Hi everybody. I'm Kelsey Nixon and this is Kitchen Prescription, the podcast you listen to when you don't know what to make for dinner. Today is episode one hundred and two Soup Simplified. It's officially soup Season, and I for one am thrilled. Soup is so awesome because it's the ultimate one pot meal, providing veggies, protein, and many times of green all in one pot. It's perfect for meal prep if you like to cook grass peas in advance and eat them later in the week. It's cozy. So whether you yourself need a comforting meal or someone you love needs, you know, a nice, good comfort food dish, soup seems to always do the trick. Not only can soup feed a crowd, but it makes feeding a crowd very, very easy. So today's episode is not only going to be a love letter to soup, but we're also going to break down some of the basics to make the soup you make taste extra great, plus go through all of the essential tools I rely on to make soup a success in my house all fall and winter long. But before we do that, let's discuss a few recipes you can throw on your meal plan this week, it's going to be extra crazy for us as we have family and friends coming to stay with us back to back, so we'll have people in and out of our house all week on top of all of the regular things like sports and school and work commitments. Needless to say, I'm keeping it easy. The first recipe on my meal plan is a slow cooker recipe I rely on this time of year and I look forward to making it this time of year, and it is my turkey roast dip. And the reason I mentioned this time of year is because right now you start seeing turkey breasts in the grocery stores and they are such an awesome lean protein that kind of mixes up your regular habit of chicken. They're not always available, it's typically like eight September through the new year. And this is so simple, you guys. You take the turkey breast, you put it in the slow cooker, You make a little or butter with some time, some rosemary salt, pepper, you slather it on top, you let it do its thing. You add some broth, and it makes these delicious sandwiches that we add melty cheese on top of and like an ausu dipping sauce. It's so good. My family loves it, and I love that it's one of these recipes I can rely on during the busyness of the holiday, and yet it feels a little different. So Turkey roast dip definitely on our meal plan for the week. Number two is a five ingredient recipe that my family like. It's honestly the one recipe when I always have everything to make it and my family never complains. They all love it. So it's my spinach tomato tortellini. I use a dry rayos, a splash of heavy cream. I use some cheese or protein fieled tortellini. I use a handful of spinach and a little bit of balsam vinegar and some grated palm for good measure, a little bit of crusty bread. Dinner is done. Everyone is full, happy, loves it. So spinach tomato tortellini is happening on one of our busy nights. And then I am going to make when we're gonna be feeding all these friends and family that are coming. So I still wanted something simple that would be easy to kind of host, and I'm going to make my skillet chicken pot pie. I'm actually gonna make two of them. But it really is so simple because it comes together in a big skillet and you actually put the biscuits right on top and bake them in the oven, and it is it's like a cheater chicken pot pie, but it's so comforting. It's perfect for this time of year, super delicious. You can use store bought biscuits or you can make your own biscuits. We added a buttermilk biscuit recipe to Recipe Club this month, and it's so it's got six ingredients in it, so it's really really simple. All right, there are your recipes for the week. You can find and print them all in Recipe Club individually or in our weekly meal plan that includes an easy to follow shopping list where we break those down by recipe. And while Recipe Club is an incredible resource of hundreds of recipes that are specifically developed for overwhelmed parents, it's way more than just a recipe resource. More than anything, it's a simple dinner system that you can follow each week to make dinner feel more manageable. And while we specialize in weeknights, we also love holidays and so you'll find a specific holiday menu for every major holiday, and recipe club to make the memories around the table because that's also really important to me. And speaking of the holidays, don't forget that you can pre order our first printed recipe collection. It's all about Thanksgiving. So a printed collection includes my favorite classic Thanksgiving recipes, along with a shopping list, a timeline of tasks to count down to the big day, the tips that save me every single year, a list of tools I swear by to make Thanksgiving feel easier and more manageable. It's like an entire Thanksgiving guide to support you as you celebrate literally the most iconic meal of the year. And I just can't wait for you to get it. Get it, pop it right into your recipe binder. It's all printed on that heavy, good quality paper and slipped into those signature sheet protectors so that you can rely on the guide year after year. So make sure to check that out on my site Kelsey Nixon dot com. Now let's jump into the back half of the podcast and chat about soup. I'm so excited to spend a few minutes chatting with you about the magic of soup. We'll discuss my most popular soup recipies, what to serve with soup, my essential soup tools, the