Italian White Bean, Pancetta and Tortellini Soup

A couple of months ago I loaded up the kids and headed to Little Rock to spend a week with my sister. It was a wonderful, delicious, calorie laden vacation. We're talking giant loaded potatoes, pizza, monkey bread and Krispy Kreme. It was great but when I got back home my stomach demanded something healthy. Something like Giada De Laurentiis' Italian White Bean, Pancetta and Tortellini Soup. With its antioxidant-rich kale, protein-packed beans, carrots full of vitamin A and a soothing, comforting broth, this soup was exactly what I needed.

Italian White Bean, Pancetta and Tortellini Soup (from Everyday Pasta)

3 tbsp olive oil
4 oz pancetta, chopped (I've used bacon and I've also left it out all together)
3 large shallots, chopped (an onion will work, too)
1 carrot, peeled and chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 (15-oz.) can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
4 cups chopped Swiss chard (1 bunch) (any green will do--I like kale)
6 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 (9-oz.) package cheese tortellini, fresh or frozen
¼ tsp freshly ground pepper

In a large, heavy soup pot, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the pancetta, shallots, carrot, and garlic and cook until the pancetta is crisp, about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the beans, swiss chard and broth.

Bring the soup to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce the heat to a simmer. Add the tortellini and cook 5 minutes for fresh, 8 minutes for frozen, or just until tender. Season with pepper and serve.

Curried Carrot Soup

I'm so glad it's September. I can start posting soup recipes again! Both my husband and I love soup and we gladly have it during the heat of summer. I know some folks can't take that sort of craziness so I've been patiently waiting to post this recipe from Rachael Ray. A lot of Rachael's recipes have me shaking my head sometimes (remember when she cut up hot dogs and mixed it with ground beef and made burgers? Ewwww.) but this one is a keeper. It's so creamy and curry-y and perfect for anytime of the year if you ask me.

Curried Carrot Soup (adapted from Rachael Ray)

1 TBS extra virgin olive oil
2 TBS butter
1 medium onion, chopped
1 1/2 lbs packaged baby carrots
6 cups chicken stock, divided use
1 1/2 TBS curry powder
1 tsp salt
1 can coconut milk
sour cream, optional

Preheat medium pot over medium high heat. Add olive oil, butter, onions and carrots and saute 5 minutes. Add 4 cups chicken stock, curry and salt to the pot. Bring to a boil, cover and cook until carrots are very tender, about 15 minutes. Add coconut milk and process the soup in a blender or food processor. Return the soup to the pot and heat through. Add more stock if you want a thinner consistency. Ladle into individual bowls and top with sour cream.

Black Bean Soup

I fell off the "Cooking Light" wagon last week right into a delicious apple pie but I'm back on the healthy trail this week. Black Bean Soup. It's both healthy and delicious. I found the original recipe in Cooking Light's October '09 issue and after tweaking it a bit I've come up with something that's now a part of my permanent soup rotation.

Wait, I have a soup rotation? Yes. Yes, I do.

Black Bean Soup (adapted from Cooking Light)

2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed
2 1/2 tsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
4 cups chicken broth
1 lg can green chiles (I think this is the 7 oz size)
1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 cup tomato paste

Optional toppings:
pepper jack cheese
cilantro
sour cream

Saute onion and garlic in oil over medium heat for 5 minutes. Increase heat to high and add the rest of the ingredients. Stir together and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Process mixture in a blender until smooth and serve.

Butternut Squash Soup

My 7 year old loves my belly. He says it's soft and bouncy like a trampoline. I, on the other hand, do NOT love my belly. Because it IS soft and bouncy like a trampline. So in an effort to make it less bouncy, I've gone through my sister's old Cooking Light magazines and collected around 15 recipes that I would like to give a try this year.

Butternut Squash Soup, the first on my list, was a success! It's thick and creamy, slightly sweet, and chock full of vitamin A. You'll definitely want to double this recipe.

Butternut Squash Soup (from Cooking Light)

1 tablespoon butter
3 1/2 cups cubed peeled butternut squash (about 1 1/2 pounds)
3/4 cup chopped carrot
1/2 cup chopped sweet onion
2 1/2 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
1/4 cup half-and-half
1/8 teaspoon salt

To prepare soup, melt butter in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add squash, carrot, and onion; sauté for 12 minutes. Add chicken broth, and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in half-and-half and salt.

Place squash mixture in a blender. Remove center piece of blender lid (to allow steam to escape), and secure blender lid on blender. Place a clean towel over opening in blender lid (to avoid splatters). Blend until smooth.

Taco Soup

That's Taco Soup. It's delicious. And I'd love to share the recipe but it's a long road to get there, so hang with me.

When I was around 12 or 13 years old my mom joined a bowling league. Every Tuesday night she had to leave the house around 5 p.m. to head to the local bowling alley. She had to get dinner on the table for our family of 5, fast. So Tuesday nights became pizza night. As a result, Tuesday nights became my favorite night of the week. You have to understand that my family just did not do fast food back then. We went to Western Sizzlin' for mother's day but that was about it. This whole take out thing was new and exciting and Pizza Hut secured a place in my heart forever.

But back to bowling. Each year the ladies would have a party and everyone would bring food. One year, one of the other bowlers brought Taco Soup and my mom got the recipe. It's more like a chili than a soup. Thick, hearty, beany, delicious. It also has half a pound of Velveeta in it, which, coincidentally, has a permanent place in my heart, too.

Taco Soup (from the Tuesday Night Ladies Bowling league potluck)

2 lbs ground beef, browned
1 pkg ranch dressing mix
1 pkg taco seasoning
1 can white hominy
1 can pinto beans
1 can southern ranch beans
2 cans kidney beans
1 can Rotel
8 oz Velveeta
Corn chips

Add everything to a slow cooker and set on high for 4 hours. Don't worry about draining and rinsing the beans, just dump everything in. Serve over corn chips.

