Year of the Soup: Week 33

I’ve been waiting for this all year, and it’s finally time.  Fresh tomatoes are finally in season, and it’s time to make the fantastic tomato soup recipes I’ve been salivating over.  Since we have an excess of basil at the moment, this soup seemed like the natural choice.  It’s a bit orange from the cream, but this tomato soup is full of flavor, and an excellent compliment to a grilled cheese sandwich.  Just be sure to use those yummy local tomatoes that actually have flavor – not the icky ones from the grocery store that just taste like so much red water. :)  Happy Monday!

Fresh Tomato and Basil Soup

Ingredients

• 1 Tbs. olive oil
• 2 Tbs. butter
• 1 onion, minced
• 1 garlic clove, roughly chopped
• 3 cups vegetable broth
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 2 Tbs. tomato paste
• 2 Tbs. shredded fresh basil, plus a few whole leaves for garnish
• 2/3 cup heavy cream
• salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

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Year of the Soup: Week 32

This soup never stood a chance.  Starting a soup at 8pm usually isn’t a good sign, particularly if the attitude going into it is “I HAVE to make this soup before the ingredients go bad, but I don’t really want to eat it.”  It just went downhill from there.  I made faces at the smell of the curry.  John provided commentary on the odd texture and flavor of cauliflower.  Each ingredient I added was accompanied by a heap of commentary regarding how gross this soup would likely taste.  Bad news for the cauliflower.

In the end, the soup wasn’t terrible.  It smelled a little icky, but it was more bland than anything.  If I’d had the energy to add some additional seasonings I probably could have brought it up a notch.  But frankly, my heart wasn’t in it.  It was 9pm, I hadn’t had dinner, and I just wanted to eat pizza and forget about the experimental soup.  So that’s exactly what we did.

This soup is currently sitting in a tupperware in the fridge, hoping that someone decides it’s worth a second chance after the flavors have had a chance to sit.  Two guesses as to who will get that job :)

Curried Cauliflower Soup

Ingredients

• 2 Tbs. olive oil
• 1 small onion, chopped (1 cup)
• 1 medium tart apple, such as Granny Smith, peeled, cored, and coarsely chopped (1 cup)
• 1 Tbs. curry powder
• 1 clove garlic, sliced (1 tsp.)
• 1 large head cauliflower, chopped into 1-inch pieces (6 cups)
• 4 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
• 1 tsp. honey or agave nectar
• 1 tsp. rice wine vinegar Continue reading »

Year of the Soup: Week 31

I have no idea what 1/2 pound of potatoes looks like.  If have a 10 pound bag in my kitchen that was nearly half empty, how many potatoes makes 1/2 pound?  This sounds like a bad math problem.  I’m not good with math problems.  So I threw four potatoes into the soup and called it good.

I think that may have been too much potato, because this soup tasted a little too much like this soup, and less like a yummy cabbage and bean soup, as intended.  Still good, but fewer potatoes would definitely have allowed the other ingredients to shine.  So when you make it, try only two potatoes – or I  suppose you could actually weigh them if you’re a little more neurotic.  This soup came from 101 Cookbooks, another excellent source for food-related blog-stalking, if you’re into that sort of thing :)

Rustic Cabbage Soup

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• a big pinch of salt
• 1/2 pound potatoes, skin on, cut 1/4-inch pieces
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1/2 large yellow onion, thinly sliced
• 5 cups vegetable broth
• 1 1/2 cups white beans, precooked or canned (drained & rinsed well)
• 1/2 medium cabbage, cored and sliced into 1/4-inch ribbons Continue reading »

Year of the Soup: Week 30

The tears, oh my, the tears.  Thinly slicing five large onions brought on the waterworks in my kitchen.  And once I finished with the onions, the garlic needed mincing.  Would it never stop?  The combination made my eyes and nose run in a very unflattering way.  But as they began to caramelize on the stove, they filled the house with an aroma rivaled only by this previous soup.  That’s when my mouth started watering.

I’ve been wanting to taste French Onion Soup for years, but lurking beneath it’s bubbling cheese top is nearly always beef broth – a surefire way to make this vegetarian sick.  Fortunately, the good people at Vegetarian Times whipped up this veg-friendly alternative.  This recipe has such nice flavor that even John thought it was a winner without the beef broth.  It’s such a distinctly different type of soup than anything I’ve made yet this year, and I highly recommend it.  It’s sweet and savory, and completely worth all the tears shed for the sake of it’s production.

Vegetarian French Onion Soup

Ingredients

• 2 Tbs. unsalted butter
• 1 Tbs. vegetable oil
• 5 large onions (about 3 lb.), halved and thinly sliced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced (about 1 Tbs.)
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 Tbs. all-purpose flour
• 6 cups roasted or low-sodium vegetable broth
• 1/3 cup dry sherry
• 1 tsp. Dijon mustard
• 1 tsp. sherry vinegar
• 6 1/2-inch slices sourdoughbread, toasted
• 2/3 cup shredded Jarlsberg or Gruyère cheese (I used Munster – yum!)

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Year of the Soup: Week 29

My body screamed for protein.  An excruciating Yoga Sculpt class had completely kicked my ass – and my abs and my arms and my legs.  My muscles needed protein to start the essential rebuilding process.  So I turned to a vegetarian’s best friend: the bean.

This soup has 13 grams of protein per serving.  It made my muscles happy.  The creaminess of this soup is both unexpected and delightful, but I do recommend adding a bit more spice to give it some dimension (see my note.)  It’s also best served alongside something – preferably vegetables.  I served it with salad, which worked perfectly.  Of course, John added a steak to that.  I guess 13 grams of protein just wasn’t enough for him :)

Three Bean Soup

Ingredients

• 2 Tbs. vegetable oil
• 1 large onion, diced (about 2 cups)
• 1 15.5-oz. can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 15.5-oz. can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 6 cloves garlic, minced (about 2 Tbs.)
• 2 cups low-sodium vegetable broth or water
• 1 15.5-oz. can great Northern beans, drained and rinsed
• Salt and pepper to taste
• (I added 1/4 teaspoon of cumin and about 1 tablespoon of Soulard Grill for extra flavor.  Totally optional.) Continue reading »