ones that I use every time you make soup, and obviously some top notch soup secrets. But first I have to tell you about my first job and food. So it was a soup job. Right after culinary school and being on my Food Network reality show which was called Food Network Star, I was hired by a local restaurant in my college town to develop soup recipes for their menu. And the soup aspect is important because it was a soup restaurant. Specifically they did soup, salads and sandwiches. But it was right after my husband and I got married, and there was a joke about how I always came home from work every day smelling like soup. But crazy story about this company. It's called Cafe zupas you may have heard of it, and they now have over seventy locations in eight different states, and I was with them at the very, very very beginning. They have done so well and I'm just so proud that I had a very small chapter with them. Anyways, I digress. Anytime I think about soup, I think about Zupas I mentioned at the top of the episode how I love that soup really is the ultimate one pop meal. It's really great for meal prep, it's perfectly cozy for crisper cold days. But I want to place an emphasis on how the fact that you should think about soup for hosting this time of year. Don't forget that super recipes can almost always be doubled to either feed a large group or to make an extra batch and freeze it. You really can't beat it if you are doing anything from hosting a girls night, maybe you're in charge of making the main dish for a neighborhood pot luck, maybe you have house guests for the holidays, make soup. Soup is so good in all of those situations. In fact, I just saw on social someone do like a super Bowl like soup soup er bowl, and everybody brought their own super recipe, shared it, and they had like a soup off, and they gave a golden ladle to the winner, which I thought was so fun. Definitely earmarking that for another year when stuff doesn't feel so crazy, but super Bowl how fun? Is that. One of the reasons it's so great for simplifying hosting is that you can prep it way ahead. Of time. You can make it the day before. You can store it in the fridge right in the pot you cooked it in with its lid on. Then you just simply reheat it on the stove. Or you can cook it in a slow cooker and use the keep warm setting until it's time to eat. Or you can cook it in the afternoon and keep it on the lowest of low settings on your stovetop with the lid on. There's just so much about it that's great. You can chop all the veggies in advance and throw it together right before. But I want to start with my greatest hits, the most popular soup recipes in Recipe Club and from my show that I did with Food Network for seven seasons in my cookbook, like these are the recipes when it comes to soup that I returned to over and over again. The first is a Caeso chicken chili. This is what you should make when you are hosting people for the big gang. This is what you should make if you are entering your church or community chili cookoff. This is what you should make if you have a bunch of teenage boys coming over to watch post season baseball. This is this is what you should make if you just need a really hearty soup on a cold day. It's so good, like flavor is next level, so queso chicken chili your market for a noodle soup. My Thai coconut ramen is hands down the most popular. And you might have expected me to say something like chicken noodle or you know, and we've got plenty of those, but the Thai coconut ramen is really really delicious, and it's nice that it's not as traditional as soup flavors. We kind of get some made with coconut milk and there's lime, and it's really really good chunky soup. Maybe herty is a better word for that, but my Italian sausage in white bean is really popular and popular for good measure. My most popular creamy soup is my tomato basil soup with orzo. Fun fact, for anyone who knows of Cafe Soup, as I worked on this recipe back in the day, that is one of their signature recipes at the restaurant, if not still the most popular, and it's very similar, so tomato basil soup with orizo. In fact, I think the restaurant has taken the orizo out, but the orzo is so good in there. And then my most popular vegetarian soup is my coconut corn chowder. So if you're a member of Recipe Club and you're feeling soup but you don't know where to start, I suggest starting with one of these five. The Queso chicken chili, the Thai coconut ramen, the Italian sausage and white bean, the tomato basil with the orzo, or the coconut corn chowder. All are bangering like delicious instant hits. Now I want to do a brief rundown of what I serve with soup to make it feel like a full meal, because for many years my husband is like, it's nope, nope, soup is not dinner. I was like, yes, it is, it is, and we add all of these things to it. So some soups and stews like my green chili, chicken and rice soup, or my beef and furrow soup, or my creamy chicken toortorini soup or my lemon chicken soup with couscous I file under the complete meal category. They have protein, veggies and a grain, so nothing else is needed for it to be a perfectly filling meal with others, especially chili recipes like the Queso chicken chili that I just tried to convince you to make, the pumpkin chili or my cookoff chili. I like having a delicious corn bread, buttery corn bread or sliced crusty bread like sour dough to have kind of on the side, And let me be clear