We are a team of foodies interested in and focused on cooking great tasting, good for you, simple meals. We look forward to sharing our soup stories, cooking techniques, Soup Challenge recipes, and more.
We hope our community inspires you to enter the Soup Challenge, join in on the conversation with other food—and soup—lovers, and, of course, enjoy some New England Country Soup!
Unless you one of the lucky few living in a vintage house, these days there’s no such thing as a winter kitchen and a summer kitchen. Once upon a time they served the purposes of a seasonal cooking arrangement… and why we did away with them, I’ll never know. A winter kitchen was an integral heat source to a drafty house during the deep cold of January, and a summer kitchen was expertly situated or even separated from the house so as to keep the main house cooler and less humid. Since so few of us are privy to such structural luxuries, we can at least try our best to keep our regular kitchens summer appropriate. And, while no one wants to cook in the heat, with a few nifty tools and a little know-how, you’ll still be eager to cook throughout the warm summer months ahead.
Mason Jars
image credit: Overstock
These long-time kitchen staples can literally be used for anything. Freeze a smoothie, can summer vegetables, sip iced tea, shake a homemade salad dressing, or use to pack up an ecofriendly picnic. Even when you don’t want to cook, eating healthy is key to a happy summer. Perfect for summer, New England Country Soup takes little time to prepare, and looks great served in a small pint glass mason jar at picnics and outdoor lunch affairs. Pair with bamboo soup spoons and a brightly colored napkin and you are made in the shade. You can find mason jars at your local grocery store, hardware store, or online at places like amazon.com.
Cuppow! (Mason Jar Drinking Lids)
image credit: Cuppow!
These nifty little lids are the next best kitchen invention since, well, the mason jar itself! They fit on all standard glass jars (specify wide-mouth or regular-mouth) and make summertime sipping that much easier. Best tasting beverages in a nice chilled mason jar: tea, iced coffee, sparkling water with berries, frosty chocolate milk, even plain tap water. A great way to get your daily fluids during the hotter months.
image credit: the kitchn
If I haven’t declared the importance of this tool before, I apologize. It is quite literally my most used tool in the kitchen. It easily transitions from winter dishes like creamy mashed potatoes to spring and summer favorites ranging from fruit smoothies, pureed chilled soups, whipped cream for desserts, even creamy salad dressings and dips for fresh crudite. It stows away easily, travels well, and makes quick work of any kitchen adventure.
Image Credit: Southern Living
It’s that time of year when the wildflowers are starting to bloom, the sun is peeking out from behind the clouds (perhaps a bit more in certain parts of the country), and the new bright rays of springtime are shedding some rather unsavory light on your dusty, dingy winter-time kitchen. A stove splattered with old stews, counters stained with juice and sauce, and you don’t even want to peek into the bottom drawers of your refrigerator.
Okay, okay, maybe your kitchen isn’t that bad, but right now is the perfect time to do a little spring cleaning. A few minutes each day and you’ll have your kitchen in tip top shape in less than a week.
Our fans love our soups because we use ingredients they can pronounce and most likely have in their own kitchens. And we think your household cleaners should be the same! Natural cleaners can make your spring time cleaning regime safe, quick, easy, and most importantly, cheap!
We’ve condensed our all natural cleaner suggestions into an easy to remember metaphor: when trying to clean, simply dress your greens! Okay, yes, that was a little silly, but truth be told, the major players in natural cleaning agents are the same ingredients used to make a quick homemade salad dressing.
Below are the “salad dressing” ingredients you will need, followed by the combinations of those ingredients that are appropriate for various parts of your kitchen.
Salad Dressing Ingredients
Vinegar: Instead of using a nice, aged balsamic you’ll only need a bottle of plain, white vinegar. Buy the largest bottle you can find, you’ll be using this EVERYWHERE!
A couple months ago we had NECS team members write about the culinary worlds in which they grew up. KC wrote about her beloved Texas foods, Sara about her favorite PA Dutch dishes, and so on. Well, we are bringing the series back today! Mike grew up in Massachusetts, but he spent his college years in Rhode Island. Fortunately for him, he need only take a short road trip when he’s craving the following:
To all fried food and sea food lovers, I have two words for you: Clam Cakes. When I first heard about this dish, I thought Clam Cakes were some oddly sweet concoction that Rhode Islanders came up with given the abundance of clams on their shores.
So, it was about three years from the first time I heard of them, to the first time I tried them… After a long day of sunbathing on a boat, my friends and I sped back to land in search of food. We came upon Iggy’s, a Rhode Island institution, and up on their exterior walk-up menu board I saw it: “Clam Cakes.” Maybe it was the effect of being out in the sun too long, but my prior misgivings disappeared: “one large order of clam cakes, please”.
Well when my number was called, I saw a mountain of dough balls, and I checked to make sure it was the correct order. Sure enough it was… I brought them back to my table with ketchup and malt vinegar as the cook suggested. My friends and I completely decimated the batch in a matter of minutes; they were absolutely delicious, crisp outside, with a dense yet airy interior spotted with rough chopped quahog clams. Ever since then I can’t go to a beach in Rhode Island without stopping in for a batch of clam cakes to share with friends after day at sea.
image credit: From the Open Road
With the Soup Challenge in full swing, we put the Kitchen Confidential series on pause. But now that we have three excited Soup Challenge winners and have deemed this year’s contest a success (for the winning finalists and for New England Country Soup, which held its own against homemade), we are bringing the Kitchen Confidential posts back!
