Kids Cook Monday- Sweet Potato Soup with Pancetta & Croutons

Sweet Potato Soup with Pancetta & Croutons Directions:

Although we love the meaty flavor of pancetta, you could use bacon if you prefer.

1. Place sweet potatoes and carrots in a medium saucepan. Cover with water and heat over medium-high heat until boiling; reduce heat and simmer until vegetables are tender, about 20-25 minutes.  Drain and mash with a potato masher or a hand mixer, adding a few tablespoons of milk or water, and butter if desired, to get a mashed potato-like consistency.
2. Heat a large saucepan or stock pot to medium-high. Add the chopped pancetta and cook, stirring often, until browned and crispy. Remove pancetta with slotted spoon and drain on a paper towel-lined plate. Leave dripping in pan.
3. Add the shallots to the dripping and cook over low until soft and lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Add the mashed vegetables and broth and continue to cook over low heat until flavors have blended, about 10 minutes.  Taste and season with salt and pepper if desired. To get a smooth consistency, have an adult help blend with an immersion blender, or if you have a heat-safe blender, pour soup carefully in blender and blend on high until smooth, about 30 seconds.
4. To make Croutons: Preheat oven to 350. Place the olive oil on a rimmed baking sheet. Add bread cubes and toss with hands to evenly coat bread with oil. Sprinkle salt, pepper, and any desired herbs (we like garlic powder or Italian Seasoning). Place in preheated oven and bake for 5-7 minutes; stir or shake pan and return to oven until toasted and lightly browned, about 5 more minutes. Allow to cool.
5. To serve soup, ladle into individual bowls and top with several croutons and a tablespoon or so of fried pancetta.

Sweet Potato Soup is a flavorful and healthful meal, perfect for fall. And perfect for a Kids Cook Monday meal, since it’s easy to prepare as well. I had my teenage daughter help, and even though my family wasn’t initially excited, we all agreed the end result was a delicious soup that we should make again.

I wanted to come up with a delicious version, minus the cream. With fried pancetta and homemade croutons, I don’t think you’ll even miss the cream; I know we didn’t.

Homemade croutons are super simple and fast to make in a preheated oven.  All you need is some bread (stale is even better), butter or oil, and some seasoning. Just a few minutes in the oven and they are done. It really is that easy.

I do prefer this soup smooth, so an immersion blender or a heat-resistant stand blender is really handy.

For more great meal ideas for cooking with your kids, please visit the Kids Cook Monday.

Rice & Turkey Meatball Soup

I haven’t posted in a while. It’s been busy at my house. If you have high school age kids, you probably know it’s AP testing time across the country, actually around the globe. Essentially, it’s the most stressful time of year if you are a high school student; a year’s worth of advance placement coursework is tested for your shot at obtaining college credit for your “advanced” coursework completed in high school.

Well, if you home school, this means you get to help your kid study incessantly, coordinate with some local school to let you test (not as easy at it sounds), and drive them across town and wait hours for the test to be over…and if you are really lucky you have a very active four year old in tow. So just trying to get food on the table is a major feat, let alone blogging about it : )

We love soup at my house. And today’s recipe is another family-friendly and heart-healthy recipe that we prepared for our Kids Cook Monday. We managed to make a nice Rice & Turkey Meatball Soup the evening of Hailey’s AP Psychology exam.

It’s got lean turkey meatballs, lots of veggies, and leftover rice, making it a great weeknight dinner. Fast, flavorful, and good for you, too. What more could you ask for?

Well, it’s gluten-free and dairy-free too!

I can’t promise your kids will love it, but mine sure did. My youngest daughter (typically a soup hater) loved the idea of meatballs in her soup, took one bit and exclaimed “Yum, yum, yummy. This soup is really delicious.”

 

 

Rice & Turkey Meatball Soup

Although I used dried Italian seasoning, some fresh chopped herbs would be great.

• 1 pound lean ground turkey
• 1 tablespoon olive or canola oil
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 2 celery stalks, chopped
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
• 2 bay leaves
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 1 (28 ounce) can diced tomatoes
• 2 cups cooked rice (we used leftover white, but wild or brown would be great too)
• 1 cup frozen peas
• salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 400 or 375 convection. Grease a rimmed baking sheet and roll ground turkey into tablespoon sized balls. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until cooked thoroughly and no pink remains in the center.
2. Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add onion, celery, carrots, and garlic and cook, stirring often, until tender; about 5 minutes. Add the Italian seasoning and bay leaves and cook for about 1 minutes, or until fragrant.
3. Add meatballs, broth, tomatoes, rice and peas. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until heated thoroughly, about five minutes. Remove bay leaves and season with salt and pepper if desired before serving. Ladle into bowl and serve.

Chicken Tortilla Soup

I think soups are a convenient one-pot meal and make weeknight cooking a breeze. They are also a great way to use up leftovers and get your family to eat their veggies without any complaining.

Growing up, we didn’t eat a lot of soup; unless of course we were sick and then it came from a can. The one soup I remember having on occasion was Taco Soup, and it was always with ground beef.

Although there are many versions of taco or tortilla soup, we prefer the ones with chicken. The recipe I am posting today is based on a soup from Robin Miller’s book, Robin Rescues Dinner, and is one of my family’s favorite soups.

