Toot Toot, Honey, Toot, Toooot!

Well, I'm not one to brag, well, that's not true...

Let me start again...

Okay, here's tootin' my horn, y'all.

I make the best soups. I totally think I should open a cute little lunch place that's pretty and frilly and fun for teas and soups and muffins. Because I MAKE THE BEST SOUPS!!!

I don't know where I get this from, this creativeness with the soups, but let me tell you. I AM!

I have posted about Creamy Tomato Soup before, but today it was just so good I had to keep going. I can also make the best Creamy/Chunky Potato Soup. I came up with this recipe when I was at school in Utah many, many moons and ago. It was cheap and delicious. I still make it occasionally but not the same way as I did before. Well, today because our cabinets and funds are low I made the ol' school daze version. Dang! It was good. I forgot how good it was.

We had tomato soup and potato soup with toast for lunch last Saturday. Well, the kids and hubby enjoyed it. They asked for it AGAIN today. So, I happily got out two pots and started a'brewin' my soups that they asked for. Doesn't it make you happy to make something for someone and they like it so much that they ask for it again? Sends me into a happy tailspin!

I make a real good Chicken Tortilla Soup that is so easy it should be against the law and my Cheesey Cream of Broccoli Soup is seriously, SERIOUSLY something they probably serve in the mansions in heaven. I have been told by an Uncle that it was "the nectar of the gods".

I am a good cook. I love to cook. I have had some pretty bad failures but that makes it fun. And believe me, you remember and learn it fast! LOL!
I think what makes my version of things different is that I am a mixture of Northern and Southern and Soul cooking. My mother is originally from Chicago and my father is from Snyder, Texas. I guess the best way to describe my cooking would be the word, 'fusion'. I make very traditional Swedish and English dishes passed down from my mother's grandmothers and then my dad's grandmother gave me an appreciation for garden-grown, country-style cooking.

But then I have the awesome and wonderful experience of learning from my mother-in-law's cooking. I do not cook from recipes. Neither does she. Well, I do the first couple of times (written and or not written) and then, it's MINE and I tweak it so. I have learned how to appreciate things that I didn't growing up now that we are eating from the soul-food side of the family table I now share.

But I always come back to soups. I try to make a version of a main meal into a soup in my head when I am eating it. My friend Michelle makes this wonderful, creamy, poppy seed chicken dish using a fabulous bechamel sauce. I now have a soup version. My mother-in-law's meatloaf, well, it is not a loaf, it is different. But oh so good. I have a soup version of it. My gramma's delicious cheese sauce. I use it to make my broccoli cheese soup. Right now I am working on a beef tip soup. Originally inspired by my mother-in-law. I make my own version of her beef tips (and mine are better can you believe that? Don't tell, but they are).Well, a soup version is in the works.

So whadoya think? Should I have a soup luncheonette? If you are in doubt, we should get together and let me make some soup and a warm muffin for you. I'd only be too happy to.