healthy loaded baked potato soup - ymmv

I *loved* this soup, but Victor wasn't so positive - I ended up eating it all myself. Which was a huge win for me.

http://foodinjars.com/2015/01/veggie-stuffed-hippie-soup/

my first lentil soup

I've been making this soup since I was in college. It's easy, cheap, and filling, thus hitting all my requirements from that period. I still really like it, for those reasons but also because it's healthy and freezes well (and of course, I wouldn't have made it many times if I didn't think it was tasty, too).

Lentil Soup
(adapted from Help! My Apartment Has a Kitchen)

• 1 medium onion, diced
• 2 celery stalks, diced
• 3 carrots, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, diced
• olive oil
• 1 cup dried lentils
• 15 oz can diced tomatoes
• 4 cups vegetable broth
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp dried marjoram

Saute onion, celery, carrots and garlic in some olive oil in a large pot until soft (5-8 minutes).  Add lentils, tomatoes, broth and other spices.  Bring to a boil. Turn down the heat to low and simmer for at least 25 minutes, until lentils are soft.

As written, this recipe is vegan, but I often add a parmesan rind with the broth (remove when the lentils have finished cooking).

serves 4

Lemon Lentil Soup

This is another recipe from the Corinna Chapman series by Kerry Greenwood. (OMG - while I was looking up the series link, I came across a link to a mini-cookbook for them! Cannot wait to try. Ahem. Anyway...) I'm enjoying the series, but I'm also having a great time with the recipes Greenwood includes. This soup was no exception - easy to make, and very tasty. I did make a few minimal changes, because I can't seem to resist doing that, but it hews pretty close to the original.

Lemon Lentil Soup
adapted from Devil's Food by Kerry Greenwood

• 2 cups brown lentils
• olive oil
• 2 medium–large onions, peeled and chopped
• bunch of silverbeet (I learned a new word from this recipe: silverbeet is also known as chard), trimmed and finely sliced.
• juice of 2 large lemons
• ~ 2 C vegetable stock
• salt and whole black peppercorns

Soak the lentils overnight or, if time presses or you forgot, cover with cold water and bring to the boil, cover and turn off the heat and leave for an hour. Drain, cover with fresh water (this reduces the flatulence quotient), bring to a boil in a soup pot and simmer until tender (which won’t be long, don’t overcook them) — maybe five minutes. Keep tasting.

Meanwhile, cover the base of a heavy sauce pan with olive oil. When hot, throw in the onions, stir, and cook until golden.

When the onions are ready, throw in the chard, turn the heat to high, and mix the onions and chard together. Cover tightly, turn the heat down to medium, and cook until the stems are tender. Add the lentils and enough stock to come barely to the top of the mixture. Add the lemon juice and about 20 peppercorns, coarsely cracked. Add salt to taste and simmer for about 15 minutes.

"Mexican" Corn Chowder

Like the other recipes from this cookbook, I've been making this soup since college. V specifically requested this the other day (when I had to look up how to make garlic bread.....). The only problem is that we do all of our grocery shopping at a co-op these days, and the one we go to here in MN doesn't stock creamed corn, so this requires an extra trip. On the other hand, since we only visit regular groceries infrequently, when we go it's a bit like the stories about visitors from the USSR - it is completely stunning to see the huge variety on the shelves, and we go a bit wild buying things we "can't" normally get. Very fun. (My secret vice? all kinds of baked beans. The organic ones simply do not compare.)

Mexican Corn Chowder
adapted from Help! My Apartment Has A Kitchen

• 2 medium onions, finely chopped
• 2 celery sticks, thinly sliced
• 2-4 Tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 2 Tbsp Wondra
• 2 15-oz cans creamed corn
• 1 4-oz can green chilies, drained
• 4 C milk
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 2 C shredded Monterey Jack cheese
• tortilla chips for serving

Heat the oil in a soup pot over medium heat. Add onion and celery and cook until mostly softened (5-7 min). Add the cumin and flour and stir constantly until they're absorbed into the vegetable mixture. Add corn, chilies, milk, and salt & pepper and stir thoroughly.

