Winter weather brings warm combinations

Frigid temperatures like we’ve had the past few weeks seem to demand it’s time for soup. It just so happens that January is National Soup Month. In Acadiana we call it gumbo weather but we also eat gumbo all year long. There’s just something about cold weather, or cold and flu season, that brings out the soup pot, the perfect thing for lunch or dinner menus.

During my time out of the office, generous friends treated me to both gumbo and homemade soups. One friend remarked that she was bringing me a serving as she was delivering to several other friends with a cold or the flu. With reduced appetite, I have even been enjoying canned chicken noodle soup.

Why is it that chicken soup seems to comfort when nothing else will do?

HealthyEating.sfgate.com said a hot bowl of soup, starting with the steam, helps relieve congestion and the warm broth coats a sore throat. Whether that comforting chicken noodle soup is actually healthy depends on the ingredients in the bowl.

Naturally homemade soup brings the best results in that category. The natural broth created from boiling the chicken yourself not only tastes great, the aroma fills the house as seasonings are added.

Makes me think of my mother’s chicken and dumplings that took her 35 years to perfect. But that’s another story on another day.

Although the Healthy Eating website mentions the bland protein of the minimal chicken chunks in most canned soups — and the fact most rely on salt as a flavor and therefore may be a risk for anyone needing to watch sodium in their diet — the convenience and time of preparation may be worth the trade-off.

No Recipe Soups

Sometimes a recipe just isn’t required. A welcome back to work gift of “refrigerator soup” — everything but the kitchen sink soup — was given to me Tuesday by Becky Collins. Arriving at the office in a Zip-lock bag, brown in color like the Bayou Teche, had me questioning, “what’s in it?” According to Collins, it was one of the best soups she ever made.

“I love to make soup and I’m good at it,” Collins said. “Soup is something you instinctively throw into a pot or you don’t. I use to call it kitchen sink soup until a friend told me she called it refrigerator soup. When its cold I take what’s in the refrigerator and the herbs that will make those ingredients good and there you have it.”

In the bayou-colored soup, Collins combined root vegetables, mushrooms, leftover gravy from a pork roast, onions and celery. Saying it was one of her best, she also said it will never be repeated. There is no recipe. None of her refrigerator soups are ever the same. They all have their own genesis and style, Collins said. They include anything out of the refrigerator combined with stock, in this case beef broth, herbs and salt and pepper.

“It clings to your bones and feeds your soul soup,” Collins said.

Making Up the Recipes

When making homemade soup, consider choosing vegetables not only for the taste, but the nutritional value. Celery and carrots are the two staple vegetables in most chicken noodle soups, as well as others. Both veggies provide calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and potassium that your body can use, said HealthyEating.com.

Celery is a great source of vitamin K, important for bone health. Carrots are high in vitamin A helping to promote good vision and healthy skin and teeth. Add green pepper for a good source of vitamin C, an antioxidant that promotes wound healing, said Healthy Eating.com.

Today, rather than offering a traditional chicken soup, a recipe is included for Thai Green Chicken Soup. When preparing your chicken soup from scratch, choose the vegetables to be included, the quantity of chicken and vegetables as well as spices and noodles. Choosing a high-fiber noodle or your favorite shape will customize the signature for your homemade soup.

The featured Cooking Light recipe adds the flavor enhancements suggested by Healthy Eating, in lieu of salt, but also includes one of my favorite soup additives, coconut milk. It’s similar to a hot and sour soup recipe I tried and loved many years ago but without the complexity that recipe seemed to carry.

Prep time is estimated at 30 minutes which is easier than a pot of homemade vegetable that I make which requires tenderizing the beef chunks before adding the vegetables and simmering the flavors together half the afternoon.

Another one of the soups I received from a friend was Taco Soup, which at the time was more than I could consume so it is frozen for days when it’s cold or wet and I don’t want to cook. Researching soups online I chose Rebecca Cooper’s recipe on SimpleAsThatBlog.com stated, “all the ingredients on hand, no special trips to the grocery store. Having everything handy makes this soup quick to throw together in a pinch. It’s my go-to meal on nights when we’ve got a million places to be. I can even leave it simmering in the crock pot on low.”

The Taco Soup recipe and the Weight Watcher’s Zero Point Cabbage Soup are also easy 30-minute prep recipes.

Mother Knows Best

Earlene Branton could have opened a restaurant. She took cooking seriously, as I’ve often mentioned. From time to time when a magazine held a recipe contest, whether or not she submitted one, the effort to come up with something new and different filled our house with great aromas.

In the past I’ve featured her Oyster and Artichoke Soup, our Christmas Eve staple. You can find it online at Iberianet.com.

The recipe she created that first came to mind when thinking of a story about soups, had to be found — it stuck in my mind as one I want to eat again. Called Black Oliver Garlic Pod Soup, the memory of it fills my mind with a love of Italian cooking. With a spaghetti sauce added as base, along with chicken stock, you can’t go wrong with this bonus recipe. And if you make it, be sure to bring some in for the staff to try — at least myself.

Black Olive Garlic Pod Soup

1 pound kielbasa sausage, sliced

2 teaspoons olive oil

1 quart chicken broth

1 quart Newman’s Own Sockaronni Spaghetti Sauce

4 medium size whole garlic pods

1 medium onion, chopped into large pieces

1 medium green pepper

12 fresh mushrooms, sliced

3/4 cup black pitted olives

1 16-ounce package Rotini spiral macaroni, cooked, total 2 cups

12 fresh oregano leaves or 3/4 teaspoon dry

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon black pepper

Clean garlic pods by removing outer skins leaving attached at base. Clip off tops of individual cloves. Place in microwave and cook until they begin to soften. Brown the sausage lightly in the olive oil and remove from skillet before adding onion, green pepper and mushrooms, saute lightly. Return sausage to pot and add all other ingredients including whole garlic. Simmer 3 or 4 minutes. Add additional chicken broth if needed to desired soup thickness, simmer until ready to serve hot. Place garlic pods in each serving to be sued as spread on fresh bread, or in soup.

The late Earlene Branton