Tag Archives: soup

Healthy black bean soup

Posted in Food & Diet, Recipes by

By Emily McLaughlin

A couple weeks ago I made this delicious black bean soup inspired by The Teenage Taste. Despite seeing the official start of Spring marked in my calendar… I’m not feeling too Spring-y. Temps are still rather low and we have seen some snow this week… well, A LOT of snow this week. C’mon, Mother Nature! I want to run outside more!

Enjoy a warm bowl of this filling soup for lunch, dinner or even as a snack between meals. There aren’t a lot of ingredients here, but I promise the soup packs plenty of flavor!SONY DSC

Ingredients (Serves 2)

  • Olive oil
  • 1/2  cup chopped onion
  • 1 carrot, shredded or chopped finely
  • 1 large garlic clove, minced
  • 1 teaspoon chili powder
  • ½ teaspoon cumin
  • 1 can vegetable stock
  • 1 (15 ounce) can of black beans, rinsed and drained
  • ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
  • pinch of cayenne pepper
  • sour cream and cilantro, for garnish

Directions

  1. In a large saucepan, heat about 1/t tbsp olive oil over medium heat. Cook the onion, carrot and garlic for about   5 minutes or until the onion and carrot soften. Add chili powder and cumin. Cook, stirring for another minute.
  2. Add vegetable stock and 1/2 can of beans and bring to a boil. While the soup is reaching a boil, run the other half of the black beans through a blender or food processor with 1 tsp of olive oil; add this bean purée to your soup.
  3.  Reduce heat and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Garnish soup with a dollop of plain Greek yogurt, cilantro, green onions or anything else you might enjoy.

I served my soup with some veggie and flaxseed chips from Trader Joe’s. Yum!

About these ads

Mastering The DC: THE SOUPS

Posted in Mastering The DC by

By Lauren Duffy

When we think of the UMass Dining Commons, we commonly think of the pizza station, the main line, the salads, the pastas, etc. But each dining common has a little station that most of us seem to forget about: the soup station. All four of the Dining Commons have one, and they offer several different kinds of soups every week. Berkshire’s soup station is located at the end of the salad bar (towards the TV), Hampshire’s is at either end of it’s salad bar, Franklin’s is near the Deli, and Worcester’s is between the bread and the salad bar. If you’re fighting a cold or it’s just a chilly Amherst day, the soup station is sometimes the perfect place to pay a visit. But, as usual, sticking to healthy choices can sometimes be a challenge.

There are two different kinds of soups offered each day, and the soups always change daily. I’ve seen so many different kinds of soups offered: Italian Wedding, Clam Chowder, Chicken Noodle, Minestrone, Broccoli Cheddar; you name it, they’ve offered it. To be honest, it’s sometimes alarming to see how many calories and how much fat can be in some of these soups (according to the Nutrition cards). But on a brighter note, it’s actually relatively easy to determine which soup will stay true to your diet. Let me break it down:

  • The Chowders, etc.
    • I have personal rule that I try to follow when it comes to choosing certain foods; it applies to sauces, salad dressings, and soups of all kinds. The general rule is: If you can’t see through it, it’s probably not a good choice. What I mean is, you simply need to avoid anything that looks creamy. You’ll notice that DC soups such as Corn Chowder, Clam Chowder, Cheddar Broccoli, etc., are very creamy and therefore they are high in fat content. The cream adds extra fat and calories that can really add up, so you’re better off just avoiding the creamy options all together.
  • The Clear Broths:
    • Soups with a clearer broth are almost always a good option to choose at the soup stations. The soups that the DCs offer with clear broths are Minestrone, (homemade) Chicken Noodle, Italian Wedding, Tomato Tortellini, and a few others. Of course I don’t mean that these broths are completely clear, but they’re not thick and creamy like the aforementioned ones. They’re a lot healthier because they’re lighter, packed with veggies, and low in fat. What I like about these soups is that when you’re ladling them into your bowl, you can essentially choose what you want in your soup. For example, you can go heavy on the veggies and broth, and light on the noodles to cut out some excess carbs.
  • Campbell’s:
    • I am not sure whether or not the previously mentioned soups are homemade by the DCs, but I do know that sometimes they serve Campbell’s brand soups. I know this because they will tell you if it’s a Campbell’s soup right on those small Nutrition cards that they put next to the soups at the stations. Let me put this simply: if you see a soup that says it’s Campbell’s, walk away. Campbell’s is famous for it’s red label and it’s “mmm mmm good” slogan, but it’s also very famous for the amount of sodium found in the soups. The DC’s offer Campbell’s condensed Tomato and Chicken Noodle soups, and they always seem to be popular choices by students. But keep in mind that even though these soups may remind us of our childhoods, they can also make us bloat from their extremely unhealthy and excessive amounts of sodium. So.. beware of Campbell’s!
  • Crackers:
    • Next to each soup station there are always little packages of Oyster crackers or Saltine cracker packets. Even though adding these to your soup may add some extra carbs, just go for it– one pack of these won’t undo your day. Sometimes adding a little crunch to your soup is the best part! :)