We make our soups fairly mild, with the kids in mind; however, one of the benefits of cooking from scratch is the complete control of ingredients. You can spice this up by adding diced peppers, red pepper flakes, or some hot sauce.

I like to add a dollop of sour cream and a handful of shredded cheese before serving, but this soup really has plenty of flavor without it. So if you are dairy-free, don’t fret, it’ll be good without the garnishes.

 

 

Chicken Tortilla Soup

The tortilla chips have to be crumbled, so this is a perfect way to use up those crumbs at the bottom of a bag.

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 cup chopped scallions (green onions)
• 2 celery stalks, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• about 4 cups cubed, cooked chicken
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 (28 ounce) can crushed tomatoes
• 3 cups chicken broth
• 1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen corn
• 1 (4 ounce) can minced green chiles
• 2 bay leaves
• 2-3 tablespoons lime juice, to taste
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• salt and pepper to taste
• tortilla chips, crushed
• sour cream and grated cheese, optional for garnish

1. Heat oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add scallions, celery, and garlic and cook, stirring often, until soft; about 3-4 minutes. Add chicken and oregano and cook for about a minute, or until oregano is fragrant. Add the tomatoes, broth, corn, chiles, and bay leaves and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
2. Remove bay leaves and discard. Add lime juice and cilantro and stir to blend (or you can add the lime juice and cilantro to the individual bowls, if you have kids who are cilantro/lime haters) Season with salt and pepper if desired. Ladle into soup bowls and top with tortilla chips. Add a dollop of sour cream and some grated cheese if desired.

 

White Bean & Chicken Soup

I saw a recipe for White Bean and Chicken Chili and thought it sounded great. But when I went to actually make it for my family, they were all groaning about it. No one was in the mood for spicy food, so I adjusted the spices and made a White Bean & Chicken Soup instead.

It was plenty flavorful, but mild enough for the kids. If you prefer a more grown-up flavor, you could always add some heaping teaspoons of cayenne and chili powder. As Emeril would say, that would “kick it up a notch!”

This soup is easy to throw together and get on the table in no time. I opted to use some leftover chicken instead of cooking the chicken in the soup. But if you don’t have any cooked chicken to use up, you could easily add chicken pieces in the first step, browning it with the onions and then let it cook as the soup simmers. This will actually produce a more flavorful soup.

I have only cooked this on the stove top, but I think this soup would also be a great slow cooker meal.

White Bean & Chicken Soup

We prefer a mild, kid-friendly soup. But adding more cayenne and plenty of chili powder would turn this into a White Chili!

• 2 TB olive or canola oil
• 1 medium onion, diced (about 1 cup)
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 15-ounce cans of white or Great Northern beans, rinsed & drained
• 1 cup frozen corn kernels
• 1 4-ounce can chopped green chiles
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• dash of cayenne pepper
• 3 cups water, plus more if needed
• 2 cooked boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, cooked and chopped or shredded
• salt and pepper to taste
• Monterey Jack  cheese, chopped fresh cilantro, and sour cream for garnish

1. In a large saucepan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until onion is soft and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and stir until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the beans, corn, chiles, cumin, cayenne, and water. Simmer uncovered for about 30 minutes. Add the chicken and continue to cook until heated thoroughly. Add more water if needed to reach desired consistency. Taste and add salt and pepper if needed.
2. Ladle into bowls and top with cheese, cilantro and sour cream if desired.

Quick Corn Chowder

There is something particularly comforting about soup on a cold, dreary day. Maybe it’s the vegetables or the warmth, but a good soup is high on my list of comfort foods.

And it can’t be one of those thin, runny, mostly broth types of soup. I like a hearty soup, something that feels like a meal, not simply an appetizer.

My family enjoys this easy version of corn chowder. It’s nothing fancy, just a nice, quick, thick soup, loaded with vegetable. I must admit, I do own potato flakes, and I used them to thicken this soup. If you are really opposed to potatoes in a can (and I can’t exactly blame you) you could just add a couple cups of leftover baked potatoes or mashed potatoes. I am usually a from-scratch kind of cook, but with potato flakes and frozen corn, this is quick meal to get on the table on a busy weeknight.

Although this soup is good by itself, it’s one of those dishes that be garnished to suit your tastes.  My kids and I love this chowder with some cooked, cocktail shrimp; however my husband thinks bacon, cheddar cheese, and green onions are the best topping.

Quick Corn Chowder with bacon and cheddar cheese.

Another tasty option, shrimp and cheddar cheese.

Quick Corn Chowder

If you prefer a spicier soup, hot sauce or a bit of cayenne would be a great addition.

• 1 TB olive oil
• 1 TB butter
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 green bell pepper, chopped
• 1 rib celery, chopped
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 cups frozen corn
• 1 1/2 cups dry potato flakes
• 1/4 tsp paprika
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 2 cups milk
• 1 cup half-and-half
• salt and pepper to taste
• cheddar cheese, green onions, shrimp or bacon for topping if desired

1. In a large saucepan, heat butter and oil over medium heat. Add onions, pepper,celery, and carrots and cook until tender, about 8-10 minutes. Add garlic and heat until fragrant, about 30 seconds.
2. Stir in corn, potato flakes, paprika, and broth. Cover and reduce heat to low; simmer for 10 minutes. (If the soup is too thick when you add the potatoes, simply add the milk before simmering 10 minutes.)
3. Stir in milk and half-and-half and heat thoroughly. Garnish as desired.