t’s that time of year when we really need two things from our food: warmth + health.
I always think I’m going to eat really healthy after Christmas, but then the cold winds of January blow and I just want to be comforted by heavy casseroles. And pizza. The good news about this soup is that it packs a lot of comfort in every bite while still being easy on your caloric intake.
In fact, it’s so good for you that you can feel just fine about having a big slice of bread with butter on the side!
In your heavy bottomed pot, Dutch oven or Le Crueset, pour in the olive oil and bring to medium heat.
Add the leeks and garlic. Cook for about five minutes. Add mushrooms, thyme and herbes de provence.
Cook about 10 more minutes until vegetables are soft.
Add stock and bring to a simmer. Pour in lentils and cook for about 30 minutes or until lentils are done.
Add zucchini (called courgettes in the UK) and Kale leaves. Cook about ten more minutes. Salt and pepper to taste.
Serve warm with hearty bread or over pasta (kid-friendly option)
By Alison Chino
Arkansas Women Bloggers https://arkansaswomenbloggers.com/
Alison Chino is a wandering pilgrim who loves telling stories. She moved from Arkansas to Scotland with her husband and four kids in 2013 and they are on a journey to hike as many trails in the UK and in Europe as possible during their season as expats. Sometimes this means contending with gale force winds and thrashing rain. Living in Scotland has given them a new appreciation for waterproof gear and hearty soups. You can follow their adventures on Instagram.
I have been sick for the entire fall of 2014. I still have the sniffles and the “man voice” that makes all my students giggle. I am however determined to spend fewer days in 2015 under the weather.
Cold and flu season, and winter in general, is the perfect time to make and eat a lot of soup. I typically make a big batch of soup every Sunday and freeze individual portions that I can take to work all week long. Lunch prep is easy and it’s healthy eating.
Today I’m making a delicious roasted garlic soup. Roasting the garlic sweetens it and takes away its sharp bite. This soup is sure to ward of any evil bugs but don’t forget to bring the breath mints!
Roasting garlic is easy and can be done easily and fairly quickly in the oven. I use an electric garlic roaster.
This is probably one of my most favorite and most used kitchen appliances. If you don’t have an electric garlic roaster just slice off the top of a whole bulb of garlic. Sprinkle with a little olive oil and some salt and pepper. Wrap the bulb in foil and pop it into a 400 degree oven for about 40 minutes. You will want to check the garlic at this point. Each clove should be golden and mushy. If not – allow it to cook just a bit longer. You can roast several bulbs together.
Let’s make soup!
Roasted Garlic Soup
2015-01-07 06:46:51
Serves 4
A delicious roasted garlic soup to keep you warm and help ward off winter colds.
Roast 3-4 heads of garlic as indicated above. Allow the garlic to cool and then squeeze to extract the cloves.
Discard the skins and set the garlic aside.
In a large pot or dutch oven, heat the olive oil over medium heat and add the onions.
Cook the onions for about 5 minutes until they begin to soften.
Add the thyme, roasted garlic and chicken stock.
Simmer and cook for about 20 minutes to let the flavors blend.
Carefully remove the thyme stems.
Use an immersion blender to puree the soup until no large chunks of garlic remain
Salt and pepper to taste. Just before serving add the cream and heat until warmed through.
Top the soup with garlic Parmesan croutons before serving.
By Julie Kohl of Eggs and Herbs
Arkansas Women Bloggers https://arkansaswomenbloggers.com/
Arkansas Women Blogger’s Calendar Cultivator and member Julie Kohl writes about her adventures with food, recipes, crafts and creativity on her blog Eggs and Herbs. As former Yankee who was “converted” to the south by her husband, Julie has grasped on to rural life in a sleepy, blink-your-eyes-and-you’ll-miss-it town in east central Arkansas. She raises chickens, horses, and English mastiffs and spends her summers off from teaching art growing an herb garden and crafting all kinds of delicious recipes
Scratchy throat. Achy head. Uncontrollable sneezing. Or maybe you’re so stuffed up you’re spending your nights as a dreaded mouth breather.
Have I got the soup for you. It’s quick and easy and full of lots of natural remedies. So easy that even if you’re unsure of your ability to remain upright for more than a few minutes throwing this Feel Good Soup together in a big pot shouldn’t be any problem.
We’ve long heard that onions and garlic are chock full of compounds that mimic many over- the- counter cold medicines in that they dry out congested nasal passages and prevent mucus from building up. Spinach leaves provide your body with much needed vitamin C, potassium, and iron that help you feel like getting back to your old self.
And then there’s the bacon. I mean come on. Bacon cures a lot of what ails you. The fresh stuffed pasta can be your own choice of tortellini or ravioli. I use a chicken and bacon borsetti I always find in the deli section at Kroger. You can easily leave the pasta out and replace it with thinly sliced potatoes.
Fresh stuffed pasta or thinly sliced potatoes (or both)
Bag of baby spinach greens
Instructions
Heat olive oil in a heavy stock pot.
Cook bacon, onions and mushrooms until bacon is nicely browned.
If you are adding potatoes put them in at this time. Add garlic, salt and pepper, and chicken broth. Bring to a rolling boil.
Once you can pierce the potatoes with a fork, add the fresh pasta and boil as long as recommended on the package. Stir in the fresh spinach greens. Serve with bread and butter.
