12 posts tagged “soup”
(And we are officially, truly, back in the cooking business.)
The weekend bread baking ritual starts like this.
Friday evening, I settle on the couch with a bread book and a cup of tea. This is the best part, deciding which bread to bake. Something new or old? Sourdough or not? The rest of the weekend is planned around the bread.
Start the soaker and biga after brunch on Saturday. Clean house before, shop for groceries after.
Sunday morning, mix the dough and start the first proof.
Run to the farmer's market for lunch and icecream. Run back.
Shape the loaf. Pre-heat the oven. Practice patience.
Finally! Bread-baking time. The house smells yummy.
An hour later, dinner is served.
Peter Reinhart's recipe for whole grain Struan, a Scottish Harvest bread made with a little bit of all the harvest grains thrown in. That is the true genius of the Struan; you can make it with whatever grains you have on hand. I had barley, steel cut oats and flax seeds.
Served with an Italian chickpea-mushroom soup.
1/4 cup dried porcini mushrooms
1 cup canned crushed concentrated tomatoes (or 2 large fresh tomatoes, chopped)
a handful of fresh basil and oregano
1 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
salt and black pepper
1/4 cup sour cream
parmesan shavings
- If using dried beans, soak them in 4 cups water the night before. Pressure- cook the beans the next day until softened.
- Soak the porcini mushrooms in 1 cup hot water. When softened, chop roughly. Pass the soaking liquid through a fine sieve and reserve.
- Heat the oil in a dutch oven. Add the onion, garlic, cumin and sweat the onions until translucent.
- Add the chickpeas with their liquid, tomatoes, mushrooms and their liquid, herbs, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil. Cover and simmer for forty minutes.
- Puree the soup in a blender and return to the pot. Simmer for another ten minutes.
- Stir in the sour cream before serving and top each bowl with parmesan shavings. Serve with crusty bread.
Things keep happening in the real world, keeping me from Voxing as usual.
On Friday, I tried to get my credentials verified for when I go out into the adult world. Its a nerve wracking process, and will probably take a few months to complete. After which the even more nerve-wracking visa-job-moving process will begin. Let the fun begin.
Received Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads in the mail. Did not receive Freud's New Lectures. Made a transitional rye hearth bread. Did not make slides for case conference on Thursday.
Had our first American car-wash experience. Tis fun! I can't wait to go back.
Took some shots with the new 55-200mm lens, which we found at Circuit City closing sale at half the price. (Made me feel a bit like a grave robber.)
You knew the pics were coming, didn't you? :)
We paired the bread with a hearty vegetable-quinoa-bean soup. The soup is basically a mish-mash of several web-recipes, but it is really good.
Soup recipe
A baking sheet full of roasted veggies. I used one red onion, two zucchini, a carrot, and one orange pepper, tossed with 1 tbsp of olive oil, salt and pepper, and roasted in a 400 degree post-bread-baking oven for 30 minutes.
1/2 cup pinto beans, soaked for a few hours in warm water
1/4 cup quinoa, washed well in warm water (removes the bitterness)
1 tbsp Better than Buillion veggie base (or one buillion cube)
1 cup packed washed baby spinach leaves
1 tsp garam masala
1 cup diced canned tomatoes
1/4 cup fresh herbs (I used sage and oregano)
1 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
Heat the oil in a presure cooker/heavy pot. Add the quinoa and stir around for a couple of minutes, until toasted. Then add the roasted veggies, beans, tomatoes, veggie base, salt and pepper, and about 6 cups of water. Bring the whole mess to a boil and then simmer, covered, until the beans are tender. (In a pressure cooker this will take about twenty minutes, or two whistles.)
During the last few minutes, add the baby spinach, garam masala and fresh herbs. Serve with warm bread and maybe some cheese. Enjoy.
I'd like to send one of the pictures above to this month's Click over at Jugalbandi, themed Wood (includes paper, cane). Which one do you like best?
*Edited to add: I'm sending the first picture to Click-wood. Thanks! Not very happy with it, but too lazy to try more.
I love breadsticks. Not the soft white pudgy thingies served at Olive Garden, but the real stuff. Tall, slender, golden brown, crisp. With a hint of Parmigiano Reggiano and spice.
