Recipe: Carrot and vegetable soup with ginger

Recently I had a craving for carrot soup. I'm not exactly sure why that came to mind, but when writing out the weekly meal plan I remembered that I had some carrots that needed to be used and a sweet potato that wasn't looking as lovely as it could. When doing the grocery shopping, pumpkin was on sale, and so I decided that a carrot and other orange-vegetable soup would be delicious.

I made it up as I went along but it turned out rather nicely - it's pretty hard to mess up soup! The ginger added a nice kick. Mr Fork thought I was a bit heavy on the seasonings, but I personally enjoyed it as is. It's the sort of thing you can play with and tweak to your own tastes, and was delicious served with some fresh out of the oven ciabatta bread on the side.

Carrot and vegetable soup with ginger

Ingredients:

• 1 onion, diced
• generous knob of ginger, finely sliced
• 4 medium carrots, skin on, diced
• 1 sweet potato, peeled and cubed
• 400g pumpkin, peeled and cubed
• 1L vegetable stock
• 1/2 teaspoon each cumin, turmeric and curry powder
• salt and pepper to taste

Method:

1. Put a generous lug of olive oil into a saucepan and add onion. Sauté until softened.
2. Combine carrot, sweet potato, pumpkin, ginger, spices and stock with the onion. Bring the mix to the boil and then reduce the heat and simmer it all until the vegetables are soft (about 15 minutes).
3. Blend to your desired consistency.
4. Return to the heat and check for seasoning. Add salt and pepper to taste
5. Serve with chopped coriander, parsley or shallots.

Notes:

• I was shelling some for Jimmy, so I also added some edamame beans to my bowl before serving. They sunk to the bottom so you can't see them in any photos, but I liked them in the soup, and they added some texture.
• The seasoning is very versatile. Add more or less, or change it up to suit your tastes. I think it would be good adding some chilli in as well, but my children aren't good with too much spice yet.
• It was particularly good with some fresh bread on the side to help wipe the bowl clean at the end.
• I'm a big believer in not having food go to waste, so the next night, I added the soup leftovers to a creamy sauce I was making for a macaroni pasta bake. Excuse the terrible lighting, but it turned out beautifully.

Recipe: Celery and mushroom soup

A friend recently gave me a bunch of celery, which reminded me that I'd seen a recipe for celery soup floating around and that it sounded delicious. Of course, I couldn't find that recipe again but I thought gosh, how hard could it be to wing a soup creation? So I did, and now I'm sharing it with you all.

Ingredients:

1 bunch of celery chopped, leaves removed (save those leaves to use for making stock if you're keen).
2 large onions, diced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 large potato, peeled and cut into chunks
200g button mushrooms, sliced
6 cups of good vegetable stock
Salt and pepper to taste
Olive oil

Method:

1. Start with some olive oil in your soup pot. Add the garlic and onion and sauté until fragrant. 
2. Add the celery, potato and mushrooms and stir for another 2 minutes or so.

   
   
   
   
3. Add the stock and simmer for about 15 minutes.
4. Take the soup off the heat and blend, either using a stick blender, or in batches in a regular blender. 
5. Return to the stove for a further 5-10 minutes to allow the starch in the potato to thicken then season to taste. 

This was delicious served with a drizzle of truffle oil over the top. So yummy, and also toddler approved! Yes, thanks to the mushrooms it isn't the prettiest colour, but the taste more than makes up for it I promise.

Serves 4 generously, with leftovers.

Variations:

• To make it extra fancy, you could add some white wine to deglaze the pot after sautéing the onion and garlic - just saute a little longer to burn off the alcohol.
• Mr Fork actually tried this and said it was tasty, but added some dukkah to the top of his instead of the truffle oil. Hey, if the man eats vegetables it's a win!
• Celery and apples are also a nice combination. You could sub out the mushrooms and add two green apples which have been peeled, cored and chopped for a different flavour variant.

Have you made any soup lately? Please share if you have, it's perfect for the chilly nights we've been having lately!

What's in my kitchen, June 2014

In my kitchen is... 

Soup! I do love soup, and it's hearty and delicious and fairly quick. We've had pumpkin (from my homegrown kent) and red lentil lately. Both yummy!

In my kitchen is... 

Bacon flavoured bits! What can I say. They're an odd sort of thing to crave but they are vegan and they just go down so nicely... perfect for when I want something to crunch on or add a bit of salty flavour to salads or as a soup topping. They've been really hard to find lately, but I had a craving and was stoked to see them in my local IGA. I had to be restrained from buying in bulk.

In my kitchen is...

