Recipe: Poor Girl’s Ultimate Cold Weather Soup

I have a confession to make. I am, Kimberly A. Morales, a.k.a Poor Girl, cannot stop making soup.

Granted, this isn’t the worst thing that a gal can do, especially when she’s half-Colombian (Colombians eat soup almost every day) and when the recent weather has been so frightfully cold. It’s only natural to want something warm and soothing to enjoy during 25-degree weather, right? And I have to give myself props for successfully getting over last year’s insane cheese addiction (Remember that? What was WRONG with me?) and replacing it with something a little less sinful. Still, I’m starting to feel guilty about posting new soup recipes almost every other post and wanted to let you know that I do still remember what salads, entrees, and desserts are! They’ll just have to share the spotlight with a few more soups & stews that have been brewin’ in my mind and on my stove.

My latest concoction involves a little bit of everything, like any good soup is apt to do. Sopa de retazos, as my mom & aunts would call it; “remnant soup.” Though my final recipe title isn’t as poetic as some of my others, it’s still more euphonious than that! Anyway, I had some turkey sausage I needed to use before freezer burn would set in and since I hardly ever cook with sausage, I thought it would be a nice start for a good, hearty soup. Because it’s been so friggin’ cold lately, I wanted to make sure I could have something tasty and filling that would warm me up from the inside out so I made sure to add plenty of veggies to the pot, tying everything together with a hot, savory broth.

Like most soups, it’s not rocket science or fancy ingredients that make this so wonderful; it’s the final combination of flavors that makes all the difference. As you’ll read soon enough, the ingredients are nothing spectacular or über expensive (because this is, of course, my blog); in fact, there’s a fair amount of canned goods and leftover veggies involved. However, the blend of herbs played up by the slight spiciness of the sausage, combined with the crunchiness of the carrots & celery and the smoothness of the potato and dark red beans all come together like a perfect symphony in a pot. I was actually chatting with a new foodie friend about this last night and ended up waxing poetic (and probably boring him) about soup for a good 5 minutes straight: how it starts from insignificant bits of this and that, how everything simmers together in beautiful harmony, how it eventually becomes this completely different work of art…..

Okay, so it’s probably not like that for everyone and you’ll have to forgive me for being loopier than usual as they still have me on a Phenergan regimen for this stupid cough. But I can tell you that this soup accomplishes 4 things: it fills you up, warms you up, tastes incredible, and costs under $2/serving. Now THAT is poetry. 😉