Drop dead easy, and knee-knocking good. There must be twenty jallion recipes for soup, and about 19 jallion of’em are great. I’m not going to add any, but I will kick around some ideas for how to modify almost any soup I fix.

If a soup is watery, I add some powdered milk to make it more appealing - and healthy. Estimate about how much broth you have, look on the milk package for how much powder to add to match the volume, and add. This works with even beef or chicken broth based soups. In my opinion, it improves them.

If the soup lacks substance and is too thin, I add some instant mashed potatoes. This will go nicely with the powdered milk, and makes it comfortingly thicker. If you get it too thick, add more water. Left over rice goes in well too.

Add vegetables. You can add almost any vegetable, and it can be fresh or dehydrated. Niblet corn kernels will add sweet, little nuggets of flavor. Sliced cabbage will sweeten up soup very nicely. Cabbage is a great vegetable to carry along, as it lasts a week or so without refrigeration. Good in salads, great in soups. Onions and garlic are a MUST for any soup. And, onions are the most nutritious vegetable out there. Okra is OK if you can just forget the word mucous. Celery is a standby; so are carrots. Tomatoes in any form add to soups - sauce, puree, paste, ketchup, dehydrated. Potatoes - either fresh or instant - add both flavor and bulk to soups. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Add meats. Canned chicken is a standby of mine. Canned clams too. Fried bacon or sausage adds piquance (flavor, too) to almost any soup, and especially to potato soup. Can be traditional breakfast sausage, hot or sweet sausage, or smoked sausage. Freshly caught fish go into the stock pot and make it sing.

Leftovers go into soups well too. Meat & veggies are naturals. Probably, pancakes aren’t.

A hot bowl of soup at the end of the day, or as an evening treat, is a welcome benefit. Enjoy.

What soups do you guys and gals cook up?
 

oldsparkey

Well-Known Member
Aug 25, 2003
10,479
123
Central , Florida
www.southernpaddler.com
Take a pack of Ramin ......... Get the water boiling, Drop in the noodles and some diced up fish fillets .....

Both of them will be cooked in the 3 minutes that it takes to do the noodles then dump in the seasoning pack....... remove from the heat and have a snack, meal or whatever you wish to call it.

Or take a pack of the instant potatoes ..... add them to the boiling water and make it a little watery then normal ....... Potato soup. Add what ever you like to it ...... Like onion or celery (some clams , shrimp , fish or ham ) and using the garlic potatoes you have it made.

I like to take some hot dogs (two or three) get the water boiling then add the dogs to the water , in a bowl add (crumbled) 8 or 10 hard crackers , half a can of tomatoes , a pat or two of butter , salt & pepper and then the dogs sliced up along with the water they cooked in......... stir and then enjoy ...... Hot Dog Soup or as my Grandmother use to call it back in the depression..... "T" Kettle soup.

Sausage can be subsuited for the hot dogs and in that case forget the butter an just add some of the sausage drippings to the soup. This is not fat free eating.. :roll: ......But it is good and filling...........
Chuck.
 

JEM

Well-Known Member
My wife and I love to make "whatever" soup.

We go to the store, buy whatever meats, fresh vege's bean, etc that strike out fancy that day, and dump it in a pot. Cook the hard vege's in broth first, then add beans and softer veges, finally sear meat in a pan and then dump in.

2 things that always end up in there no matter what we make: Can of beer and diced tomatoes.

Jack butting in here: BEER ZOUP! JARVIS good eatin'!
 

bearridge

Well-Known Member
Mar 9, 2005
3,092
4
way down yonder
Friend Jack,

I reckon at one time 'er anuther I ate dang near everthin' in a soup....cept roadkill. I dont care fer soup cept when it iz colder'n a well diggers arse outside.....Jan 1-Feb 15.

It aint hardly nuthin' comes in a can that tastes good enuff in a soup ta fix, but I like ta use a can a celery soup 'er mushroom soup if it ends up lookin' kinda puny.

I jest look in the icebox 'n see what Miz Bear iz bout ta chunk. I like ta start by fryin' up some garlic 'n onions....not point in wastin' Vidalia 'er Texas sweet ones. A real tater goes good.

I like them little split green peas if I got some ham, but mostly I keep my eye on the spices. I like salt, the kind that gives ya a lump on yer neck 'er the Jewish kind. Next comes the "bam". I used ta pick 'n pinch frum the bottles of dried, ground peppers in the ice box, but nowadays I jest grab the Zatarains. Lazy....plum lazy.

When my Ma tole me not ta chunk the rind frum the parmesian cheese cuz it wuz mitey fine in soup, I wuz mitey pleased at how that turned out.

I dont see how ya kin plan a soup. Ya jest gotta start off with onions & garlic 'n see whatcha got in the icebox. Leftover speckled butter beans, squash, roast, meatloaf, etc.

regards,
bearridge
bodine culinary institute

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