that the boxed Jiffy corn bread is one hundred percent passable, especially if you're making the soup from scratch. Other bready items to accompany your soup biscuits like those buttermilk biscuits that I'm gonna do with my skillet chicken pop pie. Those are awesome and come together really quickly. Garlic knots or bread sticks, a really good loaf of bread with really good butter, even crushed tortilla chips over the top of the bowl, especially if you're doing some sort of taco ish soup. Sandwiches are also great to go soups. Obviously, grilled cheese, but don't sleep on my grown up grilled cheese that has fig and pear, especially if you're entertaining. It's slightly more elevated or the Kapra sae grilled cheese in recipe club Ooh, that's really good for a heartier sandwich. My turkey avocado mils are great, or even the honey baked ham and Swiss sliders. Both of those would be grew really delicious served alongside soup. Now oftentimes they want something green, and I'm gonna be honest, a lot of my soups I toss in a couple handfuls of shredded kale. Now it used to be spinach. That used to be my spinach, but I find that the spinach is more delicate and it kind of wields a little easier. Kale is so so good in soup. It doesn't get slimy. It soaks up the broth in like such a delightful way, and it takes on the flavor and it's hardy enough. So kale is my new go to green in soup. But if it doesn't make sense for you to add kale to the soup, I typically like to serve a simple salad on the side. But I'm talking very simple, like either a salad kit or maybe you just get a bag of mixed greens and you use a store bought balsamic oh or even just a rugola dressed with olive oil, some lemon juice, a pinch of kosher salt. That all works great too, and it can be a really nice contrast to the big, hardy soup. And don't forget that when it comes to chili or any sort of taco soup, bring the fixens on like sour cream or creek yogurt, shredded cheese, tortilla chips, scallions, pickled onions, all of those things I tend to pull out when we're doing that. We're actually we're doing nut tonight, actually for my green chili chicken soup, and it's gonna be delicious. Now, let's talk about tips for a few minutes. Sometimes you need soup to be dinner because it's easy. And sometimes that looks like just dumping everything into a pot, seasoning with some salt and pepper and adding a bunch of broth or stock over the top. Simmer, let it do its thing, and it's done. Bonus points if you stir in some sort of pre cooked protein like shredded or tissery chicken, this is fine, especially if it's a crazy Tuesday night and putting a pot of soup on the stove is the alternative to another taco bell run like This is great and it's actually a great way to use up extra veggies that are gonna go bad. Another tip is you can definitely buy a pre bought mirror pois which is also known as onions, carrots and celery. Lots of times it's all chopped up and ready for your soup. Trader Joe's has been selling this product for years. It's like under three dollars and it is an awesome soup hack for this time of year. Other grocery stores I've seen sell it in a frozen version as well, So don't if that would help you think about that and keep thinking about having that stocked in your fridge and don't forget it. Pretty much every soup can actually be made near slow cooker. You can either sautee the veggies or the sauteate ingredients first and then add it into the slow cooker, or you can just add them all in. You might get a little bit more depth of flavor if you saute those first. I mean you will, but you know, go with what you got. You want to use a little less liquid, so like if you were going to use eight cups of liquid, you might want to use six cups of liquid because you're not going to have it reducing and simmering off. Throw it in the slow cooker on low for six hours. If there's a step where you kind of stir and cream or greens or something like that, you want to wait till the very end. So just before you plan to serve dinner and you're gonna set the table, stir all those things in. Let it cook for about thirty more minutes with the lid off to maybe allow it to thicken up a little bit, and you're good to go. Also works at the instant pot or a pressure cooker. You're gonna cook recipes where the meat is already cooked for ten minutes on high pressure with a natural release, cook through recipes with raw chicken for fifteen minutes on high pressure with a natural release, and cook recipes with rob beef or pork for thirty minutes on high pressure with a natural release. So just slightly different timing there. We've got a really great reference chart and recipe club to help you take any soup recipe and convert it to both slow cooker or an instant pot. And now for the soup accessories, so you're gonna want a big old soup pot. I love my late Crusee seven and a half court pot that I got literally when I got married. I've had it forever. I plan to have it forever. I plan to pass it down. But it's pricey, Let's be honest, it's close to four hundred dollars. The Lodge seven and a half court enameled cast iron has amazing reviews. I actually own it, but there's I think they have like over fifteen thousand and five reviews, so I'm not the only one who thinks it's great. And it's about a quarter of the price. So if you don't care about the Lake Crusader or Stop brand, which are lovely brands, don't get me wrong. The Lodge is it's gonna function. Every