I have medium to low spoons and want to make soup, halp

Discussion in 'General Advice' started by theambernerd, Jan 6, 2019.

  1. theambernerd

    theambernerd dead to all sense of shame

    Basically, I need to start making more variety in food because i've almost lost interest in eating after surviving off of insta stovetop pasta and pb&j and not much else for a few months, and also need something that I can separate into five portions to bring in for the workweek lunches since i only have spoons to make nice things on the weekends (and also dont have a microwave at home so heating up leftovers is almost more trouble than it's worth at home) so, logical conclusion; soup

    problem; i don't have any of the necessary ingredients gathered at all and most soup recipes you google are either high-spoons like, gathering a lot of fresh ingredients that i don't have and unless are all consumed by soup making, i likely won't be able to finish consuming before they rot, or recipes found in the low spoons food thread are generally 'get any meat you prefer and veggies you like' types, but i've not made soup on my own before so i don't know what?? I want to get???

    So basically, if yall have soup recipes that mostly take non-easily perishable ingredients and can be done easily on stovetop as i don't have a slow cooker, i would be interested o3o
    also the main store i have access to is a city-center british aldi, so there may be things common in big stores that i don't have access to because yay old british city, if you want to go to an actually big supermarket you'd better take the bus out of the city center l:
    (i'm generally into beef broth-y soups, chicken soups, or potato soups in my experience with soups. tomato based or lentil based not preferred)
     
  2. Codeless

    Codeless Cheshire Cat

    Don´t have a recipe, do have an advice: see if your grocery store has pre packed soup veggie kits in the produce section. they´re generally enough for one (1) soup so they won´t spoil, and they´re a standard selection so you can try and see what you like and what you don´t. There is also pre made stock, sometimes with meat in in the preserved meat section, which should give you a starting point.
     
    Last edited: Jan 6, 2019
    • Agree x 1
  3. hyrax

    hyrax we'll ride 'till the planets collide

    caveat: i make this particular soup recipe so often that it's basically become second nature to me, and therefore i can't really accurately assess the spoon consumption at play, but...

    my favorite chicken-and-rice soup is made with chicken broth, rice, chicken breast, carrots, and celery, in part because most of those ingredients last a long time and/or are things i usually have around anyway. chicken breast can be frozen, carrots last a long time in the fridge, and rice and unopened broth (or bouillon) lasts forever. my tried-and-true recipe is...

    -6 cups chicken broth (OR, my favorite tweak, 4 cups chicken and 2 cups veggie broth)
    -1 chicken breast
    -3 medium carrots
    -3 celery stalks
    -1/2 cup rice (you can use noodles if you prefer noodles! but you'll have to adjust the cooking time of course.)

    -roast the chicken breast (375 f for 35-40 minutes is usually just about right) then dice into bite-size pieces. you can also use... basically any form of cooked chicken you like here, i've used shredded rotisserie chicken when i didn't feel like cooking it myself. personally i like the roasted flavor best though!
    -while chicken is roasting, peel and dice the carrots, wash and dice the celery.
    -saute the carrots in a little olive oil in the same pot you're going to cook the soup in. cook the carrots until they're softened, then add the celery. saute both together until a little bit browned.
    -remove from heat and let the pot cool down a little, before adding the broth. if your chicken is done, add that now too. (if not, add it whenever, so long as it goes in before the rice finishes cooking. i am EXTREMELY SLOW at washing and chopping vegetables, so by the time i'm done cooking the veggies the chicken is usually just about ready.)
    -return to heat and bring to a boil. add the rice. cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes (for white rice, longer for brown) or until rice is done!
     
  4. hyrax

    hyrax we'll ride 'till the planets collide

    and ooh yes, like @Codeless said-- when i lived in Ireland, i could definitely find soup kits that were just a bag of pre-chopped veggies. my favorite was a potato leek kit, which was really just potatoes, leeks, onions, and i think parsley, but hugely cut down on prep time. also those kits can give you good ideas for how to make soups from scratch! when i make potato leek soup now, i'm absolutely just cribbing off those kits i used to buy.
     
