National Soup Swap Day

I missed it. January 23 was National Soup Swap Day. You are supposed to get together with your girlfriends, exchange packages of soup and recipes while munching and visiting. Too much fun. You get to go home with about 6 or more soups to go right in your freezer and share the recipes with your friends.
I don't have time to organize things like that (although I am dieing to). So, I will share two soup recipes with you here that we had this week and just love. I am trying really hard to bring some order to the chaos I call a life. As a result, I am trying to plan my meals out at least 2 weeks in advance if not a whole month. To simplify this task I have assigned some nights with certain dish types and Tuesday is soup night. This is working pretty well so far. It made the choice of "What's for Dinner?" so much easier.
Here are the recipes I have to share with you.
South of the Border Soup (found on Kiddley)
Ingredients
olive oil
1 onion chopped
1 clove of garlic chopped
1 stalk of celery chopped
1 can of crushed tomatoes
1 can of beans
1 can of chicken broth
1 small can of corn
Pinch of cayenne pepper (more if you like it hot)
Pinch of cumin
Pinch of dried oregano
Pinch of dried basil
Slices of avocado, grated cheese, sour cream, squeeze of lemon and tortilla chips (about one cut up per person) or you can just cut up corn tortillas like noodles and add them to the soup near the end.
Method
Fry the onion, garlic, celery and spices gently in the oil or butter until onion is soft. Add the tin of tomatoes and cook until bubbling. Add the can of beans and the can of corn. Cook until nice and bubbly and then blend with a hand blender. Add chicken stock and let it heat through.
Serve in big bowls with slices of avocado, cheese, cream and tortilla chips floating on top. You can add a squeeze of lemon juice at the end, but lime would been better.
You could add some bite sized bits of chicken for extra deliciousness but it really isn't missed. Bryan didn't miss the meat. By blending all the ingredients, no one could recognize things they don't like. Bryan hates corn in anything so I didn't tell him it was there. :o) I love hand blenders.

Soup #2
Better than Olive Garden's Sausage and Potato Soup
This in not lo-cal but it is very good. Bryan ordered this yesterday at OG and then said he wanted to fix it for dinner (Thursday is crock pot, casserole, or Bryan fix dinners). My mom has made this and greatly improved the Olive Garden original.
Ingredients
1 pound Italian Sausage
1 onion chipped
1 slice of bacon diced
3 cloves garlic minced
1 tsp. chicken bouillon ( I used more water, so I used more like 6 tsp)
4 cups water (I used a lot more like 2 1/2 qt)
2-3 potatoes, cubed
2 cups kale, rinsed and julienned
1/2 cup heavy cream or a can of Evap milk
1/2 large package Velveeta style cheese cubed

Cook up your sausage. If it is in links, slice them (mom does it that way) or just crumble up whole sausage and brown.
In a large pot, boil water, bouillon, potatoes, and sausage. Saute the onion with the bacon in a frying pan for a bout 10 minutes. Add the garlic and cook. Add this to your pot and bring back to a boil. Boil for about 20 minutes.
Add the cream (or milk) and bring back to a boil. Turn the heat off and add the cheese and stir until it is all melted and incorporated.
Serve with good crusty bread. This soup is very thin but silky because of the cheese.
We LOVE it!
Enjoy!