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Six more soup recipes.

Comfort food comes in many forms, and we all have our personal favorites, but it’s hard to deny the warm, soothing security of a bowl of soup — especially when the leaves are piling up outside and the wind’s rattling the windowpanes.

Each of the dishes we’ve included here carries personal meaning for me — mainly because I’m cuckoo for good soup and I love to make it — but also because they all come from family, friends, and my own dog-eared recipe files.

RECIPES

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Our weather in Dublin, New Hampshire, these past few weeks has been cold and snowy, interspersed with freezing rain and wind. As I look out my window now we are having a snow squall. In short, every day has been a day to enjoy the comfort of a hot bowl of soup.

Unfortunately, not all of us have time to prepare those delicious pots of long-simmering, homemade soup. Millie Pezzillo and her family in Greenville, Rhode Island, make everyday soup a possibility for us all.

Millie’s Soups is a business that sells thousands of packets of soup mixes in grocery stores and online. Millie’s home-style dry soups and rice mixes are low in cholesterol (with no trans fats) and free of meat, monosodium glutamate, and preservatives. All you have to do is add water, heat, and be patient for about 15 minutes.

You can enjoy a line of 14 flavors that include lentil, pasta and peas, Italian vegetable, Mexicali rice mix, minestrone, and garden soup (farfalline with vegetables) to name some big sellers.

Millie started her soup mix business 25 years ago with “Aunt Hilda’s Lentil Soup” on the cover of the first catalog. Now Millie and her husband, John, and their sons, John and Mike, run a warehouse operation in Greenville, Rhode Island, where hundreds of pounds of dried beans, pasta, dehydrated vegetables, rice, and barley are delivered by the truckload.

Every day the Pezzilo family enjoys lunch together and, of course, it is always soup. Millie’s first choice is lentil, but my favorite is their newest addition: red lentil and spinach with ginger.

__________

Millie’s Soups
401-949-3558
Visit www.milliessoups.com for online ordering or to find a grocery store near you that sells Millie’s soup mixes.

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There is no better way to know a famous tourist town than arriving off season, when the tourists  have left, and the locals reclaim their streets, their beaches, their way of life that brought them here in the first place, perhaps generations ago. I rarely visit a beautiful place without daydreaming at some point about what it might be like to live there. And it was no different this time when we came to Provincetown, at the tip of the outer cape.

Colorful buoys that will soon top the famous lobster trap Christmas tree.

If you’ve been to Provincetown, Massachusetts in the height of summer, you know there are few more entertaining destinations in the country. You can pass a day simply people watching on Commercial Street, the three mile long living carnival of homes, shops and humanity that runs parallel to Cape Cod Bay.

You can walk for hours through the undulating dunes of the Province Lands in the Cape Cod National Seashore. You can simply throw down a blanket on the beach and let the enervating surf cool you down.  And you can share all of this with some 50,000 plus like minded visitors, who are willing to wait for traffic to crawl through town, wait for restaurant tables, wait for parking by the beach.

Approaching Fisherman’s Wharf by boat.

Which is why I love off season.  There may be at best barely 3000 year-rounders to share the streets with you. Like bookend visits, I came to Provincetown in April and again this November, just before the town’s famous Thanksgiving lighting of the Pilgrim Monument. The monument seems to follow your gaze wherever you are in town, or even on the wind swept dunes. The monument symbolizes the town’s pride in its history—and reminds everyone that the pilgrims first made landfall right here in Provincetown Harbor, and signed the Mayflower Compact while anchored offshore. If you had forgotten that fact before coming to town, you won’t soon forget it again after visiting the Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum.

Provincetown’s Pilgrim Monument.

Commercial Street beckoned with only a relative handful of cars and pedestrians, all of waving to each other as if we were all in on a wonderful secret.

The Outer Cape’s ocean waters moderates temperatures—flowers bloom here earlier and stay longer.  In April the lovely, well kept homes that hug the narrow, winding streets were already boasting flourishing gardens.

April flowers start the season with color.

And here I was just days before Thanksgiving, looking at roses refusing to relent to winter’s black and white world.

