Accidental Success!

I wasn’t even going to blog about this soup. I was just trying to use up some veggies and avoid going to the grocery store in the pouring rain and light hail. But as I was devouring my second bowl and thinking, “maybe I should write this one down”, I decided there was no better place to write it than here!

For as much as I love soup, I have only made a handful of soup recipes that live up to my apparent high soup standards. This is one of those; nailed this one!

So even though this soup is from scratch, I only spent about 35-40 minutes making it. I’m really loving the fresh tomato and bell pepper mix. The pepper adds a touch of sweet, which compliments the acidic tomatoes so well, and blending the two together ensures that subtle flavor flows through the whole soup. And equally as important, no bites of hot, mushy pepper trailed by a piece of detaching pepper skin.

My next favorite ingredient here is the Swiss chard. Now, this is my first time having chard and I didn’t even read up on it before I concluded it would work in soup. This stuff is gorgeous though. It came in my CSA box and half of the bunch had a vibrant yellow stalk and the other had a burgundy stalk. All of the leaves were such a deep green color with burgundy veins running into them; seriously, they were like food art. Not knowing anything about chard and what kind of texture that stalk would have, I cut the stalk out and ran it through my juicer with some apples, carrots and romaine. Another tasty treat and those stalks gave the juice a fantastic red color. As for the soup, I cut the leaves in to manageable bites and threw them in right before I served. Perfect! They held up better than spinach does but they still wilted nicely and had no bitterness at all!

I’m telling you now, if there is Swiss chard in next week’s box, this soup is on next week’s meal plan!

Tomato Veggie Soup with Andouille Sausage

3 garden tomatoes

1/2 red bell pepper 

2 cloves garlic

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 Andouille sausage, sliced

½ leftover grilled chicken breast, chopped

    (I was just trying to use it up, turned out delicious)

1 clove garlic, minced

3 carrots, chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped

2 leaves Swiss chard, stalk removed

   and cut into 1 inch pieces

2 cups water

1 beef bouillon cube

1 chicken bouillon cube

1 Tbsp dried basil

1 bay leaf

1 tsp kosher salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

Small pasta of choice, cooked per package directions

Blend first 3 ingredients until smooth, set aside

Heat oil in large pot over medium-high heat. Add Andouille and allow to brown, about 3 minutes

Add carrots and celery, allow to sweat about 5 minutes. Add minced garlic and cook 1 minute more

Pour in water and season with bouillon cubes, basil, bay leaf, salt and pepper

Bring to a simmer and add tomato purée. Cook until carrots are tender. Add salt if needed. (If using, add grilled chicken and heat through)

Remove from heat and stir in chard. Serve over prepared pasta