Craving Soup

I've become a little bored with our meals and I'm craving a bit of change so I've decided to look for some new recipes to try.  Since I know myself well I decided to set a few rules that recipes have to meet so I can make sure I don't go overboard.

The rules are simple:

• dishes cannot have exotic ingredients (ie...have to find them in our grocery stores)
• dishes have to be family friendly
• dishes have to have a balance of healthfulness and taste (to meet lower sodium, lower fat)

So with those rules in mind and a good idea of what I have on hand I'm trying to come up with some different things for us to try.  Since it is finally cold here -- high yesterday was 40F -- I decided to start my search with soups.

So far I've come up with these soups:

1. Lentil curry -- We tried a lentil curry in the past that hubby loved, but daughter wasn't crazy about.  Since I have all the ingredients on hand we'll be having curry and she'll have to eat something else.
2. Potato and sausage soup -- We've always had ham and potato soup, but over the holidays I browned 2 lbs of sausage and saved 2 containers (1/3 of the 2 lbs in each).  I think this would be a good soup to try with either a crusty bread or perhaps cornbread.
3. Egg Drop Soup -- I love egg drop soup, but have never made it homemade. I intend to try my hand at it with our next fried rice meal.
4. Meatball Soup -- I've never tried meatball soup.  Daughter won't eat tomato based so I am going to make one with beef broth, small noodles and veggies.  We'll see how it turns out.

I thought we'd try one a week for the month of January.   I'll share what I do and how we like them and as plans stand now I will use the crockpot to make everything except the egg drop soup.

Tonight we're having beef stew...compliments of the crockpot.