Week 15 -- Peanut Butter Soup

A few years ago, when I was knew to cooking collards and looking for ideas of what to do with them, someone suggested peanut butter soup.  I looked up recipes, but they all involved a LOT of peanut butter.  Now, don't get me wrong, I love peanut butter, but it's high in saturated fat, and a little goes a long way.

By the way, when buying peanut butter, always make sure to get a brand that is just peanuts.  There shouldn't be any other ingredients, especially no added oil.  There's enough oil in peanut butter already!

When I started playing with this recipe, I wanted to thicken the soup while cutting the peanut butter, so I replaced most of it with red lentils.  They cook quickly and thicken soups nicely.

Also, I don't need to post the same photo of how to roll and slice collards, do I?  You've got that technique down by now.  If not, check out an earlier soup recipe like Turkish Soup or Butternut Spice.

Don't forget -- cut your ginger against the grain first!

Add the tomatoes near the very end so they stay firm.  It smells fantastic.

Yummy!

Peanut Butter Soup

1 red onion
3 cloves garlic
1 inch ginger
1 lb red lentils
8 cups water
1 bunch collards (about 1/2 lb)
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tsp turmeric
black pepper
1/3 - 1/2 cup peanut butter
4 tomatoes, diced
1 Tbsp lemon juice

1.  In a large soup pot, saute the onion in a little water.  When soft, add the garlic and ginger.  Cook another few minutes until fragrant.
2.  Add lentils and water.  Cook until tender (about 10-15 minutes).
3.  Remove stems from collards.  Cut collards into thin strips.  Add to soup with red pepper flakes.
4.  Add turmeric, black pepper, and peanut butter.  Turn off the heat and add the tomatoes and lemon juice.

Makes about 6 servings.

Week 14 -- Caldo Verde

Once again, I have to admit that I have only tried this soup from my own cooking.  I have no idea if this tastes like real Caldo Verde or not.

The cookbook where I read about Caldo Verde originally says this is a Portuguese soup.  It may taste like this, and it might not.  One trick I read in the cookbook is to use tempeh crumbles in place of sausage. 

If you're a fan of Zuppa Toscana, this is similar.  When I make that soup, I add some cashew cream.  In this soup, the creaminess comes from blending the veggies, and the greens get a little softer.

I usually make tempeh sausage crumbles (as for use on pizza, for example) by putting all the seasonings right on the tempeh.  That could work here, but, to make it easier, I just through the sausage seasonings right into the soup.

I like to make this with chard or collard greens (I'm not a huge chard fan, but this is one place it works).  However, my local grocery store didn't have any good greens this week except for kale (the other choices were bok choi, which I think of as the lazy cousin of good greens as it really doesn't do much for you nutritionally speaking, and broccoli rabe, which I have never had cooked well, and I wasn't going to spend a fortune just to fail at it).  If your store is as poorly stocked as mine, don't worry.  Kale works just fine here.

How can you go wrong with onions, garlic, potatoes, and kale?

There's my crumbled tempeh, steaming itself.  If you aren't sure about tempeh, don't skip this step,
as it mellows the flavor quite a bit.

Time to blend!

Look at all those tempeh sausage crumbles -- it's hard not to eat them before they get to the pot.

There's a beautiful bowl of green soup (with some extra tempeh crumbles saved for garnish).

Caldo Verde

1 onion, chopped
3-4 cloves of garlic, chopped
4-5 small gold potatoes or 3 medium, chopped
4 cups water
1 Tbsp fennel seeds
1 tsp each sage, savory, and thyme
1/2 tsp - 1 tsp red pepper flakes
1 Tbsp miso paste
6 cups shredded greens
1 package tempeh
1 Tbsp lemon juice
sprinkle of paprika (optional)

1. In a soup pot or saucepan, saute the onion in some water.  When it's soft, add the garlic.
2. In a frying pan, crumble tempeh into a thin layer of water (about 1/2 cup).  Cover and let simmer about 10 minutes.
3. To the soup pot, add the potatoes and 4 cups water.  I like to add half the water now and half after blending, but it should work if you add it all now.  Also add the fennel, sage, savory, and thyme.  Let simmer until potatoes are tender.
3. Uncover tempeh.  Add the lemon juice and cook until dry and a little crispy.  I sometimes add some paprika just for color.
4. Turn off the heat on the potato soup.  Add the miso paste.  Use an immersion blender to puree the soup.  Some chunks are fine.  You can also carefully puree using a regular blender, but beware of steam and hot liquids.
5. Add the shredded greens (and the rest of the water, if you divided it).  Turn on the heat just to let the additional water come up to soup temperature.  Do not boil.  The greens should get nice and soft.
6. Mix the tempeh crumbles into the soup.  If you're eating it right away, save a few crumbles to put on top.

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.

Week 7 -- Butternut Spice

This soup was a delicious experiment, and it turned out even tastier than I'd hoped.  It was wonderful on a winter evening, and the flavors are different than I usually use in soups.

It was a little time consuming to prep all the vegetables.  If you want to splurge, pre-cut squash would make this soup cook up much more quickly.  Also, the corn-free oranges I currently have are seedy with tough membranes, so it took a while to pull off just the good stuff.  If you have better oranges or you want to use a high-speed blender to pulverize them, that will save time, too.

I will say, though, that the time was well worth it.  This soup is so flavorful you won't miss salt at all.

The raisins sweeten this soup, but there is a special "magic" that happens when grapes and onions are eaten together.  The synergy between the antioxidants in these foods doubles their cancer-fighting power when eaten together.  (Combined, they can suppress breast cancer growth 70%.)  More about this magic is at Nutritionfacts.org in this video. 

My one regret is that I used cannellini beans because I was hoarding my chickpeas for roasting.  I would definitely recommend chickpeas (garbanzo beans) instead, but it was still amazing with the cannellinis.

I peeled and diced my butternut squash the night before.  To make it easier to peel and dice, I steamed it in the microwave for 5 minutes, then let it sit for a while.  It was still a chore, but didn't require as much force with a knife.

I love collard greens, but my local grocery store hasn't had them in a while.  I celebrated their return by buying two bunches.  This recipe used half a bunch and the rest are becoming chips.

To make collard ribbons, first slice out the center stem.  Stack the de-stemmed leaves (as in the other photo above), then roll them into a log and slice across (as seen here).  Then make one more cut right down the middle of the rounds so the ribbons aren't too long for soup.

Look at it all simmering in the pot!  It's beautiful!

This bowlful isn't as pretty as the picture in the pot because I packaged up my mason jars full first, then gave myself the stuff at the very bottom to eat tonight.  

Butternut Spice Soup

1 medium-large butternut squash, peeled and diced

1 large red onion, diced

2 oranges, peeled and membranes removed, diced

1/2 bunch collard greens, about 6 leaves, de-stemmed and sliced into ribbons

1/2 cup raisins

1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 1/2 cups (or 1 can) garbanzo beans (or other bean)

water

1. In a stockpot, saute the onion in a little water.

2. Add the squash, oranges, raisins, and collard ribbons.  Pour in enough water to cover the vegetables.  Let simmer until squash and collards are tender, about 15-20 minutes.

3.  Add the spices and beans.  Let beans heat up to soup temperature.

4. Enjoy!  Makes 6 servings.

Note:  I am severely allergic to cloves, but, if you are one of those lucky people who is not, feel free to add a little ground cloves. I think it would taste nice with this soup, if it wouldn't kill me.