bit is good, so keep that in mind. When it comes to like the tools, I'm gonna use Epicurean, which is my favorite cutting board brand, also makes some tools and they have this it's literally called the Sate tool, and it's flat and wide, so it's a little easier to scrape off stuff off the bottom of the pot because there's so much flavor in that, and that's what I always reach for when I'm making soup. You want to get a good ladle. And if you don't have a ladle, you can use like a big measuring cup. But if you're gonna have soup a lot this fallen winter, get yourself a ladle. Just do it. And I love serving soup and shallow bowls. That's kind of my go to. I think it makes them great for topping because most of my soup I like to top with something, so shallow bowls are my go to when it comes to serving soup. All Right, you guys, there's my love letter to soup, my best recipes, my best tips, my best product lineup. I love it. I'm so happy that soup season has arrived. All right, let's finally finish with five things that made my life easier or more enjoyable this week. First up, probably should have been on that list above, but I finally bought a magnetic trivet. And if you don't know what that is, let me tell you. If you're making a big pot of soup, or maybe it's like a pot of shredded protein or something like that, something big, or a skillet meal, and let's say you want to serve a family style at the table. A trivet is something you put under a really hot pam so that you can set it anywhere. I don't know why it took so long, but they make a magnetic one so that if you are cooking in cast iron, like what I often do with those types of recipes, it just like you hover the pot over and it magnetically attaches to the bottom. And it's the greatest thing ever. I'm so I can't believe it took so long to buy it. It's such a fun little gadget in the kitchen and perfect for this time of year. So that is the first thing. Second is we're going on year three of using our pumpkin carving kit. After ruining a couple of knives year after year, I finally bought a carving kit. It's like twenty bucks and I anytime because my kids loved carving pumpkins, and the past couple of years have been like, oh good, We've got that kit. So I'm glad I've got it. We're gonna do the pumpkins this weekend and the kit will come in handy. Also Halloween related. I am telling you this now because I posted about this black cauldron I use every Halloween to make my homemade root beer in and I posted it too late last year and everyone was asking me where can I get that cauldron? Where can I get that cauldron? Because you'll want to make the homemade routier not in a plastic cauldron. And there's the perfect one at World Market. But it sells out every single year. I've noticed this because people are always asking me for the link, and I eject today and it's in stock. So it is a black cauldron a World Market. I actually think it's called it's for chilling drinks, but I actually make its food safe, so I make my homemade ruper in it. And it's so fun. So if you're wanting to do homemaide root beer, or you're wanting to serve like chili out of a cauldron for Halloween, look at the World Market one. It's awesome. Okay. Another thing, I spent a lot of time at the baseball field this week. You guys baseball tournaments fall baseball, and I am living in this gap sweatshirt. In fact, I gotta pull up the name for you. It's how did I not know this existed. Apparently it has a like cult following. It's not that expensive. It comes in a million colors. In fact, one thing I did was I bought it in the colors of my son's team so that I can wear it to the games and be legs somewhat of a you know, supportive mom. I'm a supportive mom, but I'm wearing the team colors. It is called the Vintage Soft Raglan Sweatshirt. It also has matching sweatpants if you want to set out of it. But holy moly, it's like the perfect weight, super soft on the inside. A lot of them are fifty percent off right now. Anyways, it's probably just a sale going on. But regardless I think full price, they're under fifty dollars. So it's check that out. Vintage Soft Raglan Sweatshirt. I bought three this week. Three. That's how much I liked it is. I bought it in three colors, all right. Finally, I bought a pair of Classic Converse for fall. So I have needed a few more pairs of sneakers because I live near the beach, I spend a lot of time in sandals in the summer, and I got a pair of a titis. I did the anything I got on board, but I felt like I needed one more pair of sneakers for the fallen into the winter, and I went with the classic Converse seventies. And I went back and forth about high top versus low top. I went with load top, but I got them in this cool khaki color that felt a little warmer than stark white for the fall and winter, and I'm excited. I also got those on a really great deal. So there we have it. Five things that made my life easier when it comes to feeding people in my kitchen, celebrating Halloween with my kids, and dressing myself for this time of year. All right, thank you so much for listening today. Remember you can subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss an episode. I really love coming here to chat with you guys every week. Hopefully it makes your life a little bit more simple. Don't forget to check out our Thanksgiving printed collection at Kelsey Nixon dot com. And until next time, happy cooking. I'm Kelsey and to chat with you next week.

