Week 13 -- Cabbage Soup

This is the soup equivalent of an old pair of jeans.  It isn't splashy, but it's comfortable, it's simple, it doesn't take a lot of work, and it's perfect for lounging around.

I like to prep the veggies for this soup on a weekend and then put them in the crockpot on a weekday morning.  I usually use a ziplock bag for my crockpot veggies, and, when I say "a ziplock" I mean one poor ziplock that I wash and use over and over.  I discovered quite by accident that one gallon ziplock fills my crockpot exactly, so it's not only good for storage, it helps me know how many veggies to cut.

This is a great recipe for using up the rest of the cabbage after you've made other recipes.  This time, I used a little less than half the head for a stir fry.  I love cabbage, but I find it annoying to cut, so I always just keep going once I have some momentum and cut it all at once for several recipes.

On a literary note, you've probably read 1984 by George Orwell.  The part of this book I remember the most is the beginning of the second paragraph of the book.  "The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats."  I know it's supposed to evoke a feeling of an old and unpleasant place, but I always think, "Yum!  Boiled cabbage!"  I think of this every time I make this soup.  When I walk into my apartment building at the end of the day I sniff the air and think, "Oh!  One of my lucky neighbors is eating boiled cabbage!" and then I remember that I am the lucky one!  George Orwell obviously never ate this soup.

I used pinto beans for this recipe, but any kind of bean you have in the pantry will taste good here.

There's my trusty old ziplock.  After it's done its job, I wash it and let it try standing up inside out so it can get some well-deserved rest until the next time I need it.

See, one ziplock fills the crockpot to the top.

The finished soup! 

Cabbage Soup

1/2 head cabbage, cut into thick strips
1 onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, diced
3 small gold potatoes, diced
3 carrots, diced
3 stalks celery, sliced
1 cup grape tomatoes, sliced in half
1 can beans, drained and rinsed
10 cups water

1. Chop all veggies. 
2. Put in crockpot.
3. Cook on low for about 8-10 hours.  Sometimes I turn it to high when I get home and let it cook another hour or so.

Makes about 8 servings.

Week 12 -- Lentil Soup #2 and Magic Sprinkles

Happy St. Joseph's Day!  I mentioned last week that I'm not a big fan of St. Patrick's Day, but that is not true for St. Joseph's Day!  This is one of my favorite feasts.  I have a lot of memories of family and church traditions from this.  Who doesn't love a holiday that includes a tradition of sharing cookies with your friends and neighbors?

Another great thing about St. Joseph's Day is that it's traditionally a meatless feast.  And what is our family's traditional meal?  Why, our favorite pulse, of course!  Welcome back, lentils!  

(Our other traditional food is carduni, burdock stems cooked in an egg batter.  We don't eat eggs now, but Mom and I both have our own ways of preparing this.  Mom uses garbanzo batter.  I use silken tofu and, usually, green beans, because I'm too lazy to prepare real carduni.)

This lentil soup is closer to our traditional St. Joseph's Day lentil recipe.  Grandma used to make it with a packet of onion soup powder.  Our family replaces that with savory herbs and molasses.  Mom adds liquid aminos (feel free to add some if you aren't strictly limiting salt -- it does add a lot in this dish, but you can still enjoy it without).

Our family tradition also dictates that you should add water without measuring it.  If the soup ends up thick, you serve it over pasta.  If it ends up thin, you add some pasta to it and eat it with a spoon.

One last St. Joseph's Day tradition is "St. Joseph's Sawdust," a condiment made by frying seasoned breadcrumbs.  To replace that, I make my "magic sprinkles."  These sprinkles are great on pasta any time of year.

So much promise in a bag of lentils...

There's the soup!  As you can see, it's in the middle for thickness, 

so I jarred up some as soup and ate the rest over pasta.

Here are the lentils served over pasta.  It's actually red lentil pasta.

Mom says this is as silly as eating a seitan sandwich. 
I agree, but it's my favorite pasta, so I don't mind being silly! 
There are the magic sprinkles on top and extra on the side.

Lentil Soup #2

1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
3 carrots, diced
1 lb green or brown lentils, rinsed and sorted
6-8 cups of water
1 tsp each savory, sage, and thyme
black pepper
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1 Tbsp molasses

1. Saute the onion in a large soup pot in a little bit of water.  Add the garlic and carrots.

2.  Add the lentils with at least 6 cups water.  You can decide if you want to play lentil roulette and add water without measuring.  It's a fun surprise!  Add the seasonings, too.  Let everything simmer about 30 minutes until the lentils are tender.

Makes about 4 servings.

Magic Sprinkles

4 Brazil nuts
3 Tbsp flax seeds (ground or whole)
2 Tbsp nutritional yeast
1/2 - 1 tsp fennel seeds
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
2 tsp miso paste

1. Combine all ingredients in blender or food processor.  Process until finely ground and crumbly.

Everyone should eat 4 Brazil nuts each month to keep cholesterol levels healthy, but no more or you'll get too much selenium.  This recipe makes one month's worth of cheesy statin-substitute.  If you want more than this in a month, replace the Brazil nuts with more flax seeds or other nuts.

