Confessions of a Foodie

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Thursday, August 20, 2020

Soup - Double-Post Thursday

Besides being Diabetic Thursday, it's also Double-Post Thursday. Today's double post deals with that soul-warming, good-smelling, great-tasting meal known as soup. (What's not to love, right?) Check out the Fennel and Tomato Soup, the Vegetable-Chicken Noodle Soup, or any of the other yummy offerings in today's post. Enjoy!

FRENCH LENTIL SOUP WITH ROASTED TOMATOES & PEPPERS

This comes from Seattle's Macrina Bakery. The recipe starts off, “This soup is a perfect comfort food on a drizzly Seattle day. We like to serve it in our cozy café with a few slices of crostini topped with goat cheese and a drizzle of good olive oil. It is pictured here with our Rustic Potato Roll. French green lentils are usually available in specialty shops and some supermarkets. If you can’t find French green lentils at your favorite market, you can substitute regular lentils.” Serves 4 to 6

Ingredients:

4 Roma tomatoes

3/4 cup olive oil

Kosher Salt

Freshly Ground Pepper

10 garlic cloves

1 medium yellow onion, diced

2 red bell peppers, diced

1 celery rib, diced

1-1/2 Tbsp ground cumin

1-1/2 Tbsp ground coriander seeds

1-1/2 cups French green lentils*

8 to 10 cups vegetable stock

1 Tbsp fresh Italian parsley, chopped

1 tsp fresh thyme, chopped

*Available in specialty shops and some supermarkets.

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 400°F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.

Wash and core the tomatoes, then cut them into 12 pieces each. Combine chopped tomatoes and 1/4 cup of the olive oil in a bowl and toss together. Pour tomatoes onto the prepared baking sheet and spread into an even layer. Season with salt and pepper and roast on center rack of oven for about 15 minutes. Set aside.

Place 7 of the garlic cloves and another 1/4 cup of the olive oil in a small saucepan. Bring to a simmer over low heat and cook until cloves are tender, approximately 15 minutes. Swirl the pan occasionally to keep the cloves from sticking to the pan. Transfer cooked garlic cloves to a small bowl and mash into a paste. Set aside.

Pour the remaining 1/4 cup of the olive oil into a large, heavy-bottomed soup pot. Add diced onion, red bell peppers and celery. Cover pot and cook for 15 minutes over medium-low heat to sweat the vegetables, stirring occasionally. The onions will become translucent. Finely dice the 3 remaining garlic cloves and add to the soup pot along with the cumin and coriander. Continue cooking over medium-low heat for 1 minute or until garlic smells sweet but is not brown.

Add roasted tomatoes, mashed garlic, lentils and 8 cups of the vegetable stock. Bring to a simmer. Cook soup for 45 to 50 minutes or until lentils are tender, adding more stock if needed. If foam gathers on the surface of the soup, remove it with a spoon. Before serving, add parsley and thyme and season to taste with salt and pepper.

HERBED CARROT SOUP



From the December 2005 issue of Runner's World; reprinted from HerbWise: Growing, Cooking, WellBeing, by Bruce Burnett



Ingredients

2 pounds of carrots, chopped

1 large onion, diced

6 sprigs of fresh parsley, 3 sprigs of fresh thyme or 1 teaspoon of dried thyme, and 6 six black peppercorns, bundled together so that they can be easily removed after cooking

2 cloves garlic, crushed

4 Tbs of butter

6 C of vegetable stock

Freshly grated mace or nutmeg

Salt & pepper to taste

Directions

Lightly sauté the onion & garlic in the butter. Add the stock & carrots & simmer for about 15 minutes. Add the bundle of herbs & continue to simmer for another 20 minutes. Remove the herbs, allow the soup to cool, & put it through the blender in batches. Reheat the soup over low heat while adding the mace or nutmeg & salt & pepper to taste. Serve with some fresh, homemade bread & garnish with some fresh parsley & a little chopped fresh thyme.

Note: The original recipe called for vegetable or chicken stock.

TURKEY TACO SOUP

This comes from Laurel Randolph, one of the writers on The Spruce. Laurel wrote, “Taco soup is an easy, one-bowl version of everyone's favorite dinner: taco night. All of the ingredients simmer together to make a robust, flavorful soup that's especially good with a side of crispy tortilla chips. And with only one dirty pot and a few dirty soup bowls, it's totally carefree. The typical ground beef is replaced with shredded turkey for a lighter meal—or you can replace it with cooked chicken, if that's what you have on hand.

