Your Favorite Soups and Stews

[SawyerTed]

It
<br In our area a chicken stew is both a stew and a social event/party.  Of course this year has curtailed the social side of things.  

Years ago tobacco farmers in our region of NC would celebrate the end of the crop with the hands that helped during the season.  They did so by stewing a chicken or chickens on a big cast iron wash pot over the coals from the curing flues of one of the last barns of tobacco.

The stew and the fall social events have remained while flue curing tobacco is a thing of years gone by.

We still use a cast iron wash pot and cook our stew over a propane burner.  

The recipe is simple

Stewed chicken is shedded and added back to the broth.  Milk and a thickening rue is added and stirred.

So the finished product is a milk based chicken stew.  Typically it's served outside, with saltine crackers and the hot sauce or pepper of your choice.




 
Here is our pot of stew started on Saturday night.  We stew our chicken with celery and onions and remove them before adding shredded chicken back to the broth. 

The top photo is the final product boxed up and ready for the freezer. We freeze three of four gallons every year.  It's a quick meal on a cold day. 

[69bronco]

That pot is a dandy! We had rib roast for thanksgiving, cooked the rib bones all day yesterday. Added a gallon or so of veggies from this years garden and some barley. Love soup this time of year.

[WV Sawmiller]

   My favorite is my Super Soup. I like to make it when my daughter is coming up as she loves it. Problem is I need to make it about 5 gallons at a time to get everything in and that makes my wife mad. Recipe is:

In a huge stock pot start with 2 lbs of hamburger browned with a big diced up onion
Add 2 quarts of tomato sauce then add 2 quarts diced or crushed tomatoes and bring to a boil then add
5-6 large taters diced 
5-6 big carrots peeled and cut into 1/4" rounds
A can or kidney beans
A can of black beans
A can of sliced water chestnuts
A pint can of sliced mushrooms
4-5 bags of frozen mixed veggies - assorted including oriental is fine
A can of Ro-Tel tomatoes a peppers if you feel led at the time
I used to save the green stems off cauliflower and the stems off broccoli diced and add that 

   Season to taste with salt, Black Pepper, Hot Sauce, Worcestershire and soy sauce

   When the potatoes and carrots are soft the soup is ready to eat. I prefer Ritz crackers with mine.

   Reheat for a day or two and be sure to freeze plenty for future use.

[SawyerTed]

The big pot is an antique and holds about 8 gallons.  The old wash pots in good condition are expensive and hard to find. There are new ones available.  I've cut the top out of a 55 gallon barrel and the pot sits in the hole.  Underneath is a propane burner.  The barrel has a door that allows for lighting the burner and for the propane hose.

We make low country boil, Brunswick stew and chicken stew in the pot.  Maintaining the seasoning on the pot is crucial to keeping it from rusting. It gets a coat of crisco 

[K-Guy]

A favorite of mine since childhood,  corn soup like mom made.


 

[Tacotodd]

Chicken N Dumplins'. MMMMMM....😄

Just like Momma used ta make!

Although,   those kind of dumplings DO take a while to make. I've never seen ANYBODY (including Mom, bless he's departed sole) that could, or would, make them like that. The wife came close, but NOT the same.

[sawguy21]

That corn soup is making my mouth water, just add a slice of fresh homemade bread. 8) Until I got married fairly late in life (that's another story altogether) I didn't know soups and stews were so easy to make.

[K-Guy]

My mom's cooking being so good is why I learned to cook, that way when I left home I could eat well. I've never been one of those eat fast food for lunch every day.

[Raider Bill]

I love soup!
Of course I made a big pot of turkey soup Sunday.
What we don't eat by tomorrow will get put in vacuum bags and froze for later.
I generally have 4-5 different soups frozen for whenever.
I can't remember the last time I ate fast food.
Stopped in a McDonald's about 10 years ago for a coffee.

[51cub]

I make a mean chicken and dumplings, and my chili is pretty good even if it is different every time. I'm still working on stew and dumplings

[Jeff]

I made a pot of soup today with left over turkey I had vacuum packed saturday.