  5. witchknights

    witchknights Bold Enchanter Defends The Fearful

    I love pumpkin and beef soup; its pumpkin puree, some cream, diced onions, chopped leek, and chunks of stringy meat. Cook the beef, onions and leek until it looks golden-ish, add the pumpkin, let it cook until the meat is tender, add cream and seasonings/beef broth cubes. Can be frozen, can be made with canned pumpkin and beef jerky, onions and leeks freeze super well. I use kabocha in mine because it's what we have here, but it should be good with other kinds of pumpkin
     
    • Like x 1
  6. vuatson

    vuatson [delurks]

    If you want to add more vegetable to your soup to make it healthier, I’d recommend chopped kale. It doesn’t last super long unfortunately but it shrinks enough when you cook it that you can fit most of not all of a single bunch into one batch of soup, and I find that it goes well with a lot of soups.

    I’d rec a specific recipe but I’m afraid all the ones I know are effort/time intensive and involve a lot of fresh veg :P
     
  7. Saro

    Saro Where is wizard hut

    Frozen veg might help. You can add it to whatever right at the end of cooking and just wait for it to heat through.
     
  8. Vierran

    Vierran small and sharp

    yeah, celery is the biggest problem with soup-making, imo. I can never buy a reasonable quantity of celery.

    How do you feel about squash soups, and is blender an option?
     
  9. TwoBrokenMirrors

    TwoBrokenMirrors onion hydration

    if you like parsnips, i found a nice parsnip soup recipe once that basically boiled down to 'roast parsnips, put in pot with water, season, b l e n d' that i could probably find again (or similar) if i looked
    i know that it keeps good because i had a bunch of it portioned out in my fridge for a while
     
  10. TheSeer

    TheSeer 37 Bright Visionary Crushes The Doubtful

    Lentil soup!

    1 lb bag dried lentils
    2 onions
    1 lb carrots
    Ham steak, preferably with fat and bone
    Some butter or bacon grease, more if your ham has less/no fat on it
    Salt, black pepper, cumin

    Cut the fat off the ham and put it in the bottom of the soup pot with the butter or bacon grease. Dice the onions to about 1 in/3 cm pieces, and add to the pot on low heat. Cook for a while, stirring occasionally, until the onions get very soft and brown. This is called "caramelizing" the onions.

    While that's happening, cut the bone out of the ham and cut it up into cubes. Peel the carrots and remove the brown ends, and cut the rest into thick slices.

    Once the onions are nice and brown, take out any leftover ham skin or solid fat and put in the ham, carrots, lentils, and a bunch of water. (Check the lentil package first, you may need to rinse them in a sieve.) Chuck the ham bone in there too if you have one. Add seasonings and simmer on low for an hour or two. (Sorry I can't give you amounts on the spices, I always do it by taste and never measure.)

    The lentils expand as you cook them. I like this with a sort of porridge texture, but I think some people like it thinner and more like a soup. That's just a matter of more or less water. Just make sure to stir and keep the heat low so it doesn't burn to the bottom, especially if you're making it thick.

    Edit: oops, I just now saw the thing where you don't like lentils. Sorry. It's definitely my easiest soup... Most soup recipes become easy via preparation, things like making broth in advance and freezing it.
     
    Last edited: Jan 6, 2019
  11. budgie

    budgie not actually a bird

    My mom made this sausage and tortellini soup that I would be happy to eat all week. My main caveat is that you shouldn't add the tortellini until you're going to eat it, so if I were prepping to take it to work I would make the tortellini separately and keep it in a different container.

