Fall favorites: Bittman’s one-pot comfort soups

Try his recipes for vegetable soup — which he calls ‘best ever’ — and his roasted butternut chowder

Video: Warm up with Mark Bittman’s soups

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>>> we're back at 8:44. we're talking about comfort soups. mark fittman is the author of the "food matters" cook cook. these are soups that are a whole meal?

>> these are soups that are so filled with flavor and great vegetables that you really can make a meal out of them.

>> the two such s

>> the two suchoups we're going to show is bacon for flavor.

>> i'm kind of trying to get to the point where meat is the star.

>> this is a recipe that you stole from an old woman in tuscany.

>> well, the idea is that you cook, just pretty much ordinary vegetables in batches, a little bit at a time.

>> why batches?

>> carrots, celery, onions and then you get varying textures so the first batch becomes very, very soft and ? the second retains a little bit more bite.

>> okay and when you're talking about vegetables here, you're using the last gas -- gasp of summer and a little bit of fall.

>> this is a little bit of cabbage and some tom mate toe paste.

>> this is parsley, which in here is just wonderful. you're driving the water out of the vegetables and just leaving their flavor behind.

>> when we get to the beans, what kind of beans are these?

>> they're white beans, they're catalini. varying textures, at of different flavors, beautiful colors. you're almost done, really, another ten minutes.

>> you put the beans in now in?

>> i want them to end, but for appearances sake, we can put them in there.

>> this is healthy, it's got all the incredible nutrients for flavor.

>> this one doesn't have bacon. this one year eating for breakfast, everybody's raging, the best vegetable soup ever.

>> move on to the second one. what are we making?

>> the second best vegetable suit. it's butter nut squash cut into chunks with apples.

>> and how do you like that combination of flavors?

>> you get the two different kinds of sweet and the two textures, and onions, and once you roast them, they're also sweet. these are not so secret ingredients.

>> but it's bacon.

>> enough for flavor. and then a lot of garlic. and some olive oil here too.

>> we're going to roast at pretty high heat for 20 or 30 minutes until stuff has really, really softened. saltpepper, of course. and when you're done --

>> so you're going to add some stock to this.

>> take it back out of the oven, a little white wine and sort of stir that up.

>> what would you use there?

>> i would use anything dry, so pine -- just trying to get everything up off the bottom. and you see things break up by themselves. and then you put a little bit of stock, and a little bit of sage also.

>> what kind of stock.

>> chicken stock , but any time you use butter nut squash in a soup, you need to use water. butter nut squash and bacon, what could go wrong?

>> some people make it in a puree. but this is not the consistency, you're looking for a broth and vegetable soup .

>> you can also put bread in here, but i'm looking for something that's kind of a whole meal.

>> from start to finish, how long would it take to cook this one?

>> 30, 45 minutes.

>> if you wanted to serve this as a meal and you wanted wine to go with them, a lot of people would say white mine, because you put white wine in there.

>> but a fruity red i think is just gorgeous. on a cool evening, this soup with a little bit of wine, just perfect.

>> the best vegetable soup ever.

Show transcript

TODAY recipes

updated 10/12/2010 5:31:11 PM ET

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Soups are often thought of as starters — thin brothy affairs that may taste good but never quite fill you up. When the fall and winter weather comes around you want something with a bit of heft to it. These two one-pot recipes from Mark Bittman, author and New York Times columnist, should do the trick! They're filling, perfect for the cooler weather and will help you finish off your late-summer vegetables.

Recipe: The best vegetable soup ever, no kidding (on this page) Recipe: Roasted butternut chowder with apples and bacon (on this page)

Recipe: The best vegetable soup ever, no kidding

Mark Bittman, New York Times columnist and author of "The Food Matters Cookbook"

Ingredients

3/4 cup olive oil, more or less
2 onions, peeled and chopped
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 celery stalks, peeled and chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 bunch parsley, washed and chopped, thick stems discarded
2 or 3 cabbage leaves, chopped
1 bunch chard, preferably white, washed and chopped
1/4 cup tomato paste
3 to 4 cups cooked white beans, like cannelloni, with their liquid if possible

Preparation

Put about a third of the olive oil in the bottom of a deep pot and turn the heat to medium.

Add half the onion, carrot and celery and cook, stirring occasionally, until they soften, which takes about 10 minutes.

Add about half of the remaining oil and repeat the process, seasoning with salt and pepper as you go.

Add the remaining oil with the parsley, cabbage and chard and cook, stirring occasionally, until everything is softened but not browned.

Add the tomato paste and stir.

Mash the beans so that they're about half mashed and half more-or-less whole. Add this mixture to the pot, along with any bean cooking liquid and enough water to make the whole mixture stewy but not watery.

Continue cooking, tasting and adjusting the seasoning as necessary, until all the vegetables are very tender and the soup is hot. Serve hot or warm.

Serving Size

Makes about 10 servings

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Recipe: Roasted butternut chowder with apples and bacon

Mark Bittman, New York Times columnist and author of "The Food Matters Cookbook"

Ingredients

1 butternut squash, about 1 1/2 pounds, peeled, seeded and cut into cubes
1 large onion, chopped
2 large apples, peeled, cored and chopped
4 bacon slices, or one 1/2-inch-thick strip slab bacon, chopped
2 tablespoons minced garlic
Salt and black pepper
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage or 1 teaspoon dried
1/2 cup dry white wine or water
6 cups vegetable or chicken stock or water

Preparation

Heat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Spread the squash, onion, apples, bacon and garlic in a deep roasting pan or on a baking sheet.

Sprinkle with salt and pepper and drizzle with the oil.

Roast, stirring every now and then, until the squash, onion and apples are tender and browned and the bacon is crisp, which takes about 45 minutes.

Remove the roasting pan from the oven.

Stir in the sage and white wine and scrape up all the browned bits from the bottom.

If you're using a roasting pan that can be used on the stovetop, position the pan over 2 burners and put both on medium heat. Otherwise, transfer the contents of the pan to a large pot or Dutch oven and set it over medium heat.

Add the stock and cook until the squash, onion and apples break apart and thicken and flavor the broth, which takes about 25 minutes. You can help the process along by breaking the mixture up a bit with a spoon.