cook soup, stew, pottage, or chowder - PEP BB food.sand.soup

On days when the weather is nasty and cold I like to make some kind of hardy stew/soup to warm us up from the inside out. We enjoy a stew rather than a soup, which just means less broth. I don’t really measure when I cook and I make things up as I go; putting together what I have on hand, tasting and adjusting.  

Tonight I was going for a hamburger soup. I think it turned out more like a loaded baked potato soup, but it was yummy regardless. I will attempt to write a recipe.

Bacon cheeseburger Soup

- 4-6 oz bacon
- Large onion
- 2-4 cups cut up vegetables ( whatever needs using. I used some broccoli stems and celery, I also threw in some frozen greens from the garden.)
- 6-8 small potatoes
- Some sautéed and frozen Hen of the Woods mushrooms we foraged this fall ( totally optional)
- Clove of garlic
- 4-7 cups bone broth
- Pint of canned ground venison
- 3/4 cup hulled buckwheat groats
- Italian seasoning (thyme, basil, oregano)
- Salt and pepper
- Cup of cubed/shredded cheddar
- Cup of leftover chickpea liquid (totally optional, just using things up)
- 1 1/2 cups frozen corn

I started with making bone broth in the morning in the instant pot. I strained it and rinsed the instant pot out.

Sauté the bacon till cooked and remove from pot leaving fat drippings in pot. Add onion and sauté for 2 minutes, add any raw vegetables and potatoes, seasoning with salt and pepper and sauté for 5-7 minutes. Add thawed mushrooms and garlic and sauté until fragrant.

** my plan was to add about 1/2 cup flour right here and stir and cook the flour for a minute then add broth, thus making a rue to make a thick creamy consistency to the soup(a little trick I use to make things creamy without fatty dairy added), but because I was pressed for time and wanted to pressure cook the soup instead of just boil it, I skipped this step, deciding to add some buckwheat instead and the resulting soup wasn’t as creamy as I was going for. **

Add 2 cups broth and keep stirring to get any browned bits off the bottom of pot( important so instant pot doesn’t give a burn error) Then add any frozen vegetables, the ground venison, and the buckwheat with 3-5 more cups broth. Add Italian seasoning, salt and pepper to taste.

Close instant pot and pressure cook for 3 minutes. Do a ten minute cool down, then release pressure. Give soup a stir, then add cut up cheese and bacon. This is when I add frozen corn (or peas) to an instant pot meal because the food is so very hot and it helps cool it off a little. I also added the chickpea liquid.

Stir all together, add broth if too thick, taste and adjust seasoning. Enjoy!

Sorry, I hit submit instead of add another file. Here’s more pictures to go with the above submission. Thanks

I used sweet potato, carrot, onion, dried basil and parsley, my own fresh garlic, barley, lentils, salt and pepper. This is my first badge bit, so I am nervous to get it right.