A Patti Wagon Souprise

Waiter, there's a pun in my soup! <<shudder of shame>>

Patti Wagon has been soup crazy in the past week, that is to say I've made four different soups over the course of seven days. You could call my kitchen a real broth-el. (I need Punner's Anonymous.)

Luckily, I put up lots of summer goodies like tomatoes, corn, and turnip greens that I used in my endeavors. I also always have some homemade chicken stock in my freezer--so completely worth the effort. These advance preparations make a pot of soup a weeknight possibility. (Or so says my inner boy scout.)

What soups did I make, you ask?

The first was a by-the-seat-of-my-pants (the best way to cook soup, in my opinion) chili. It has extra lean ground beef, beans, tomatoes, peppers, and a mixture of spices. Sorry for the lack of photo. (Speaking of, someone needs to tell soup that she does not photograph well. In fact, she photographs about as well as cat vomit. [Yes, my deficient photography skills and equipment are partially to blame.])

Then I made tried and true vegetable soup. 

Third was a made-up corn and potato chowder with turnip greens. I fried four strips of bacon in my soup pot, then removed the bacon and cooked chopped onions and celery in the bacon grease. (What can bad about that?) Then I added some flour to thicken the future soup and cooked it for a bit. I added corn stock, sliced carrot, and cubed potato and cooked it for 15 minutes. Finally came chicken stock, turnip greens, corn, and milk. Seasonings were ground red pepper and cumin. I cooked it for another 15 minutes. I wanted it a little thicker, so I added a cornstarch slurry. Lots of salt and pepper and the saved bacon bits, and it was finished. It was good, perhaps not great, but I liked the turnip green experimentation. 

Finally, I made my take on this turnip green soup. I changed the black eyeds to pintos and omitted the fire roasted tomatoes, opting for my own canned tomatoes. 

OMG, it was good. The turnip greens are the star, and the spicy chorizo is a great supporting cast member. I stood over the stove and ate an obscene amount of greens right out of the pot. No shudders of shame here. 

I ended up freezing a good bit of my stockpile for future Patti Wagon lunches.