Hi everybody. I'm Kelsey Nixon and this is Kitchen Prescription, the podcast you listen to when you don't know what to make for dinner. Today is episode one hundred and two Soup Simplified. It's officially soup Season, and I for one am thrilled. Soup is so awesome because it's the ultimate one pot meal, providing veggies, protein, and many times of green all in one pot. It's perfect for meal prep if you like to cook grass peas in advance and eat them later in the week. It's cozy. So whether you yourself need a comforting meal or someone you love needs, you know, a nice, good comfort food dish, soup seems to always do the trick. Not only can soup feed a crowd, but it makes feeding a crowd very, very easy. So today's episode is not only going to be a love letter to soup, but we're also going to break down some of the basics to make the soup you make taste extra great, plus go through all of the essential tools I rely on to make soup a success in my house all fall and winter long. But before we do that, let's discuss a few recipes you can throw on your meal plan this week, it's going to be extra crazy for us as we have family and friends coming to stay with us back to back, so we'll have people in and out of our house all week on top of all of the regular things like sports and school and work commitments. Needless to say, I'm keeping it easy. The first recipe on my meal plan is a slow cooker recipe I rely on this time of year and I look forward to making it this time of year, and it is my turkey roast dip. And the reason I mentioned this time of year is because right now you start seeing turkey breasts in the grocery stores and they are such an awesome lean protein that kind of mixes up your regular habit of chicken. They're not always available, it's typically like eight September through the new year. And this is so simple, you guys. You take the turkey breast, you put it in the slow cooker, You make a little or butter with some time, some rosemary salt, pepper, you slather it on top, you let it do its thing. You add some broth, and it makes these delicious sandwiches that we add melty cheese on top of and like an ausu dipping sauce. It's so good. My family loves it, and I love that it's one of these recipes I can rely on during the busyness of the holiday, and yet it feels a little different. So Turkey roast dip definitely on our meal plan for the week. Number two is a five ingredient recipe that my family like. It's honestly the one recipe when I always have everything to make it and my family never complains. They all love it. So it's my spinach tomato tortellini. I use a dry rayos, a splash of heavy cream. I use some cheese or protein fieled tortellini. I use a handful of spinach and a little bit of balsam vinegar and some grated palm for good measure, a little bit of crusty bread. Dinner is done. Everyone is full, happy, loves it. So spinach tomato tortellini is happening on one of our busy nights. And then I am going to make when we're gonna be feeding all these friends and family that are coming. So I still wanted something simple that would be easy to kind of host, and I'm going to make my skillet chicken pot pie. I'm actually gonna make two of them. But it really is so simple because it comes together in a big skillet and you actually put the biscuits right on top and bake them in the oven, and it is it's like a cheater chicken pot pie, but it's so comforting. It's perfect for this time of year, super delicious. You can use store bought biscuits or you can make your own biscuits. We added a buttermilk biscuit recipe to Recipe Club this month, and it's so it's got six ingredients in it, so it's really really simple. All right, there are your recipes for the week. You can find and print them all in Recipe Club individually or in our weekly meal plan that includes an easy to follow shopping list where we break those down by recipe. And while Recipe Club is an incredible resource of hundreds of recipes that are specifically developed for overwhelmed parents, it's way more than just a recipe resource. More than anything, it's a simple dinner system that you can follow each week to make dinner feel more manageable. And while we specialize in weeknights, we also love holidays and so you'll find a specific holiday menu for every major holiday, and recipe club to make the memories around the table because that's also really important to me. And speaking of the holidays, don't forget that you can pre order our first printed recipe collection. It's all about Thanksgiving. So a printed collection includes my favorite classic Thanksgiving recipes, along with a shopping list, a timeline of tasks to count down to the big day, the tips that save me every single year, a list of tools I swear by to make Thanksgiving feel easier and more manageable. It's like an entire Thanksgiving guide to support you as you celebrate literally the most iconic meal of the year. And I just can't wait for you to get it. Get it, pop it right into your recipe binder. It's all printed on that heavy, good quality paper and slipped into those signature sheet protectors so that you can rely on the guide year after year. So make sure to check that out on my site Kelsey Nixon dot com. Now let's jump into the back half of the podcast and chat about soup. I'm so excited to spend a few minutes chatting with you about the magic of soup. We'll discuss my most popular soup recipies, what to serve with soup, my essential soup tools, the