Soup Marathon Day #3!

What is a soup marathon without beef stew? If you recall, my goal for this week was all my soups to be vegetarian. So how can I get a stew to taste like beef, but have none in it? By playing! So I used my imagination and combined red wine, worceshire sauce, and rosemary for the beef flavor and mushrooms for the beef feel! Here is what came of it: Non Beef Burgandy Stew!

Ingredients
1 Dozen small potatoes, peeled and chopped into bite-sized pieces
5 large carrots, sliced
4 large celery stalks, sliced
2-8oz. Packages of baby bella mushrooms, quartered
1 large yellow onion, finely diced
3 chopped cloves of garlic
1 sprig of rosemary, removed from woody stem and chopped
¼ cup Worcestershire sauce
1 TBSP freshly ground black pepper
2 TBSP chopped, flat leaf parsley
1/3 cup flour and 2 TBSP flour divided
2 cups vegetable stock
1 cup dry, red wine
2 hot cups water
1 cup tomato paste
1 cup milk
Salt to taste

Instructions:
Combine all the vegetables and herbs in a large crock pot, minus the mushrooms. Toss the quartered mushrooms with the 1/3 cup of flour before adding to the pot. Mixture will look like this:


Combine the tomato paste and the 2 cups hot water and whisk until chunks are gone. Add tomato paste mixture, wine, and stock to the crock pot. Cover and cook on low for 4 hours. After the 4 hours of cooking time, whisk together the remaining 2 TBSP of flour and the 1 cup of milk. Add to stew and cook on low for another hour. Salt to taste and serve. (Don’t add salt until cooking process is over. Slow cooking with salt can make the dish too salty in the end.)

So we discovered that this stew tastes amazing, but it is so rich! We don't really eat rich food often, so this was a bit much for us. If you love rich food, this is the stew for you. Also, if you want to meat it up, replace the mushrooms with stew meat and use beef stock. If you don't like cooking with wine, replace wine with either vegetable or beef stock. The wine gives the stew it's color and "ping" though.

Make it. Critique it.

Soup Marathon Day #2

So I had this wild idea: Why not make a soup that tastes like jalapeno poppers! Then the brainstorming began and thoughts about how to make it not 10,000 calories. Well, I thought what about making it potato based? So thats the direction I started to take. So this is what I cam up with: Jalapeno Potato Soup. It was amazingly good and nasal-clearing spicy!

So here is the process!

Ingredients:

10    jalapenos, roasted then puréed

8-10 medium potatoes, peeled and quartered

2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1/4 tsp ground white pepper

2 cups of hot water, divided (from boiled potatoes)

8oz package of Cream cheese

2 cups shredded cheddar

½ cups vegetable stock

1 cup milk (I used 1%)

1 tsp kosher salt

Fresh ground pepper

Instructions:

Roast whole jalapeños in an oven preheated to 425 until they are softened and the skin is charred a bit.

Meanwhile peel and boil potatoes until fork tender. To evenly cook potatoes, cut them equal size and cover them with cold water. This allows them to remain the same temperature the entire cooking time. When they are done, remove the potatoes from water with slotted spoon, you want to save the water. Add potatoes to food processor and puree, adding hot water from pot to keep loose, about 1 and ½ cups.

 During this stage add the kosher salt, white pepper, and garlic cloves and puree until no chunks remain. Mixture will look like this:

 

Add potato mixture back to soup pot, keeping it warm. Next, remove jalapenos from oven and cut stem off. I left the seeds, but if you want it less spicy, cut open and remove seeds and ribs. Add peppers to food processor and puree with the remaining ½ cup of hot water. Until no chunks remain.

Will look like this:

Add jalapeno mixture to potatoes and stir in remaining ingredients. Cook until cream cheese and cheddar have melted. Top with croutons!

Try it.

Make it.

Critique it!

Soup Marathon Day 1!

