Week 43 -- Simple Chili

Fall is definitely the time for a long-simmered chili.  My crockpot is still packed in storage with the rest of my belongings (just a couple weeks until my new house is ready for me -- we're getting there).  So I've put off making chili, because chili that is made and eaten right away just isn't the same as one that's been bubbling for a few hours.

But this week Mom had an afternoon off from work (in exchange for spending a Saturday working -- I helped but didn't realize it would entail hiking in the mud, but we survived and came home that night to the chili leftovers), so she had time to make chili and let it simmer on the stove top for a few hours.

Veggie chili is a simple crowd-pleaser, and it can be served over millet (my favorite), in a bread bowl, over baked potatoes, with tortilla chips, or as a crucial ingredient in plant-based chili "cheese" fries.

You can see my millet peeking out underneath!

Simple Chili

1 onion, diced
1 bell pepper, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 cans of beans (we use light red kidney, dark red kidney, and pinto)
1 quart of crushed tomatoes
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp chili powder (we use a single-ingredient ancho chili powder)
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tsp each sage and thyme
1 tsp miso mixed in a tiny amount of water
(optional: 1/2 tsp lemon juice -- this was in our home-canned tomatoes already and reduces the need for salt)
1 Tbsp carob powder
1/2 Tbsp molasses
1 Tbsp gluten free flour blend mixed in a tiny amount of water

1. Saute onion in a little water.  Add pepper and garlic and continue to saute until soft.
2. Add other ingredients.  Let simmer for several hours until you are ready to enjoy.

Makes about 6 servings.

Week 26 -- Creamy Vegetable Soup

I was in the mood for peas and carrots, but I didn't want a tomato-based soup.  It was a little on the cooler side today and I was home sick dealing with seasonal allergies, so I was craving something hot and comforting.

This soup reminds me of the creamed tuna on toast my mom used to make when I was little, just without the tuna.  It would be very good served over toast or cooked grains. 

This took a while to simmer, but it wasn't very difficult and that gave me time to get this week's baked oatmeal in the oven. 

There's the finished soup.

And here's what it looked like before blending.

Creamy Vegetable Soup

Creamy broth:
1 red onion diced
2 large cloves of garlic diced
1 1/2 carrots diced
2 stalks celery diced
1/4 cup dried mushrooms, broken into pieces
1 can cannellini beans with liquid (or 1 1/2 cup cooked white beans)
4-6 cups water to taste
1/2 tsp each sage, thyme, parsley
1/4 tsp celery seed
pinch black pepper

1 1/2 cups frozen peas
1 1/2 cup diced carrot

1. Water saute onion and garlic until soft.  Add other broth ingredients.  Simmer about 45 minutes.
2. Blend broth.
3. Thaw peas.  Steam diced carrots.  Stir into broth.

Makes about 4 servings.

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 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 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.

Week 4 -- Black Bean Soup

This poor soup.  It tastes really good, but it looks awful.  Seriously, it looks like wet concrete.  Not even cement -- concrete.  This is probably not the soup to serve at a fancy dinner when you're trying to convince people that plant-based foods are beautiful.  Unless your party is in the dark -- then it's perfect!

It does taste wonderful, though.

I usually love my black bean soup really salty, but we all know added salt is not good for our bodies (it contributes to high blood pressure and stomach cancer).  I usually cheat and use miso, which adds salt but doesn't seem to contribute to these problems (thanks to the preventative power of soy).  But I didn't want to add miso to the soup every week.  What makes a great substitute for salt?  Acid -- citrus or vinegar.  The sour receptors on our tongues are near the salt receptors, so sour foods trick your brain.  If you try the soup but you really need more salty flavor, add a spoonful of miso mixed with some water at the very end of cooking.

Because of my allergies, I don't often have oranges.  I can usually only get safe-for-me oranges for a few weeks in winter, so I try to make the most of them!

A beautiful rainbow of ingredients!  For now...

I know, but it tastes great!

Safety first with avocados!  I recommend an avocado cutter.

I have one in my kitchen and one in my travel cooking bag.

It's hard to take a great photo when your mouth is watering!

Black Bean Soup

3 cups black beans (or two cans rinsed and drained)

1 purple onion

3-4 cloves garlic

3 small tomatoes or 1 large tomato

1/2 a large bell pepper

2 oranges

2 avocados

1. Chop the garlic and set it aside.  Chop the onion and saute it with a little bit of water.

Add the garlic when the onion is translucent.

2. Add the black beans and about 3 cups of water.

3.  Chop the bell pepper and tomato and add to the soup.  Cut the peel off the oranges, remove the seeds and some of the tough membranes, and chop.  Add oranges to the soup, too.  Let simmer for a few minutes so the flavors can meld.

4. Turn off the heat.  Use an immersion blender to puree the soup, leaving some chunks.  

If you don't have an immersion blender, put about half the soup in a blender, blend, then return to the soup pot.  Return to a simmer.  Add more water if desired.

5. Makes four servings.  Top each serving with half an avocado.

Note:  You can cook tomatoes as much as you want and still get all the nutrition.

This is not so for bell pepper.  It's in the soup for flavor, but you'll get almost no nutrition from it when cooked.  Eat the other half of the pepper raw as a snack to keep your body happy.