004In the winter, I make soup.  When the winter as is long and relentless as it has been this year,  I find comfort wherever I can.  In many mugs of peppermint tea or cinnamon tea.  In cozying up under a warm blanket and reading a good novel.  In watching an exciting TV series straight through, many episodes per night, so that the winter evenings seem to pass more quickly.

Making soup comforts me, as it simmers away on my gas stove with the dancing blue light underneath it.  And of course it is comforting to eat.  Since most soup recipes make such large quantities, we can eat it for a few meals in a row, which gives me even more time to snuggle up and catch up on Downton Abbey or read my novel.

This winter, I’ve tried out a new soup recipe: Dilly Bean Soup from Simply in Season:

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Dilly Bean Soup

Flavorful, hearty soup that tastes a bit like a good dill dip you’d find at a party.

  • Author: Simply in Season, via motherearthnews.com
  • Cook Time: 50 mins
  • Total Time: 50 mins
  • Yield: 12 1x
  • Category: Soup
  • Cuisine: Traditional

Ingredients

Scale
  • 1 1/2 cups celery, chopped
  • 6 carrots, shredded
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 2 tbsp vegetable oil
  • 12 cups chicken or vegetable broth
  • 9 large potatoes, diced
  • Salt, to taste
  • 8 to 9 cups cooked Great Northern beans
  • 2 tbsp dried dill weed
  • 1 1/2 cups (or more!) plain yogurt or sour cream
  • 3 tbsp flour
  • 3/4 tsp freshly ground pepper

Instructions

  1. Heat oil in a large soup pot, and saute celery, carrots and garlic.
  2. Add broth, potatoes and salt and simmer until potatoes are tender, 20 to 25 minutes.
  3. Mash some of the potatoes in the broth mixture for a creamier taste.
  4. Add beans and dill weed to the soup.
  5. Combine yogurt or sour cream, flour and pepper and stir into soup. Cook and stir until thickened.

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To be frugal and a tad healthier, I always like to use dried beans in recipes when I can.  That always depends on whether I’ve thought ahead so I can soak and cook them in advance.  I did that for this recipe, and since canned beans have more sodium, I told myself it would be okay to add a pinch of kosher salt to each bowl to bring out the flavor.  Plus, I was using yogurt instead of sour cream, so I was being healthy there, too.  I ended up stirring about 1/4 cup of extra yogurt into each bowl so the soup would be creamier.  Mmm.

My husband and I enjoyed this soup for dinner and several consecutive lunches.  The flavors mingled even more as the soup chilled in the fridge, so the soup became more delicious each time I had it for lunch.

Even after covering dinner and several lunches, there was extra soup, so I poured some of it into a freezer bag, stored it in the freezer, and will look forward to enjoying it again soon.

 

If you haven’t had time to enjoy the slow simmer of soup on the stove this winter, you can still take comfort in delicious made-from-scratch soups.  Chuck Smith, the chef at Wolff’s Apple House, keeps our fridge stocked with winter soups like:

Loaded Potato

Corn Chowder

Clam Chowder

Shrimp Bisque

Tomato Bisque

Vegetable Beef

Tomato Vegetable

Fire-Roasted Tomato

Chicken Noodle

Broccoli Cheddar

Sweet Potato

Cream of Mushroom

Pumpkin Chipotle

Italian Wedding

Stop by and stock up!  Also, if you’re looking for even more soups to simmer this winter, check out these two soup recipes from our blog:

Borscht with Meat

Spicy Salsa Soup

Or this one, from our Recipes page:

Leek Soup with Potato and Tomato