A November rose resists the coming cold.

If you want to know the details we checked into the Anchor Inn and Beachhouse.

We were greeted by Molly, the resident Labrador.  Provincetown boasts it is the most dog friendly town in America and that was certainly borne out as no matter where we strolled, we saw dogs and their owners—and you couldn’t walk for more than a few minutes without seeing a welcoming dog dish filled with water.

Molly taking her ease.

Just two of Provincetown’s many canine residents.

To get a room at the inn with a sweeping view of the bay in summer would have required a reservation made perhaps in the dark heart of winter. But even though a number of B&Bs and inns close up after Columbus day, so too, there are always others who keep welcome signs posted year-round.

Sunrise from the Anchor Inn and Beachhouse.

The venerable Lobster Pot Restaurant is famous for its “line out the doors and down the street,” our waitress told us as she seated us. Sharing the dining room of this mother and son run restaurant was a couple huddled in one corner, and a playwright from New York City who said he’d been coming for nearly 20 years and celebrating his birthday right here each time at the Lobster Pot. We caught a break since the restaurant would soon close until April. Our meals: blackened tuna sashimi and sole almondine showed why even though it is one of Provincetown’s most famous dining stops, it is one of those rare places that lives up to its following.

The famous Lobster Pot Restaurant.

Tuna sashimi at the Lobster Pot.

Sole almondine at the Lobster Pot.

Mornings start early when your room faces the rising sun.  Which is good because I was ready to explore. On foot. Off season when Commercial Street and the entire town hums to a different rhythm.

Breakfast could not have been more convenient—about five steps from the inn’s front door. Bayside Betsy’s, with its tables looking out to the beach and the brightening sky, all made brighter by delicious and hearty fare. As is the case with so many of Provincetown  eateries, your waiter (in this case Steve) had a personality that mixed serving with comedy.

Bayside Betsy’s serves breakfast with a view.

Our waiter Steve is part of the experience at Bayside Betsy’s.

After breakfast, several hours of meandering followed.

We saw workers fixing, repairing, battening up, at once getting ready for winter, and at the same time laying the foundation for the spring and summer ahead.

The off season is the right season for repairs.

I don’t think there is a dull block along Commercial Street.  Whether exploring famous MacMillan Wharf with fishing boats bobbing by the dock,

Boats at MacMillan Wharf

Or walking to the end of the pier to look at the famous mural with its tribute to the women who sustained the fishermen on their long, dangerous voyages

Fisherman’s wives art mural at Fisherman’s Wharf.

or meandering down alley ways which peek onto the sand and water,

There were views around every corner in Provincetown.

or just appreciating the trim cottages, or looking at the home where Norman Mailer lived and wrote (now a writer’s colony since his death), a day unfolds at whatever pace you want.

Walking the waterfront with the Pilgrim Monument in the distance.

Norman Mailer’s house is now a writer’s colony.

Off season there are fewer shops open, sure, but also few people tugging at the stuff you want.  I think every store had 50% off sales—and it’s no surprise that the days after Thanksgiving lading to Christmas sees a surge of visitors who come for fun and bargains.

Plenty of shops remain open in the off season.

Marine Specialties is part shopping mecca and part vaudeville show—in this case the performers being the eclectic shelves filled with anything you might ever imagine to see if a store was stocked by someone with a great sense of humor.  Pith helmets? If you’ve been looking, you’ve come to the right place.

Marine Specialties offers can’t-miss browsing.

Pith helmets? They’ve got those.

There are any number of lunch stops, but I discovered Napi’s one spring and we spoke about it for months afterward.

Napi’s restaurant – famous for its food and ambiance.

It is part art gallery, part repository of Provincetown memories, and for decades has stoked the fires of its customers.  I asked our waitress for the recipe of its famous Portuguese kale soup and in moments she returned with a printed copy.

Portuguese Kale Soup from Napi’s.