“We love to make this soup after Thanksgiving, when we have leftover turkey to use up and we want to do as little cooking as possible. It's a great way to repurpose cooked, shredded breast or dark meat to create a totally different dish. No one will be complaining of leftover fatigue with this recipe.”

Prep Time: 5 minutes; Cook Time: 15 minutes; Total Time: 20 minutes; Yield: Serves 3 - 4.

To view this online, click here.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon canola (or grapeseed oil)

1 small red onion (diced)

1 green bell pepper (diced)

1 jalapeño (seeded and minced)

3 garlic cloves (minced)

1 tablespoon chili powder

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes (with juice)

1 (15 ounce) can pinto beans (rinsed and drained)

1 cup packed shredded cooked turkey

3 cups turkey or chicken broth

Salt and pepper

1 avocado (diced, or sour cream for serving)

Optional: Chips (for serving)

Directions

Preheat a large, heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat. Add the oil followed by the onion. Sauté for 2 minutes.

Add the bell pepper, jalapeño and garlic. Sauté for 2 more minutes.

Add the chili powder, cumin, and oregano and cook, stirring, for 1 minute.

Add the tomatoes and juice, pinto beans, turkey and broth, and stir. Season with salt and pepper.

Turn up the heat and bring to a simmer.

Turn the heat to low and let simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes.

Serve topped with diced avocado or a dollop of sour cream and tortilla chips.

FENNEL AND TOMATO SOUP

This comes from page 28 of the January/February 2012 issue of Vegetarian Times. It begins, “Fennel and tomato pair nicely for an Italian-style tomato soup. Save fennel fronds to use as a garnish.” Serves 6 in 30 minutes or less.

To view this online, click here.

Note: The recipe originally calls for 2 Tbs. dry vermouth, dry white wine, or water. Since I don’t keep alcohol around the house - except for rubbing alcohol - I left the vermouth and/or white wine out of the recipe and substituted water.

Ingredients

3 Tbs. olive oil

1 large fennel bulb, diced (4 cups)

3 vegan Italian sausages, sliced into 1/2-inch-thick rounds (2 cups)

1 tsp. fennel seeds

2 Tbs. water

4 cups low-sodium vegetable broth

1 28-oz. can crushed tomatoes, preferably San Marzano

3 Tbs. chopped fresh Italian parsley

Preparation

Heat oil in soup pot over medium heat. Add fennel, and sauté 3 to 5 minutes. Stir in sausages and fennel seeds, and cook 5 to 7 minutes, or until fennel seeds are slightly softened and bits of sausage are stuck to bottom of pan. Add vermouth, and cook 5 to 10 seconds to deglaze pan, scraping up any brown bits. Add broth, tomatoes, and parsley; cover, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, if desired.

nutritional information Per 1 2/3-cup serving: Calories: 163; Protein: 6 g; Total Fat: 8 g; Saturated Fat: 2 g; Carbohydrates: 19 g; Cholesterol: 0 mg; Sodium: 380 mg; Fiber: 5 g; Sugar: 2 g; Vegan

BEST BLACK BEAN SOUP

This comes from Julia Moskin in The New York Times cooking e-newsletter. Julia wrote, “This American classic can be a perfect dish: big-tasting, filling, nutritious, easy and very possibly vegetarian. With their rich natural broth, turtle beans do not need bacon, ham or any meat ingredient to make a satisfying soup. Black bean soup recipes have a tendency to turn out sludgy or bland, but the trick here is to season generously, and purée sparingly. The beans should be swimming in liquid, not sitting in sludge: The more beans are puréed, the more starch is released into the soup. For flavor, this recipe deploys marinated chipotle chiles, but a tablespoon each of ground cumin and ground coriander make a good heat-free substitute. (A note: Since there is acid from the wine here, if your tap water is hard there might be a reaction that will prevent the beans from softening. To be safe, add the wine later, along with the stock. And if there is any question about the hardness of your water, use distilled.)”

