According to Jim, it’s Pretty Good Soup

Now, admittedly, I do follow some recipes for a lot of dishes I prepare,  but soups and stews are very forgiving foods to make, very flexible and a great way to use up those bits and pieces that don’t seem to have anywhere else to go. And most of these creations are dubbed by Jim as being “Pretty Good Soup.” This is high praise indeed, and I always know there won’t be much leftover when I hear those words floating on the air.

So, today’s venture:  Outside of a few minor chores, I spent much of today reading, but when this afternoon rolled around, I knew I wanted to come up with something warm and savory for supper, since Jim was spending a good deal of the day outside dealing with some hefty chores in the cold Northern Michigan air. (We are preparing for our first major snowfall that is expected tomorrow night, and he was ‘battening down the hatches.”)  When I checked the refrigerator looking for supper inspiration, I found a few slices of fairly lean bacon, some sliced mushrooms and a couple cups of leftover beef broth, and that was enough to get things going. I started by chopping the bacon into large pieces and threw them into a pot to brown and render their fat. While the bacon fried, I took a couple of minutes to roughly chop some onion and a handful of potatoes. Once the bacon was browned, I tossed in the onion for a few minutes, threw in the mushrooms for a bit longer, then tossed in the potatoes, letting it all cook together for a couple minutes more. Everything in the pan went into the crockpot, I deglazed the pan with the beef broth, pouring that over the ingredients in the pot, added a little more water, some pepper and a good amount of dried thyme leaf. Popping the lid on, I turned the pot on high and went back to my book.

Before…

About a half hour before dinner time, I added some bits of buerre manie (flour and butter creamed together) into the soup to thicken the broth a bit, wrapped a loaf of cheese bread in foild and tossed it in the oven to heat. Half an hour later, dinner is served! Bowls full of good hearty soup, warmed slices of bread, followed by a handful of cold, juicy green grapes. Simple, warm, delicious and satisfying–Pretty Good Soup.

After…

Sorry, we gobbled it all up before we even thought about getting the camera out!!