If you’re going to make soup, why limit yourself to just one kind? Arlene has three delicious recipes for you in this classic episode from 2004. There’s easy homemade tomato soup, creamy cauliflower soup, and a hearty chicken and cornmeal dumpling soup.
With all this soup, why not invite some friends over for a soup buffet? Better yet, why not package some up in a nice quart jar and take it to somebody who maybe doesn’t have the time or the ability to cook from themself anymore. That’s a great way to share God’s love with others.
Chicken and Dumpling Soup
Ingredients
Soup
- 3/4 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast or thigh meat, cut into strips
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 2 Tbsp flour
- 1/4 tsp dried marjoram, crushed
- 1 can chicken broth (15 oz)
- 1 medium onion, cut into wedges
- 1 cup fresh green beans, trimmed and cut into pieces
- 1 cup coarsely grated carrots OR carrot matchsticks
- salt and pepper, to taste
Dumplings
- 2/3 cup biscuit baking mix
- 1/3 cup yellow cornmeal
- 1/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
- 1 1/2 cups milk (you may not need all of it)
Instructions
- Season chicken with salt and pepper. In a large saucepan cook and stir chicken in hot oil 2 minutes or until browned. Sprinkle flour and marjoram over chicken. Stir until chicken is coated. Add broth, vegetables and water, and stir. Bring to boil; reduce heat Simmer, covered, 5 minutes.
- In a mixing bowl combine biscuit mix, cornmeal and cheese. Stir in milk just until mixture is moistened. Drop batter by spoonfuls onto hot liquid, making 8 dumplings. Return to boiling; reduce heat Simmer, covered, for 10 to 12 minutes until dumplings are cooked through (you may need to break one open to test it). Do not lift cover while simmering. Makes 4 servings. Enjoy!
Homemade Tomato Soup
This soup is better than any canned soup, and it comes together almost as quickly!
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup chopped carrots
- 1/4 cup chopped onions
- 1/4 cup chopped celery
- 1 Tbsp butter
- 1 large can whole tomatoes, do not drain (28 oz)
- 1 can chicken broth (15 oz)
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1/2 tsp dried Italian seasoning, crushed
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/8 tsp black pepper
- 1/2 to 1 cup water
- 3/4 cup Italian style croutons (for garnish)
- 1/4 cup finely shredded Parmesan cheese (for garnish)
Instructions
- In a 2-quart saucepan, cook carrots, onions and celery in hot butter for 5 to 8 minutes or until tender, stirring occasionally. Add canned tomatoes with their juice, chicken broth, sugar, seasoning, salt and pepper. Bring to boil. Reduce heat. Simmer, uncovered for 10 minutes. Remove from heat.
- Let cool 5 minutes. In a blender container or food processor bowl place one-third to one-half of tomato mixture. DO NOT OVERFILL, the hot soup can splash out of the blender. Carefully blend until smooth. Repeat until all the soup is blended.
- Once all the soup is blended, return it to the saucepan. If too thick, add enough water to reach desired consistency. Heat to serving temperature. Garnish with croutons and cheese. Enjoy!
Cream of Cauliflower Soup
If somebody says they don't like cauliflower, then they must have never tried this soup!
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup water
- 2 Tbsp butter
- 1/2 cup chopped carrots
- 1/4 cup chopped onions
- 2 cans condensed cream of chicken soup (11 oz, each)
- 2 cups milk
- 1 small can whole kernel corn (or about 1 cup frozen corn)
- 2 cups fresh or frozen cauliflower florets
- 1 cup shredded cheddar, provolone, or mozzarella cheese
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
Instructions
- Clean cauliflower and blanch for 3 minutes in boiling water. Drain. In a large pot, melt butter and saute onions and carrots until tender. Add water, soup and milk and bring to a boil.
- Add the corn and cauliflower florets and cook 10 minutes over medium low heat. Stir in cheese a little bit at a time to avoid lumps. Adjust seasons to taste. Serve piping hot in soup bowls. Enjoy!