ones that I use every time you make soup, and obviously some top notch soup secrets. But first I have to tell you about my first job and food. So it was a soup job. Right after culinary school and being on my Food Network reality show which was called Food Network Star, I was hired by a local restaurant in my college town to develop soup recipes for their menu. And the soup aspect is important because it was a soup restaurant. Specifically they did soup, salads and sandwiches. But it was right after my husband and I got married, and there was a joke about how I always came home from work every day smelling like soup. But crazy story about this company. It's called Cafe zupas you may have heard of it, and they now have over seventy locations in eight different states, and I was with them at the very, very very beginning. They have done so well and I'm just so proud that I had a very small chapter with them. Anyways, I digress. Anytime I think about soup, I think about Zupas I mentioned at the top of the episode how I love that soup really is the ultimate one pop meal. It's really great for meal prep, it's perfectly cozy for crisper cold days. But I want to place an emphasis on how the fact that you should think about soup for hosting this time of year. Don't forget that super recipes can almost always be doubled to either feed a large group or to make an extra batch and freeze it. You really can't beat it if you are doing anything from hosting a girls night, maybe you're in charge of making the main dish for a neighborhood pot luck, maybe you have house guests for the holidays, make soup. Soup is so good in all of those situations. In fact, I just saw on social someone do like a super Bowl like soup soup er bowl, and everybody brought their own super recipe, shared it, and they had like a soup off, and they gave a golden ladle to the winner, which I thought was so fun. Definitely earmarking that for another year when stuff doesn't feel so crazy, but super Bowl how fun? Is that. One of the reasons it's so great for simplifying hosting is that you can prep it way ahead. Of time. You can make it the day before. You can store it in the fridge right in the pot you cooked it in with its lid on. Then you just simply reheat it on the stove. Or you can cook it in a slow cooker and use the keep warm setting until it's time to eat. Or you can cook it in the afternoon and keep it on the lowest of low settings on your stovetop with the lid on. There's just so much about it that's great. You can chop all the veggies in advance and throw it together right before. But I want to start with my greatest hits, the most popular soup recipes in Recipe Club and from my show that I did with Food Network for seven seasons in my cookbook, like these are the recipes when it comes to soup that I returned to over and over again. The first is a Caeso chicken chili. This is what you should make when you are hosting people for the big gang. This is what you should make if you are entering your church or community chili cookoff. This is what you should make if you have a bunch of teenage boys coming over to watch post season baseball. This is this is what you should make if you just need a really hearty soup on a cold day. It's so good, like flavor is next level, so queso chicken chili your market for a noodle soup. My Thai coconut ramen is hands down the most popular. And you might have expected me to say something like chicken noodle or you know, and we've got plenty of those, but the Thai coconut ramen is really really delicious, and it's nice that it's not as traditional as soup flavors. We kind of get some made with coconut milk and there's lime, and it's really really good chunky soup. Maybe herty is a better word for that, but my Italian sausage in white bean is really popular and popular for good measure. My most popular creamy soup is my tomato basil soup with orzo. Fun fact, for anyone who knows of Cafe Soup, as I worked on this recipe back in the day, that is one of their signature recipes at the restaurant, if not still the most popular, and it's very similar, so tomato basil soup with orizo. In fact, I think the restaurant has taken the orizo out, but the orzo is so good in there. And then my most popular vegetarian soup is my coconut corn chowder. So if you're a member of Recipe Club and you're feeling soup but you don't know where to start, I suggest starting with one of these five. The Queso chicken chili, the Thai coconut ramen, the Italian sausage and white bean, the tomato basil with the orzo, or the coconut corn chowder. All are bangering like delicious instant hits. Now I want to do a brief rundown of what I serve with soup to make it feel like a full meal, because for many years my husband is like, it's nope, nope, soup is not dinner. I was like, yes, it is, it is, and we add all of these things to it. So some soups and stews like my green chili, chicken and rice soup, or my beef and furrow soup, or my creamy chicken toortorini soup or my lemon chicken soup with couscous I file under the complete meal category. They have protein, veggies and a grain, so nothing else is needed for it to be a perfectly filling meal with others, especially chili recipes like the Queso chicken chili that I just tried to convince you to make, the pumpkin chili or my cookoff chili. I like having a delicious corn bread, buttery corn bread or sliced crusty bread like sour dough to have kind of on the side, And let me be clear