Week 47 -- Pumpkin Pie Soup

As promised, this is the first soup from my new kitchen!  I'm limited in ingredients and cooking equipment, but I managed to pull together a holiday-appropriate yummy soup. 

This is a sweet and spicy soup.  If you'd like it a little sweeter, add an extra 1/4 cup raisins or some date paste.  It's also hearty because it's full of lentils, so it made good lunches for work.

The onions get nice and sweet, and don't forget that anytime you eat onions with grapes (raisins) you get extra nutritional power due to synergy:  https://nutritionfacts.org/video/food-synergy/

This soup was even good when eaten at my dining room folding table.  

Pumpkin Pie Soup

1 medium onion, diced
1/2 cup raisins
1 cup dry red lentils
4 cups water
1 Tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp ginger
1 can (2 cups) pumpkin puree
2 Tbsp molasses
1 scant tsp apple cider vinegar

1.  Saute the onion in a little bit of water. 
2.  Add the raisins, lentils, and water.  Let simmer until lentils are soft (about 15-20 minutes). 
3.  Add the spices, pumpkin, molasses, and apple cider vinegar.  Let simmer about 5-10 more minutes to let the flavors blend.

Makes about 4 servings.

Week 46 -- Apple Sweet Potato Stew

Hopefully this will be the last soup from my parents' kitchen.  I am moving into my new house and new kitchen as I write this.  In fact, after I post, I have to go dig and find my teapot. 

With my allergies, apples are like gold.  And my usual apple supplier was not in business this year (not to mention they are now two hours away from where I'm living).  Luckily, the tree outside mom's office had an amazing harvest for the first time ever.  We have eaten hundreds of apples off the tree this year, literally.  It's not an easy tree to pick from, so we adopted the habit of going out every day to see what dropped.

This stew makes use of some of those glorious miracle apples.

Mom picking some of these magical beauties.

Hot stew after cold apple picking.

Apple Sweet Potato Stew

1 cup red lentils
1 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
7 cups water
3 sweet potatoes, diced
3 carrots, sliced
1 Tbsp arrowroot
1 tsp each ginger, allspice, cinnamon, cardamom, turmeric
dash ground black pepper
3 apples, diced
1 Tbsp miso
1/2 cup coconut, (reduced fat, unsweetened)
1/4 cup cashews
2 dates

1. Saute onions and garlic in water.  Add sweet potatoes, carrots, red lentils, and half of the water.  Let simmer until all are tender.  Add spices and apples.

2.  In a blender, combine miso, coconut, cashews, and dates with some of the water.  Blend until smooth.  Add to soup.

3. Dissolve arrowroot into a little water that's left.  Add to soup.  Continue simmering until arrowroot is cooked and stew has thickened.

Makes about 6 servings.

Week 39 -- Apple Crisp Soup

I'm still working without my own kitchen, which is being a little challenge for keeping this blog going, but I did get one done for this week.  I didn't have time (or enough molasses) for the soup I was planning, so I threw this one together instead.

It doesn't really taste just like apple crisp, but it's sweet and cinnamon-y and it does have apples, and we had apple crisp earlier today so I have it on my mind.  Just use your imagination.

This is a terrible photo.

Apple Crisp Soup

1/2 onion, diced
2 small sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
1/4 cup raisins
1 cup red lentils
4-5 cups water
1 apple, diced
1 Tbsp cinnamon

1. Saute onion in a bit of water until softened.  Add raisins.  Cook until onions are translucent.

2.  Add lentils, sweet potatoes, and water.  Cook until sweet potatoes and lentils are tender.

3.  Add apples and cinnamon.  Turn down heat and let simmer about 10-15 minutes until apples are soft.  Add more water if needed.

Makes 3-4 servings.

Week 37 -- Plum Lentil Stew

I'm calling this soup "Plum Lentil" because it uses dried plums for some wonderful sweet and deep flavor.  What's that?  You don't have dried plums?  You may know them by their old name: prunes.

I don't know why prunes get such a bad reputation.  They're sweet and delicious!  Sure, they keep things moving smoothly, but that doesn't mean they're only for old people.

I like the prunes cut into pieces.  The easiest way to do this is with a pair of kitchen shears or scissors.  Prunes are fabulous in oatmeal (especially in oatmeal mix because they add so much sweetness and flavor) or on top of nut butter on crackers.  In this soup, they cook down right into the lentils.  Don't tell anyone they're in there, and they would never guess your secret ingredient.

The warm spices make this perfect for cool, rainy fall days.

The molasses and spices make this so dark,
you'd think they were brown lentils!

Plum Lentil Stew

1 lb dry red lentils
1 cup dried plums or prunes, cut into smaller chunks
1 small sweet onion, diced
1/2 tsp ginger powder
1 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
1 Tbsp molasses
About 6 cups water

1. Boil the red lentils in about 5 cups water.  Add the dried plums and onion.  Cook until everything is tender (about 15 minutes).
2. Add spices, molasses, and more water as needed.  Let simmer on low heat about 30 minutes (you can speed this up if needed, but the longer it simmers the more the flavors will meld).  Let cool before eating.

Makes about 5 servings.

Week 30 -- Orange Sweet Potato

I mentioned last week that I'm moving soon.  This week I'm using up things from the refrigerator.  I had a few oranges left from the winter (they're looking leathery but they're still good inside), and I didn't want to waste them.  Normally this would feel more like a winter soup, but it tasted good on a cool and rainy summer day.

This soup is delicious and simple.  It has just a few ingredients and comes together quickly.

Soup with a swirl of cinnamon.

Orange Sweet Potato

1/2 red onion, chopped

3 medium sweet potatoes, diced (cut off coarse skin)

2-3 oranges, peel cut off and tough membranes removed  (mine were small so I used 3)

water to cover

Optional: cinnamon to garnish

1. Saute onion in a little water.  

2. Add sweet potatoes and water to cover.

3. Add orange flesh.

4. When sweet potatoes are tender, turn off heat.  Blend in blender or with immersion blender.  Add water as needed to get desired consistency.

5. Top with cinnamon if desired.

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.