cauliflower soup
I’ve said it before. I think soup is the perfect fastfood. It usually takes under 20 min, can be made from almost anything and most often requires minimum washing up afterwards.
Today’s option was a cauliflower variety, spiced up with some cheese and a little of my own forest spice blend. Yeah, I know I use that in everything, but there’s a very good reason for that! It’s amazingly good.
There. Today’s bragging session over. Lets get back to the cooking!
You need:
1/2 head cauliflower
1/2 liter chicken stock
3 tbsp grated cheese
1 tsp forest spice blend
salt, pepper
How to:
- Cut the cauliflower into smaller pieces
- Bring the stock to boil and add the cauliflower.
- Let it boil until soft – I’m not going to give you an exact time as this depends on the size of the pieces etc. I’d say around ten minutes, but just test it with a fork and you’ll be able to tell when it’s soft.
- Right before you decide it’s finished, add the forest spice.
- Mix it with a blender stick and add the cheese. Blend some more just to make sure it’s all properly mixed.
- Taste with salt and pepper and you’re all set for dinner!
Creamy Carrot Soup
I like soups because they’ll warm you on a cold day, they don’t take too long to cook and you don’t get a lot of dirty dishes making them. See, I have no dishwasher. I have never had a dishwasher in my life. And I hate doing the dishes, so living in a place big enough for me to squeeze in a dishwasher is on my top three Things To Do Before I Die (I like to make my goals big and hard to achieve).
Anyway, here’s another one I made up the other day when the wind and snow was blowing and I was really hungry.
You need:
3 – 4 carrots (depending on size)
1/2 onion, chopped
0,5 litre (about two cups) vegetable stock
the juice of 1 orange
1 tsp red curry paste
1/2 cup of whipped cream
a little oil
salt, pepper
- Peel the carrots and cut them into pieces, about 1 1/2 inch long.
- Heat the oil and let the onions slowly turn golden. Meanwhile, bring the stock to boil.
- Add the orange juice, the carrots and onion to the stock and let them boil until the carrots are soft (about 15 minutes).
- Add the curry paste.
- Remove from heat and blnd until smooth, using a stick-blender. Add the cream and blend it into the soup. Taste with salt and pepper. If needed heat it (but don’t let it boil; you want to keep the fluffy frothiness of the cream).
Serve!
pea soup on the go
I noted recently that my friends on Facebook have voted me “most organized”. I found that highly amusing, because anyone who knows me well, knows that I am anything but. If I’m anything, I’m the Queen of Organized Chaos.
One of the ways this manifests itself in is that I’m often startled by the fact that, gee, I need to eat today as well! And as I also get hugely cranky when I’m hungry I need to get something fast!
This soup is the result of one of those “feed me quick”-moments.
You need (for 4 cups):
2 cups of vegetable stock (or water with 2 stock cubes)
2 cups of frozen peas
1 tsp forest spice blend
1/2 milk
Wasabi yogurt:
Greek/Turkish (that is fat) yogurt
wasabi to taste
- Put the stock in a pot together with the frozen peas and the spice blend. Bring to boil.
- Meanwhile, mix yogurt and wasabi to the strength you prefer.
- When the stock is boiling, remove from heat and add the milk. Mix it smooth, preferably with a stick blender.
- Pour in a cup and add a dollop of wasabi yogurt. Drink and enjoy!
Carrot Coconut Noodle Soup
Yesterday I improvised something that was certainly altogether an invention of my own. I don’t have a picture of this, because I cooked it at my mother’s place, and she doesn’t know about my blog and might have thought it slightly strange if I started taking pictures of my dinner…
The look, I can still tell you, was very Halloweenish (aka orange) so it was most fitting for the season. And it was actually good – at least my mother said so.
Here’s how to make it (it’ll feed 4 at least):
about 500 g of carrots
1 onion
about 1 liter of vegetable broth
1 1/2 tbsp red curry paste
rice noodles (I don’t know what they’re called, but I mean the kind you’d use in a Thai noodle soup – the flat kind)
400 g coconut milk (can or from powder)
juice from 1 lime
thai fish sauce (may not be vegetarian, but I used it anyway – you can’t substitute the taste for anything else. If you must, try adding more salt instead)
chopped peanuts
chopped fresh coriander
- Peel the carrots and cut them into pieces. Chop the onion.
- Heat a little oil in a big pot and fry the onion, until it’s golden and slightly soft. Add carrots and broth.
- Boil until the carrots are soft.
- Mix the soup until smooth, using a stick blender.
- Add the curry paste and the noodles. For some reason, it takes longer for them to get ready when you boil them in a thick soup like this, so be prepared to taste them to see when they’re ready – don’t trust the timer!
- When they’re almost ready, add the coconut milk and bring it to boil.
- Taste with lime and fish sauce.
- Spread some chopped peanuts and coriander over it before serving.
Potato & Parsnip Soup w Mushrooms
I was pretty happy when I came up with this soup. It was made from stuff I found in the fridge, they were all seasonal and local (almost) and it was extremely good.
To serve two:
6-8 potatoes depending on size
1-2 parsnip(s) – ditto
5 dl (2 cups) of vegetable broth
onion
garlic
3-4 tablespoons of cream
mushrooms (I used chanterelles because you can still find them fresh here, but any sort would be good. Porcini would probably be awesome)
salt, pepper, basil
flakes of Parmesan, truffle oil
- Peel and cut the potatoes and the parsnip into pieces (about 2 x 2 cm).
- Bring the broth to boil. Add vegetables. Boil them until soft (about 15 minutes).
- In the mean time, clean the mushrooms well and fry them until soft in a pan.
- While the mushrooms and soup are simmering, chop onion and garlic and put in a pan with a little oil until soft. Add to soup.
- Allow to simmer for a few minutes.
- Remove the soup from heat and add cream, salt, pepper and a pinch of basil.
- Mix until smooth using a mixer or blender.
- Pour the soup in a bowl and put the mushrooms on top, sprinkle some Parmesan flakes over it and finish by pouring a little truffle oil over it.
Vegetarian Minestrone Soup (or something like it)
OK, on this my first day on my new life, I decided to make soup because it is cold outside and I have a bit of a cold, and soup seemed like such warm, soft, kind comfort food. I came up with this variety of what my mother used to pass off as minestrone soup.
(serves 4)
1 onion
2 carrots
1 (tiny) parsnip
2 cloves of garlic
100 g of smoked tofu with almonds
1 can of beans
pasta
1/2 litre of broth
500 g of puréed tomatoes
Basil, salt and pepper to taste
Chop the garlic finely and the onion crudely. Peel the carrots and the parsnip. Grate the carrots and parsnip pretty finely. Take out a sizeable pot and heat some olive oil. Fry the garlic until it starts to turn slightly golden. Fry the onion and the other veggies. Dice the tofu into cubes about 1/2 centimetre. Toss them into the pot.
Pour on broth and tomatoes. Bring to boil. Add some basil. Add pasta and cook until ready. When about a minute of the cooking time for the pasta remains, pour the beans into the soup. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Et voilà! It was actually pretty good, but you might want to add some bread to get something to chew on.
