Herbed Carrot Soup

This recipe originally came from The Moosewood Cookbook, a cookbook that was my introduction to vegetarian cooking. My older siblings brought home this cookbook when I was in elementary school, and we all immediately fell in love with these flavorful recipes from the Moosewood Restaurant, a vegetarian restaurant in Ithaca, New York. Since then, Moosewood has released several more cookbooks and the entire collection remains a family favorite.

This particular recipe has been altered slightly from the original and is something I make at least once a month. It is a very simple recipe to make, especially since I recently bought an awesome new Ninja blender that can puree this entire recipe at once.

Ingredients:

6 cups vegetable broth
2 lbs carrots
1 T butter or oil
1 cup diced onion
1 ½ t salt
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ t thyme
½ t marjoram
1 t basil
1 T lemon juice
1 ½ cups coconut milk

Bring vegetable broth and carrots to a boil in a large saucepan or Dutch oven. Simmer for 20-30 minutes to soften carrots. When carrots are close to being done, heat oil in a frying pan and sauté onions for 5 minutes. Add garlic and herbs and cook for a few more minutes. Stir in lemon juice and remove from heat.

Combine carrots and herb-onion mixture in a blender or food processor with some broth and blend until smooth, working in small batches as your blender allows. Repeat until all ingredients have been blended. I find it is easiest to use a slotted spoon to make sure all carrots have been removed to the blender.

Return blended mixture to pan. Add coconut milk and continue to heat on low for a few minutes, stirring often to avoid burning. This recipe makes at least six servings and goes well with my rosemary buttermilk biscuits.

References:
Katzen, Mollie. “Herbed Carrot Soup.” The New Moosewood Cookbook. Berkeley, California: Ten Speed Press, 2000. 23. Print.

Pumpkin Soup

Two things take over my taste buds this time of year - the desire for a warm, comforting bowl of soup, and the desire for PUMPKIN-FLAVORED EVERYTHING. Today I combined those two desires in this delicious pumpkin soup. This recipe is non-dairy, but real milk or half-and-half could easily be substituted for the coconut milk that I used. I do, however, think the coconut milk added a flavor that would be missed if you used cow's milk.

Ingredients:

4 cups vegetable broth
1 cup carrots, chopped
1 15-oz can pumpkin
1 can (1 3/4 cups) coconut milk
1 t cinnamon
1 t ginger
1 t salt
1/2 t black pepper
1 bay leaf

2 cups water
Fresh sage for garnish

Combine broth, carrots, pumpkin, coconut milk, carrots and spices (except sage) in large pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer for at least an hour, stirring often to prevent burning. If you are using regular milk, save it and wait until close to the end of cooking to add it.

After an hour has passed, remove the bay leaf and discard. DO NOT FORGET TO REMOVE THE BAY LEAF. You do not want it blended in with your soup. Strain carrots from soup and add carrots to blender with 2 cups of water. Blend until smooth. Add carrot mixture back to the rest of the soup. If you are using regular milk, this is a good time to add the milk. Heat until just bubbling, then remove from heat. 

Serve garnished with diced fresh sage and with fresh, crusty bread on the side. I found beer bread went perfectly with this recipe. I only wish I had some pumpkin beer for making the beer bread, but alas, we drank it all recently during a particularly bad Browns game.

References:
http://www.againstallgrain.com/2011/11/01/paleo-and-scd-pumpkin-soup/

Shrimp and Red Pepper Bisque

My cousin Rebecca sent me a recipe for roasted red pepper soup and asked me to give it a try. I thought it sounded a little bland (sorry Rebecca!), so I spiced it up a little and ended up with this flavorful dish. I knew it was a success when James went back for seconds.

This recipe could easily be made vegetarian by leaving out the shrimp.

Ingredients: 

5 red bell peppers
4 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1 lb cheese or spinach tortellini
1 t sugar
1 t smoked paprika
3/4 cup half and half
1/2 cup grated Romano cheese
1 cup basil, loosely chopped
1 T olive oil
1 1/2 T Cajun spice mix
1 lb shrimp, peeled and veined

The most difficult part of this recipe is roasting the red peppers. The goal is to roast the peppers on a grill or under the broiler until they are partially blackened on all sides. In my stove, this took about three minutes per side, turning the peppers with tongs every three minutes until all sides were blackened and wrinkly.

Immediately place the blackened peppers in a paper grocery bag, clamping the bag shut and leaving to steam for 10 to 15 minutes. I used a pair of hemostats to clamp it shut (you'd be amazed how much these come in handy in the kitchen), but I suppose a clothespin would do if you don't have access to hemostats.

Remove stems, seeds, and skins from peppers. I found it was easiest to pull a chair up next to the trash can for this. The stems pulled off easily, and the seeds and skin are easily scraped and pulled off if you cut the peppers in half lengthwise. Slice one of the peppers into thin strips and set aside. The other four peppers will be used for the main content of the soup.

Bring broth to a bowl in a large pot. Add the four unsliced peppers and cook for five minutes. While peppers are cooking, combine shrimp, one thinly sliced pepper, olive oil, and Cajun spices in a bowl and mix well. Heat a frying pan to medium-high heat and add this mixture to frying pan to sauté, stirring occasionally, while you work on the rest of the soup.

Not the most appetizing step in the meal - raw shrimp isn't pretty.