    • 12 oz italian sausage (easiest if you can get sausage meat but it's p easy to unstuff sausages imo)
    • 1 medium onion finely sliced
    • 4 garlic cloves (4 tsp if you get the pre-chopped)
    • 1 1/2 tsp thyme
    • 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
    • 2 tbsp olive oil
    • 64 oz chicken broth (2 boxes, generally)
    • 1 c water
    • 4 c chopped fresh spinach (2 packs frozen spinach)
    • 1 15 oz can white kidney/cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
    • 1 pkg cheese tortellini
    Instructions
    1. In a large saucepan cook the sausage, onion, garlic, thyme and red pepper flakes in oil until sausage is no longer pink; drain
    2. Add broth and water, bring to a boil
    3. Stir in kale and beans, return to a boil.
    4. Add tortellini; simmer, uncovered, for 7-9 minutes or until tender
     
  12. LadyNighteyes

    LadyNighteyes Wicked Witch of the Radiant Historia Fandom

    My mom's Low-Effort Soup recipe:
    • 1 of those quart boxes of chicken or vegetable broth
    • 1 can of garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
    • 1 can of stewed tomatoes
    • 1 smoked sausage, chopped into manageable slices (we used a specific brand of turkey kielbasa because I'm picky about meat, but it's probably fine with a lot of others)
    Put all things in pot. Heat. Now you have soup.

    Everything's already cooked, so you don't have to worry about cook times. 3 of the 4 ingredients keep basically indefinitely, and the sausage keeps for a long time in the fridge or you can just freeze it and defrost it in the microwave. It's easy to scale if you want more and has protein and A Vegetable in it.
     
  13. 3strim

    3strim Professional Accidental Rater

    I was unfortunately taught soup making in the classic tradition of 'toss it in a pot and leave it alone to get to know each other', but I can set down the bare bones of what I consider to be soup-making pantry essentials:
    Bouillon*
    Onions
    Garlic
    Frozen Mix Veg (Corn/Carrot/Peas/Green Bean)
    Black Pepper
    Rice
    And if you aren't adverse to them and can find them, dried mushrooms are absolutely lovely. I usually go fresh because I hate anything with a soaking period, but dried ones give you the added bonus of a deep broth when you reconstitute them.
    Rosemary and Parsley are also some highly recommended herbs.

    A tip for the onions is that they freeze... okay. By that I mean they freeze amazingly well for soups and stocks, but tend to lose their shape and as thus, aren't ideal for any application where that's a goal. So if you can pick up an extra ice cube tray (especially a silicone one), chop up onions on a day where you have the energy to (or, if you're like me, at any point because chopping and mincing is soothing self care) and freeze them.

    Prepping for Future Soups:
    If you ever have the spoons to make other things with fresh veg, keep the scraps. Even the ones that seem useless (such as garlic and onion skins), and put them into a freezer bag and store. Likewise with any bones. These'll help you make a better stock both in flavor and nutrition content in the future. For bones, I was taught that roasting them first gets the marrow flowing better, and if you're working with something like poultry bones where there's no marrow exposed, cracking them also helps all that lovely goodness escape.

    *I prefer powdered bouillon vs broths because it's a lot more shelf-stable if you're trying to make just enough soup for one person. A dash of bouillon is also great when cooking rice, as it'll get soaked up with the water and give you some seasoning with little effort. If you need to watch your sodium intake, bouillon is pretty much the worst thing you can get for yourself as even the smallest amounts have a lot of salt.

    Also, if you want something a bit richer, there's also a corn chowder which is super simple and mostly canned goods:
    One can corn
    One can baby clams
    One can evaporated milk
    Small potato
    Small onion
    A little flour and butter/margarine
    • Put a spoonful of butter in a saucepan over medium-low heat
    • Once melted, add half an onion, diced. Stir the onion until translucent.
    • Add in one can of corn, including the water. Likewise with the clams.
    • Add in cubed potato and stir. Turn heat down and allow to simmer until the potatoes are cooked through (add water if needed)
    • Finally, add evaporated milk. Add in salt and pepper if needed.
    • For a thicker soup, mix a spoonful of flour with some milk (or the chowder) in a separate cup until it forms a paste, then slowly add more liquid to it until it becomes a smooth slurry. Pour into the chowder and stir to avoid lumps. Allow to sit a moment before serving.
     
  14. Aondeug

    Aondeug Cringe Annoying Ass Female Lobster

    Potato soup's a really simple recipe. You just need potatoes for mashing, carrots, onions, and some celery. For flavoring you need milk, salt, and pepper.