If you are new to the New England Country Soup blog, my name is KC, and I am the trusty New England Country Soup (NECS) intern. I am currently in a Master’s program studying gastronomy, and, as you can imagine, I am a big foodie just like the rest of the NECS team! We began the Kitchen Confidential (KC, if you will) series in the fall, and some of our most popular KC posts revolved around foodie stocking stuffer suggestions.
That said, with Easter / springtime celebrations in full ‘bloom,’ we have decided to showcase ways to celebrate food a little more this time of year (obvious egg hunts aside). We’ve pooled our culinary savvy to bring together the best foodtools, Easter edibles, and Nature-to-Table kitchen curiosities to share with you!
Every culinary cottontail would love to find any one of these fresh foodtools in his/her Easter basket. Better yet, use one of the ceramic berry baskets (fig. 4, pictured center) and fill with fresh straw or recycled paper grass and another little gift or two.
Congratulations again to Felice Bogus, winner of this year’s Southeast Soup Challenge Final! Here are more images from the day!
The Southeast Final was held at Creations, the teaching restaurant at The Art Institute of Atlanta– it was a very fun venue for the finalists and their friends/families!
The finalists’ prep tables ready for them to arrive!
Congratulations, again, to Midwest Soup Challenge winner Vidya Swamy! Here are more photos and details from the day of the final!
Illinois Central College (ICC) has a wonderful facility where the 5 Midwest finalists prepared their soups.
Adding a very fun element to the day, ICC set up cameras in the kitchen and interviewed finalists as they prepared their soups! Continue reading
Since April’s Fools Day falls on a weekend this year you have plenty of time and absolutely no excuse to not play a trick on someone. But, just in case your playlist is full, we’ve compiled some of the best food related tricks that are guaranteed unfoolproof.
Poisson d’avril
Poisson d’avril, or rather, April Fish, is the French equivalent of April Fools, but with a much yummier trick. The day is often celebrated by playing innocent tricks, sticking paper fish on people’s backs, and eating an array of foods shaped like fish. While no one really knows the origins of this bizarre holiday, or its relation to fish, the celebration remains a delicious one.
Image Credit: Heflinreps
Gastronomy of a Fool
On Saturday, in the quaint town of Peoria, IL, the five Midwest Soup Challenge finalists flexed their culinary muscles in the state-of-the art kitchen at Illinois Central College.
The Culinary Institute at Illinois Central College
Chef Vidya traveled from Grover, MO, Chef Amy came from Atlanta, IL, Chef Linda from Mahomet, IL, Chef Barbara from Park Hills, MO, and Chef Dianna from Washington, IL. The five finalists spent the first part of the morning preparing their soups to compete head-to-head with New England Country Soup on taste and nutrition for a chance to win a foodie weekend getaway to Martha’s Vineyard.
Despite the fierce competition, there was a friendly air of culinary camaraderie….
This past Saturday, the five Southeast Soup Challenge finalists took over the kitchen at The Art Institute of Atlanta for a fun and friendly day of competition.
Creations restaurant, The Art Institute's teaching restaurant
Chef Naylet traveled from Miami, while Chef Robin arrived from Sarasota, Chef Cheryl from Wake Forest, NC, and Chefs Felice and Robert (competing husband and wife!) from Raleigh, NC. The five talented home cooks spent the morning preparing their soups to compete head-to-head with New England Country Soup on taste and nutrition for the chance to win a foodie weekend getaway to Martha’s Vineyard.
The kitchen filled with the wonderful sights, sounds and smells of these five outstanding recipes …
Danielle Hatch has been the Journal Star’s entertainment editor since 2007. She reviews restaurants in the Peoria area and writes about festivals, concerts, comedians and culinary matters in the print edition and online at PJStar.com. She recently kicked off a personal cooking blog, Down the Hatch, at Daniellehatch.blogspot.com. She is a graduate of Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Mich., and started her newspaper career at age 15, writing briefs for the Iosco County News Herald.
See some of the latest entries to the competition here and vote for your favorite!
By: Naylet
Region: Southeast
Versus: Lentil
SEE ENTRY >
By: Laurel
Region: Southeast
Versus: Chicken Corn Chowder
SEE ENTRY >
By: Laurie
Region: Northeast
Versus: New England Clam Chowder
SEE ENTRY >
By: Eileen
Region: Southeast
Versus: Chicken Corn Chowder
SEE ENTRY >
By: Christine
Region: Northeast
Versus: Chicken Pomodoro
SEE ENTRY >
By: Kathryn
Region: Southeast
Versus: Sweet Chicken Curry
SEE ENTRY >
By: Thomas
Region: Northeast
Versus: New England Clam Chowder
SEE ENTRY >
By: Barbara
Region: Midwest
Versus: New England Clam Chowder
SEE ENTRY >
By: Thomas
Region: Northeast
Versus: Sweet Chicken Curry
SEE ENTRY >
By: Dianna
Region: Midwest
Versus: Chicken Corn Chowder
SEE ENTRY >