*wipes drool off keyboard*
This was my first time baking them. They are delicious and relatively easy to make. Once the dough is done, you can stick it in the fridge and make fresh breadsticks whenever the fancy strikes you. Here's a pretty good master recipe. I replaced the yeast in mine with sourdough starter.
We paired them with an old favorite, curried spinach dal soup. Recipe adapted from here.
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 chopped onion
1 chopped carrot
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon Madras curry powder (I used 1/4 cup Madras tomato chutney)
1 tablespoon ginger-green chilli paste
1 teaspoon ground toasted cumin
1 bay leaf
6 cups water
1/2 cup dried lentils (I used husked mung dal)
10 oz frozen spinach, thawed
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1/2 cup plain nonfat yogurt (Add 1 tbsp lemon juice if yogurt is not sour)
Heat oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add next three ingredients; sauté until golden, about 10 minutes. Stir in curry powder, ginger-chilli paste, cumin and bay leaf. Add water and lentils; bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer uncovered until lentils are tender, about 25 minutes. Add spinach and cilantro; simmer until spinach is wilted, about 5 minutes. Season soup with salt and pepper. Stir in yogurt just before serving.
The sourdough experiments continue. My strategy now is to approach bread recipes just like I do non-baked goods. Pick what you like and modify what you don't. Seems to working so far. :)
The bread has a crisp, crackly crust and a big, holey crumb. While it has a good sourdough flavor, I prefer the whole wheat flour-rye combination more than white flour-rye. We paired the bread with a winter-worthy roasted squash and corn soup.
The soup recipe is a (big) modification of this one. You will need:
1 large butternut squash, chopped into approximately 4 cup big chunks and 2 cups small dice
1 large sprig rosemary
2 cups frozen corn, thawed
1 inch piece fresh ginger
1 tbsp orange/lemon zest
salt and pepper to taste
1 tbsp maple syrup
2 tsp garam masala
1 tbsp olive oil
- Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees.
- To a soup pot, add the large chunks of squash, rosemary, ginger and bring it to a boil. Season with salt and pepper, cover and simmer until squash is very tender.
- Toss the diced squash and corn with olive oil and maple syrup and spread it on a baking sheet. Roast in the oven for about 20 minutes, or until they are nice and golden.
- Puree the squash in the pot, then add half of the roasted veggies, the zest and the garam masala. Simmer for another five minutes.
- Ladle into bowls, top with some more roasted veggies, and serve.
Lets just say I'm drooling at the thought of leftovers for lunch tomorrow. The Norwich Sourdough goes to Susan for the weekly YeastSpotting.
I took the Alton Brown recipe and added a couple of parsnips (coz I like them) and a sweet potato (coz it was dying) to the acorn squash while roasting. I also replaced the cream with milk, added some sage and used a good quarter cup worth of fresh ginger instead of 1 tsp. Not advisable, unless you're feeding a crazy ginger-loving crowd like ours.
The end result was absolutely delicious. Viva la AB!
What else would you crave on a cold rainy day?
What you need:
1 8oz package button/baby bella mushrooms, sliced thick
1/4 cup dried shiitakes
1/4 cup dried porcini
1 tbsp butter
1 tsp dried thyme
1/4 cup full cream milk
salt and pepper to taste
a few drops truffle oil for garnish
- Soak the dried mushrooms in hot water for twenty minutes. Squeeze and remove them, and chop into coarse pieces. Discard stems. Filter the soaking liquid. (It is usually gritty.)
- Heat the butter in a saute pan and add the sliced mushrooms and thyme. Saute until the mushrooms soften and release their liquid. Add the chopped soaked shrooms and the soaking liquid. Add about a cup of water or more. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer for fifteen minutes.
- Take a hand blender to the soup. When you get the desired consistency, add the milk, salt and pepper. Turn off the heat. Ladle into bowls and add a drizzle of truffle oil to each serving.
- Serve with crusty bread.
This is good. There are no onions, no garlic, no celery, no carrots, Just mushrooms. If you're a mushroom lover, this soup is for you. Let me know when you make it and I will be right over.
