This soup is wonderful to make in the winter time. The colors are so vibrant it reminds you of summer. When I made this soup, the snowflakes were falling outside my kitchen window. I was smiling because it was warm and sunny inside, like a perfect summer day.
So, this soup is super easy and very flavorful. My husband declared it was the best "stew" I've ever made. But I'll elaborate on that a little later. For this soup to get started, I took 3 slices of bacon and chopped them up into tiny pieces and cooked them until crispy in the bottom of a heavy bottomed dutch oven (AKA soup pot). I took the bacon pieces out and added my aromatics, half an onion and four cloves of garlic. Now the kitchen was starting to smell really good. I added frozen carrots, because I forgot to purchase fresh from the store. Whoops! All well. Easy fix. As the onion, garlic and carrot sweated and got to know each other in the pot, I washed the swiss chard and cut the leaf away from the more fibrous rib. Then I added those to the pot. I purchased two bunches of swiss chard at the store because anyone who has cooked greens before knows, they shrink a lot.
To my pot of veggies I added ham. I already had breakfast ham, that no one was interested in anymore, so I used it in the soup. Then I added half a teaspoon of red pepper flakes, salt and pepper to taste, and stirred it all to combine. Next came the liquid in the form of chicken stock. To that I added the last two ingredients which were a can of chickpeas drained and a can of diced tomatoes with their juices. I brought the soup up to a boil and then turned the heat down and let it simmer for 30 minutes.
After the time had passed I added a few shakes of Worcestershire sauce, but omitted the hot sauce, because I already had pepper flakes in there.
When John was little he was over at his grandparent LeSueur's home. They grew swiss chard in their yard. Grandpa Waldo used to remind the kids as they played outside to be careful of his swiss chard. One evening his Grandma served him some. He took one bite and then went in the bathroom and spit it out. When he got back to the table, his grandparents asked him, "Did you spit that out?" When they found out he did, they weren't very happy with him. John didn't remember how the swiss chard was prepared. Most likely steamed. I guess the bacon fat and ham in the version I made helped.What's in a Name?
John does not like soup. When I say we are having soup for dinner, he thinks about what else there is to eat. Maybe it's a man thing that they want something more hearty, stick to your ribs at the end of their long days. I know that soup can be wonderful and very healthy with all the vegetable combinations. It has limitless possibilities, like stir-fry. So I noticed that if I called the soup "stew" John was more okay to at least try it, before he decided to eat something else. So far the stratagie has worked well.
When dinner time hit, I sliced up a loaf of french bread buttered it and stuck it under the broiler to toast. After I ladled the soup into bowels I put my crisped up bacon on top. Summertime delivered. Yum!
