Chili Tomato Chicken Soup (Chicken Explosion)

The secret to this recipe is the chili-style diced tomatoes. Many brands carry it: Hunts, Red Gold, Del Monte, and more. Being here in Texas though, we used the H-E-B store brand because we rarely go wrong with them. Don't be afraid of the title's chili flavor. I don't usually prefer chili flavors either, but it doesn't overwhelm the soup at all. For those of you who like chili powder, this recipe still will not disappoint. This is perhaps my favorite soup yet. 

Roger and I (once again) disagree over the title of this week's soup. He thinks it should be Chicken Explosion because it's more exciting than last week's Hamburger Soup. I think including the key ingredient in the title is more descriptive. As usual, feel free to comment with a more appropriate title.

Chili Tomato Chicken Soup (or Chicken Explosion Soup)

about 180 calories per serving
makes 14 1-cup servings
about $12-$15

2 lbs. boneless skinless chicken breast
2 cans (14.5 oz. each) chili-style diced tomatoes
64 oz. chicken broth
2 chicken bouillon cubes
1/2 cup chopped onions
2 cloves pressed garlic
2 cups frozen crinkle cut carrots
2 cups frozen petite peas
2 cups frozen corn
1 lb. russet potatoes
1 tbsp. olive oil
salt
pepper
basil

Cube chicken and season with salt, pepper and basil. Cook chicken in stock pot with olive oil, adding pressed garlic once chicken in nearly cooked.

Add diced tomatoes, 16 oz. of chicken broth, and onion; bring to boil. Reduce to simmer and add frozen vegetables and remaining chicken broth. Simmer for 30 minutes. Season to taste.

Add potatoes that have been cubed to approximately square inch pieces. Again, season to taste.

Hamburger Soup (for lack of a better name)

Roger wanted to go with a soup from his childhood this week. His mother used to make him this one, and she called it Hamburger Soup because it has ground beef in it. However, ground beef is the only thing it has in common with an actual hamburger. I don't like to the name hamburger because it makes it sound heavy when it's really rather light. I think the vegetable broth helps lighten it, so if you prefer a thicker soup, replace the vegetable broth with more beef broth.

This week's recipe is simple so when you're finished, leave an alternative name for the soup in the comments so we can find a better name.

Hamburger Soup
about 200 calories per serving
makes 14 1-cup servings
about $15

1.5 lbs. lean ground beef
64 oz. beef broth
32 oz. vegetable broth
16 oz. frozen carrots
16 oz. frozen corn
16 oz. frozen peas
1.5 lbs. potatoes
1 cup chopped onion
salt and pepper

Season and brown the ground beef in a large pot then drain the fat. Add beef broth, vegetable broth, chopped onions, carrots, corn and peas. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes.

Clean and cut unpeeled potatoes into uniform 1 inch cubes. Add cubed potatoes and simmer for 20 minutes or until potatoes are tender. Season to taste.

Progresso Italian Style Meatball Soup-alike

One of the reasons we started the blog in the first place was to cut down on our soup bill because we eat it so often. Naturally, you begin to crave the can of soup you would eat so often. One of the soups I used to eat most often was Progresso's Light Italian-Style Meatball soup. The nutrition facts for Progresso's version is below. Their version checks in at 180 calories per can. We ended up with more than that, but still well below our goal of 500 calories per serving. We ended up with a lot of meatballs in our version, so if you want to get closer to Progresso's "light", use half the amount of meat.

The recipe below was developed by Roger, and I have to say it came pretty darn close. It was really hard to get the meatballs as tiny as Progresso does, and if we could do it all over again, we might adjust the recipe so that we yielded a little more broth, but all in all, I would say it was a success. We forgot to put carrots in our version, so we've deleted them from the recipe. But add them in if it's a deal breaker!

Italian Style Meatball
less than 350 calories per serving
makes 12 1-cup servings
between $10 and $12

1 lb. ground beef
1 lb. ground pork
1.25 cups breadcrumbs
3 eggs
64 ounces (8 cups) beef broth
14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes
14.5 ounce can crushed tomatoes
2; 8 ounce cans (16 ounces) tomato sauce
1 cup onion
3/4 cup celery
1/2 lb. penne pasta (we prefer whole wheat, but Progresso uses regular)
salt, pepper and Italian seasoning

Combine beef broth, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, celery and onion into large stock pot; cover and simmer.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, then combine ground beef, ground pork, breadcrumbs and eggs in large bowl; season to taste. Lightly grease baking pan. Form mixture into half-inch meatblass and place in baking pan. Bake meatballs for 15 to 20 minutes.

Remove cover and bring soup to rapid boil. Add pasta with 5 minutes remaining on meatball bake time.

Let meatballs sit for 5 minutes, then add to soup. Remove soup from heat. Season to taste

Inaugural week: 15 Bean Soup

I eat soup almost every single day for lunch. My friends at work make fun of me eating the same meal everyday, but truthfully nothing is more comforting than a hot bowl of soup. Why I have to defend a healthy, low-calorie yet filling lunch is a mystery.  


 I'm creating this new blog for more than my love of soup. A combination of events inspired me. My husband decided a few weeks ago that we should go on a diet. No problem, I can still eat soup for lunch. I agreed since we could both stand to lose a little weight. Roger calls it "The Caveman Diet". We aren't doing anything drastic really. We just try to stick to natural foods. It includes meat and vegetables, though we eat some dairy, fruits and nuts too. We emphasize protein and try  to avoid carbohydrates and sugar when we can.  


After some weight loss an unwelcome side-effect accompanied this diet- our grocery bill. Besides being enthusiastic about our fitness of late, Roger also has a cheapskate streak in him. We are both starting grad school in the fall, so that's probably a good thing anyway... It turns out that buying fresh meat and fruits and vegetables is more expensive than buying processed food. Roger did some analyzing of our groceries to find that even at lucky sale prices we spend $1.50 a can and therefore more than $80 a month on soup.  


 And now we get to the point. Because of our more expensive diet and our conflicting need to save money, Roger thinks that we can create a soup for all of the lunches for the week that is three-quarters to half the cost of the cans but still only a few hundred calories per serving. Our goal is to make 10 to 14 servings of soup every Sunday that costs somewhere between $10 and $15 but for 500 calories or less per serving.


We chose our first soup because it is something that we know and love already: 15-Bean Soup. The recipe is from the back of the 15-Bean mix but adapted to cook in a crockpot, but feel free to follow the bag's instructions if that makes you more comfortable with a stove pot or don't own a crockpot.  


15-Bean Soup 
approximately 285 calories per serving  
makes 12 1-cup serving 
Between $7 to $9 total 


1 lb. bag of grocery-store mix  of 15 beans  
14 ounces of the sausage of your choice (We used a pork/beef combo.) 
14.5 ounce can of chili-style diced tomatoes   (substitute: regular diced tomatoes with a tsp.of chili powder)
1 cup of onion (chopped) 
4 cloves of garlic (pressed) 


 Soak the beans overnight. Drain and rinse the beans.  Combine all ingredients with 2 quarts of water in a large crockpot. Allow soup to simmer on high for 5 to 8 hours.