Transcript
- Well, hello and welcome to “At Home” today. We’re so glad you could join us. It’s always great when you drop by. Home is just not the same when all the family isn’t together, you know? So that’s why we’re always happy when you come by. I was just reading some of the scripture. Let me tell you, early in the year, you know, any time of the year, it’s a great time to start reading God’s word. If it’s just for 15 minutes a day. If you’re sitting in traffic somewhere, you’re waiting at the dentist office, or whatever, have a little New Testament with you and just pick it up and start to read some of what God’s word has to say for you today. I was happened to be reading in Psalms 43. And this was a verse the Lord really made plain to me when I was like in my early twenties, going through a rough time in my life. You say, “Arlene, you had a rough time.” Yeah, you better believe it. We all do. But it’s what we do in those rough times that makes the difference in our lives. And this verse in Psalm 43:5 says, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God. For I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.” What a word of assurance. If you’re sitting there today and you feel very cast down. You feel like there’s no hope. What can I do? Where can I turn? Who can help me? I feel like there’s just walls all around me and there’s nobody to help me. Guess what? The Lord said he will help you. He will be there for you. He will be that ever present help in a time of trouble. And so I want you to think about that. And remember, when you don’t know which way to turn, the best way is just kinda look up. He will always be there for you. Well, today on the program, we’re making soups. Because the day that we’re doing this program it is bitter cold. Everybody in the studio’s freezing and we’re all going brr, like some bears in the Antarctica somewhere. And so we’re doing three different kinds of soup that are so easy to make, you’re gonna love it. We’ll be right back after the hint to start with cauliflower soup. Here’s today’s “At Home” hint. When cooking cauliflower, add one half teaspoon of sugar to the water and it will help to keep the cauliflower white. If you’ve got a helpful hint that you’d like to share with us, we wanna hear from you. Send your hint to “At Home” hints, Cornerstone TeleVision, Wall, PA 15148-1499. Welcome to “At Home,” if you’re just joining us, because today we’re making three kinds of soups. Cold, blistery, this is great. This is the stuff like my mother used to say would warm up your innards when it was a cold day. And the wintertime is a great time. Of course, soup’s good anytime, but these we thought you would enjoy doing ’cause they’re quick and easy. The first one, which is a cucumber soup. I just have some carrots, some celery, and some onion in there and a little bit of butter. And what we’ve done there is just kind of let it cook. The smell is incredible. When those carrots render the sweetness, oh boy. Now all we’re gonna do, we’re gonna add everything else to it because it’s not hard. We have about, let’s see, half a cup of water. That goes in. And then, we’re gonna add, this is equal to either one large can, or equal to two smaller cans of cream of chicken soup, okay? Just put that in there. Now this is gonna be a creamy soup. I’ll tell you, there’s so many versatile things that you can do with cream of chicken soups or whatever. Did I call it cucumber soup? I’m so sorry, cucumber. Okay, let’s try cauliflower maybe, that’d be better. Sorry about that. Well you know when it’s cold, your brain gets frozen. Sometimes you can’t remember if it’s summer, or winter, or whatever, you’re too cold. We were ready to crawl in the oven here a little bit ago. We were all so blue and cold, but anyway. Okay, now we’re gonna mix that around. That’s all going to incorporate. You wanna have your heat up a little bit so that it gets going pretty good. And let’s see what else we’re gonna add. We’re gonna add some milk. Because there’s just a little bit of water there. This would be two cups of milk, just like that. And we’re gonna add some corn, small can of whole kernel corn. Just put the juice in all that just adds flavor. All right? And then, this comes up to a boil. Now you could use frozen cauliflower or you could use the fresh. And we’ve chosen to use the fresh today. And if you do, you wanna blanch it just for a couple of minutes. And that would be three minutes in boiling water and bring it out and stop the cooking process. We don’t want this to fall apart. We want it to be just nice and tender. But this isn’t gonna cook as long in the soup. So you wanna cook it beforehand. ‘Cause if you cook it in the soup and it gets boiling, it’ll all break apart. We don’t want that. So this needs to come up to a boil. Which I’m gonna adjust this heat to make sure we got it on