Copy Cat Wisconsin Cauliflower Soup

                    This is my guest post from Utah Sweet Savings for Sunday, April 5th.  

 Good Morning, Scrumptious Sunday Readers!  I am Sandra from Scrumptilicious 4 You!  I absolutely love making fun, show stopping recipes and sharing them with you step by step.  I hope you like this one as much as I do.

     Here in Utah we have a great restaurant called Zupas that has amazing soups.  A couple of weeks ago, I ordered their Wisconsin Cauliflower Soup and it was love at first bite!  After researching a few recipes I came up with this combination that very closely resembles Zupas and it is "Oh! so good."  

     Spring is in the air but there are still some chilly nights ahead and this is the perfect soup to serve! 

      Gather some really good ingredients 

                                                         
                              
                                             Boil them together:

                                                              And enjoy!

Let's look at the recipe:
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Copy Cat 

Wisconsin Cauliflower Soup

2 Tablespoons butter
1  medium onion chopped
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups 1/2 and 1/2 (lower fat milk may be substituted)
1 1/2 cups water
1 14.5 oz can chicken broth
1 head (2 1/2 lbs) cauliflower, cut into 2 inch pieces
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1 cup pepper jack cheese
1/4 cup cheese powder (or 6 oz  Velveeta cheese or 8 American cheese slices)


     Melt butter in a large saucepan.  Add onion and cook and stir until translucent.  Stir in flour and salt with a whisk until just combined.  Add 1/2 and 1/2 cream, chicken broth, and water and heat until boiling.  Boil one minute then add the cauliflower and heat to boiling again.  Cover and turn heat to medium low.  Simmer until cauliflower is easy to pierce when poked with a fork, about 15 minutes. 

     Use a measuring cup or ladle to put a couple of cups of the soup into a blender at a time.  The soup is very hot so take care not to get burned.  Don't be tempted to do bigger batches in the blender than this.  As you blend the hot mixture it will expand and hot steam will come out the top.  I take out the little center insert in the lid and hold it above the opening.  This lets the steam escape while blocking the hot liquid from splashing out.  Blend each batch until almost smooth (mine was never completely smooth but I liked that texture). 

      Pour each batch into a large bowl until all the mixture is creamed.  Pour the soup back into your pan and heat it up again.  Now stir in your mustard, cheeses and powder.  As soon as you add the last ingredient remove the pan from the heat and continue to stir until it is all is melted together. Serve!

     This makes about 10 cups of soup. 
Recipe adapted from The Coterie Blog 
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Mom's Homemade Chicken Soup mmm...

     Even though spring is close by we are still having cold weather and even snow the last couple of days.   It is still a very good time for some comforting homemade soup! I have many memories of my mom making this to take to sick neighbors and family.  Every time we get a cold you can bet a pan of this will show up at our house from mom!  This really does have magical healing qualities and is so delicious!  

     This is one of the few recipes that I usually just make--no recipe needed.  I know it so well that I can just add ingredients until it looks "right".  But if you are like me in almost every other instance I have to have a recipe with real amounts or something always seems a little bit off.   So I  measured as I cooked and wrote it all down for you! 

Mom's Chicken Soup

For a 6 quart pot (8-10 servings)

Place in a pot and bring to a boil:
5 lbs. bone in chicken (I use 5 legs and 5 thighs, the dark meat has more flavor but any pieces will be fine).
2 small or 1 med. onion chopped into 1" pieces.
2 tsps. salt
Water to cover chicken 

Boil slowly for 45 min. to 1 hour.  Remove chicken to a plate to cool.  
Meanwhile, peel and slice
 3 cups carrots
 1celery rib. 

 Then peel and dice 
2 med. to large potatoes and add to boiling broth.

By this time meat should be cool enough to handle.  Remove and discard skin and bones. Pull meat apart and break into 1" - 2" pieces.  This made about 5 cups of meat.

Put meat back into pot of broth.  Let vegetables boil for about 10 minutes (the carrots add a beautiful color and flavor to this soup so don't skimp on them!) then add 1 to 2 cups large wide egg noodles and let boil for 10 minutes more.  (Mom makes her own noodles and they are fabulous but I have yet to learn the art so I buy mine!)  
Add more hot water to replace the amount that has boiled off and then a little more to make the soup the consistency (thick or thin) that you want it.  I added in all about 7 cups more water. 

Bring again to a boil.  Now you need to slowly add more salt to taste.  I added about 1 and 1/2 more tablespoons.  Add a teaspoon at a time and taste.  

To thicken soup:

In a small bowl or cup add:
1 cup cold water
1/2 cup flour (or cornstarch)
Mix with a wisk until blended.  

To avoid getting lumps in your soup, remove some of the hot juice (1/4 cup) and mix with the water and flour mixture.  Mix and then add another 1/4 cup of hot liquid. Mix and then pour all of this into the soup and stir until combined.

.  Boil for 1 minute.

The soup is finished now but you can also add dumplings if you would like.  This is my recipe that I have used for years from the Betty Crocker Cookbook.  This is sooooo much better than the box mix kind and really quite fast to make.  Pleeeease use it ok?  (I feel so much better now).