Cook, uncovered, at a simmer until the soup thickens (about 8-10 min). Stir in the cheese and cook for a few more minutes, until the soup is hot but not boiling. Serve.

makes a light meal for 4

Simple Ham-Bone Soup

We had a ham bone left after we ate our Easter dinner (I used this recipe for the ham, though with cider in place of the juice and my own homemade blackberry jam). It's been sitting unlabeled in our freezer, looking less and less like anything I'd ever want to eat. Today started out beautiful, but has turned cold and rainy, so what better time for an impromptu soup? I wasn't planning to make it, so it was all things scrounged from the pantry/fridge/freezer - finally, the ham bone has a chance to shine.

Split Pea Soup
adapted from Charleston Receipts

• a meaty ham bone (ours was frozen, and I just chucked it in without defrosting it)
• 1 package green or yellow split peas (presumably this is supposed to be a 1-pound package; I just added the split peas I had in a jar - a little shy of 2 C of yellow ones)
• 3 quarts water
• 1/2 C chopped celery
• 3 carrots, chopped
• 1 large onion, chopped
• salt and pepper to taste

Add all ingredients other than salt and pepper to large pot. Bring to a boil and then lower heat to simmer. Cook slowly, stirring occasionally until peas have disintegrated (2-3 hours; time depends on freshness of peas and whether you've pre-soaked them). Add salt and pepper.

serves 8

Creamy Parsnip & Leek Soup

The last couple of weeks have really kicked my ass. Nothing terrible, just a lot of little things that added up to a whole lot of stress and not much cooking. I had the best intentions, cooking-wise, but often didn't feel up to making much of anything. Nonetheless, there were a couple of pretty wonderful meals in there, and this week has been MUCH better (though slow with the posting).

I continue to like Cook This Now, enough so that I bought a copy (I had it on loan from the library).

When I made this soup, I had a little jar with the pan juices from roasting a chicken - I used the (thick) layer of schmaltz that had solidified on top instead of the butter in the recipe and poured the rest into the soup with the chicken stock (... which was otherwise just water with "Better than Bouillon"). This isn't something I expect most people to just have sitting around in their fridges (I don't usually have chicken drippings, either), but it speaks to the kind of kitchen economy I try to practice: I didn't know what I'd do with the drippings, but since we ended up not wanting to make gravy with them, I also knew I didn't want to just toss them. And the next day, when I made this soup, I was grateful that I hadn't.

Creamy Parsnip and Leek Soup
adapted from Cook This Now

• 4 Tbsp butter or what-have-you (I would have used bacon drippings here if I hadn't had the schmaltz; no reason not to use oil if you'd like to keep the recipe vegan)
• 4 large leeks, trimmed of tough/dark green parts, carefully cleaned and sliced (the tough leaves are great to save for stock, though!)
• 1 tsp kosher salt, more or less
• freshly ground black peper, to taste
• 4 large celery stalks, sliced, with leaves if possible (keep the leaves separate)
• 4 thyme sprigs
• bay leaf
• parsley stems (totally optional)
• generous 1 lb parsnips, peeled and sliced
• 1 lb potatoes, peeled and chunked
• 1 qt chicken or veggie stock
• 2 C water
• a bit of fresh lemon juice (if needed for brightness)

Melt fat in your soup pot over medium heat. Saute leeks with salt & a little pepper until soft, about 5 min. Add celery and saute another 5 min or so until leeks are getting golden and celery is shiny.

Tie thyme, bay leaf, celery leaves and parsley stems (whichever combination of these things you have) together and add to the pot with the broth, water, parsnips, and potatoes. Bring to a boil and then turn heat down to a simmer. Cook until veggies are nice and soft (20-45 min).

Discard the herb bundle and puree the soup, adding water if it's too thick, lemon juice if the flavor is flat, and more salt and/or pepper to taste.

serves 6

We had the soup with garlicky croutons as (more or less) per the recipe's suggestion:

• thick slices hearty bread (we used whole wheat)
• 1 garlic clove
• drizzle of olive oil

Toast the bread. Meanwhile, cut a little cap off the end of the garlic. When the bread is toasted, rub it vigorously with the cut end of the garlic (which will kind of shred into the bread). Drizzle with a bit of olive oil.