that the boxed Jiffy corn bread is one hundred percent passable, especially if you're making the soup from scratch. Other bready items to accompany your soup biscuits like those buttermilk biscuits that I'm gonna do with my skillet chicken pop pie. Those are awesome and come together really quickly. Garlic knots or bread sticks, a really good loaf of bread with really good butter, even crushed tortilla chips over the top of the bowl, especially if you're doing some sort of taco ish soup. Sandwiches are also great to go soups. Obviously, grilled cheese, but don't sleep on my grown up grilled cheese that has fig and pear, especially if you're entertaining. It's slightly more elevated or the Kapra sae grilled cheese in recipe club Ooh, that's really good for a heartier sandwich. My turkey avocado mils are great, or even the honey baked ham and Swiss sliders. Both of those would be grew really delicious served alongside soup. Now oftentimes they want something green, and I'm gonna be honest, a lot of my soups I toss in a couple handfuls of shredded kale. Now it used to be spinach. That used to be my spinach, but I find that the spinach is more delicate and it kind of wields a little easier. Kale is so so good in soup. It doesn't get slimy. It soaks up the broth in like such a delightful way, and it takes on the flavor and it's hardy enough. So kale is my new go to green in soup. But if it doesn't make sense for you to add kale to the soup, I typically like to serve a simple salad on the side. But I'm talking very simple, like either a salad kit or maybe you just get a bag of mixed greens and you use a store bought balsamic oh or even just a rugola dressed with olive oil, some lemon juice, a pinch of kosher salt. That all works great too, and it can be a really nice contrast to the big, hardy soup. And don't forget that when it comes to chili or any sort of taco soup, bring the fixens on like sour cream or creek yogurt, shredded cheese, tortilla chips, scallions, pickled onions, all of those things I tend to pull out when we're doing that. We're actually we're doing nut tonight, actually for my green chili chicken soup, and it's gonna be delicious. Now, let's talk about tips for a few minutes. Sometimes you need soup to be dinner because it's easy. And sometimes that looks like just dumping everything into a pot, seasoning with some salt and pepper and adding a bunch of broth or stock over the top. Simmer, let it do its thing, and it's done. Bonus points if you stir in some sort of pre cooked protein like shredded or tissery chicken, this is fine, especially if it's a crazy Tuesday night and putting a pot of soup on the stove is the alternative to another taco bell run like This is great and it's actually a great way to use up extra veggies that are gonna go bad. Another tip is you can definitely buy a pre bought mirror pois which is also known as onions, carrots and celery. Lots of times it's all chopped up and ready for your soup. Trader Joe's has been selling this product for years. It's like under three dollars and it is an awesome soup hack for this time of year. Other grocery stores I've seen sell it in a frozen version as well, So don't if that would help you think about that and keep thinking about having that stocked in your fridge and don't forget it. Pretty much every soup can actually be made near slow cooker. You can either sautee the veggies or the sauteate ingredients first and then add it into the slow cooker, or you can just add them all in. You might get a little bit more depth of flavor if you saute those first. I mean you will, but you know, go with what you got. You want to use a little less liquid, so like if you were going to use eight cups of liquid, you might want to use six cups of liquid because you're not going to have it reducing and simmering off. Throw it in the slow cooker on low for six hours. If there's a step where you kind of stir and cream or greens or something like that, you want to wait till the very end. So just before you plan to serve dinner and you're gonna set the table, stir all those things in. Let it cook for about thirty more minutes with the lid off to maybe allow it to thicken up a little bit, and you're good to go. Also works at the instant pot or a pressure cooker. You're gonna cook recipes where the meat is already cooked for ten minutes on high pressure with a natural release, cook through recipes with raw chicken for fifteen minutes on high pressure with a natural release, and cook recipes with rob beef or pork for thirty minutes on high pressure with a natural release. So just slightly different timing there. We've got a really great reference chart and recipe club to help you take any soup recipe and convert it to both slow cooker or an instant pot. And now for the soup accessories, so you're gonna want a big old soup pot. I love my late Crusee seven and a half court pot that I got literally when I got married. I've had it forever. I plan to have it forever. I plan to pass it down. But it's pricey, Let's be honest, it's close to four hundred dollars. The Lodge seven and a half court enameled cast iron has amazing reviews. I actually own it, but there's I think they have like over fifteen thousand and five reviews, so I'm not the only one who thinks it's great. And it's about a quarter of the price. So if you don't care about the Lake Crusader or Stop brand, which are lovely brands, don't get me wrong. The Lodge is it's gonna function. Every