High Five Fridays: Weekly Meal Plan, Soups Onfeatured

Whew, what a week! I survived my first full week of cooking school, and if you’ve been following the daily report back on Instagram you’ll know that we have been making a lot of soup. Curry-spiced carrot soup with lime, potato leek soup, four onion soup, roasted garlic soup, parsnip soup, cucumber soup, rutabaga soup, turnip soup, cauliflower soup, celery root soup, even cream of lettuce soup, not to mention some big pots of vegetable and chicken stock.

One would think that I’d be all souped out…but you know, with the chilly weather upon us, it’s actually quite perfect. Here are some soups to get warm and cozy with on this High Five Friday:

1. Healthy Butternut Squash Soup. Comforting, nourishing, zero-guilt goodness, using only 3 main ingredients. You just can’t beat that.
2. Lemon Chicken Spinach and Orzo Soup. There is a nasty flu going around this winter. If it strikes, get yourself some of this healing soup stat. Bonus, you can make it in the pressure cooker so just set it, pass out under the covers for a bit, and wake up to some feel-better-soup.
3. Best French Onion Soup. America’s Test Kitchen comes through yet again with a slam dunk. This classic soup is pure satisfaction, full of rich, sweet caramelized onions, and increased depth of flavor using both chicken and beef broth. They even share their pro-tip on what brands of broth they prefer.
4. Creamy Mushroom Soup. A combination of fresh and dried mushrooms gives this soothing, velvety soup a complex mushroom-y flavor. A drizzle of truffle oil on top sends it over the edge.
5. TREAT YO SELF: Mini Pies with Pears and Blue Cheese. Too flippin cute. What a brilliant idea to mold the pastry crust to the pear halves. I would love to serve this as either a starter over some salad, or as a dessert-and-cheese course in one.