Portuguese Kale Soup
Recipe from Napi’s in Provincetown, MA

Ingredients
1 lb. linguica
1 lb. chorizo (a spicier version of linguica)
1 bunch kale
1 lb. dried kidney beans or 3 cans of the beans
1 large onion, diced
2 large potatoes, chopped
2 small cans of tomato paste
Salt and pepper to taste
Cider vinegar

Directions

• Follow package directions for soaking beans ( if you use canned skip this step)
• Cut linguica and chorizo into thin rounds and sauté in just enough oil to keep them from burning.
• Remove and place in soup pot.
• Sauté the diced onion in the pan. Add to soup pot.
• Add beans and enough of their water and plain water if necessary to cover to the soup pot.
• Add potatoes, and salt and pepper and tomato paste to taste.
• Cook gently until the beans are as tender as you like.
• Wash kale, remove stems and cut into bite size pieces. Add to soup.
• Cook until the kale is cooked to your taste.
• After the soup has been put into a bowl, add a splash of vinegar.

After lunch we had to climb the Pilgrim Monument, its tower rising over 252 tall. The walk is relatively easy, with gusts of wind at the top all but taking your breath away, but no more so than the hawk’s eye view of the town, the bay, the distant dunes.

View from atop the Pilgrim Monument.

The museum itself is one of those treasures that can all too easily be overlooked.  There is a room devoted to Polar explorer and Provincetown native Admiral Donald MacMillan’s numerous explorations. And I guarantee you will come away with a greater appreciation of the pilgrim experience after visiting the Pilgrim wing and it’s diorama of the Mayflower.

A white wolf brought back from one of Admiral MacMillan’s polar expeditions.

The jaw bone of a finback whale leaves childrens’ mouths agape.

In summer you may share sunset watching at Race Point in the National Seashore with a hundred or more people—but on this November afternoon, with the wind billowing and sand swirling, we seemingly had the entire coastline to ourselves.  When you are alone on the dune backed shoreline, it is easy to forget that only a mile or so away is a town filled with light and noise and camaraderie. In the Provincelands offseason at twilight it is lovely and lonely, as if on a deserted island.

Dunes at Race Point.

Sunset at Race Point.

A final Provincetown dinner had to be fish, fresh from the water just beyond our table at the Central House at the Crown and Anchor Inn.

You can never go wrong with fresh fish in Provincetown.

The last thing we did the following morning was to gather up those ubiquitous real estate brochures –with cottages and condos, and homes ranging from affordable (especially if you rent it out in high season) to this is great when we win the lottery.

Could we live in Provincetown?  We could. Could you?

I could live here. Could you?

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Spring has been teasing us here in Boston the last few weeks and months. We had some early warm days only to be reminded that it was still winter. More recently, we’ve been having some nice sunny days interspersed with windy chilly days. After such a mild winter, I’m not complaining.

This lemony asparagus soup provides a great compromise between winter and spring. Featuring vibrant spring produce and the comforting warmth of soup, this is the perfect recipe for this time of year. I really enjoyed the brightness provided by the lemon and dill in the recipe.

I followed the recipe with one small exception. Instead of reserving the tips of the asparagus from all 3 pounds, I only reserved the tips from 1 pound of asparagus. The rest of the tips went into the pot with the chicken broth. One other thing to note about this recipe. It’s going to make a couple dirty dishes. Your efforts (and dirty dishes) will be greatly rewarded with a delicious bright creamy spring soup.

View and print the original recipe for Lemony Asparagus-Dill Soup.

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Nothing beats a great stew recipe. Stews provide that warm, stick-to-your-ribs kind of feeling that comes with eating hearty foods this time of year. With ingredients like sausage, potatoes, and vegetables, this recipe for Shepherd’s Stew will fill you up and warm you from the inside out.

Another great attribute of stew is the fact that it freezes and reheats well. This recipe made about 12 servings for me. Since I’m not cooking for a big family, after portioning away containers for me and Hubby to take in our lunches, the rest of the stew went into the freezer. I like to use strong zip top freezer bags to freeze stew flat. This way it doesn’t take much room in the freezer. I’ll bring it out on a night when I need to get a quick meal on the table.

