Hello, Ladies. Ironically, the last post was posted by Shelley the night before Danny's wreck. There hasn't been much action since then...I wonder why. It's all Danny's fault.

Anyway, I loved the topic of soup, and since I was going out to see Danny I printed a bunch of yummy soup recipes, hoping he would eat them and quit wasting away. And, he really enjoyed most of them. One of them was a beer cheese soup recipe, that I can't seem to find the recipe for. So, Sarah, if thee still has the recipe there, will thee post the link to it? I believe I found it on allrecipes.com

Another soup I made was a cream of crab soup, that I substituted fresh shrimp for instead, and after it was done, I pureed it. It was delicious! I will definitely be making that again this winter. It had a hint of spiciness from the Old Bay Seafood Spices that you add, I did not add the sherry, celery seed, or dry mustard, and I still turned out great! I think it was better pureed, because then the shrimp/seafood flavor was well distributed, rather than pieces of shrimp in the creamy soup. I think this soup would also be great as a sauce for noodles (aka fettucine alfredo with shrimp)--yes it's that thick and creamy. Here's the link to the soup, remember, I really made a cream of shrimp. http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Karyns-Cream-of-Crab-Soup/Detail.aspx
If this link doesn't work, you can go to allrecipes.com and search for cream of crab soup, and it's Karyn's Cream of Crab soup.

I also made a potato and ham soup that was good. But the other yummy soup I made was this one from The Pioneer Woman's blog. Here is the link to the recipe: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/lizs-black-bean-chowder.pdf
If this doesn't work you can go to her blog: thepioneerwoman.com and click on cooking then DAIRY, then find her black bean chowder. It was really delicious chunky or blended. On this one, I also made some modifications. First, I used canned black beans. Second, i chopped up fresh ham and added it instead of using a ham hock. Third, for the yogurt sauce, I didn't have any cilantro on hand, so I added a tiny bit of fresh basil, but it was delicious anyway. I didn't ever actually eat the yogurt sauce on top of the soup, so I can't comment on that taste combo, although I'm sure it would be really good! The curry really added a pleasant flavor, several people commented on that.

With soup, I usually serve it with some form of bread or rolls and a salad or vegetable and that's it. Soup is the main course when I make it. I would love to hear your soup ideas as well. I also made a delicious pumpkin soup last year that I would be happy to find the recipe for and post if anyone is interested. What kind of soups are your favorites--vegetable, broth-based, cream-based, chicken, with beans, thick, thin??

Hope all you ladies are doing well! Much love to you all! P.S. YAY for Shelley who is getting her walking boot off this week! I know that was a long hard 6 or so weeks for you; I'm glad it's over!