high. Once it comes to a boil, we’ll add these. And then we’ll turn it down, and let it simmer for just like 10 minutes. And then we’re gonna put it in the bowls and put a little bit of cheddar cheese on top. Easy, quick, something great for you get home late from work, and you’re thinking, what am I gonna make? This is a great soup for a quick supper, okay? That’s the first one. And I’m gonna keep an eye on this and start on the second one. When it boils, then we’ll add the cauliflower, okay? Now, the second one starts very similar. And I think that these vegetables are just a really good base for any kind of a soup. When you have celery, carrots, and onion, and a little bit of butter. And don’t put them in raw, put them in the butter and let that flavor come out. ‘Cause it kinda bursts the flavor out, so it doesn’t taste boiled all the time. All right, now let me get the fire going under this one. And the tomato soup, which I happen to really like it. This is just a, doesn’t make a whole lot, just makes enough for four people. And we’re gonna add, after this comes and cooks, about five to eight minutes and this will get done. Then we’re going to add a large can of the tomatoes. And these could be diced or they could be whole and you could squish them with your hand or whatever. And then, let’s do some chicken broth. Good old chicken broth. If you make your own, great. If you don’t, this is great. Okay. And a secret ingredient, two teaspoons of sugar, just to sweeten it up, just a little bit, not much. Let’s see. And we’re gonna put some Italian seasoning. You say, well, I don’t have that in my tomato soup. This is a little different. And again, it’s to taste. So I think we call for a half of a teaspoon. Now remember when you use the dried herbs, you want to crush them between your fingers because that awakes, awakens, see, Mike, you took it right outta my mouth. I was just gonna say that and Mike said it for me. It does awaken those herbs, all right? And some salt, do a little salt here. Remember there’s salt in the tomatoes, so you don’t wanna go overboard. And we’ll do some pepper, not too much of that. Let’s see what else do we have? Salt, pepper, and some water. Make sure we get this all in here because this looks like a lot of ingredients, but it really isn’t. And the rest is for garnish. Now, this is gonna come to a boil. And the neat thing about this, it will cook for about 10 minutes. We’ll remove it from the heat and I would suggest you let it cool, if you have the pleasure of having a little time. Then you’re gonna take half of this mixture and put in a blender and you’re gonna puree it. ‘Cause you want that real smooth tomato. You can do it all if you like it that way. But this will be, the texture will be a little bit of chunky and a little bit of smooth, if you do half and half. And this with grilled cheese, did everybody in this studio have grilled cheese and tomato soup when they were kids? Absolutely. And that’s what I think you would wanna do with this. Just let it cook down. Delicious. And then you’re gonna garnish with some croutons and Parmesan cheese, okay? We’re gonna take a break. I’m gonna stir up my cauliflower soup. Oh, look how nice it’s getting. Time to put that cauliflower in there. And we’ll be right back after the break. Stay with us. All right, we’ve got three soups we’re cooking for you today. The first one, which is our cream of cucumber, she set that in my mind, cream of cauliflower. Isn’t that delicious? Look at that. Nice and creamy and look how fast we made that. What? 10 minutes. And when it boils, it’s done. And then we’re gonna add some cheese to it. And our tomato, it’s getting ready here. It’s gonna come up to the boil, boil 10 minutes. We’ll put that in the blender and blend a little bit to get the chunks out. We want a smoother type soup there. And the third one is chicken and dumpling, we’re gonna make, okay? First of all, you’re gonna need a larger container for this. And one that has a good fitting lid. Because when we make the dumplings, you have to put the lid on and not peak for 10 minutes while they cook. So, we have a little bit of oil in there and we’re just gonna season, let me season this a little bit with some salt and pepper. You wanna season the meat before you cook it because that flavor then cooks into it. Sometimes people don’t do that. They wait until they get to the table. And if the people are on restricted diet you have to do that, that’s okay. But, turn this down so we don’t have chicken fingers without the breading. There we go. Now I’m just gonna put all of these, this is about three-quarters of a pound of chicken. And all we’re gonna do is make sure that that browns nice and evenly. You wanna, if you cut them all in uniform pieces, don’t have some larger pieces of chicken and some smaller because the big ones will take longer to cook. And