As always, I made a few substitutions when I whipped this up. First, I used a mixture of ground beef, veal, and pork in the stew. This is sold at supermarkets and labeled for use in meatloaf. I like the variety of texture and flavor it provides as opposed to just using one kind of ground meat or sausage meat. I also tossed in a few carrots that I chopped up. I threw the carrots in with the onions.

Shepherd’s Stew

While the stew was simmering away on my stove, I decided to do some chores and clean out the fridge. I found a small bag of green beans that we had gotten in our CSA box and forgotten about. I decided to throw those in for the last ten minutes. This worked out perfectly because green beans cook relatively quickly.

Have you tried this recipe for Shepherd’s Stew? If so, let us know how it came out, and if you made substitutions, we want to know that, too!

Shepherd’s Stew Recipe Links
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Like a good New Englander, I adore baked beans. On their own with brown bread for Sunday supper, alongside a burger at a summer cookout, or spooned on top of scrambled eggs in the morning for breakfast — those sweet, molasses-infused beans always find a spot on the menu. Still, it’s fun to think of new ways to get a baked bean fix.

New England Baked Bean Soup

In the Jan/Feb 2013 issue of Yankee, we feature the original Fannie Farmer Cookbook in our “Up Close” column, compiled by Deb Despres, and I knew it would be a good place to find a new way to enjoy baked beans.

Farmer was born in the Boston suburb of Medford in 1857 and graduated with promise from the Boston Cooking School in 1889 at the age of 32. She remained at the school for another 13 years, and in 1896 her cookbook classic The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book was published, eventually becoming the bestselling cookbook of of its time. Written for housewives instead of “professionals,” it aimed to provide information on basic nutrition alongside its many recipes. The book became so popular that later editions (and it’s still being published today) were simply titled The Fannie Farmer Cookbook.

This edition is from 1920, and sure it enough, it had a recipe for Baked Bean Soup. Yum!

For inspiration I turned to the original Fannie Farmer Cookbook.

By starting with cold baked beans, then thinning most of them out with water along before adding tomatoes, celery, onion, brown sugar and a hint of hot sauce, you’ll be on your way to baked bean soup in no time. I took some liberties with Ms. Farmer’s recipe, omitting the flour and butter, and keeping things simple with canned baked beans and tomatoes.

Making Baked Bean Soup

By pureeing the soup before adding the remaining baked beans (I used a handheld immersion blender) you remove all traces of the extra veggies, but if you want a chunkier soup you can leave it as-is.

Basically, if you love baked beans, you’re going to love this soup. I enjoyed my pot for supper with a toasty grilled cheese or buttery English muffin over the course of a few evenings — perfect for this cold New England winter weather!

Eat your baked beans and sip them, too!

Ready to make your own?

New England Baked Bean Soup Recipe Links

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“Do you want to go to Lenten Lunch?”

My colleague, Ian Aldrich, was on his way over to the Dublin Community Church, a classic white-steepled building two doors down from Yankee‘s offices. I should’ve remembered: Every year during the season of Lent, the church hosts an all-you-can-eat meal of homemade soup and bread for the community each Wednesday from noon to 1 p.m.. You pay with a donation—whatever you feel you can give—and all the money goes to support local food pantries.

Many churches around the world serve similar lunches this time of year, some with a sermon attached, but this one feels like more of a quiet gathering, a way for people to see their neighbors during the coldest time of the winter.

This week’s crowd was mostly seniors, with a few Yankee employees stopping in. We sat next to Arthur Flick, a retired builder who now spends most of his free time volunteering at the local hospital with his wife, Peggy. She was working in the kitchen while we ate and chatted.

Arthur Flick

He shared stories about his children—a son who is the chief crime investigator for the Coast Guard in Alaska and a daughter who does genetics research—and told us about his “chocolate chili,” a hearty meat and tomato chili seasoned with a bit of cocoa powder, that he plans to make for next week’s lunch.

Our options that day were sausage tortellini, butternut squash, and chicken noodle. I opted for the sausage, which was delicious and hearty and came with a sprinkling of Parmesan and fresh basil.

