soup doctor

Lookit this Tex-Mex reminiscent delight!

Would you believe this inspiring creation was cobbled together by the dregs and remnants of my refrigerator and pantry?

 

A single sweet potato… a single taco shell… leftover rice… last remnants of frozen Trader Joe’s soycotash… leftover rice and beans from work that I didn’t want to leave in the fridge to go bad… last of some Trader Joe’s black bean soup that is BLAND… and some salsa, obvi.

Gave the sweet potato a saute to get a little browned and flavorful…

Then poured on the black bean soup, thinned out with a little water (I cleaned out the box with a few splashes—hate to leave any black bean residue behind). The sweet potato chunks cooked in that just til tender.

Then I crumpled up the taco shell, in the theory that it’d be like migas, kind of (which it was! Kind of!), and addd the soycotash. Then the rices.

Finished off with some salsa, cooked til all stew-ified.

For garnishes, I rummaged through the fridge and unearthed a partially eaten container of olives (who knows), some fairly antique green onions that I did a little triage on, and an avocado.

And there you have it! Cooked, garnished, rounded out with a leafy green vegatable.

Colorful, nutrient-rich, virtuously-leftover-utilizing, flavorful goodness.

  

A less pretty but equally impressive endeavor:

This began with some leftover summer sausage and bean soup. Amping up the fresh produce factor with a spud, some fairly antique mushrooms, and onion.

Cooking sprayed a pan and tossed in the summer sausage to brown up and render off a bit of fat, at which point I added the onions and let them brown up for a bit, then the mushrooms and let them all brown up a bit longer. Fun and messy and good smelling.

Meanwhile I precooked the potato, sliced up, in the microwave til mostly tender.

 

And potato and soup got thrown into the sausage-veggie mix, along with some water for thinning. Let ‘em cook down together to let the flavors meld a bit.

Et voila, mismatched bowls for mama, sister, and self.

  

Sausage and potato and beans together are awesome. There is a reason it is such a classic combination.

But as so frequently happens with me, the protein-y “entree” got serously upstaged by the side dish. The meal was rounded out with Chili-Brown Sugar Delicata Squash with Pears.

Or, yknow, kabocha squash. With Asian pears. Bounty of the farmer’s market :D

GUYS. THIS DISH. MAKE IT. INHALE IT. LOVE IT. NEVER LET IT GO.

Beautiful orange and green strips of luscious, tender, rich sweet and spicy goodness.

I cannot even convey with words how good this tasted so you just have to MAKE IT, please.