Scrumptious Soup

One of my favorite ways to save money (and keep warm) is to make soups for dinner. Garret and I love to make a big pot of soup, and are slowly but surely expanding our repertoire. Leek and Potato soup is a big hit around here. As well as chili and chicken noodle soup, such classics. My mom had sen us a Harry and David soup mix for last year's Christmas (it sat in the cupboard for over a year) that was so yummy, and we found out that we can order 3 mixes for 20 dollars. For a lot of families that may not sound frugal, but we added extra potatoes and next time plan on basically adding more of everything ourselves to make it nice and thick and plentiful. For us 2 it made for 6-8 bowls of soup.

Our current favorite is an amazing soup for colder weather. It's hearty, and it makes quite a large amount. It's Sausage and Bean Winter Soup from the cookbook The French Kitchen. You can get a copy of this cookbook in America that will ue cup measurements. Ours is Bristish and uses weight measurements, which I have to say I prefer. And Garret loves using our digital scale to measure out ingredients!

Yummy carrots diced up nice and neat (usually I just chop the hell out of them, but last night we tried the bigger chunks and they were better for the long cooking time).

Celery was next chopped nice and even.

Don't forget lots of onions and garlic!

I chop everything up beforehand, then mix it all up and sit in the refrigerator so the tastes mix well. Preparing ahead of time also makes everything go easier later.

Frying up the cubed thick cut bacon. Smells amazing.

Then you add the veggies and chicken stock and spices, along with floating the sausages. We use leek and pork sausages (the recipe calls for toulouse, but they are not as easy to find as you would think, and we found these taste amazing in the soup).

Once all the veggies and whatnot have cooked a bit, you add the beans that were presoaked and boiled.

Chop up the sasauge.......I usually end up sneaking a bite or two.

And the end result.....yummy goodness that will with only 1 batch feed us for about 8 meals. We add more veggies than the recipe calls for, and therefore more stock, but the first time we made it we made a double batch, and agreed it turned out well but needs more stock if you are going to be reheating it the next day (otherwise it becomes more like a stew since everything soaks up the liquid overnight). As I mentioned, the recipe is by weight, but if anyone wants it, I would be more than happy to work out the recipe in cups. Just leave a comment and I will send it your way!