Souper Saturday

Fall is my favorite time of the year and I love the idea of soups. Souper saturday began in my mind when I started making a hearty soup for Saturday supper. We usually watch "As Time Goes By"reruns Saturday night so the soup makes an easy segue into an early night with our old friends, Jean and Lionel. We have watched these shows for most of the 8 years of our marriage and still laugh at so much because they are so like us.

I have some favorite recipes for soup now but I also like ad hoc soups. Whenever I cook meat I save the juice and turn it into a stock that I freeze in those quart yoghurt containers. Sometimes I'll brown more meat than I need for a dinner and freeze that as well.



Turkish Beef Soup started out this way. I had a quart of shin beef already cooked up, a quart of pork stock, a half can of fire roasted tomatoes and a bunch of fresh spinach that was getting sad looking. Why Turkish? because I had the dregs of a bag of Penzeys' Turkish Seasoning. Into the pot!

Combine the beef, the pork stock, the tomatoes, and about 3T of the Turkish Seasoning. Bring to the boil and simmer a bit. Taste for salt, see if it needs some more liquid and then add 1/2 to 1 cup of raw rice. Cook about 15 minutes and taste again. Chop up the raw spinach and add it and cook about 5 more minutes. There you go. The house smells great while you simmer it and if you have some leftovers, someone's got a great lunch. I added some chopped chives when serving, and some powdered sumac to mine. A squirt of lemon can substitute for that sumac if you like the tart extra taste.