Yield: 10 servings; Time: About 2 hours

This was featured in “Rediscovering Black Bean Soup”, and can be viewed online at https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1018592-best-black-bean-soup.

Ingredients

For the Soup

1 small (7-ounce) can chipotle chiles in adobo (see note)

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 carrots, peeled and chopped

2 onions, peeled and chopped

4 garlic cloves, minced

1 cup red wine

2 jalapeño peppers, seeded and chopped

1 pound dry black beans (do not soak)

2 quarts mild vegetable or chicken stock

1 tablespoon dried oregano, preferably Mexican

2 bay leaves

1 tablespoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

Red wine vinegar, to taste

For the Pickled Onions and Garnishes (Optional):

1 small red onion, peeled and thinly sliced

Freshly squeezed juice of 2 limes

Salt

Sour cream or Mexican crema

Whole cilantro leaves

Thinly sliced fresh chiles

Sliced avocado

Preparation:

Empty the can of chiles into a blender or food processor. Purée until smooth, scrape into a container, and set aside. Put on a teakettle of water to boil, and keep hot.

In a large, heavy pot, heat olive oil over medium heat until shimmering. Add carrots, onions and garlic and cook, stirring, until softened but not browned, 5 to 8 minutes.

Pour in wine and let simmer until pan is almost dry and vegetables are coated. Add jalapeños and cook, stirring, just until softened, 2 minutes. Push the vegetables out to the edges of the pot and dollop 2 teaspoons of chipotle purée in the center. Let fry for a minute and then stir together with the vegetables.

Add beans, stock, oregano and bay leaves. Stir, bring to a boil, and let boil 10 to 15 minutes. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook, partly covered, stirring occasionally and adding hot water as needed to keep the soup liquid and runny, not sludgy. Continue cooking until beans are just softened and fragrant, 1 to 2 hours. Add salt and pepper and keep cooking until beans are soft.

Meanwhile, make the pickled onions, if using: In a bowl, combine sliced onions, lime juice and a sprinkling of salt. Let soften at room temperature until crunchy and tart, about 30 minutes. Drain and rinse with cold water. Squeeze dry in paper towels and refrigerate until ready to serve. If desired, chop coarsely before serving.

Adjust the texture of the soup: The goal is to combine whole beans, soft chunks and a velvety broth. Some beans release enough starch while cooking to produce a thick broth without puréeing. If soup seems thin, use an immersion blender or blender to purée a small amount of the beans until smooth, then stir back in. Continue until desired texture is reached, keeping in mind that the soup will continue to thicken as it sits.

Heat the soup through, taste and adjust the seasonings with salt, pepper, drops of red wine vinegar and dabs of chipotle purée.

Serve in deep bowls, garnishing each serving with sour cream, pickled onions, cilantro leaves, sliced chiles and avocado as desired.

Tip

If chipotle chiles are unavailable, use 1 tablespoon each ground cumin and ground coriander. Add to vegetables at the same point in the recipe, in Step 3.

VEGETABLE-CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP

Recipe Yield: Servings: 6 (Serving = 1-1/2 cup)

To view this online, click here.

Ingredients

6 cups 1/3-less-salt chicken broth, divided

1 cup chopped celery

1/2 cup thinly sliced leek (white part only)

1/2 cup chopped carrot

1/2 cup peeled and chopped turnip

1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley

1-1/2 teaspoons fresh thyme or 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme leaves

1 teaspoons fresh rosemary or 1/4 teaspoon dried rosemary

1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

1/4 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper

2 ounces uncooked "no-yolk" broad noodles

1 cup diced cooked chicken

Directions

Place 1/3 cup chicken broth, celery, leek, carrot and turnip in large saucepan. Cover and cook over medium heat until vegetables are tender, stirring occasionally.

Stir in remaining 5 -2/3 cups chicken broth, parsley, thyme, rosemary, vinegar and black pepper. Bring to a boil; add noodles. Cook until noodles are tender; stir in chicken. Reduce heat to medium. Simmer until heated through.

Nutritional Information Per Serving: Calories: 98; Fat: 2 g; Sodium: 73 mg; Cholesterol: 18 mg; Protein: 10 g; Carbohydrates: 12 g

Diabetic Exchanges: 1/2 Starch/Bread, 1 Lean Meat, 1/2 Vegetable

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