Joong. This bowl contains a small number of these delicious glutinous rice dumplings which my MIL made for me. Sometimes called the Asian tamale, in Cantonese we call them joong, but they are also known as zongzi. Traditionally made to celebrate the Dragon Boat festival on the fifth day of the fifth month in the lunar calendar, this batch was made especially vegan for me, and contains peanuts, mung beans and shiitake mushrooms instead of the usual assorted meats and pork. I have to share them with Ellie, but Mr Fork doesn't care for them at all which just means more for us! I'm torn between whether to devour them all or freeze some to savour later (they're quite labour intensive so I don't tend to make them myself). So yummy.

In my kitchen is...

A rogue baby sweet potato. I found this little guy when the hounds wouldn't stop barking. Investigation found them distressed near my sweet potato mound where I had previously planted slips from a potato which I'd failed to eat and had sprouted. The top of this little fellow was exposed and proved to be the 'intruder' they were perplexed about. I dug him out because he was a bit mauled, but I hope the rest of the batch underground get more growing time. Bread tie thingie there for scale.

In my kitchen is...

Capilano honey infused with ginger. I saw this while grocery shopping and thought, why not? Honey isn't something I generally use, but I do make Mr Fork some hot drinks with it in, and this saves me the effort of cutting up fresh ginger to make him honey ginger tea when he gets his bouts of man flu. By all reports, the flavour is fairly decent. They had some other infusions too, I think lemon was one of them.

This month is quite food intensive in my kitchen, and not many things. Although well into second trimester now, I find my energy levels very low, and am spending less time cooking than usual. I've been making things in large batches and either eating them for a few days straight (Ellie and Mr Fork are not fans of this) or freezing portions to bring out another time. When food cravings hit, I tend to want the same thing over and over but I'm conscious that it's the hormones talking and my family doesn't agree. I'm just so tired - Attila is taking up a lot of energy yet stubbornly not producing a bump I can show off properly yet! Hopefully I get my mojo back next month.

I am linking this post in with Fig Jam and Lime Cordial's monthly In My Kitchen event. Go have a peek through other kitchens around the globe!

What's in your kitchen this month?

Recipe: Tomato, red lentil and vegetable soup

Also less kindly known as the clear my fridge of vegetables soup!

I really felt like a nice hearty soup and this one fit the bill perfectly. It was filling, had protein and lots of hidden vegetables and as an added bonus, got rid of some vegetables that were slightly wilting in my fridge drawer.

It's very versatile, so substitutions and additions would still make a tasty end product.

Ingredients:

1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
200g sliced mushrooms
500g sweet potato, peeled and chopped
half a jar of pasta sauce (or substitute a tin of diced tomatoes)
4 cups water (if using the pasta sauce) or stock (I use Vegeta stock powder to make mine up)
1/2 cup red lentils
1/4 cup Balsamic vinegar (optional, for added sweetness)

Method:

1. Start with a lug of olive oil in your pot. Add onion and garlic then stir until fragrant and softened. Add mushrooms and stir until the mushrooms are softened.
2. Add chopped sweet potato, red lentils and the pasta sauce/water/stock.
3. Bring to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes until the sweet potatoes are tender.
4. Blend until smooth, and return over low heat. Season with salt, pepper and the balsamic vinegar, then serve!

Serves 4, generously.

Tomato, lentil and vegetable soup

I served mine with some chilli dukkah on the top as I had an open packet and felt like a little bit of crunch. Some chopped fresh shallots would also be delicious. I also had a loaf of olive sourdough handy, which was perfect for soaking up the leftover bits of soup in the bowl (because I'm classy like that!).

Now that it's officially Winter, are you craving soup yet?

Recipe: Pumpkin soup

I mentioned that I picked my first home grown pumpkin recently. I was a bit apprehensive cutting it open as I thought perhaps I'd picked it a bit early and so it would be dry and inedible. I needn't have worried - that baby was lovely and golden inside, not dry and all, and certainly looked delicious. I split the monster with a friend, and I had absolutely no question in my mind what I was going to make with my half - pumpkin soup of course!

Half the pumpkin

Ingredients:

Pumpkin, cut into chunks (I used half of my kent pumpkin, probably about a kilogram worth)
1 onion, diced
1 large potato, peeled and cut into chunks the same size as the pumpkin
Vegetable Stock – about 4 cups worth. I use Vegeta stock powder to make it up
Salt and pepper to taste
1-2 cloves garlic, crushed
Olive oil

Method:

1. Start with some olive oil in your soup pot. Add the garlic and onion and saute until fragrant. 
2. Add your pumpkin, potatoes and stock and simmer until the pumpkin is cooked. You may want to use more or less stock, depending on how thick you want your soup. The potatoes are added as a thickener as the starch in them will also help to thicken it up.
3. Take the soup off the heat and blend, either using a stick blender, or in batches in a regular blender. 
4. Return to the stove for a further 10 minutes and season to taste. 