bit is good, so keep that in mind. When it comes to like the tools, I'm gonna use Epicurean, which is my favorite cutting board brand, also makes some tools and they have this it's literally called the Sate tool, and it's flat and wide, so it's a little easier to scrape off stuff off the bottom of the pot because there's so much flavor in that, and that's what I always reach for when I'm making soup. You want to get a good ladle. And if you don't have a ladle, you can use like a big measuring cup. But if you're gonna have soup a lot this fallen winter, get yourself a ladle. Just do it. And I love serving soup and shallow bowls. That's kind of my go to. I think it makes them great for topping because most of my soup I like to top with something, so shallow bowls are my go to when it comes to serving soup. All Right, you guys, there's my love letter to soup, my best recipes, my best tips, my best product lineup. I love it. I'm so happy that soup season has arrived. All right, let's finally finish with five things that made my life easier or more enjoyable this week. First up, probably should have been on that list above, but I finally bought a magnetic trivet. And if you don't know what that is, let me tell you. If you're making a big pot of soup, or maybe it's like a pot of shredded protein or something like that, something big, or a skillet meal, and let's say you want to serve a family style at the table. A trivet is something you put under a really hot pam so that you can set it anywhere. I don't know why it took so long, but they make a magnetic one so that if you are cooking in cast iron, like what I often do with those types of recipes, it just like you hover the pot over and it magnetically attaches to the bottom. And it's the greatest thing ever. I'm so I can't believe it took so long to buy it. It's such a fun little gadget in the kitchen and perfect for this time of year. So that is the first thing. Second is we're going on year three of using our pumpkin carving kit. After ruining a couple of knives year after year, I finally bought a carving kit. It's like twenty bucks and I anytime because my kids loved carving pumpkins, and the past couple of years have been like, oh good, We've got that kit. So I'm glad I've got it. We're gonna do the pumpkins this weekend and the kit will come in handy. Also Halloween related. I am telling you this now because I posted about this black cauldron I use every Halloween to make my homemade root beer in and I posted it too late last year and everyone was asking me where can I get that cauldron? Where can I get that cauldron? Because you'll want to make the homemade routier not in a plastic cauldron. And there's the perfect one at World Market. But it sells out every single year. I've noticed this because people are always asking me for the link, and I eject today and it's in stock. So it is a black cauldron a World Market. I actually think it's called it's for chilling drinks, but I actually make its food safe, so I make my homemade ruper in it. And it's so fun. So if you're wanting to do homemaide root beer, or you're wanting to serve like chili out of a cauldron for Halloween, look at the World Market one. It's awesome. Okay. Another thing, I spent a lot of time at the baseball field this week. You guys baseball tournaments fall baseball, and I am living in this gap sweatshirt. In fact, I gotta pull up the name for you. It's how did I not know this existed. Apparently it has a like cult following. It's not that expensive. It comes in a million colors. In fact, one thing I did was I bought it in the colors of my son's team so that I can wear it to the games and be legs somewhat of a you know, supportive mom. I'm a supportive mom, but I'm wearing the team colors. It is called the Vintage Soft Raglan Sweatshirt. It also has matching sweatpants if you want to set out of it. But holy moly, it's like the perfect weight, super soft on the inside. A lot of them are fifty percent off right now. Anyways, it's probably just a sale going on. But regardless I think full price, they're under fifty dollars. So it's check that out. Vintage Soft Raglan Sweatshirt. I bought three this week. Three. That's how much I liked it is. I bought it in three colors, all right. Finally, I bought a pair of Classic Converse for fall. So I have needed a few more pairs of sneakers because I live near the beach, I spend a lot of time in sandals in the summer, and I got a pair of a titis. I did the anything I got on board, but I felt like I needed one more pair of sneakers for the fallen into the winter, and I went with the classic Converse seventies. And I went back and forth about high top versus low top. I went with load top, but I got them in this cool khaki color that felt a little warmer than stark white for the fall and winter, and I'm excited. I also got those on a really great deal. So there we have it. Five things that made my life easier when it comes to feeding people in my kitchen, celebrating Halloween with my kids, and dressing myself for this time of year. All right, thank you so much for listening today. Remember you can subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss an episode. I really love coming here to chat with you guys every week. Hopefully it makes your life a little bit more simple. Don't forget to check out our Thanksgiving printed collection at Kelsey Nixon dot com. And until next time, happy cooking. I'm Kelsey and to chat with you next week.