 

where crispy = caramelized

Friday: Fragrant Lentil Rice Soup with "Crispy" Onions; fresh-baked bread

(Originally planned for Thursday; foiled by my own tiredness and desire for take-out.)

A lovely soup, even though it turned out that I didn't have any greens to stir in near the end. I don't know why she calls the onions crispy, as they're clearly caramelized (and she calls them that in the head notes). But whatever - it is indeed fragrant, and we both enjoyed it.

Fragrant Lentil Rice Soup with (optional) Spinach & "Crispy" Onions (adapted from Cook This Now)

For the caramelized onions:

• 3 medium onions, halved from root to stem & thinly sliced
• 2 Tbsp butter
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• pinch kosher salt
• pinch sugar

Heat a large saute pan over medium heat. Melt the butter and heat the oil, then toss in the onions with the salt. Cook until they release their juices (5 min), then sprinkle with sugar, raise the heat to medium-high, and cook until golden (7 more minutes). Turn heat to high, and cook, stirring only a few times, until they are deeply caramelized (5-10 more minutes). If you're me, you won't be able to resist adding a few tablespoons of water and deglazing the pan at this point. Either way, set aside the finished onions.

For the soup:

• 2 Tbsp oliv oil
• 1 onion, finely chopped*
• 2" piece fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped*
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped*
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 3/4 tsp ground cumin
• pinch ground allspice
• a bay leaf
• 6 C stock (chicken or veggie)
• 3 C water
• 1/2 C brown long-grain rice
• 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt more to taste
• 1 1/2 C red lentils
• 5 C baby spinach leaves (~ 4 C) or equivalent amount chard or kale (just be sure to cook less-tender greens a bit longer)
• lime (or lime juice), optional

Heat a large pot over medium heat; warm the oil in it. Add the aromatics (if you didn't puree them together, add the onion first; just add the ginger & garlic with the other spices) and saute until they begin to smell cooked - about 4-5 minutes. Add the spices and cook until very fragrant, about another minute. Add the stock, water, rice, and salt. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce to low, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes. Stir in the red lentils and cook until the rice is done and the lentils are meltingly soft, about 30 more minutes. Stir in the greens (if using) and let them completely wilt. Tast, and add more salt if necessary. If the dish tastes flat, add a little lime juice.

To serve, spoon into bowls and top with a bunch of caramelized onions, a bit of flaky salt, and maybe a tiny squeeze of lime.

serves 6

* I cut the aromatics into chunks and pureed them in a mini-food processor.

from the "archives"

It should be in the archives, anyway, as I made this soup back in October. I defrosted the leftovers and had them for dinner before my trip to Mexico. I thought I'd posted the recipe here, but apparently not. After much searching, here it is.

N.B. This soup improves enormously with a "rest" period - it is substantially better the next day (or even months later, if you are as bad about rotating frozen leftovers as I am).

Cauliflower and Bell Pepper Chowder
adapted from Cooking Light

• 1 Tbsp butter
• 4 large shallots, minced
• 1/2 C sliced celery
• 5 C home-made stock (veggie or chicken) or 5 C water plus Better Than Bouillon
• 1 head cauliflower, chopped
• 2 red or yellow bell peppers, chopped
• 1 C peeled and chopped red potato
• bay leaf
• 1 C 2% milk
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
• 1 Tbsp dried basil
• 1/4 C sour cream

Melt the butter in a soup pop over medium heat. Add shallots and celery. Cook 5 minutes or so, until softened. Add stock or water & bouillon and bring to a boil. Add cauliflower, bell pepper, potato, and bay leaf; return to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until potato is tender (about 20 min). Stir in milk and pepper; discard bay leaf.

Using an immersion blender, process until some of the soup is pureed, but leave a few chunky bits. Stir in basil and bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring often to prevent scorching. Remove from heat and stir in sour cream.

serves 4

Vegetarian Borsht

This Borsht (she spells it "Borshch") was absolutely incredible the day I made it. Neither of us liked the leftovers all that much, however, and it makes a truly heroic quantity of soup. Plus, it's a ton of chopping (even if you use a food processor, which I did). Unclear whether I'll make it again at some point.

