Reviewed: Dec. 19, 2011

I love this soup, I've made it several times, once for a party. It's interesting and unique, but simple enough to appease picky tastes. I make 3 small changes: 1. Saute the onions and garlic in a few tbsps of the reserved bacon grease 2. Replace 1 cup of the beef stock with APPLE CIDER! 3. Throw everything into a crock pot for 6 hours on low after the browning the onion/garlic. Just makes the process a bit easier.

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Reviewer:

Jessica

Cooking Level: Intermediate

Home Town: Kansas City, Missouri, USA

Living In: Los Angeles, California, USA

Reviewed: Dec. 14, 2011

This soup is truly amazing. It is a little labor intensive but you will definitely be rewarded with a soup that is awesome the first day but amazing the third day. It is fine the way it is but I added a little fennel and sautéed all the veg in the bacon grease and also added a little apple juice when simmering. This took it absolutely over the top. This is one you will want to double if not triple. None will go to waste, trust me. This also makes a great braising liquid for pork tenderloin as well. Made a fantastic Christmas dinner.

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Reviewer:

Billygriffith11

Reviewed: Nov. 8, 2011

wow

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Reviewer:

Buffy S.

Cooking Level: Intermediate

Reviewed: Oct. 29, 2011

Mercy this soup is excellent! I followed some other suggestions and used bacon grease i/o olive oil to saute the onion, garlic AND celery. Otherwise, followed the recipe exactly. Wonderful!

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Reviewer:

Leonda58

Cooking Level: Expert

Reviewed: Oct. 6, 2011

This is absolutely fantastic! I wish I got to eat it! I'm making this as part of a meal for a family at church who is going through some tough times. I'll be serving it with Winter Fruit Salad from this site and some cranberry rice muffins from the package of Bob's Red Mill white rice flour. I needed a meal that was both gluten and dairy free and found this recipe. I had a ton of apples from the orchard so I figured this, with the salad, would be perfect. The serving size is not correct, unless you are serving 8 tiny people with small appetites. I thought I would have to double it for 9 people and bought the stuff to do that, but then once everything was in the pot I realized that it wasn't going to cut it and had to quadruple it at the last second. I had used up all my beef bouillon cubes and had to add chicken cubes and more water . I threw in one extra can of kidney beans on top of the pinto beans I already had in there. I used 1 c. marsala and 1 c. sherry for the wine. sauteed the apples in the marsala and stirred the sherry into the soup. Like other people, I cooked the onion and garlic in the bacon grease and skipped the oil. I think increasing the servings to 32 would feed 8 to 10 people with average to large appetites. It is a very hearty soup and I'm going to have to make it for myself sometime. I only got to taste a spoonful to make sure it was worthy of serving to other people :) Next time I would just chop the apples instead of slicing them, though.

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Reviewer:

T Roos

Cooking Level: Intermediate

Reviewed: Sep. 6, 2011

Oh my goodness...this is good. Even better the next day! I used fire roasted tomotoes.

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Reviewer:

Julia S.

Reviewed: Mar. 23, 2011

Ok.. so this is definitely the best soup I've ever had in my life.. I did make several changes though but the outcome was so phenomenal that I simply have to share. I followed the recipe exactly. At the end, to spruce it up a bit, I added 1 and 1/2 T chili powder, a sprinkle of red pepper flakes, 1 t of cinnamon, 2 T of brown sugar and grated some nutmeg. I also added one jalapeno pepper with seeds and the result was outstanding. Very spicy but very good. Try it both ways if you like spice, you will love it. This is now my favorite soup.

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Reviewer:

yana

Reviewed: Mar. 13, 2011

Made the recipe exactly. My husband and I didn't love this. The flavour was good, but perhaps the texture threw us off. Maybe we'd like it as a blended soup, may try again. Rated it four because of flavour, but would have rated 3 because of texture.

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Reviewer:

fuzzypants

Reviewed: Feb. 11, 2011

This was ok, but not one of our favorites. I'm sure it's just a matter of taste, but to us it reminded us of a slightly sweet minestrone. We all ate our servings, but no one went back for seconds and no one wanted to save the leftovers. Thanks for sharing your recipe. I've been wanting to make this for quite some time and I'm glad I finally did. Try it for yourself.

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Reviewer:

Mi Being Mi

Cooking Level: Intermediate

Home Town: Alma, Michigan, USA

Living In: Topeka, Kansas, USA

Reviewed: Feb. 1, 2011

Delicious and filling! I didn't have the red wine, so I used sherry, but the flavor was still great. We ate ours on a snowy day with smoked gouda grilled cheese sandwiches - fantastic and easy!

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