People ask me all the time what my favorite thing to cook is. Once they find out that I’m a food blogger, it’s one of the first questions I get. For a long time, I didn’t know how to answer. Having a favorite thing to eat is one thing, but a favorite thing to cook? Do people have just one favorite dish to prepare? What if my favorite thing to cook changes weekly?

After years of thought, I have an answer: soup. Making soup is methodical and creative and easy. There’s something ritualistic and comforting about preparing it. It almost always starts with the same few steps – chopping an onion and sauteing it in olive oil, peeling and dicing vegetables, pulling out my favorite spices and flavorings. But from there, soup allows infinite creative possibilities. If I’m feeling healthy I’ll make a soup of lentils and vegetables and wholesome broth. For particularly cold days, a chili with lots of meat and beans and plenty of cheddar cheese is my go-to. Pureed vegetable bisques are elegant and great with fresh bread, and when I’m sick nothing but homemade chicken broth with egg noodles will do. I rarely use recipes, and the result is almost always good. And so, soup is my favorite thing to cook.

I’ll eat soup at any time of year, but it appears on our table most frequently during the winter months. From December until March you’ll find me making homemade chicken broth on the weekends, then experimenting with different soup recipes during the week. My most recent experiment resulted in a soup I loved so much that I immediately recreated it to share with you. It’s a Spicy Chorizo Soup with Israeli Couscous, made with fresh Mexican-style chorizo sausage, white beans and carrots and fennel seeds. But the real secret to this soup is a spoonful or two of mole sauce stirred into the soup just at the end. The mole gives the soup a little more heat and a lot more flavor – a bit of sweetness, some chocolatey notes, and a little nuttiness.

I just happened to have extra mole sauce in my freezer after making this Mole-Roasted Chicken, but I know that’s not a particularly common ingredient to have laying around. If you don’t have any, substitute another spicy chile paste, preferably one with some sweetness and depth of flavor. I think harissa would work well. Get ready to feel warm inside and out after a bowl or two of this!

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Craving more soup recipes? Here are a few favorites:

Black Bean Soup with Roasted Poblano

Sweet Potato and Coconut Milk Soup with Brown Rice and Lentils

Loaded Baked Potato Soup

Spicy Chorizo Soup with Israeli Couscous and Mole Sauce

A Katie at the Kitchen Door original recipe.

• 1 TBS olive oil
• 1/2 lb fresh Mexican-style chorizo sausage
• 1 medium onion, peeled and cut into small pieces
• 1/2 tsp fennel seeds
• 3/4 cup Israeli couscous
• 3 large carrots, peeled and cut into 1/4 inch round slices
• 1 cup cooked cannelini beans
• 6 cups chicken stock, preferably homemade
• 1 TBS plus 1 tsp cheater’s mole sauce or other spicy chile paste

1. Heat the olive oil in a large soup pot over medium-high heat. Add the fresh chorizo to the oil, removing the meat from its casings by squeezing it out with your hands into the pot. Use the back of a wooden spoon to break the sausage up into small pieces. Cook until the chorizo is browned all over, about 6-8 minutes, then add the onion and fennel seeds. Saute, stirring frequently, until onion is translucent, about 5 minutes.
2. Add the couscous to the pot and stir to coat with the oil and chorizo juices. Toast in the oil for 1-2 minutes, stirring, then add the carrots, cannelini beans, and chicken stock to the pot. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook until the carrots are tender, about 20 minutes.
3. Just before serving, stir in the mole sauce or spicy chile paste. Taste and add more chile paste if desired. Serve immediately.

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The Book: Like many people, I love Southern food, and I’m hard pressed to turn down an opportunity to get my hands on another Southern cookbook. So when author Matt Moore reached out to me about reviewing his new book, A Southern Gentleman’s Kitchen: Adventures in Cooking, Eating, and Living in the New South, I couldn’t say no. I think a good word to describe this book is friendly – you’ll find simple and accessible recipes, large format, colorful pictures on every page, and personal and candid stories from Matt introducing each recipe. The recipes here are Southern but not exclusively so; in fact, I found that this book reads like a greatest hits list of classic meat and potatoes American home cooking – meatloaf, bolognese, fajitas, skirt steak, roast chicken, pan-seared pork chops, and so on. There’s even a recipe that’s called “Meat’n’Potatoes.” For the most part, the recipes are simple and hearty, with the occasional more sophisticated exception (I’m looking at you, Roast Quail with Pomegranate Quinoa). With lots of beef, pork, cheese, and potatoes, odds are you are not going to be eating light if you’re cooking from this book – so don’t come looking for something other than satisfying soul food to share with family and friends.

The long and the short of it is, I think a lot of people will find this book very appealing, and the 60 glowing Amazon reviews seem to back me up on that one. The recipes are simple and unabashedly American, but with a twist here or there that will elevate the dishes enough to impress the home cook hoping to put a delicious and hearty dinner on the table. That said, I’m not sure this book will be getting much use from me – it’s just a little heavier, a little more meat-centric, and a little more traditional than the way I typically cook. Still, I can see it coming in handy when I need a quick solution for a weeknight dinner, or Trevor is tired of eating bowls of grains and greens and salmon, or when we just want something homey and comforting.