Dumplings:  

3 Tblspns. shortening  

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour 

3/4 teas. salt

3/4 cup milk

 

Cut shortening into flour, baking powder, and salt until mixture resembles fine crumbs.  Stir in milk.  Drop dough by spoonfuls onto hot meat or vegetables in boiling stew (do not drop directly into liquid).  Cook uncovered 10 minutes Cover and cook 10 minutes longer.

Is that beautiful or what??

.

As my mom always says: "This'll cure what ails ya!"  (just kidding mom,  I'm in trouble now...)

This recipe also appears on Mandy's Recipe Box   ,The Recipe Critic
Not Just a Housewife, Chef in Training Link up parties! 

Creamy White Chicken Chili

 Sometimes you find recipes in the places you that seem the least likely.  I was minding my own business at a church craft day.  (Actually I was teaching a class on making Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a day, but that is a whole other story for another blog).   We love craft days and it just makes sense that when we have one we spend the whole day together making as many crafts as we can possibly make.  So lunch is provided by a few wonderful cooks.  On this day, soup was on the menu and when I tasted this one I knew it was true love!!! I had tried many recipes for this and none even compared.  I had to try for a few hours to track her down find the wonderful woman who made this and throw myself on her mercy ask nicely for the recipe. (When I taste a good recipe I really am relentless in finding it).  Everyone who even took a sip of this marvelous soup was hooked.  If you meet her (Missy) please tell her "Thank you very much!"

Ingredients:

2 lbs. chicken breast (cut in chunks)
1 large onion
1 1/2 tsp. garlic powder

4 (15oz.) cans great white northern beans, drained
2 (4 oz.) cans chopped chilis
2 (15 oz.) cans chicken broth
2 tsp. cumin
2 tsp. ground oregano
2 tsp. salt 

1 cup whip cream (Can use heavy, regular or even 1/2 & 1/2)
2 cups sour cream (Can use regular or reduced fat)

Put diced chicken and onions in a frying pan.  Sprinkle with garlic powder. Cook until chicken is done and juices are clear.

Pour chicken mixture into a 5 quart or larger slow cooker.

Mix next 6 ingredients into the mixture until combined.

Cook 4-6 hours starting out on high for 1 hour then turn to low.
Before serving stir in the whip cream and sour cream.  Serve with cilantro and chips if desired!  

You can thank me later!  
p.s. Comments are very welcome!
p.p.s. When people comment it makes my whole day happy! 
p.p.s.s. Thanks for your visit!

Soup! Soup! Soup!

Black Bean and Sweet Potato Chili

Fall is here and winter is not far away!!!

    

  Sorry if that isn't what you wanted to hear but there is good news!  We can now break out our great soup recipes!  There isn't anything quite as good as a hot bowl of delicious steaming soup when it is cold outside.  

     Here is a really flavorful and "good -for- you" recipe for Chili that has some ingredients that take it above the ordinary to a hearty soup that you will find yourself thinking about again and again!

   I found this recipe here.  I love the recipes Our Best Bites post and this one is does not fail to impress!   They are amazing!  So here is my version of how to prepare it and I hope to do it justice!  (I have only very slightly modified it!)  There is a lot of chopping and mincing here so I included some of the helps I used to make this a whole lot easier! 

.

    This is my Vidalia Chop Wizard.  It was a gift for my birthday and it saved me so much time!  You need to slice the veggies so they will lay mostly flat on the dicing screen but it only takes seconds to finish the job!  I used my NorPro Deluxe Vegetable Chopper to mince the Jalapeno.  I love it as well.

                                   Add to a large frying pan,
1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil, 
1 medium diced onion, 
4 cloves minced garlic, 
1 diced bell pepper
1-2 minced jalapenos, (I used 2 smallish jalapeno peppers and it was just perfect.  I don't like very much heat but just a little bite so use that as a guide.)   
Saute on medium high for about 5 minutes until tender.

Place all of this in the slow cooker.

     Next, add the remaining oil to the skillet and add:

1- 1/2 lbs ground beef.  (Best Bites uses ground turkey and tell me that ground chicken would work well too.)  

Add 8 oz. minced mushrooms.  (The Valalia Chop Wizard has a small dice plate too and it worked well with these.)  

Sprinkle in,

2 teaspoons cumin

2 teaspoons kosher salt (less if using regular salt, start with 1 tsp and add more to taste later), 

1/2 tsp. pepper

1 tsp. oregano

1 tsp. chili powder,  

1 1/2 tsp. smoked paprika (available at most grocery stores, I found mine at WinCo where you can buy a small amount inexpensively). 

 Mix and brown the meat mixture and then add all to the slow cooker.

 Add:

1 1/2 lbs diced sweet potatoes (These were too hard for the choppers to chop).

1 28 oz. can tomatoes, undrained

2 15 oz. cans drained and rinsed black beans

32 oz beef broth

1 15 oz can pumpkin puree, (not the pumpkin pie filling mix) 

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1 Tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder 

     Mix until well combined and then cook on high 4-6 hours or low 8-10 hours. Chili is done when the sweet potatoes are tender.  Makes about 16 cups. 

  Enjoy!