 

 

[WDH]

I am a soup guy too.  I like many different ones.  Split pea with ham is one of my favorites.  One memorable bowl of split pea with ham soup came when I went to a little diner on the west side of Grand Prairie Alberta.  I was there looking at winter logging systems.  Needless to say there was a bunch of funny looking, deep, white stuff on the ground everywhere foreign to this Southern boy, and to say that it was cold was an understatement.  Sitting down in that warm diner with that big bowl of split pea with ham soup was so nice!

One of the haul roads:



 

Some Northwestern Canadian sawlogs.  I believe that these were balsam fir.



 

Winter was the time to build inventory because of poor logging condition after things thawed.  Here is the Mill logyard with just a bit of inventory.  There is a sawmill and pulpmill on the same site.



 

Here is some of that funny white stuff in Dryden Ontario. 




 

Thank goodness for split pea with ham soup ;D. 

[WV Sawmiller]

My mom's cooking being so good is why I learned to cook, that way when I left home I could eat well. I've never been one of those eat fast food for lunch every day.

Mine was a terrible cook which was why I learned to cook. : My MIL was a great cook. I bet she never measured an ingredient in her life. A pinch of this, a dab of that and a jigger of something else.

[Tacotodd]

And here I thought that a jigger was for a mouth "disinfectant".  :

[sawguy21]

@WDH Alberta certainly does get chilly in winter, that must have been a shock to yer system. Soup is a basic food group for us northern folk.

[WDH]

First time I was below 0° F.  My whole Southern body was  .   

[Tacotodd]

@WDH , I'm with you on that. AR isn't that far away from GA as far as winter climate ya know!

[Magicman]

Without question "hambone/vegetable" soup is my favorite.


 
And with yellow cornbread. 


 
It just so happens that there was a hambone boiling today so PatD will be making soup tomorrow. 

[SawyerTed]

On Monday the Doctor and I spent the day in Colonial Williamsburg Virginia.  It snowed, sleeted and rained off and on all day.  

Doctor Emily makes a fine homemade tomato soup and grilled cheese!  Some say it's a kids meal, I say it's good food after being outside in the cold all day!



 

[mike_belben]

[Raider Bill]

On Monday the Doctor and I spent the day in Colonial Williamsburg Virginia.  It snowed, sleeted and rained off and on all day.  

Doctor Emily makes a fine homemade tomato soup and grilled cheese!  Some say it's a kids meal, I say it's good food after being outside in the cold all day!

There are people that have never had grilled cheese and tomato soup. I was told once it was disgusting.
Me I like them.
There's a restaurant around here that only sells grilled cheese and soup

[doc henderson]

smoked the turkey that was still frozen on thanksgiving day.  after the main meat was off, I decided to make broth and pulled the remaining meat off.  made construction stew, which had all the leftover meats from the fridge.  so turkey, marinated steak frozen in a baggie, and a pound of ground beef.  put the carcus in a pot and boiled.  made broth with the smoky flavor, and got a bowl full of meat that would have thrown out.  added a bag of "California mixed veggies" at the end of cooking in the crock pot.  very good, hearty,  meat and veggies.  my wife does not like it if the veggies are mush, so we add them 1 hour before we are ready to eat.



 

 

 

 

 



forgot to get a final pic as we were hungry

[sawguy21]

On Monday the Doctor and I spent the day in Colonial Williamsburg Virginia.  It snowed, sleeted and rained off and on all day.  

Doctor Emily makes a fine homemade tomato soup and grilled cheese!  Some say it's a kids meal, I say it's good food after being outside in the cold all day!

There are people that have never had grilled cheese and tomato soup. I was told once it was disgusting.
Me I like them.
There's a restaurant around here that only sells grilled cheese and soup

Disgusting? They have to be kidding! That is one of my favorite lunches.

[51cub]

I'm with sawguy and Raider. Grilled cheese and tomato soup is good eats!. Next time you get to Williamsburg stop at The Cheese Shop and College Delly, too. There's a little place kind of next to Hospitality House and across the street from College Delly. Not as good as those two but it'll do

[Raider Bill]

We had stuffed pepper soup Sunday. Didn't last long enough to get a picture.

I had a friend that would not eat soup. Didn't matter what kind or thickness he wouldn't eat it.
Didn't like mashed potatoes either.