    You prepare the potatoes the way you would mashed potatoes, but with a bit more water than normal. Mashed potatoes take normally like...you want the water about an inch above the potatoes if you press a chunk down against the bottom of the pot. Maybe about...two inches above that for the soup? Now you toss a bunch of salt in there with the potatoes and you get them boiling. Let them cook. To test them you want to stab them with a fork. If they're done and ready for mashing the fork'll just slide right through them. To make the mashing easier and the cooking faster cut the potatoes into fourths. If you're going to use russets make sure to peel the potatoes. Other varieties you can leave the skins on but you should wash them super well.

    Anyway once you got your potatoes cooked you mash them. Like. Super duper fine levels of mashing. Mash them more so than you would a normal pot. Don't drain any of the water. Just let them cook and move to your vegetables now.

    You get the carrot, onion, and celery all cut up. The onion you should dice but if dicing's too much just get them in like roughly bite sized bits. There's a real easy way to dice...You cut the onion in half from like...top to root. Then you chop off the ends, but not too far on the root end. You want the onion layers to still be connected. Now take one of your halves and peel off the top layer to get to the good ones. You're going to want to cut sideways through the onion to the root bit in layers. But not through. You next cut down it in columns, again to the root but not through it. Now cut down through it in rows. You should get little diced bits super simple. It takes a bit to get down to a pattern but once you do I find it pretty low on the spoons intensity wise? And it still gets you diced onions. I'm not sure if I'm describing the columns and rows method well...Celery method I use is...tear off a stalk. Cut off the tops and bottoms to get ride of the nasty bits. Now cut the thing in half length wise. Take these two length wise halves and cut them in half lengthwise again. After that you just kind of line up your thinner stalk bits and chop down them width wise to get little diced bits. Carrots I just slice down width wise into circles.

    If you want this all more flavorful and you have the spoons...get out a pan and fry the veggies in some butter. Then add them to the pot. If you're really just wanting simple though just toss them into the water. They'll cook along with the potatoes. Whichever case you add the vegetables in and also flavor the water to taste with pepper. You kind of want to like...Cook these all together for...a long while? The water needs to like cook off, a lot of it. Until you get something with the consistency of basically mashed potatoes but with too much water? You want it to not have enough water to any longer be considered like Acceptable Soup Levels? Which is a bit worrying!

    But the last step gets it back to being Soup Levels of fluid. Namely you pour in milk. Enough milk to get this looking like a soup again. Keep cooking this till the milk is properly cooked in and warm. It's really nice and simple. Perhaps not the most flavorful flavorful soup, but it's light, warm, and milky. Good stuff and simple to make.
     
    • Like x 2
  15. theambernerd

    theambernerd dead to all sense of shame

    Much later but many thanks everyone for soup recipes! A lot of them a v helpful, i just had some busy weekends so I didn't have time to grocery shop and large meal prepare. Today I have a full day of nothing so i'm gonn attempt a potato soup cause i already have potatoes! :3

    usually every other weekend for me is fairly open so i'm hoping to start a schedule of makin soup every other week, i know with repetition recipes become lower spoons for me because i have to think less about the process so eventually i might be able to make things on busier days cx
     
    • Winner x 8
    • Like x 1
  16. theambernerd

    theambernerd dead to all sense of shame

    Update 2: potato soup was a success! got about 4 1/2 meals out of it, discovered it definitely needed slight supplementing as a meal for work because i got shaky from food need by the last half hourish of work

    non-soup week i bought too much expensive ready meal stuff cause i didn't get groceries, so i have gotten a bunch of potatoes to be week after next's baked potato lunches, and have acquired what's needed to make @hyrax 's suggested soup! (i am substituting noodles tho cause i prefer them to rice)
    soup making will commence tomorrow cause i have other spoons-y things to do today, but since i am also doing a social tomorrow i have gotten pre-cooked chicken to cut down the run time. celery and carrots bought for potato soup appear to have survived well so they will be sacrificed to this soup as well!! good to know celery's got a decent fridge life, as i only like it as soup filler and not raw cx
     
    • Winner x 2
    • Like x 1
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