The Food: The recipe I made from this book – Callie’s White Bean Chicken Chili – is the kind of thing I should make more often (which perhaps contradicts my statement above about how much I will use this book…). It’s super fast to make, using ingredients that require almost zero prep – canned beans, rotisserie chicken, canned green chiles, and shredded Monterey Jack cheese. It’s a convenient way to cook – I almost felt like I was cheating somehow – and the result was decadent, satisfying, and quite flavorful. I only made a few tweaks to the recipe: first, I blended the soup after adding half the beans and before adding the chicken, to give it a nice creamy thickness, and second, I only used about two thirds of the one pound of cheese the recipe called for, and I still found it almost too cheesy. And I love cheese. The way I’ve written the recipe below reflects these changes. Definitely don’t skip the corn chips! They add some much needed texture to the chili.

Recipe Shortlist: Creole Popcorn – Fried Crawfish Tails; Fried Dill Pickles with Cayenne Sauce; Pulled Pork BBQ Nachos; Peach Caprese Salad; Baked Trout with Prosciutto and White Cheddar Grits; Blackened Catfish with Salsa Fresca; Bone-In Pork Chops and Sweet Heat Peaches; Pimiento Mac’n’Cheese; Chorizo Roasted Potatoes with Vidalia Onions; Cast Iron Skillet Jalapeno Cornbread; Grilled Georgia Peach Crumble

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Disclosure: I received a review copy of A Southern Gentleman’s Kitchen from author Matt Moore, but I was not otherwise compensated and all thought and opinions are my own.

Callie’s White Bean Chicken Chili

Adapted slightly from A Southern Gentleman’s Kitchen. Serves 6.

• 4 (15-oz) cans of Great Northern Beans
• 1 TBS olive oil
• 1 large sweet onion, finely diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• sea salt, to taste
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
• 2 (4-oz) cans of chopped green chiles
• 3 c. chicken broth
• Meat from 1 rotisserie chicken, removed from bird and cut into bite-sized pieces
• 2 c. (8 oz) shredded Monterey Jack cheese
• Blue corn chips, for topping

1. Drain and rinse three of the four cans of beans. Do not drain the fourth can.
2. Heat the olive oil in a large stockpot over medium heat. Add the onion and saute until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and saute until fragrant, about 2 minutes longer. Season the vegetables with sea salt, then add the black pepper, cumin, and red pepper flakes and continue to saute for 5 minutes, stirring frequently.
3. Add the green chiles, chicken broth, and 2 cans of the drained beans to the pan. Bring to a simmer, then remove from the heat. Transfer the soup to a blender and blend on high until smooth, then return to the pot and place back on the stove. Add the second two cans of beans and the chicken, bring to a simmer, and simmer for 10 minutes.
4. Remove the soup from the heat. Add the cheese and stir into the soup until it is melted. Serve the soup immediately, garnished with the corn chips.

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November’s fitness goal turned out to be such a fun one! Dance almost never fails to lift my mood and energize my body. I tried a new class, BollyX, a bit like Zumba or Cardio Dance in that it’s a hybrid between actual dance and an aerobics class. It’s got great upbeat Bollywood music and was packed with other young women. The nature of Bollywood dance – big movements, lots of jumping – made it easy to follow along and dance big without feeling self-conscious. I also stuck with ballet, although I’m going to a new class early Sunday mornings and it is so hard to do ballet first thing in the morning. My range of motion is about half what it is at the end of the day. In the interest of total honesty, I have to admit that I didn’t quite make it to 6 classes during November. But I did go this week and trying something totally new was a big win for me, so I’m giving myself a slight pass.

I’m going to make December’s goal about something that I’ve been explicitly avoiding all year: weight. In part, I’ve avoided making a weight-focused goal because I truly believe that these goals are about health and fitness, not a number on a scale. And I stand by that. But there’s also a part of me that’s a little bit afraid of that number, because I know that whatever I may tell myself, it’s a pretty good representation of the progress I’ve made. Of course, I could lose a ton of weight and be extremely unhealthy, both physically and mentally, or I could gain a ton of weight and attribute it all to muscle mass. But, at least for my body and personality, neither of those scenarios is very realistic. Although it kind of scares me to write numbers down here, I’m going to. I started the year at a weight of 145 pounds, which is easily an all time high for me. It’s hard to admit, but it’s a weight that’s decidedly too high for my 5’3″ frame, and looking back at pictures from last January does not make me feel good. Over the year I’ve slowly worked my way down to a weight that’s closer to a healthy weight for my build, hitting 132 at my lowest. Now I’m hovering around 136, a weight that’s healthy but a bit too close to backsliding for my taste. I’d like to start 2015 feeling really good about my health and fitness, so I’m aiming for the 130-133 range. If I can accomplish that during the biggest eating month of the year, I’ll be very proud.