Vegetarian Borshch
adapted from The Winter Vegetarian

• 2 large onions, peeled & finely chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, peeled & minced
• 1 large carrot, peeled & finely chopped
• 1 parsnip, peeled & finely chopped
• 1 turnip, peeled & finely chopped
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 6 medium beets (1 1/2 lb), peeled & finely chopped
• 3 medium potatoes, peeled & finely chopped
• 1 small celery root (1/4 lb), peeled & finely chopped
• 1 lb cabbage, shredded
• 1 c pitted brine-cured black olives (I consider this an optional ingredient, but add more salt if you omit it)
• 1 tart apple, peeled, cored, & finely chopped
• 8 C water
• 1 28-oz can tomatoes in puree
• 2 Tbsp tomato paste
• 10 black peppercorns
• 3 allspice berries
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 Tbsp lemon juice
• freshly ground black pepper
• minced fresh dill (as a garnish)
• sour cream (as a garnish)

In a huge stockpot, saute the onions, garlic, carrot, parsnip, and turnip in the oil until soft. Stir in beets through salt and bring to a boil. Reduce heat a simmer, covered, for 1 1/2 - 2 hours. Just before serving, stir in the lemon juice and pepper. Serve hot, garnished with dill and sour cream.

serves 10-12

Raspberry Borscht

This recipe wasn't really a resounding success. Victor and I both thought it was odd, and more than a little "dessert-y." Actually, I'm pretty sure that without the onion (but including the vinegar) it would be a delicious dessert soup. With a touch more sugar, I suspect it would also make a good sorbet. It is tasty, and it was refreshing, but I doubt we'll be making it again... at least as a main course.

I also baked some bread. Because it was hot, I baked the bread in my bread machine (bless you, craigslist!). The bread machine definitely turns out more "sandwich bread" than artisan loaves, but it's easy and - most importantly right now - doesn't heat up the kitchen.

Raspberry Borscht
adapted from The New Vegetarian Epicure

• around 2 lb beets (2 bunches)
• pinch of salt
• 1 pint raspberries
• 1/4 C minced red onion
• 1/2 C lemon juice
• 3 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1/4 sugar

Cut the tops off the beets, reserving for another use if you like beet greens. Scrub them, and put them in a pot with enough water to cover by an inch or so. Throw in a pinch of salt. Simmer until tender (about 45 min for large beets; perhaps 30 min for smallish ones.)

Drain, reserving 2 C of the cooking liquid. Allow to cool. (I went ahead and cooked the beets to this point while it was still cooler early in the week, since I knew it would be blazingly hot yesterday.) Peel the beets and cut into chunks. Puree the beets and berries with the reserved cooking liquid. If you prefer a smooth soup, strain out the raspberry seeds. Add the onion, lemon juice, vinegar, and a bit of the sugar. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Taste, and add more lemon juice, vinegar, or sugar as needed. Chill until you're ready to eat.

serves 4 as a light entree

Addictive Red Lentil Soup

I've been making this recipe for a long time - it's good enough that once, when I made it for my dad while he was in town on a visit, I got him hooked. He lived in rural Pennsylvania, though, so I ended up sending him red lentils from our co-op, because he couldn't buy them locally.

That was years ago, and I'm pretty sure that red lentils are more readily available these days. I hope so, anyway, because this soup is mighty tasty and it won't work with green or brown lentils.

Portobello and Basil Lentil Soup
(adapted from a recipe published in Shape Magazine many (many) years ago)

• 1 T. Olive Oil
• 1 small red onion, diced
• 1 small green pepper, chopped
• 2 cup diced portobello mushroom
• 3 garlic gloves, minced
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. white pepper
• 6 cups chicken broth (or vegetable broth)
• 6 oz. tomato paste
• 1 1/2 cup red lentils
• 1 bunch basil, coarsely chopped (reserve a few small ones for garnish)
• 1/3 cup dry sherry (optional)

In a soup pot over medium-high heat, saute the garlic, onion, green pepper, salt, pepper, and mushrooms until mushrooms are tender (about 5 minutes).

