Anyone else resorting to soup to fuel the body and soul in this frigid weather?

This has been my go-to and I add either lima beans or vossakorv.
This is the soup: http://www.toro.no/Vaare-produkter/Middag/Betasuppe-112g
This is what vossakorv is: http://www.gilde.no/produktkatalog/polser/gilde-vossakorv/

Stone soup.

84 here today.

Some of us can’t afford resorts.

I’m doing curries.

I want tomato soup but I have none. I’ve been wondering if I can make tomato soup out of tomato sauce.

Now that I’m living in Boston and, as you may know, it’s pretty cold up here, I’ve been piling on clam chowder, the thick white kind, from Whole Foods, which is a mile from my house. Man, do I love the stuff.

Soup wa’ms ya cahckles!

My wife makes a big batch of chicken vegetable soup almost every weekend through the winter. It’s a staple for us.

Chicken, carrots, escarole mostly.

Yes. My local store has a special on canned soup. It won’t be cold for long here…

That sounds yummy @cookieman!

Can someone ‘splain why we’re wearing YARNLADY’s clothes? I saw several that several people put them on yesterday so I jumped on it. I don’t want to miss another Yarnpocolypse!...But I can’t find one, so why?

Just made the wife and I a big bowl of chilli. Lost a switch in my furnace this afternoon, running on space heaters until I get the damn thing fixed

I bought more asparagus than I needed and googled up recipe from the NY Times. I made it last week, making it again today.

This is really easy.

I didn’t use any salt (low sodium diet) and I had basil on hand instead of tarragon. It worked great.

Pan-Roasted Asparagus Soup

1 ½ pounds thin asparagus (if only thick spears are available, peel them first)
2 tablespoons butter or extra virgin olive oil
10 fresh tarragon leaves, or ½ teaspoon dried tarragon
4 cups chicken or other stock
Salt and pepper

Break off bottom part of each asparagus stalk, and discard. Coarsely chop the rest of stalks, leaving 12 or 16 of the flower ends whole.

Put butter or oil in a large, deep skillet over medium-high heat. A minute later, add asparagus and tarragon, raise heat to high, and cook, stirring occasionally, until nicely browned, about 10 minutes. Remove whole flower ends; set aside.

Add stock and some salt and pepper; bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until asparagus is very tender, about 10 minutes. Cool at least a few minutes.

Pour soup into a blender, in batches if necessary, and carefully purée. Return to pan, and, over medium-low heat, reheat gently. When soup is hot, adjust seasoning.

Put 3 or 4 asparagus flower ends in each of 4 bowls; ladle in soup, and serve.

I made minestrone yesterday with shell pasta, summer squash, zucchini, garbanzo and kidney beans, heirloom tomatoes…it’s excellent. Of course the weather is perfectly placid there (it was almost 80 yesterday), but I don’t need an excuse to make soup :P

@DominicY. How are heirloom tomatoes? I’ve never tried them before. They just started showing up in my local store, but I don’t know enough about their flavor. I love red tomatoes. Are they basically the same?

@MrGrimm688, heirloom vegetables are older varieties and they’re supposed to have more flavour than the hybrids most of us buy. They’re also supposed to be better for us nutritionally. I don’t know how true this is, but it feels nice to buy them. I love buying purple carrots. I really want to get my veggie garden going so we can grow more heirloom varieties. Carrots now have been grown to have a higher sugar content.

^So they still taste like a tomato? Do the different colors taste different?

I bought a couple that were essentially brown and a few that were yellow. What I noticed most is how asymmetrical they are, both on the outside and the inside. The perfect little halves you get with a regular tomato are out the window with heirlooms. To me they smelled and tasted like a normal tomato, although they had a bit stronger scent. Didn’t notice any difference between the colors.

Either way, they looked nice in the soup and I will probably end up using them more for various recipes.

A University of Florida horticulturalist is working on tomatoes that taste like heirlooms with the traits to survive mass grocery store distribution. You can buy seeds for $10. I got some last year but have not yet planted them.

UF News – Team discovers key to restoring great tomato flavor

Klee Research Lab – New Flavorful Tomato Cultivars For The Home Gardener $10

the last tomatoes that tasted of tomato I ate on Malta in 2002.

Does chili count?

@LuckyGuy Chili counts! San Francisco is a chilled and overcast 63 degrees today, so I just had some chili (with a big hunk of fresh sourdough) for lunch!

Not out here in Southern California. It’s been in the 80’s and 90’s this week.

Here in NY on the first day of Spring, after the big storm we had just last Tuesday, I’m hoping we’re done with frigid weather and on the way to something less bone chilling.

@DominicY Love minestrone!
@Call_Me_Jay That sounds absolutely delicious, and for me losing the tarragon would be a plus.
@All the chili eaters. Of course it counts! I love ground turkey chili (even better than beef) and a white chicken chili that I make.
@Dutchess_III Sure you can.

@MrGrimm888, my father used to grow tomatoes. I have never tasted tomatoes that were as sweet and tasty as those. I hope one day to grow some myself (including some heirloom varieties) and I’ll let you know if they taste like tomatoes. We did grow a heap of tomatoes one year, but the possums ate every one of them.

@Earthbound_Misfit My mom grew the most amazing tomatoes when I was growing up in Wisconsin. She had an amazing garden. Dad would go fishing and keep the crappy fish he caught and mom would freeze them. When planting time came, she would take the fish and bury them under the corn she would plant. She told me that is what the Native Americans did. We always had wonderful sweet corn. For the tomatoes, she would take cow manure and make a slurry and pour just a bit under each seedling. We had great soil in the back yard. It was teeming with worms. We would collect night crawlers just out our back door for fishing. I miss fresh produce. I hate living in Norway at 63N. Right now, with ice and snow and not being able to walk, I don’t feel like I can feed myself and my son properly.
I guess it will be packet soup again for dinner tonight.