A cold front came through Houston last week bringing with it much appreciated cooler truly fall weather. As soon as I felt the change in temperature I started scheming what tasty meals I could make that I haven’t had since March. First and foremost that means soups. Because soups were a mainstay growing up, I have lots of possible recipes to make. Unfortunately I’m a little limited by the fact my husband has diabetes. So I don’t typically make things that require starch ie. potatoes, rice or noodles. I can make things with lentils, squash or pumpkin though. So I’m thinking about making a tasty squash soup this week. Particularly if I can get my hand on some fresh 9 grain bread from the Farmer’s Market to make grilled cheese to go with it!
A favorite soup of my spouse is cream of mushroom soup. The key to making this it to use both finely diced mushrooms and mushroom slices. I typically use cremini mushrooms because I like their rich flavor and color.
The other important thing is to try, if you can, to use homemade chicken broth. Making chicken broth from scratch isn’t a big deal and SO worth the taste. If you don’t want to make your own, you can buy cans of it. Don’t use the powdered stuff unless you want your soup to be salty. I always struggle with making this to my spouse’s liking without blowing all our daily calories. Mostly because he likes it nice and creamy, an effect I only seem to be able to achieve by using heavy cream. Recently I made it with 1/2 and 1/2 which made creamy soup but wasn’t as fattening as heavy cream.
My personal new favorite is an Egyptian lentil soup that I made early last spring. I love the orange color and the taste is to die for. My husband is not a fan because it doesn’t have meat. So I took the recipe and tweaked it. The original recipe also included potatoes which was too much starch for my diabetic spouse. Here is my version
- 6 cups chicken broth, preferably homemade
- 1 cup dried red lentils
- 2 cups chopped onions
- 1 cup chopped celery
- 8 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced
- 1 tablespoon canola oil
- 2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 cup chopped cooked chicken
- 1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro
- 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- salt and pepper
I basically follow the original directions except
- I don’t puree the whole thing. I use an immersion blender to make in slightly smooth. Equivalent to if I pureed 1/2/ of the soup in the blender.
- I add the chicken when I add the spices.
Hopefully the weather will stay cold and I can make more of these over the course of the next couple weeks!