The Fall season is upon us! I love the rain, the cold not so much! The first thing that I crave when it rains is coffee...LOTS of coffee! The second thing I crave is soup! Some brainstorming has been happening between my husband and me about a dream/adventure in the future. In the process of this discussion I decided to try out some soup recipes to make that dream more possible (can't really go into detail about the dream yet hehe). I decided to try a soup everyday this week, ones that I will create each day, from scratch. They may turn out, they may not. Either way I will share the journey here! They will also each be vegetarian!

So tonight I went with a Lemon Thyme Rice soup.



Here is the process:
Ingredients:
2 TBSP extra virgin olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
3-4 chopped carrots
4-5 Stalks of celery with leafy parts (see note below)
zest of 1 lemon
1 TBSP fresh thyme
1 TBSP lemon herb seasoning
1 cup of uncooked, brown basmati rice
1- 14.5 can of vegetable stock
3 cans (the empty vegetable stock can) hot water
2 TBSP chopped flat leaf parsley
juice of 1 lemon
Parmesan cheese (for topping)

Instructions:
In a large pot heat the EVOO. Add chopped vegetables and thyme and cook until softened. Add lemon herb seasoning and rice and cook for 3-4 minutes, stirring occasionally. Looks like this:

Add in vegetable stock and water and bring to a boil on medium-high heat. When at a boil, cover and reduce heat to medium-high and cook until rice is cooked. Before serving, add parsley and lemon juice and top with Parmesan cheese!
If you notice, salt wasn't added to this soup. Lemon touches the same part of your tongue as salt, so it is perfect without it!

Here is your note:
Don't be afraid of the leafy and center parts of celery! They have the most flavor! I used the stalks in the celery heart for this recipe!

Lentil, Bean, and Meatball Soup

I love, love, love fall!!! Today it was finally cool here in Southern California!! Perfect day for a nice bowl of hot soup! Here is my latest creation:

Bean and Meatball Soup

Soup:
3 cups Dried Bean and Lentil mix (found in the bulk section of most health food stores)
4 cups Vegetable Stock
Celery Hearts
Roma Tomatoes
White Onion
Fresh Garlic
Cumin
Coriander
Pinch white pepper
2 Bay Leaves
Fresh chopped parsley
Salt and fresh cracked black Pepper
Water (enough to make 1 inch fluid above everything)

Soak beans for a couple hours and then drain. Add all the ingredients together and bring to a boil. Reduce to a slow simmer.

Meatballs:
Lean ground beef (I use 7% fat)
¼ red onion finely chopped
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp garlic powder
Fresh cilantro and mint leaves (as much as you like)
1 egg

Combine all the ingredients well and form into ¾-1 inch meatballs. Place on a baking sheet and bake at 350 for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and add to soup pot when beans are beginning to get soft, but still have bite. Continue simmering soup on low until beans are done. Salt to taste and remove bay leaves.

Beans and Potato Soup!

I know it is almost summer, but I can eat soups year round!!!
This is my Beans and Potato Soup

What you need:
2 large red potatoes (or any color you like)
2 green onions (white and green parts)
Pint of grape tomatoes (sliced in half)
2 garlic cloves finely chopped
Handful of fresh parsley finely chopped
16oz can of Garbanzo Beans (drained)
1 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp Paprika
Pinch of white pepper
Salt and Pepper

What you do:
Chop up potatoes and put in medium saucepan. Fill up with COLD water until the water is just above the potatoes. When they begin to boil add in all the rest of the ingredients (except for the garbanzo beans) and let simmer until potatoes are falling apart! Add Garbanzo beans until they are heated through. Top with some Parmesan cheese and Voila!

Makes about 2-3 servings

Now if you don't like garbanzo beans or if you just wanna switch this up, replace the Garbanzo beans with black beans and replace the parsley with cilantro and top with tortilla chips and Mexican blend cheese. You can also replace the garbanzo beans with pinto or chili beans, add some chili powder, and top with Cheddar cheese!

For 3 sevings, each serving contains: Calories 257; Fat 2g; Sodium 487g; Carbs 51g; Fiber 9; Sugar 3; Protein 10g