When peppers have cooked in broth for five minutes, remove peppers and some of the broth to a blender and puree until smooth. Repeat this until soup is one uniform texture and no chunks of pepper remain. Return pureed red peppers to soup pot and bring to a boil. Add sugar and paprika and mix well. Add tortellini and cook for 10 minutes, or until tortellini is soft.

When tortellini is cooked, add grated Romano cheese and stir until melted. Add half and half and basil, stir until mixed, and remove from heat. When shrimp is cooked through (opaque and easily cut), add shrimp mixture to the rest of soup and stir until mixed.

Serve hot with a dry white wine. Serves four to six people... or two if you live with a guy who just got home from the gym.

References:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Roasted-Red-Bell-Pepper-Bisque-with-Shrimp-and-Romano-Cheese-103119
http://www.foodrepublic.com/2011/11/04/how-make-roasted-red-peppers

Delicious Vegan Split Pea Soup

You will not believe how good this soup tastes. I can hardly believe there's not meat in it. Even if I go back to meat eating in the future, I'll probably still make this soup because it's ridiculously tasty and still good for you.


The recipe was adapted from two split pea soup recipes from The Moosewood Cookbook, by Mollie Katzen, and Skinny Bitch in the Kitch, by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin. This would have easily made 6-7 pints of soup, but silly me didn't plan ahead and ran out of lids. Instead, I froze some of the soup in 2-cup glass storage containers that are surely going to pop their lids in the freezer. Lesson learned.

Ingredients:


3 T olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 white onion, diced
3 stalks celery, diced
2 cups carrots, diced
1 ½ t sea salt
2 t oregano
¾ t black pepper
1 t dried mustard
10 cups vegetarian broth
1 lb. split peas
1 t Bragg’s liquid aminos
1 bay leaf


Heat olive oil in large sauce pan or dutch oven. Add garlic and sauté for one minute. Add onions, celery, and carrots, cooking over medium heat until onions and celery are soft. Stir often. Mix in salt, oregano, black pepper, and mustard, and remove from heat.

Never have I cried so much from onions as I did today - WOW this one was pungent!

Add vegetable mixture, broth, peas, and liquid aminos to slow cooker and mix ingredients together with a large spoon. Add 1 bay leaf. Cook for 6 hours on low heat.


After 6 hours, carefully fish out the bay leaf and discard. Stir soup well to mix everything that has settled to the bottom. This makes a lot of soup, so I highly recommend canning or freezing some for future use.


**If you would like to can your soup: Sterilize jars and lids in boiling water before cooking is completed. Turn off slow cooker after 6 hours, stir, and immediately ladle soup into jars, filling to brim. Wipe tops of jars clean before tightly sealing the lids. The canning process must go very quickly; if soup is allowed to cool, the jars will not seal and will not be safe to store at room temperature.


After about an hour, you should hear a “pop” as the button on the lid pops down. This indicates the jar is now sealed and safe to store in the cupboard. If the button on the lid remains raised after 1.5 to 2 hours, this jar is not going to seal. Refrigerate any unsealed jars and eat within 24 to 48 hours.

Vegetarian Mushroom Soup

Today is day one of my vegetarian experiment. I had an adventurous day of grocery shopping, tracking down certain rare ingredients across the east side of Cleveland. It turned out that Whole Foods was the only place I could find things like amino acid supplements, vegan cheese, tahini, and a colorful variety of lentils. When I got home, I adapted the following recipe from the Hungarian Mushroom Soup in one of my favorite cookbooks since childhood, The Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen. The soup took about an hour from start to finish and makes 3 pints of soup.

Ingredients:


2 T butter
1 T olive oil
1/2 T minced garlic
1 white onion, diced
1 1/2 to 2 lbs baby portabella mushrooms, sliced thin
1 t salt
3 t dried dill
1 T paprika
2 t lemon juice
1 cup dry white wine
3 T flour
2 cups water
1 cup milk (at room temperature)
black pepper
1 t Bragg's liquid aminos
1/2 cup sour cream
1 T parsley


Melt butter with olive oil in dutch oven over medium heat. Add garlic and sauté for a minute or two. Add onion and sauté on medium-high heat for a few minutes (about the time it takes to wash and slice the mushrooms). Add mushrooms, salt, dill, and paprika, and mix well. Reduce heat to medium, cover, and cook for 15 minutes, stirring often.


Turn heat back to medium-high, and add lemon juice and wine. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring often. Add flour in very small amounts, stirring well to avoid lumps. When all flour is mixed in, add water. Cover, reduce heat to medium, and cook for 10 more minutes, stirring often.


Stir in milk. Add Bragg's liquid aminos, a vegetarian supplement that tastes similar to soy sauce and adds necessary amino acids that may be lacking in a vegetarian diet. Add sour cream, stirring in vigorously with a wire whisk until no lumps of sour cream are visible. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add parsley last, and remove from heat. If desired, you can save the parsley until just before serving and add on top of each bowl of soup for a nicer presentation.



**If you would like to can your soup: Sterilize jars and lids in boiling water. At end of cooking, heat soup until just starting to bubble. Turn off stove and immediately ladle soup into jars, filling to brim. Wipe tops of jars clean before tightly sealing the lids. The canning process must go very quickly; if soup is allowed to cool, the jars will not seal and will not be safe to store at room temperature.


After about an hour, you should hear a “pop” as the button on the lid pops down. This indicates the jar is now sealed and safe to store in the cupboard. If the button on the lid remains raised after 1.5 to 2 hours, this jar is not going to seal. Refrigerate any unsealed jars and eat within 24 to 48 hours.