As much as there are plenty of bad choices offered at the soup sections of the UMass DC’s, there are also plenty of opportunities to choose a healthy soup that will follow your diet. You just have to know how to choose the right one! Be experimental with the soups and try something new! Bon Appétit!

Try our soups:

Spicy Harvest Pumpkin Soup

Chicken Sausage, White Bean and Kale Soup

Spicy Harvest Pumpkin Soup

Posted in Food & Diet, Recipes by

By Hannah Palfrey

So it’s fall again and you know what that means: pumpkin-flavored everything will be popping up in your everyday life. Pumpkin pie, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin flavored beer, pumpkin flavored coffee, pumpkin flavored pumpkin… oh wait. Anyway, if you’re like me you may have decided to jump on the pumpkin bandwagon. I decided I would try making not a dessert or drink, but something savory… soup.

I based my recipe one I found on through foodgawker, altering a few ingredients so that the soup appealed to my taste buds. If you’re an avid cook, you may have a number of the ingredients already since they are pantry staples. If you do have to go out and buy the ingredients, the soup should cost you no more than $15. This recipe yields about 4-6 servings (with 140 calories per 1 cup of soup).A few years ago, I was eating dinner at a friend’s house and his father served us homemade pumpkin soup. I was hesitant at first, thinking it would taste something like liquid pumpkin pie, but to my surprise it was savory, filling, and a bit spicy (so if you’re not crazy about sweet pumpkin-flavored things, this might actually be for you). I remembered how much I liked this soup, so decided to take on the challenge and make my own. Pumpkin soup a nice change from your everyday chicken noodle or minestrone. The health bonus? Pumpkin is full of fiber, anti-oxidants, vitamins – not to mention low in calories (Bonus points go to the person who can guess how many times I say “pumpkin” in this article).

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 medium onion, minced (more onions = thicker soup, less = thinner soup)

2 medium garlic cloves, minced (about 2 tsp)

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon curry

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

¼ teaspoon thyme

¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional, depending on how much spice you like)

3 cups low-sodium chicken broth (or vegetable stock to make it vegetarian)

1 (15-oz) can pure pumpkin purée

1 ½  cups water

¼ – ½  cup half-and-half (also optional, though I did like the consistency it gave my soup)

Salt and ground black pepper to taste

The thing I like best about making soup is that you can taste it as you go along and make sure it is to your liking. If you’re unsure about how much spice you like, it’s always better to start out with less and add more as you go along. The amounts above are just base guidelines; I added  more spices as I went along. I definitely recommend test-tasting it every few minutes if you’re picky about quality like I am.

Directions:

  1. In a large, non-stick cooking pot, melt butter and add onions. Cook until translucent, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic, cumin, ginger, thyme, and red pepper flakes. Cook for about one minute.
  2. Stir in chicken broth, pumpkin purée, and water and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
  3. Remove the soup from heat and allow to cool slightly. Once it’s cooled down, pour contents into a blender or food processor (*be careful – all of the soup may not fit into one container if you have a small appliance; do it in two steps in you need to). Blend until smooth. Though waiting for it to cool down may be annoying, it’s a good idea – I was impatient and accidentally exploded burning hot soup onto my hands from our faulty blender.
  4. Return the blended soup to the pot and continue to cook on medium heat. Stir in cream, if desired. Cook until soup has warmed back up; serve with salt and pepper to taste.