Lately, there hasn't been a lot of cooking in our kitchen. Our schedules are out of whack, its been busy, research day is looming large and making me anxious. Looking for some food for the soul, I pulled out the no-knead dough from the fridge and baked it, along with a roasted tomato soup.
Here's the soup recipe.
- Roast tomatoes with some olive oil and balsamic vinegar on a baking tray. I used a can of whole tomatoes, drained, some whole cherry tomatoes and a halved vine tomato, and baked them at 350 degrees for 50 minutes.
- In a soup pot, saute a red onion, a chopped celery rib and a carrot or two. Add garlic if you like. Let them soften.
- Add the tomatoes, tomato juice (from the can), salt, pepper, and a handful of fresh basil. Add as much water as you like.
- Once the soup is done, run a hand blender through it once or twice to mix it up.
Roasting really brings out the flavor in the tomatoes. This is the perfect soup..its easy, needs no special ingredients and has incredible flavor.
About the bread..the first thing that hit me was the smell of wine as soon as I removed the wrap..the yeast is obviously still working. The dough has been rising steadily in the fridge over the last week. The bread has a great crust, big, hole-y crumb and tastes good, but its not a sourdough.
p.s. Vox will not let me post the extra-large size pic. Why?
Chile cornmeal encrusted tofu sandwiches with chipotle mayo, from the Veganomicon.
First, I dipped the tofu slices in a hot cornmeal spice mixture and baked them. What did they remind me of ? Julie's angry tofu.
Then, we made the trappings for sandwiches. How to make chipotle mayo? Simply mix chopped canned chipotles in adobo sauce with some mayo. Good Stuff.
We had our sandwiches with a simple sage-tomato soup.
Quick and easy, and clean-up was fast, too. Then I sat down and made a study plan. I'm going to study one drug every night. Once I go through the whole book, I'll do it again. And again. I will continue to do it until I know everything about all psych drugs.
Maybe there was something in my soup.
Orange and green. Mixed in my head with memories of green ashoka trees and orange dupattas.
From this recipe, more or less. I used cilantro instead of thyme, omitted the onions and used fatfree milk instead of half n half. Also, I finally got to use the new Better than Bouillon vegetable base for stock. Verdict- its a keeper. Excellent flavor, easy to use, and much better than the icky-flavored stock cubes.
Our first fruit and nut tabouli came from Didi Emmon's Vegetarian Planet. It was a wonderful recipe, with orange segments and walnuts. Since then, I've made tabouli with all sorts of fruits, including oranges, apples, pineapples, grapes, even mango! Ditto for nuts..you can go crazy with this recipe and still end up with something good.
Fruit and nut tabouli
- 1/4 cup bulgur, soaked in boiling water for 15 minutes, drained
- 1 bunch parsley, processed/chopped fine
- segments of one orange
- 1 granny smith apple, peeled, chopped
- 1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted in the microwave (2-3 minutes)
- a handful of mint, chopped fine
- 2-3 tbsp lemon juice
- salt to taste
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (optional)
Squeeze the bulgur to remove all excess water. Mix together all the ingredients, refrigerate for an hour and enjoy!
Having bought two chayote squashes from the International Store, I decided to make soup. To my surprise, it turned out exactly like my mother's lauki/bottle gourd soup, which was a delicacy in our house. It was rarely served to guests, though, since most of them assumed it to be a bland, soup-for-the-ill kind of preparation. The few brave enough to try died in comfort-soup heaven.
Squash Soup
2 chayote squashes, diced
1 tbsp oil
1 inch piece ginger, minced
1 serrano chilli, minced
1 carrot, chopped fine
1/2 red pepper, chopped fine
a handful of parsley, chopped
1/2 cup milk
salt and black pepper
lime juice, if you like
- Heat the oil in a heavy soup pot.
- Add ginger and green chilli, saute for a minute.
- Add the squash and saute for a couple of minutes.
- Add about 4 cups of water and bring to a boil. Simmer until veggies are softened.
- Blend with a hand blender.
- Add the carrot, red pepper, and parsley. Reheat slowly.
- Add the milk, salt and pepper to taste. Turn the heat off when it comes to a simmer.
- Serve with fresh lime juice.
Its a light, easy soup that goes well with cornbread.
