Well, right here it's far at ultimate: the final Soup of the Month for 2015. And this is a in particular special recipe to wrap up the yr with, as it's the primary one I invented all by myself.
This recipe is loosely based totally totally on Brian's vegetarian chili recipe, which substitutes Lightlife Gimme Lean Veggie Beef for floor pork. For the two human beings, he browns half a tube of the Gimme Lean, then units it apart and sautes a chopped inexperienced pepper, onion, and garlic. Then all this is going into the pot with cups (or one may want to) of cooked kidney beans, a can of tomatoes, and three tablespoons of our selfmade chili powder, and he simply simmers it till it's amazing and thick.
Brian became planning on making this chili for his circle of relatives over Christmas, but he concept we'd ought to bring our personal tube of Gimme Lean, due to the fact the shops in their place do now not seem to promote it. I advocated Trader Joe's, however he jogged my memory that they no longer deliver the Gimme Lean beef; they only have the sausage version. And that got me wondering: really what might you have got if you tried to make this recipe with the sausage as opposed to the pork?
I speedy found out it wouldn't art work as a chili, due to the fact the flavors are not properly perfect. But you may use the equal easy method?Brown the sausage, then the vegetables, then placed it all in a pot with beans and appropriate seasonings. I notion white beans should probable make a higher complement to the sausage than kidney beans, and sage and bay leaf would possibly make properly appropriate seasonings. I hesitated over the tomatoes, but ultimately decided to go away them out and use veggie stock as an alternative to make up the extent. And then, since it seemed like it may nevertheless use some more vegetables, I determined a few spinach might make a first rate crowning glory.
Now, we actually ended up making two versions of this, because the first time he tried it, Brian forgot the spinach. He also used veggie stock made with our Penzey's Vegetable Soup Base, a powerful, savory mix that's great for raising the flavor of an otherwise bland vegetable soup—but this stuff already had plenty of flavor from the sausage and onion and garlic and seasonings in there, so when made the soup base, it was actually too flavorful. Brian said he quite liked it, but I thought it was a bit too much, and I also felt like it really needed more veggies.
So the following night, we tried it yet again, leaving out the soup base and throwing in half a pound of thawed frozen spinach?Plus a further can of white beans so the spinach would not be too dominant. Yet regardless of this, the completed dish become extraordinarily spinach-heavy. As I suspected, it had masses of taste even without the soup inventory?All Brian needed to upload become a teaspoon of salt?However the spinach in reality dominated the feel.
I expect the quality model of this soup could likely be a move among the primary and 2d variations: a few spinach, however not a lot that it is the number one factor, and some soup base, however not plenty that the flavor packs too tough a punch. So I think we're going to be trying this another time a while quickly, this time cutting decrease returned the spinach to just 4 ounces, or else substituting an equal volume of chopped clean spinach (that is much much less dense) for frozen. And probable we're going to use a number of the Penzey's soup base inside the inventory, but at half of of in region of complete electricity. With those tweaks, I anticipate this soup could be exactly what I expected: a hearty, savory, filling soup that, eked out via manner of entire-wheat biscuits, makes a satisfying meal on a cold winter night. In other words, a really perfect opportunity to chili when you're inside the mood for a trade of taste.
So, with this recipe, I've successfully carried out my resolution to try a new soup or salad each month for 2015. But I have to admit, it wasn't easy. Limiting myself to soups and salads, rather than any kind of veggie dish, made it much harder to find suitable recipes, and there were some months when I ended up having to fudge the definition of "soup" or "salad" a bit to squeeze my recipe in. Plus there were a couple of interesting-looking new recipes that I clipped out of magazines but ended up not trying, because they weren't soups or salads, and if I only had time to try one new dish that month, it had to be a soup or a salad.
So I think for 2016, I'll probably expand my horizons a little. Instead of limiting myself to soups and salads, I'll make my Recipe of the Month any dish that puts either fruit or veggies front and center as the focus of the meal. That should promote my ultimate goal of making healthy fruits and veggies a bigger part of my diet, without putting too many restrictions on how we accomplish that goal.