The blog I found this recipe on suggests serving it with bleu cheese or pumpkin seeds. I served mine with cornbread, which I thought complimented the flavors nicely. Since the recipe made extra, I refrigerated some and froze the rest. I warmed up some leftover soup today and it tasted just as good as when it was fresh. I expect that I’ll continue making this soup until pumpkin season is over.

Enjoy!

*Images by Hannah Palfrey

Chicken Sausage, White Bean and Kale Soup

Posted in Food & Diet, Recipes by

View this article on Her Campus!

By Emily McLaughlin

Fall is well under way (aside from the minor heat wave this weekend), which means that it is time for hot chocolate, warm soups and pumpkin flavored coffee. Recipes are sprouting up all over the internet for Fall-inspired meals, so I took the liberty of concocting my own; how about some chicken sausage and kale soup?

When you are making a big batch of soup, use your imagination–you really can’t go wrong. Take this endeavor as an opportunity to use up all the veggies you have been meaning to eat. I had a few links of chicken sausage and a strange array of vegetables that needed to be cooked, so I essentially just put them all in a pot and stirred. Measurements and quantities don’t really matter too much when it comes to soup, so don’t stress about the numbers. Here is a very basic recipe, the flavors your choose to add will help make the soup your own.

Ingredients:

  • Chicken sausage – Obviously you can substitute chicken sausage for  beef, turkey or vegetarian sausage. Also, the flavor sausage is completely up to you. I had some spicy-Italian sausages to use up, so my soup ended up having a  little kick.
  • Beans - Today I used mostly white beans, then threw in the small amount of kidney beans I had been meaning to finish.
  • Rice  - Rice, orzo pasta or quinoa are a great additions to your soup. Try to buy brown rice and use whole wheat orzo pasta if you can find it. This will make your soup more filling and a whole lot heartier.
  • Onion – Use 1/4 to 1/2 of a white onion, diced. Onions bring out the flavors of everything else in your soup.
  • Potatoes – For my soup I used yams since I had half of one lying around–you could use any kind of potato.
  • Kale – I am obsessed with kale not only because it’s delicious, but because it is healthy and inexpensive.
  • Misc. vegetables – I had some mushrooms and a little bit of spinach to use up, so those went into my soup as well. The more vegetables the merrier!
  • Broth – 1-2 cups of chicken, beef or vegetable broth depending on your desired consistency.
  • Canned, diced tomatoes (with no salt added) - Use one whole can, juices and all. If you are making a spicier  or a garlic-infused soup, you can find pre-seasoned, low-sodium canned tomatoes.
  • Spices - What kind of flavors are you craving? Spiciness? Grab some chili powder and cumin.  An Italian blend? Try minced garlic, some basil and maybe some oregano.

Preparations:

You will need a medium skillet and large cooking pot for this soup project.

If you are using dry beans or rice, prepare them a whole day in advance or get them started a hour  before you start making your soup (there are usually cooking instructions on the packaging). If you are using canned beans, take some time to drain and rinse them.

Peel and dice your vegetables and chop your sausage into bite-size pieces.

Cooking Instructions:

  1. In large skillet, heat a tablespoon (maybe a little more) of olive oil over medium heat; add the sausage and cook until browned.
  2. Remove the sausage from the skillet and toss it into your large cooking pot, leaving any greases from the sausage in the skillet.
  3. If needed, add a little bit of olive oil to your skillet followed by your diced onions and potatoes. After a few minutes, add the kale, spices and the rest of your vegetables. Continuously stir the skillet to cook them evenly. Once all the vegetables are softened add them to the sausage.
  4. Put your large cooking pot on low heat and add your beans (strained and rinsed), tomatoes (whole can) broth. Give your concoction a little taste test and see if you need more spices. Finally, let your soup simmer and warm up to your desired temperature.

That’s it; you’re done. Pour yourself a bowl of soup and enjoy. Now (if you didn’t share), you probably have a lot of leftovers, right? Let your creation come down to room temperate and refrigerate and/or freeze it. And remember… Don’t stress about making soup… It’s only soup!