what you’re doing here is trying to get this soup done quickly. So you don’t want to have big pieces and little pieces. You want all the same size. So you wanna keep that in mind. And it’s just, all we did was put some on the bottom. Some oil on the bottom of the pan and we got it nice and hot. And then we’re gonna turn that up a little bit. There we are. Because you wanna quick fry, like maybe two minutes or so. ‘Cause this is gonna cook in a broth. So, you know, it’s not like you’re gonna have raw chicken. We also wanna be very careful with our hands after we’ve touched chicken too. You know, recently in the Pittsburgh area, we’ve had a scare with hepatitis with some unfortunate things happening. So everybody’s like on an alert. I know we are on a terror alert, but you’re on an alert with your foods because there’s just too much of this stuff. I don’t think people are as cautious and clean about doing those things that they should be. So, you know, I think if we learned that, we’ve learned a good lesson. All right, this is just browning, browning nicely. Take a little look at our tomato soup still going on. and the cauliflower, yum. Now let me go over, while this is browning, let me go over the rest of the ingredients for this soup. Okay, we have fresh green beans, about a cup. We have some onions, some wedges of onion. Don’t cut them real fine and pulverize them, we want them bigger pieces here. We have some chicken stock, julienne carrots. In a chicken soup, you wanna see these vegetables. In the others, where you’re using the vegetables as a base for the flavor, they’re kind of cut very fine. And they’re like pulverized when they start to really incorporate with the soup ’cause they’ve been cooked, and cooked, and cooked. So that’s a difference here, okay? And then, we have some flour. We have some marjoram. If you’re not familiar with this, it’s a little bit different spice. It has a different flavor. I think you’ll like it. And then we’re gonna do our dumplings. And we have like a baking mix like Bisquick. We have some of that. Some yellow cornmeal. And we have some milk, some cheese. So I think we’re gonna be there shortly. Browning these off. Not a long drawn-out process, but you do have to make sure that they have all browned. Okay? I don’t know about you, but soup was a staple in our home. My dad loved soup. And if he didn’t know what else to have, he’d say, “Let’s have soup.” And he didn’t care if you opened a can of soup. Of course, he’d rather have the homemade. But if you didn’t have the time, or if mom was at a loss, maybe there was a church function going on. And she had spent the day with some church people and didn’t have time to cook or whatever. We didn’t go out to eat a whole lot. But mom kept stuff in the house that could be made into a meal very quickly, so that she could put something on the table very fast. And it’s funny how she could do that ’cause that’s a gifting. If I could have all the stuff in the cupboard that you could think of, and if I didn’t get a, like an idea, I’d be saying, “What am I gonna fix?” “Paul, what could we fix?” And then he would say, “Well how about this?” And I’d think, ah, that doesn’t sound good. But Mom, she’d just make it. All you have to do is give her an idea and she’d make it. So, I think we’re there. These are all pretty much cooked. Again, you don’t have to cook them for a long time ’cause they’re gonna be continuing to cook and that’s good. We just wanna make sure they get surface heat. All right, now they’ve browned. Now I’m gonna sprinkle the flour over top of this. In a sense we’re making kind of a roux, R-O-U-X. You know, I tell you about that all the time. And what that is is a thickening, a way to thicken it. And we’re gonna put just a little bit of marjoram in there. And again, that’s a different flavor, okay? Now, I’m gonna stir this around. ‘Cause what this is doing, the flour is absorbing the fat in the bottom of the skillet, which was olive oil, all right? And when that happens then, you want that to brown a little bit. Because that’s gonna make a nice thickening or nice gravy for your soup to cook your wonderful dumplings in. All right. Now, I’m gonna add my broth. This is one can, 14 ounce can of broth. And the vegetables, which are the carrots, some onions. And this is like a medium onion cut in wedges. Again, I said, you don’t want it to be so small. You know, if you don’t like onion, don’t put as much in. We’ll put the green beans in. There we go. And now I’m gonna stir this. And we’re gonna put some water ’cause we need more broth. There we go. Let’s see, we stir in all of those. Now we’re gonna bring this to a boil and we’re gonna reduce the heat, and we’re gonna let it simmer. While we’re waiting for this to come to boil, I’m gonna make the dumplings for you so you see how to do that, all right? First of all, get a