Week 50 -- Garden Vegetable

This is not an exciting soup, but it's a little taste of summer garden on a dark, snowy night.

I used home-canned tomato sauce, but you can substitute canned tomatoes.  The exact measurements aren't super important.

Lunch for the week!

Garden Vegetable Soup

1 onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, sliced or minced
1 zucchini, quartered and sliced
1 yellow squash, quartered and sliced
8 oz. white button mushrooms, sliced
2 cups or 1 can cooked chickpeas
2 cups tomato sauce or crushed tomatoes
3 cups water

1. Put all vegetables in crockpot or slow cooker.  Let cook 4 hours on high or 8 hours on low.

Makes about 5 servings.

Week 23 -- Lemon Millet Soup

I was at my Mom's house for the day, and Mom mentioned she wanted to try a whole-food plant-based version of Greek lemon and rice soup.

We try to avoid rice because of arsenic concerns, so we decided to use millet.  I thought it worked out well, but Mom says she would try using already cooked millet so it falls apart more in the soup.

We made our own super fast veggie stock, but feel free to replace that part of this recipe with your own veggie stock or a no-salt store-bought stock.

As with many of these soups, I never ate the authentic version, I've only eaten my own recipe, so I have no idea how this compares to the real deal.

We served the finished soup with homemade falafel, salad, and a cashew-cucumber sauce.

Lemon Millet Soup

4 cups veggie stock (1/2 a carrot, 1 stalk celery, 3 cloves garlic, 1/2 cup onion, 1/4 cup mushrooms, parsley, simmered with about 3 1/2 cups water then pureed)
2/3 cup uncooked millet
1 can chickpeas with their liquid (or 1 1/2 cups cooked chickpeas with 1/2 cup cooking liquid)
1 Tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp miso

1.  Heat stock.  Add millet and simmer until millet is over-cooked. 
2. Ad chickpeas, lemon juice, and miso.  Let all come up to temperature but do not boil after adding miso.

Makes 4 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.

Week 5 -- Hummus Soup

Several years ago at a conference I enjoyed two bowls of tahini soup.  I remember it being delicious.  This recipe was my attempt to recreate that soup.  It doesn't taste like the one I remember, but it is pretty yummy.  I added turmeric to mine for extra nutrition, but if you want yours to look more like hummus, feel free to leave that out.

I used homecooked chickpeas for this.  There is no shame in canned beans (though there is plenty of salt -- try to find no salt if possible), but I have recently discovered the sweet creaminess of chickpeas cooked from dry.  The internet says they take two hours to cook, but I've found just over an hour is perfect, so start testing them at about an hour.  By the way, garbanzo beans and chickpeas are the same thing, it just depends on how erudite you want to sound when you go grocery shopping.

I recently splurged on a silicone pot cover.  It cost me about $9 online, but its value is impossible to calculate.  It keeps beans from boiling over and getting starchy bean liquid all over the stove.  Now I just have to scrub the silicone lid instead of half the kitchen when I'm done.  In the two months I've owned this, I've cooked more beans from dry than I probably did all of last year. 

On to the soup:

Thanks Mom for the new cutting boards for Christmas!  This poor board gets a workout.
And that's my favorite knife -- an "As Seen On TV" special from my Grandpa.
It's a "steak knife" but it is the best veggie chopping knife.  I use it daily.

Is there anything prettier than red onion?  I don't know.

See, that's the color I was going for!  I forgot that turmeric brightens as it sits.
Also, that parsley floating on top was annoying, but once it was rehydrated it mixed in better.

The goodness of hummus without the social pressure to use dippers instead of a spoon.

Hummus Soup

3 cups (or 2 cans) garbanzo beans, divided

3 stalks celery, chopped

1 red onion, chopped

4 cloves of garlic, chopped

1/4 cup tahini

1 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp turmeric (optional)

black pepper

1 1/2 Tbsp lemon juice

1 Tbsp dried parsley

1 Tbsp miso paste (optional)

4-5 cups water

1. Use a little bit of water to cook the celery, onion, and garlic in a saucepan.

2. Transfer the veggies to a blender.  Blend with 1 1/2 cups garbanzo beans.  Add water as needed.

3. Return soup to saucepan.  Add the rest of the garbanzo beans and the parsley.  

Bring soup back to a simmer.

4. Mix the tahini (and miso, if using), with a little water and add to the soup.

5. Add lemon juice and seasonings.  Add water as needed.  Don't overcook because the tahini will break down, just cook until the soup is heated through.

6. Optional:  sprinkle a little paprika on top for a fancy look.