I like to serve this garnished with fresh spring onions, and a side of home made garlic bread. So good!

Serves 4 generously, with leftovers.

Pumpkin soup

Variations:

• To make it extra fancy, you could add some white wine to deglaze the pot after sautéing the onion and garlic - just saute a little longer to burn off the alcohol.
• I like to mix it up with some different seasonings. A hint of liquid smoke after blending gives a nice smokey flavour, or some curry powder makes it yummy and aromatic.
• If you have the oven on anyway, you could roast the vegetables first for a nice caramel flavour, but I'm lazy and wanted this on the table quickly.

What's your favourite soup? 

What's in my Kitchen, May 2014

In my kitchen is...

Raw nut butter and chocolate cups. I've seen lots of talk about raw desserts so I figured I'd give them a go. I made some raw almond/brazil/cashew nut cups, with cacao topping. They were pretty awesome, even Ellie loved the tiny bites I let her share. I might have to try some other variations now that I know how easy and delicious they are!

In my kitchen is...

Leftover Easter Eggs (and a sneaky homegrown eggplant). There are still a few leftover Easter eggs, which is pretty terrible considering that the only person in our house who got eggs was Ellie. She's not even two yet, so I refuse to let her eat them all... except, I don't particularly want to eat them either, and even Mr Fork has reached saturation point. Any tips for what to make?

Also an aside, but I love this platter/bowl. It was given to me at my own kitchen tea before I got married and I adore it. I always find an excuse to need something stored out on the bench so I can have it on display.

In my kitchen is...

Soups a plenty! We've been the house of sick recently, so soup has been one of our main meals. I know I'm sick when I forget to get photos of food, but we've had some delicious varieties - potato and leek, sweet corn (with chicken and egg added to half for Mr Fork), hot and sour soup loaded with tamarind, noodles and plenty of fresh vegetables.

Potato and leek soup

In my kitchen is...

My first ever home grown pumpkin! I'm not 100% sure what variety this one is as it sprouted from compost I'd spread in the beds (obviously not aged enough) and I nurtured it since. I'm not even sure if I harvested it too early, but since it's the first pumpkin I've ever grown, I'm immensely proud of it. I've got a couple more coming up on the vine, still at tennis ball size, so hopefully they'll stay on and keep me in pumpkin soup for some time!

In my kitchen is...

A batch of delicious smelling apple and cinnamon mini wacky cakes for Ellie (alright, I'll admit the four larger ones on the right are for her mama....). I think what makes them especially appealing right now is that it's currently grey and miserable outside and now the house is redolent with the smell of baking, apples and cinnamon - an extremely potent combination!

I am linking this post in with Fig Jam and Lime Cordial's monthly In My Kitchen event. I know it seems that my kitchen is full of food this month because, well, it is! Cold weather always makes me want to cook, partially because I love the warm stodgy cold weather foods and also because it gives me an excuse to have the oven on and stand near it! 

What's in your kitchen this month?

Recipe: French onion soup

It's been a bit cold of late (yes, I know my southern friends would tell me that Brisbane doesn't get cold, but I have felt the chill), and nothing satisfies more than a big bowl of warm soup when it’s cold outside.

For some reason, I had a hankering for french onion soup, I'm not really sure why as I'd never had it before in my life.  A quick search around the internet and I had a collection of recipes that provided enough inspiration for me to go ahead and do my own thing. 

Here's the one that I based my version off.  It was already vegan (traditionally french onion soup is made on a beef stock), but I wanted to make sure I had enough to eat now and for plenty of leftovers so I changed it up a bit. 

• 4 large onions (mix of red and brown), sliced in half and then sliced thinly
  
• 1.5L stock (I used stock powder, so I added that with boiling water – see step 2)
  
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
  
• Pepper to taste
  
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
  
• 4 Tbsp cornflour

1. Heat oil in pan, and sauté onions until lightly brown.  Add garlic and sauté a bit longer, then turn down heat, cover and cook for 30-40 minutes until mixture is all soft and wilty (stir occasionally).

2. Add cornflour and stock powder to coat onions, then add boiling water (this is so it doesn’t go lumpy when you’re thickening it – if you’re using liquid stock, just add the cornflour first, then the stock on top).  Bring slowly to the boil.

3. Simmer until thickened to preference then season to taste.

Traditionally, this would be served in a hollowed out bread bowl with some melted cheese, however, I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of having such a carbohydrate laden dinner, so I deviated from the norm with a plain bowl filled with soup.  I don’t add a lot of salt to my cooking, so for an extra flavour and vegetable boost, I served the soup on top of some kale chips which were lightly sprayed with olive oil and sea salt.  Delicious!!!

Next time I’ll probably dice the onions and up the flavour with some herbs and spices as this version was a little bit too subtle for my tastes.