Week 18 -- Purple Soup

I love the taste of this soup, but mostly I love how pretty it is!  The broth is a beautiful clear purple.  I like to chop the veggies ahead and throw them into the crockpot some morning.  This makes a lot of soup for very little work.

I may have already mentioned (in the cabbage soup recipe) how much I love the buttery taste and texture of slow-cooked cabbage.  It is one of my favorite foods.

I like the simple flavor of this soup, but if you're new to low salt eating, you may want to stir a small spoonful of miso into your bowl.

Isn't that a gorgeous color?

My aloe and cacti are hoping I'll share with them.
(I won't.)

Purple Soup

1 medium onion

4 cloves garlic

2 carrots

2 stalks celery

8 oz baby bella mushrooms or white mushrooms

1 small head purple (red) cabbage

1 can white beans

1. Chop all veggies.

2. Drain and rinse beans.

3. Put all in crock pot or slow cooker.  Let cook for about 8-10 hours on low.

Makes 9-10 servings.

Week 17 -- Nacho Soup

I love nachos.  I have several different nacho cheese recipes, depending on the mood I'm in, but they all have one thing in common -- nuts or seeds, so they're high fat.

This soup doesn't have that problem.  It's nut free and the creaminess comes from cauliflower.

The soup is great on its own, but it's even better garnished with salsa and avocado.  I don't currently have any corn-safe olives, but a few sliced olives thrown into the soup would probably be a nice addition.

Here's the finished soup, ready to eat with all the extras.

This is what the veggies look like before cooking and blending.  

Here's the blended soup with the beans, tomatoes, and peppers thrown in.
You can tell my eyes were bigger than my soup pot.  I should have used the stock pot!

Nacho Soup

1 medium onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 large carrot or 2 smaller carrots, chopped
1 medium head cauliflower, chopped
5 cups water, divided
1 bell pepper, diced
2 tomatoes, diced
1 Tbsp miso
1 Tbsp lemon juice
2 Tbsp nutritional yeast
1 tsp mustard powder
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1 can black beans

1.  Saute the onion and garlic in a little water. 
2. Add the carrot and cauliflower.  Pour in about 1-2 cups of water, cover, and let steam until veggies are tender.
3.  Turn off the heat and add the miso.  Blend the veggies, adding more water to get to desired consistency.  Turn the heat back on to warm soup, but try not to boil it.
4.  Add the seasonings, black beans, tomatoes, and bell pepper.  Let all warm up.
5. Serve with salsa and avocado if desired, or eat as is.

Makes 6 servings.

Week 16 -- Lentil Curry Soup

I love the idea of curry, but I shied away from it for years for two reasons:  first, I can't handle spicy foods (again, I love the idea of them, but they trigger my MCAS), and second, I'm allergic to cloves, which are usually in curry powder.

My mom, however, makes a really good curry soup, with her own curry powder, so I can eat all I want of her food!  You can use commercial or homemade curry powder in this recipe.  The easiest way to make your own is to read the ingredients on a curry powder blend you like.  You can also search online as there are many recipes that can fit your own taste -- spicy or less spicy.

I was home visiting for a few days and she showed me the secrets of her yummy soup, so we made it together for the blog.  Her recipe usually includes liquid aminos and sugar, two things I'm trying to limit.  Our experiment went well -- this soup is delicious! 

I can chop vegetables and take photos at the same time! 
No, actually, Mom is chopping here.

The veggies are starting to multiply.  Soon they might overflow the pan!

More veggies steaming on the stove.

Mom is trying to wrangle all those yummy veggies in the pan.

The finished soup with a big mound of millet.

Ready to eat! 

Lentil Curry Soup

1 onion, chopped

4 medium carrots, chopped in large chunks

3 cloves garlic, chopped

4 medium large gold potatoes, chopped in large chunks

1 cup red lentils

1 bag frozen peas

1/2 bag frozen spinach

2 Tbsp curry powder

Water to cover

4 cups cauliflower

4 dates

1 cup reduced fat unsweetened coconut

2 1/2 cups water

2 Tbsp molasses

1 Tbsp miso

1. Steam the onion, carrots, and garlic in a little water in a large skillet.  Keep covered.  

2. When partially softened, add potatoes and lentils.  Add the peas and spinach.  No need to thaw first, as they will thaw in the soup.  Add curry powder.  Add water to cover.  Cook until lentils are tender (about 10-15 minutes).  About halfway through, add chopped cauliflower.

3. In a blender, blend dates, coconut, water, molasses, and miso.  Add to soup and let all warm up.  (Try to avoid boiling after miso is added.)
4. Serve with cooked millet or other grain, if desired.

Makes 8 servings.

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 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.