Sausage Tortellini Soup, with toppings

Art encouraged us to go up for seconds, but I was full. This was a meal that felt like a gift, and one that multiplies out to the community. I’ll be back next week to try the chili. Meanwhile, here’s the recipe for the tortellini soup, straight from the church’s own 2010 community cookbook, Beautiful Soup.

Sausage Tortellini Soup

Submitted to Dublin Community Church’s Beautiful Soup by Holly Macy.

Makes: 8 servings

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 12 oz. smoked, cooked chicken sausage, halved lengthwise and sliced crosswise into 1-inch-thick pieces
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic (2 cloves)
• 5 1/4 cups (42 ounces) reduced sodium chicken broth
• 1 (14 ounce) can diced tomatoes with basil, oregano, and garlic, with juices
• 1 cup water
• 2 (9 ounce) packages refrigerated cheese or mushroom tortellini
• 1 (10 ounce) package frozen baby lima beans
• 1/4 cup slivered fresh basil leaves
• 2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Method:

1. Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Add sausage, onion, and garlic. Cook until sausage is browned and onion is tender. Drain off fat.

2. Add chicken broth, tomatoes, and water. Bring to a boil, then cover and reduce heat to low; simmer for 10 minutes. Add tortellini and lima beans. Bring back to a simmer and cook, uncovered, until tortellini and beans are tender, about 5 minutes. Serve hot, sprinked with basil and cheese.

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On a recent visit to The Woodstock Inn, I tasted a caramelized onion and potato soup that was so delicious that it shut down all the conversation at the table (for concentration). It was creamy, a bit sweet from the onions, but balanced by a wonderful savoriness that reminded me of a great French onion soup.

I spent the next day or so trying to imagine how I could possibly get this recipe from the chef…until I remembered that it’s my job to be able to do this so why not call? Chef Greg Farrell was kind enough to spill the secret and here it is for you to enjoy—a perfect end-of-winter warmer.

The Woodstock Inn’s Caramelized Onion and Potato Soup

Note: Two cups of cream is not unusual for restaurant fare, but it’s still a lot of cream, and you might not want to use that much at home. I use 2 cups of broth and 1 cup of cream when I make it, and it’s still creamy and delicious. You could reduce the amount further, to 1/2 cup cream and 2 1/2 cups broth, if you’d like. You can also reduce the amount of Gruyère to 2 ounces (I do) and use either the Parmesan or the Romano cheese. You don’t “need” both.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 pounds sweet onions, such as Vidalia or Walla Walla, peeled and thinly sliced
• 6 large cloves garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt, plus more to taste
• ½ cup sherry
• ¼ cup brandy
• 1 large russet potato, peeled and diced
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme leaves
• 2 cups heavy cream (can substitute light cream, see Note)
• 1 cup beef broth (see Note), plus more as needed
• 8 ounces Gruyère cheese, shredded (see Note)
• 1 tablespoon  cornstarch
• 2 ounces freshly grated Parmesan cheese (see Note)
• 2 ounces freshly grated Romano cheese (see Note)
• Black pepper, to taste
• Garnish: Minced fresh chives

Method:

Heat oil in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat, then add onions, garlic, and 1 teaspoon kosher salt. Stir, cover, and cook 5 minutes. Remove cover, reduce heat to medium-low, and cook, stirring occasionally, until onions turn a deep golden brown, 20 to 25  more minutes. Add sherry and brandy, increase heat to medium-high, and cook until liquid is reduced by half. Add potato and thyme, stir, then add cream and beef broth.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer until potato is very tender, about 10 minutes. Puree soup in batches in a blender (or process with an immersion blender), then return to a simmer. If the soup seems too thick, add a bit more broth.

In a medium bowl, toss the Gruyère with the corn starch then whisk it into the soup with the Parmesan and Romano (if using). Check seasonings and add pepper and additional salt to taste. Garnish with chives and serve hot. Yield: 6 to 8 servings

Click to view and print the recipe for Caramelized Onion and Potato Soup from The Woodstock Inn.

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