Week 11 -- Split Pea Soup #1

St. Patrick's Day is coming up this week, and, though it's not one of my favorite holidays, I do like to eat color-coded foods for holidays.  Hence, this week is a nice bright green soup.

While I ate this soup fresh this week, I sometimes turn this recipe into instant soup powder.  To do that, make the soup with less water.  Puree the finished soup (trust me -- it will rehydrate much better and it will grind easier if you puree first).  Spread the soup on dehydrator trays.  I have liners for my trays, but if you just have mesh, spread the soup onto parchment paper over the mesh.  Dehydrate until totally dry.  Then crumble the soup and blend again to make a powder.  This powder is great for travelling or keeping at work for those days you could just use cup of nice homemade soup.  Simply add hot water and let it sit for a few minutes.

Also, I know many people now have pressure cookers to make a soup like this cook super fast.  I don't have one, so these are the old-fashion instructions.  If you're old school like me, let me introduce you to the greatest thing ever for cooking beans -- a silicone lid spill-stopper!  I splurged and spent a whole $8 for this thing online, and it was worth every penny.  I hate how pulses boil over and get starchy gunk all over my stove top, and split peas are some of the worst offenders.  The spill stopper keeps the foam from going everywhere.  I have it featured in the photos below.

One last funny story:  In the directions below I mention to add a little more water to soup you are saving as leftovers, because it thickens up as it sits.  I learned this one the hard way.  One day I had my soup the perfect consistency, nice and thick, and I poured it into my jar and brought it to work. 
When it was time for lunch, I opened the jar, put a paper towel over the top (I always do this), started the microwave, and went to the bathroom (I have timed my lunch time bathroom visit to coincide perfectly with heating my soup).  I came back to find that half of my soup had leapt from the jar!  Thankfully, it knocked off the paper towel and most of it landed on said towel, so I was able to scoop it back into the jar and eat it (never waste soup this yummy!).  Learn from me and thin your soup a little.

Ahh, a nice big chunk of ginger!  That really adds flavor to this soup.
I actually only used half of that chunk and saved the rest for another meal later this week.
When mincing ginger, don't forget to cut against the grain first. 
Then it's much easier to mince the rest of the way.

Here is the spill stopper, ready to work hard!  

The clock is cut off in this photo, but this is exactly one minute later.
With a regular lid, this foam would have been streaming down over my nice clean stove top.

And there are some jars of soup, ready to go for lunches this week,
trying to blend in with the greenery in my kitchen.

Split Pea Soup #1

1 onion, minced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 inch fresh ginger, minced
1 pound green split peas
8-9 cups water
1 tsp turmeric
black pepper
1-2 Tbsp nutritional yeast (optional)
2 tsp miso paste

1. Saute the onion in a large soup pot with a little bit of water.  Add the garlic and ginger.

2. Rinse the split peas and add them to the pot with 8 cups of water.  Let it come to a boil, then reduce to a simmer.  Simmer for about 40 minutes.  Check to make sure the peas are nicely mushy.

3. Add the turmeric, pepper, nutritional yeast, and miso paste. 

4. If you are eating the soup right away, you should be good to go.  If you are saving it, you will want to water it down a little bit as it will thicken as it sits.

Makes about 4 servings.

Week 10 -- Turkish Stew

First, I do need to admit that I actually know nothing about Turkish foods.  I needed a name for this soup, and as it contains Turkish apricots and some common Turkish spices, that's what I went with.

This soup is spicy in a good way:  warm spices, not hot, and it's a great excuse to eat dried apricots (not that you really need a reason -- they're so good!).

If you are a follower of Dr. Greger's Daily Dozen, this soup ticks off a lot of boxes: legumes, greens, vegetables, fruit, spices.  If you aren't a Daily Dozen devotee, you should head right over to Nutritionfacts.org and read up on it, then download the app to make healthy eating feel like a game.

Look for dried apricots that don't have additives like sugar, sulfur, preservatives. 

They will probably be ugly.  Pretty fruits have been treated with chemicals.

You could probably chop the apricots with a knife, but scissors make the job easy.

I'm reusing a photo of how to make collard ribbons.

Cut out the stems.  Stack leaves.
Roll them, then slice into ribbons. 
Make one final cut down the middle of the rolls for shorter ribbons.

Can you smell the spices?

This soup is flavorful and spicy, but not as sweet as you'd expect.

Turkish Stew

1 red onion, chopped

1 1/2 cups red lentils

1/2 cup dried apricots, chopped

3 medium sweet potatoes

1 small bunch collard greens (about 1/2 pound), cut into ribbons

9 cups water

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp allspice

1 tsp ground coriander (I ground it in my coffee grinder)

1. Heat a thin layer of water in a soup pot.  Add the onions and water saute until cooked.

2. Add lentils, apricots, and water.  Let simmer about 10 minutes.

3. Add sweet potatoes.  Add collard ribbons and spices.  Let simmer about 15 more minutes until sweet potatoes are soft and spices have had a chance to settle in.

Makes about 6 servings.