Add the chicken broth and tomato paste to soup pot and completely blend together.

Stir in the red lentils and bring to a boil. Lower heat, cover and simmer over medium-low heat for 15 minutes stirring occasionally.

Add the basil and simmer (with pot covered)15 minutes longer.

Add extra salt and pepper to taste.

Serve the stew in individual bowls and float one tablespoon sherry on top of each bowl.

Garnish with remaining basil leaves and serve hot.

yield: serves 4-6

No-Heat Meals

Monday: Gazpacho con Tropezones

I think cooking with no (or minimal) heat is going to be the theme of the week around here; we are already experiencing a record-breaking heat wave, and it's only supposed to be getting hotter. Of course, since this is unusual for the PNW, we don't have air-conditioning. We actually only own one fan. (And apparently we've become heat wimps since leaving the midwest.) Fortunately for us, this is also the height of the season for all kinds of delicious foods which don't really need much messing with to be a meal. Gazpacho takes advantage of this, especially gazpacho (like this one) which doesn't use tomato juice.

Gazpacho is nostalgic for me, since it figures fairly prominently in one of our all-time best vacations. It was actually a "staycation," I guess, before anyone used that word. It was over the fourth of July weekend, and we both took an extra day off, so we had four days to just enjoy ourselves at home.

We got up a bit late and had breakfast at a little cafe near our house, usually just pastries and excellent espresso. Their courtyard (really just the alley between their building and the one next-door) is FILLED with all kinds of flowers and birdbaths and it was a lovely place to linger. We spent the rest of the morning and the early afternoon just puttering about, and then went back to the cafe for lunch. It was just serendipity that one of us ordered gazpacho on the first day of our vacation, but it was so exquisite, so much the essence of summer, that we ordered it every day thereafter.

It was a perfect gazpacho: balanced, refreshing, with just the right amount of texture, and just a bit spicy. That soup ended up embodying a lot of the spirit of the weekend - my mental image of the vacation is sitting in Crema's lovely courtyard, slowly savoring it as Victor and I talked, and talked, and talked. This gazpacho can't hope to recreate that, but it definitely brings it to mind in a wonderful way.

Gazpacho con Tropezones
adapted from deliciousdays

Ingredients

• 2 slices of stale white bread
  
• 500g ripe tomatoes (about 2 large or 3 medium), chopped
  
• 1 red bell pepper
  
• 1 green bell pepper
  
• 1 small cucumber
  
• 1 white onion
  
• 1 small jalapeno pepper, seeded, deveined, and diced
  
• 1-2 garlic cloves
  
• ~1 tsp fine sea salt
  
• freshly ground black pepper
  
• a good pinch of dried chili flakes
  
• 2-3 tbsp red wine vinegar
  
• 4-5 tbsp fruity olive oil
  
• a small handful of ice cubes

Put the slices of stale white bread in a bowl and cover with cold water. Set aside. Chill serving bowls or glasses (optional).

Prepare the vegetables:

• Chop half the onion, half of each of the bell peppers, and half of the cucumber. Reserve the other halves for making the tropezones. Put the chopped veggies in the blender with the tomatoes.
• Peel the garlic cloves, then cut them into thin slices and add to blender.
  
• Prepare the tropezones: Cut the reserved bell pepper, cucumber and onion into neat little cubes or bitesize pieces - they will become tropezones ("stumbling stones") in your final soup. Set aside for later use.

Add the diced jalapeno to the blender and mix at medium speed until your vegetables have turned into juice and their blender volume has decreased significantly.

Add the bread slices (no need to squeeze out the water), season with sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, chili flakes, vinegar, and olive oil before putting the blender to work again. Mix until the Gazpacho reaches a smooth consistency.

Season to taste and pour into bowls (if you like your soup really cold, add one or two ice cubes to each bowl). Serve with a handful of tropezones, drizzle with some more olive oil and a good pinch of black pepper. Enjoy immediately.

serves about 2 as a meal on a hot summer evening