By Jeanetta Darley
Arkansas Women Bloggers https://arkansaswomenbloggers.com/
Jeanetta is a crocheter & coffee addict, chicken keeper & goat wrangler, a farmer girl & maker of drunk jellies. You can find her online at www.jeanettadarley.com or on twitter, pinterest & instagram @jeanettadarley
As a child, St. Patrick’s Day meant little more to me than being sure to remember to wear something green to school so that the classroom pranksters wouldn’t catch me at every chance and give me a painful pinch and a hearty laugh. Since those guarded days of being sure to prominently wear my green, I have learned that there is much more to the history of St. Patrick and the country of Ireland than the “wearing of the green.”
According to history St. Patrick was a missionary to Ireland, and he was so revered for his work there that his death on March 17 is now commemorated as St. Patrick’s Day. He used the three leaves of the shamrock to teach about the Holy Trinity in his missions. The green shamrock is still a symbol of St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in many countries. My thinking is that St. Patrick could have never envisioned that someday little girls would wear green to protect themselves from pinches on a day set aside in his honor.
Throughout the years the people of Ireland have suffered from civil war, occupation, and famine. During the 1800’s millions of Irish emigrated because of famine and political structure. Even with all the hardships the Irish people have historically endured, they have been characterized to be generally hardworking, yet easy-going and humorous people.
When I look at my own family tree, I get a glimpse of the American melting-pot, and I find back in 1836 my mother’s great grandfather was born in Ohio with a decidedly Irish name. Abraham McHenry was born to parents who lived at the precise time in history to have possibly fled Ireland due to famine or the exploitation of the tenant farmer. My family roots grow in several directions, and one of those roots leads to Ireland.
Probably much of what I know about the Irish people is stereotypical, but I do believe it is a fact that potatoes were an important crop on their farms. Because St. Patrick’s Day will be celebrated next week, I’d like to honor my wee bit of Irish heritage from the McHenry clan with some recipes that perhaps are similar to the kind prepared by Irish women long ago. But even if you can’t find an Irish name anywhere on your family tree, go ahead, don your green and speak a little brogue, after all, isn’t everyone a little Irish on St. Patrick’s Day?
6 large russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes (about 3 ¾ pounds)
1 large onion, chopped (about 1 ½ cups)
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 (14 ounce) cans chicken broth
¼ cup butter
2 ½ teaspoons salt
1 ¼ teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
1 cup half and half
1 cup (4 ounces) shredded sharp cheddar cheese
3 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
Toppings
6 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
Sour cream
Shredded cheddar cheese
Instructions
Combine potatoes, onion, garlic, chicken broth, butter, salt, and pepper in a crock pot.
Cover and cook on HIGH for 4 hours or LOW for 8 hours, or until potatoes are tender.
Mash some of the potatoes until mixture is slightly thickened; stir in half-and-half, cheese, and chives. . Serve in bowls, sprinkled with toppings as desired.
By Anita Stafford
Arkansas Women Bloggers https://arkansaswomenbloggers.com/
Coat a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan with cooking spray, then line the pan with parchment paper and coat the paper with cooking spray
In a large bowl, combine both flours, oats, brown sugar, wheat germ, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
combine buttermilk and egg, then add to the flour mixture, stirring just until combined.
Spoon the mixture into the prepared loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour and 5 minutes, or until a wooden pick inserted into the center comes out clean. Invert bread onto a wire rack, remove parchment paper. Cool before slicing.
By Anita Stafford
Arkansas Women Bloggers https://arkansaswomenbloggers.com/
AnitaStafford lives in NE Arkansas and blogs at Sugar, Spice and Spilled Milk. She believes a house can never have too many bookshelves, andconfesses that she has seldom met a food she didn’t like. Her favorite Irish saying is, “May your home always be too small to hold all of your friends.”
I grew up eating soups for a lot of suppers…and lunches.
One of my favorite lunches was soup with a grilled cheese, simply but well prepared by my mother. She introduced our family to so many soups over the years: split pea, vegetable, 21 bean, white bean chili and many more.
She’s one of the reasons that my husband and I usually have soup for at least one or two meals a week. Soup is comforting, easy to throw together and can have such a variety of flavors in one bowl.
I’m into flavor-packed things, so soup is right up my alley. I’m also super into Mexican flavors, so this Slow Cooker Chicken Enchilada Soup satisfies my need for spice perfectly.
And this is one of those easy suppers to fix for your family because whether you’re at home during the day or at work, you can just put it in the slow cooker all day and come home to a complete dinner. No fuss and it makes fabulous leftovers.
If you haven’t introduced your loved ones to the wonderful world of soup and Souper Suppers, I highly suggest you find some new recipes or dig up some old ones and dust off your ladle.
Side Note: This is my swan song post on the wonderful ARWB web site since my husband and I have just moved to Raleigh, North Carolina to start new careers. Thank you for all of the community through this site and I’ll still be cooking in NC, so please keep following my cooking and eating adventures at Think Fruitful
Grace Flack is a writer, editor and social media guru by career and a foodie and food blogger. She is an Arkansas native but has just moved to North Carolina with her wonderful husband, Jason, and she always has a mystery novel by her bedside.
Arkansas Women Blogger’s Calendar Cultivator and member
AnitaStafford lives in NE Arkansas and blogs at 