In a way, this goal represents all the things I’ve learned about what does and doesn’t work for me over the course of this year. Some rules I’m living by to make this happen:

• No alcohol on Mondays, Tuesdays, or Wednesdays. This should be easy, but I’ve definitely slipped into a habit where a glass of wine after work is the norm, not the exception, and I don’t want that habit to go too far. In a season when holiday parties, happy hours, and hot toddies seem to be around every corner, it’s easier to have a simple rule – so I don’t end the week wondering why I’m completely dragging and then realize that I had a drink every night.
• No sweets for breakfast. Starting the day out with something savory and protein-rich may take a little extra effort, but so much of the “easy” breakfast food is packed with sugar. I’m curious to see how much of an impact this has on my energy levels (and how long I can stick with it!)
• Target 5 workouts a week. 4 workouts a week seems to be my magic number for maintaining my weight, 3 is a little too light, and 5 is the max that’s doable if I want to maintain the sanity of my schedule. I want to make the most of the dry streets and relative warmth before we slip into three months of ice and cold (e.g. no running).
• Remember vegetables! When they’re not staring me in the face from the excess of our garden, it’s easy to forget about them. I’m trying to sneak as much spinach and broccoli into my diet as I can this month.

I’m not planning on continuing these monthly goal posts in 2015. While they’ve been a helpful tool for me to hold myself accountable, I’ve actually been thinking about how to make my life less list and goal oriented and more relaxed next year. For the most part, I’ve accomplished what I set out to do – get myself back in shape (from a point of absolute zero), and make regular exercise and conscious eating a natural part of my routine. But, that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop sharing healthy recipes and thoughts on health here! This month’s recipe is a Roasted Parsnip and White Bean soup, topped with Guanciale and Fried Sage (arguably counteracting the health benefits of a vegetable-based soup, but oh well). It’s a recipe I came up with while walking home from work one day, playing around with different ideas for our parsnip harvest. The sweetness of the roasted parsnips is complemented beautifully by the creaminess of the white beans and the salty, fattiness of the guanciale topping. It’s a thick soup, almost more of a puree, but a swirl of cream added at the end lightens it and gives it a luxurious mouthfeel. This recipe used up the last of our parsnips, otherwise I’d be making more of this ASAP and freezing it for later.

Past Fitness Challenges

January: 10 Visits to the YMCA; Recipe: Gluten-Free Olive-and-Feta Corn Muffins
February: One vegan meal every day; Recipe: Pakistani Chickpea Pulao with Sweet-Hot Date-Onion Chutney
March: Run 40  miles in 20 days; Recipe: Chocolate-Dipped Almond Butter Cookie Bites
April: Walk 8,000 steps a day; Recipe: Herb-Flecked Spring Couscous
May: 180 minutes of Nike Training Club; Recipe: Warm Arugula Salad with Maple Mustard Dressing
June: Fresh fruit/veggies at every meal; Recipe: Chickpea Crepes with Grilled Curried Chicken and Mango Salsa
July: 8 different types of exercise; Recipe: Homemade Spinach Wraps with Chopped Greek Salad Filling
August: Relax; Recipe: Green Tea and Zucchini Noodles with Honey Ginger Sauce
September: Average mile pace below 8’10″; Recipe: Potato, Poblano, and Chard Enchiladas with Salsa Verde

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Roasted Parsnip and White Bean Soup with Guanciale and Fried Sage

A Katie at the Kitchen Door original recipe. Serves 4.

• 6 medium parsnips, peeled and cut into 1 inch chunks
• 3 TBS olive oil, divided
• coarse sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 2 oz. guanciale, cut into 1/4 inch cubes (about 1/3 cup)
• 1 onion, peeled and thinly sliced
• 4 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
• 12 leaves sage, divided
• 1 large yukon gold potato, cut into 1 inch cubes
• 4 c. chicken or vegetable stock
• 1 can (15 oz.) cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
• 2 TBS salted butter
• 1/2 c. heavy cream (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Toss parsnips with 2 TBS of the olive oil, then spread out on a roasting pan. Sprinkle with sea salt and black pepper. Roast parsnips until tender, about 30 minutes, flipping halfway through. Remove from the oven and set aside.
2. In a large non-stick saucepan, heat the remaining 1 TBS olive oil over medium heat. Add the guanciale and cook, stirring frequently, until browned on all sides, about 5-7 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to remove the cooked guanciale and set aside. Chop 4 of the 12 sage leaves finely. Add the onion, garlic, and chopped sage to the saucepan and saute, stirring frequently, until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the potatoes and cook 2 minutes longer, then add the roasted parsnips and the stock.
3. Bring soup to a simmer and cook until potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes. Add the rinsed cannellini beans, and cook until heated through, another 5 minutes. Transfer the soup to a blender and blend on high until very smooth. Return to the pot and keep warm over low heat. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
4. Before serving, melt 2 TBS butter in a frying pan over medium-high heat. Once fully melted and bubbling, add remaining 8 sage leaves to melted butter and cook until crisp, about 30 seconds. Remove to a paper-towel lined plate and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.
5. Ladle the soup into bowls and top with the cooked guanciale cubes and the fried sage leaves. If desired, drizzle 2 TBS of heavy cream on top of each bowl. Serve with toasted sourdough bread.

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