Munching in the Mitten: January 2013

Happy Soup Week! It's yet another great collaboration of over a dozen awesome women on a very seasonally appropriate dish. In addition to swells of soup, you'll find a few loaves of bread and a Le Crueset giveaway in the mix this week.

If you read Kristen's (at Comfortably Domestic) Broccoli Cheddar Soup post yesterday, you know its cold in Michigan. Really cold. I was traveling around northern Michigan this weekend, still thawing as I write this post, both ego and a body bruised from my first downhill skiing trip. I was thankful for a warm bowl of soup yesterday after a cold morning on the slopes and a long afternoon in the car.

Why not take your dog for a walk on I-75 when traffic is stopped?

I thought about changing the name of this beloved family soup for the sake of my popularity during soup week. . .then I thought about how my notoriously picky niece has been asking for Garbage Soup for years, and I remembered the rise I used to get out of my friends when I excitedly told them I was having Garbage Soup for dinner. Priceless.

It's a family-recipe if we ever had one, given to my Mom by my Grandma (her mother-in-law), now a crowd-pleasing kitchen staple in my sister's kitchen. Why the name Garbage Soup? Since no actual garbage goes into the making of this soup, the best explanation I've been given is that the dumping of several cans of different ingredients necessitates the name. It seems barely justifiable, but traditions are important.

Garbage Soup

One medium onion, diced
2-3 stalks of celery, thinly chopped
2 tablespoons of butter
1 can of chicken or veggie broth (+1 can of water)
1/4 cup of ketchup
1/4 cup of brown sugar
2 small cans (~15oz) of stewed tomatoes or 1 large can
1 can of sweet corn
1 can of sliced new potatoes
1 small head of cabbage, thinly sliced
1 package of smoked summer sausage or kielbasa
salt + pepper

Saute the onions and celery in butter over medium heat until soft. Add the broth, water, ketchup and brown sugar and stir until everything is well incorporated. Add remaining ingredients and simmer for a half hour to forty-five minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Notes: If you prefer to avoid canned food you can use equivalent amounts (eyeballing, of course) of fresh corn, fingerling potatoes, etc. For my version I used fingerling potatoes, veggie broth, and minimally processed kielbasa. Also, you shouldn't need to add much, if any, salt. The ketchup, canned veggies, and sausage usually suffice for salt content, but if you avoid the cans that scenario will change.