Toscana Soup

Have you been to Olive Garden lately? I haven't. The nearest one is over an hour away. And although gas prices have dropped considerably ($1.55!) that's still way too far to drive to eat. Even if it's for WD's favorite soup--Olive Garden's Zuppa Toscana. So a couple of weeks ago when WD was craving this hearty sausage and potato soup, I bravely opened up my messy cookbook and found my own recipe.

3 Italian sausage links
3 large potatoes, scrubbed and cut into bite size pieces
1/2 onion, chopped
2 cans chicken broth
4 cups water
2 cloves garlic, minced
2-3 TBS salt
3 slices of bacon, cooked and crumbled
2 cups kale
1 cup heavy whipping cream

Remove casings from sausage and brown in skillet. Add onion, potatoes, broth, water, garlic and salt to a large pot. Cook until potatoes are tender. Add sausage, bacon, kale and cream. Heat through and serve.

Pumpkin Soup

So yesterday I posted a picture of my messy, unorganized cookbook. It's full of recipes I've torn out of newspapers, ripped out of magazines, and jotted down on envelopes. I've got dozens of recipes that are just waiting to be made. Recently, I decided to go through them to see if I could thin out my collection a bit and I ran across a recipe for Pumpkin Soup. I had torn it out of a newspaper (Irene Wassell's food column in the AR Democrat-Gazette) way back in December of 2005. And since soup weather has now arrived, I decided to give it a try.

And...it's a keeper! It's thin but creamy and delicious with buttered french bread. The flavor combination of pumpkin and onion is wonderful and the spices aren't overpowering like I worried that they might be. I can't wait for the weather to get even colder so I can make this soup again.

Let's see, that's one clipping down, 1185 to go.

Pumpkin Soup

1/2 cup minced onion
2 TBS cooking oil
1 TBS all-purpose flour
1 tsp curry powder, or to taste (I used 1/2 tsp)
1 (16-oz) can pumpkin
1 TBS brown sugar
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
3 1/2 cups chicken broth
1/2 tsp Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning, or to taste
2 cups half-and-half

In a large saucepan, saute onion in oil until translucent. Add flour and curry; stir until well mixed with the oil.
Stir in pumpkin, brown sugar and nutmeg. Add broth and creole seasoning and whisk until smooth.
Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Add half-and-half and heat until hot. Do not boil. Serve immediately.

Wiederkehr Onion Soup

Did you know that my Granny B is a TV star? It's true. She made a small appearance in season 1 of The Simple Life. She and the other ladies of St. Mary's Catholic Church in Altus (Arkansas) belong to a quilting group and one day Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie just happened to drop by. With a camera crew. And what did these church ladies think of these Hollywood celebrities? Well, not much, apparently. My grandmother mentioned that they were filmed by a tv show but she couldn't remember what it was called or the names of the 2 stars.

Besides being the setting for The Simple Life, Altus is also home to Wiederkehr's Wienkeller Restaurant. While dining there with family one Sunday evening, WD raved about their onion soup. It wasn't until halfway through the meal that I remembered I had cut out a recipe for Wiederkehr onion soup several months ago. Jay Harshaw of the Fort Smith Times Record had printed the recipe in her column. So last week when our heat went out, I got out the space heater, piled extra blankets on the bed, and fixed up a pot of this delicious, creamy soup.


1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can water
1 can French onion soup
1 can chicken broth
6 TBS flour (or 3 TBS cornstarch)
1 can milk
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese


Heat chicken soup and water over medium heat. Add onion soup, chicken broth, and flour. Whisk until lumps of flour are dissolved. Add milk. Melt in mozzarella cheese.

Corn Chowder

Okay. Forget that it was 70 degrees outside last week. Arkansas momentarily forgot that it is the middle of winter. This week, the temperatures have dropped once again and they are even calling for a chance of snow over the next couple of days. That's more like it. Perfect time for another yummy soup recipe. And you can't get more yummy than Angie's Corn Chowder. Or more simple.


1/4 cup butter
1 small onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1/4 cup flour
2 cups milk
2 cups cream
1 can (15-1/4 oz) whole kernel corn, drained
1 can (14-3/4 oz) cream style corn
8 oz velveeta, cubed
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper


Saute onion and red bell pepper in melted butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add flour and stir into a paste. Add milk and cream and whisk until thick (don't give up! It will thicken!) Then add the 2 cans of corn, velveeta, salt, and pepper. Stir until cheese is melted. Top with crumbled bacon, if desired. And, boy howdy, do I desire.

Broccoli Cheese Soup

Brrrrrr.....it's cold out there. With high temperatures in the 30's and 40's for the next few days, it's a perfect time for a bowl of soup. My favorite is broccoli cheese soup served with a loaf of french bread to soak up all that creamy, cheesy goodness. Forget the snickerdoodles, forget the greek spinach bake, if you try only one recipe from my "cookbook" let it be this one. After all, anything with a pound of velveeta in it can't be bad.


1 lb frozen chopped broccoli
1 pint half & half
2 cups water (I use 2 cups of the water that I boiled the broccoli in)
1 lb velveeta
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 cup cornstarch with 1 cup cold water


Cook broccoli until tender; drain and set aside. In a large saucepan, add half & half and 2 cups of water. Then add velveeta, salt and pepper. When cheese is melted, add broccoli. Mix cornstarch and water in a small bowl and stir into hot soup to thicken. Ladle soup into a bowl, salivate, get out camera and take 36 pictures of said bowl of soup and hope that there's one picture good enough for posting.