Soup Swap!

This week we've had the coldest weather Cincinnati has seen in 20 years! The real temperature got down to -6 and with the wind chill it felt like -30! I am so relieved it's going to get a little warmer tomorrow. I have to wear my Cold Avenger mask to and from work when it's this cold and it can be a little embarrassing to walk around looking like Darth Vader. But still vastly preferred to freezing my face off.

Obviously all I want to eat when it's brutally, bitterly cold and windy outside is some hot, steaming SOUP. Yum. My coworker, former college roommate and now bff 4-life Sarah suggested the brilliant idea of a soup swap and I screamed YES! at the top of my lungs.  Ok, we work in an office, I didn't really do that. But inside I did! Because a soup swap is pretty much the best idea ever, especially when you are swapping with Sarah, who is truly a legendary soup chef.

Here's the idea: we each make large batches of 2 or 3 soups, and we bring in half of them for each other! So simple yet so, so ingenious. If you love soup, find a coworker, friend, or neighbor who also loves soup and you are in business. Since I eat a pesco-vegetarian diet, Sarah was kind enough to modify her recipes to make them vegetarian (mostly by using vegetable broth rather than chicken) so we could both enjoy all 5 soups. Yes, 5 - I made 2 and she made 3! Overachiever!  So here are the 5 delicious soups we are enjoying this week:

• First I made my favorite, April Bloomfield's Chickpea-and-Rosemary Soup which I originally found in the September 2005 issue of O magazine and have made approximately a thousand times since then. With vegetable rather than chicken broth, of course. This might be my favorite recipe for anything ever. It's so easy, so delicious and so healthy, the golden trinity of recipes. I like to describe it as similar to hummus soup. If you like hummus, and rosemary, do not delay and make yourself a batch. I was lucky enough to have some fresh rosemary from my grandmother's garden left over from our visit at the end of November to add, although I cut corners on the garlic and just used the powdered kind. The one thing, in my opinion, NOT to skimp on is the lemon juice.  Squeeze a real lemon! Don't buy the bottled lemon juice!  Seriously, ugh, it is not even close to the same.

• Next I made a butternut squash-apple soup. I used Ina Garten's recipe as my main reference but also deviated from it somewhat since I didn't have any apple juice, cider or curry powder on hand. For the seasoning I used some turmeric and nutmeg instead. And I used broth and water instead of the juice. There are 4 chopped apples in it so it is plenty sweet! It took forever to chop up 4 apples and 3 onions so I will definitely look for pre-chopped onions next time. Such a time saver!! Plus less crying in the kitchen. When I wore contacts, I never cried chopping onions, but ever since I got Lasik it's a different story. 

The huge time saver I did take advantage of was a big bag of pre-chopped butternut squash from Trader Joe's. I chopped up a whole butternut squash once and I won't be doing that again! 

One other thing I love: my Cuisinart immersion blender for pureed soups. I can't sing the praises of this thing enough. It's so super easy to puree soups and a breeze to clean up. No transferring to a blender or processor - we don't even own a blender since ours broke a couple years ago and I haven't missed it!  I just stick the immersion blender into anything I would blend and my god, it's so much less mess. It also has a mini food processor attachment which I love for things like pesto. Ok, Cuisinart should really start paying me at this point, I'll move on.

Sarah made 3 Rachael Ray soup recipes: black bean, farmer's market veggie and pumpkin, cheddar and chipotle. She modified the black bean a lot to remove the chorizo and add rice and it was super delicious.  Definitely a great black bean soup base reference. The farmer's market veggie comes with a side of pureed herbs in oil and that soup is AWESOME as well, so good. I haven't tried the pumpkin one yet but it also sounds amazing and I can't wait - I am soo spoiled with a fantastic variety of soups this week, I can barely contain myself. Soup swap for the win!