little spoon here. Get the right one because you gotta have the right tools, okay? First of all, you take the Bisquick mix, like I told you. You put that into the bowl and then the yellow cornmeal. You know, it’s funny, we have a new supplier of our groceries and it’s Jordan Produce Company. And they have the full line of restaurant equipment. And I said, “Can I get some yellow cornmeal?” And she said, “Oh yeah.” She said, “We have it in a large size capacity.” I said, “Well, how big a bag?” She said, “50 pound bag of yellow cornmeal.” I said, “I think that’s too big.” I said, “I don’t think we can use all that.” But it was funny because apparently there’s a lot of places out there that use yellow cornmeal to that extent, not us. Okay, fourth of a cup of shredded cheese, cheddar, whatever kind you like, Monterey Jack would be fine. Whatever you wanna do. And some salt and pepper, a little bit of salt and some pepper. Okay. And then we’re going to add our milk. This is a half cup of milk. And you wanna mix this around before you put the moisture to it. Because once you add the milk, you’re not gonna like, you know, blend, and blend, and blend, until it’s a smooth batter. It needs to be kind of on the chunky, dry side. So we’re gonna add our half a cup of milk. And then we’re just gonna stir, just like that. Just until it’s moistened together. Just until it all comes together kind of like a batter, but not really, it can’t be smooth, okay? I don’t think we’re there. Now this is only gonna make about eight dumplings. And let me walk you through this because it’s important for you to know. You wanna make sure that all that’s mixed in there well, but not overdone. When this comes up to the boil, and this boils 10 minutes, then you’re going to take these and you’re gonna spoon them. Well, divide this in eight, if you can visualize that. You’ll take it like this and just on top of that broth. When you get the eight on top, then you’ll put the lid on and you’ll cook it for another 10 to 12 minutes. Because that dumpling has to cook through. Do not open the cover. Take the cover off, look in there while they’re cooking or else they’re not gonna cook well, okay? And they will fall for you. They’ll be flat. They won’t be good. So we’re gonna take a break. Tell you how you can get all of today’s recipes. In fact, the whole month’s worth. And then we’re coming back to show you the final shot. Stay with us. We’ll be right back. Well, I hope that you were able to be with us while we prepare these wonderful soups today. Soups that warm your innards, you know, gives you a nice, warm feeling. First of all, we did our cream of cauliflower. Look at this soup, just with corn in there. I tell you, this is a winner. Your family will really, really like that one. We used to add a little bit of sourdough bread with it. You don’t have to, can add crackers, whatever. Next to it, haha. Let me please, allow me to serve you. Look at this dumpling, oh my. Okay, everybody pull their tongues back into their mouth. It’s not nice to stand around drooling. And the soup is down under there. It’s kind of, the way this cooks it gets thick because of the thickening agent because of the dumplings. So it’s almost like a chicken stew. But oh my, is it good, delicious flavor. You’re gonna wanna try that one. And next to it, this is our tomato. And we put it into the blender and we pureed it so it’d be nice and smooth. I think this one you’re gonna like, because look at the consistency here. See how creamy that is? And, of course, you had to have the grilled cheese right next to it. You can’t have tomato soup without that. Just add a little bit of Parmesan cheese on top, a few croutons. There is soups fit for anybody that has a hunger and is like a little bit cold. And, you know, when somebody’s not feeling well, which everybody’s worried about the flu season anyway, why not make a pot of soup? And why not make enough that you can take a little bowl to the neighbor? And, you know, in times like this when it’s cold and we have elderly people around us, think double and take a jar to the neighbor. They’ll really appreciate it. Like we appreciate you. And I hope you’ll think about not being cast down. The Lord is there for you. He will never leave you or forsake you. So until it’s time to join us the next time, we’ll see you on here “At Home.” Lord bless you, bye-bye.
- [Announcer] Furnishings provided by Levin Furniture, featuring Lane’s Country Living Collection. Food provided by Jordan Banana Company, wholesalers of fresh fruit and vegetables, in Dravosburg, Pennsylvania.
- [Commentator] Cornerstone TeleVision wishes to thank all our faithful viewers whose consistent prayers and financial support have made this program possible.
I have been watching Arlene since she started and love how she talked about the Lord. I know we will meet in heaven ✨️ ❤️.