Soup is one of my favorite things to make. Like pizza or sandwiches, the process is simple yet the possibilities are many. I've never made a squash bisque, but I am going to be trying it tonight. If anyone has any tips, I'd be more than happy to hear them.

soup is great this time of year, we made a really good potato and leek soup last week, and are planning to have a white bean and kale soup tomorrow night. even though bread isnt the bestthing to have a lot of, i would love to be able to make our own bread bowls for the soups

I love potato soups but I've never tried to make one. I'm just learning how to make cream based soups thanks to my new immersion blending toy.

Those immersion blenders are sweet!
What have you made so far?

My favorite for homemade soups is roasted tomato The white bean and kale that I make is pretty "creamy" - I mash up some of the beans after they are done cooking to thicken everything up. Not nearly as many calories that way.

Those all sound delicious. Are you making this on the stove or in a crock pot? I like the crock pot for bean soups because of how you can soften the beans during the cooking process rather than beforehand.

So far I've made a creamy cauliflower soup and a broccoli and cheese soup. The broccoli turned out phenomenal (though I blended too much), but the cauliflower soup lacked personality. I neglected including the recommended dose of nutmeg which I'll never do again.

Nutmeg is going into tonight's squash soup, by the way.

Nutmeg goes with squash really well - YUMM-O. I'm intrigued by this cauliflower soup, tell me more? Do you roast it first?
I use a pressure cooker more than not for beans. Just makes the whole process easier. I tend to cook an entire pound of beans at once, use what we need, then freeze the rest for a later meal.

I started by lightly sauteing onions and celery in butter, then added raw cauliflower. Once the cauliflower softened, I mixed in a little bit of flour and some stock, brought it all too a boil, then blended it all to a smooth oblivion. From there, milk went in along with salt and pepper (this is where the nutmeg would have helped) until the plot thickened.

The recipe that I used was straight off of page 144 in the 75th Anniversary Edition of The Joy of Cooking.

That is a great cookbook!
I find myself never using recipes for dinner I always have to replace everything anyway to make it vegetarian.
Try roasting that cauliflower next time, will give it a little more depth.

I most certainly will, thank you.

And yes, it is a great cookbook. My nightly routine has been to make a recipe from it, then thumb through it randomly as I'm sitting down to eat.

Well, maybe you should teach Doc that trick. He's a little punk when it comes to meal planning. He was once picky, I'm thankful he's not anymore, but he never gets excited about food the way most people do. Trying to get meal ideas out of him is like bashing my head into a brick wall
Sounds like you cook often - what's your favorite kitchen tool? (i'm a geek for this kinda shit)

I cook more than I used to. It's become a hobby that has helped me take my mind off of things, and it's something that I haven't had a chance to do much of in the past due to many reasons, one of which was a lack of proper equipment.

I have no idea what my favorite kitchen tool is. Probably mason jars? I love the idea of saving the sauce.

Word. So versatile. Good for canning, freezing, drinking out of, transporting food, leftovers. Love them!

I'll sometimes throw whatever soup I've made into one of them and hand them to friends.

I could live on soup alone

Oh, not me. However, I'll often be in the middle of preparing a soup and realize that I don't have a main course to go along with it, but then I'll remember that I almost always have some sausage in the fridge.

Same here. I eat soup in summer, too.

My favorite soups to make are veggie lentil soup and just vegetable soup. I've also made pumpkin soup, new potatoes and pea soup, curried cauliflower soup, potato leek, and split pea, in recent memory.

I've always considered soup a main course, never thought about trying to find something to go with it besides a piece of bread or some crackers.

I'm going to try this whole "soup as a main course" concept tonight, fellow mosquitos.

Main course is usually how we do it, but I try to make sure there's a ton of veggies in it and lots of protein. Every now and then we'll have grilled cheese to go with it, but that doesn't happen too often.

you and your curry
Was your pumpkin creamy?