Back on track for the fall- Basil and Chili Corn Chowda'

So I took a bit of a summer vacation from this blog. As it turns out, my summer was hectic, it was hot in Colorado, and although there are some delicious cold soups, I wasn't into cooking them. However, we are in September and the fall season is upon us. In other words, soup season! I need to go count to see if it is possible for me to hit my 50 soup goal by the end of the year... if I up the ante to 2/week from here on out is it doable? Will see...

I opted for a vegan corn chowder with some kick this week. Corn is a summer vegetable to me, but corn chowder (the New Englander in me so wants to type/say Chowda'...) is a decidedly cold season soup. In other words, perfect to bridge from the summer to fall.

My recipe is compliments of the Vegan YumYum cookboook (and blog-- though I'm unsure if this particular soup was ever on the blog and she's no longer a blogger). It uses fresh corn and basil (there's the summer for you), along with potatoes and soy milk for a hearty texture. The heat comes from a bit of canned chilis in adobo sauce (and honestly I used a few too many for my preference... this stuff is spicy)!

The texture isn't quite as smooth/velvety as I tend to like (perhaps b/c the fresh corn isn't actually cooked- just blended and heated?), but the flavor of the basil and corn together is excellent. Next time less heat though! Also, although I think that my corn was good, it wasn't great. With super sweet Olathe corn and less heat this would be amazing.

Sweet Potato-Ginger-Miso Soup

This recipe for Sweet Potato Soup with Ginger + Miso combines many of my favorite flavors--- ginger may very well be my #1 flavor-- and this soup has plenty of it! It also happens to be one of the creamiest pureed soups I've ever made. I think that it probably has something to do with the sweet potato (I don't tend to make other pureed potato soups and come to think of it, potato is indeed a creamier ingredient to puree then say, asparagus). I actually did have some regular milk on hand to use up when I made this one, so made the recipe as is; however, I think that it would be just fine with a soy milk sub. (and maybe even a vanilla soy milk sub, though I tend to keep the Silk Light plain on hand).

One thing that confused me about this recipe though was that you add the miso, and then simmer it... All my other knowledge of miso is that you should not boil it-- as boiling/heating to very high temperatures kills some of the benefit of miso. See the notes on this recipe (speaking of which, that blog title is right up my alley... hmmm.. may be adding that to my list of recipes to consider...). In any case, for this recipe I simply concluded that the miso in this recipe was not for the health benefits, rather for the flavor that it imparts. I considered waiting to add the miso, but ended up following the directions as written.

This soup is a really pretty orange color (just as the photo in the recipe linked from this post shows). Enjoy!

Sticking with the Spring

The orzo/spinach/lemon soup was spring-ish... and I kept with the spring theme last week by making a fresh asparagus cream soup (compliments of Allrecipes.com). In fact, this soup didn't use cream at all... just soy milk and soy yogurt. I actually didn't have any plain soygurt on hand, so used regular (dairy) plain yogurt instead, but I loved that allrecipes was featuring a vegan recipe that wasn't marketed as such!

My starting asparagus was good... but not great. As such, the soup was good but not great. I think that if I had excellent fresh from the farm asparagus this soup would have been super. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the slightly tart and very springy flavor this week. Warning: this soup isn't pretty. Mine was sort of an olive green puree (almost looked like split pea soup color). I think that garnishing it with a top of fresh asparagus would have helped it look nicer, but I neglected to reserve any asparagus for this and just pureed the whole bunch.

Spring Soups

Spring is here... well, it was last week and when I was deciding what soup to make I was thinking of spring flavors--- things like asparagus, fresh tangy flavors, and green. I perused the Cooking Light online files and found a recipe for Spinach, Pasta, and Pea soup. I thought that it was going to be fresh peas (which would have been more spring-like to me), but realized that "Pea" in the title was actually referring to chick peas. Given that these are a favorite of mine, I decided to make the soup.

My favorite part of the soup was the lemony broth and the orzo. The spinach in the soup was good the first day that I ate it, but whole leaves of spinach in soup that's designed to be eaten for a few days can result is slightly slimy spinach come day 3 or 4...

Nevertheless, this is a good solid recipe. I now want to find more soups with lemon based vegetable broth (basically just a bunch of fresh lemon juice and rind mixed in with regular veggie broth). Yum!

Best of Both Worlds: Barley & Split Peas

Barley? Check. Split peas? Check. I love both... and this soup combines the two. This is another from the Top Secret Recipe site (or is it Copy Cat recipes??). It has been a while since I snagged this recipe for split pea-barley soup. It is hearty and mild at the same time-- but definitely not bland.

Apparently the technical name is 'Dakota Smashed Pea & Barley Soup' and it espouses to be a take off of the one that CPK serves. I don't think that I've ever had the original, so I can't attest to its authenticity- but I can testify to the deliciousness of the take-off version! Enjoy this recipe!

ps- still needing to play catch up a bit.. this soup was from last week. It is Tuesday and I need to select a soup for this week...

Peanut Butter + Sweet Potatoes= YUM!

So Mike held true to his promise and polished off the minetrone soup, even taking it for lunch one day- hooray! So, last night I made a stew recipe that my friend Sarah created and we re-created while in Hawaii. This is a basic adaptation of the recipes out there for African Sweet Potato Stew. Here's her version:

-2 sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
-15 oz. can fire roasted canned tomatoes, undrained
-1 red bell pepper, cubed
-1 onion, diced
-ample fresh ginger, minced
-1 small jalapeno, seeded and minced
-2 garlic cloves, minced
-1 Tbl. olive oil
-1 medium zucchini, sliced about 1/4 inch thick
-1/2 cup crunch natural peanut butter
-1 tsp. ground cumin
-hearty dash of cinnamon
-cilantro

Saute the onion, bell pepper, and garlic in oil. Add spices and stir. Add tomatoes, jalapeno, and sweet potato. Add ginger. When potatoes are mostly cooked, add zuchinni, and PB. Stir and cook until potatoes and zuch. are cooked. Garnish with chopped fresh cilantro and serve over brown rice.

This is delicious! Mike liked this one too. Score for a double vegetarian meal for him and another good one for me.

Minestrone Mix

I've not given up on my soups this year-- just have had a few busy weeks. That, and the warmer weather, have made my soup challenge... well, a challenge!

In any case, I was already a few soups 'ahead', and I have plans to make up for my lack of cooking since St. Patrick's Day (less than a full month). Today is rainy and dreary, so I am making a big pot of Minestrone. Mike has agreed to eat this with me all week- so here's hoping that he comes through on that promise, else I'm going to have a giant pot of soup to eat by myself.

I don't have an awesome recipe for minestrone-- so I just sort of start with the basics and then mix it up as I see fit. Here's what's in my pot today:

-an onion
-a zucchini
-leftover shredded carrot
-2-3 garlic cloves
-a celery stalk
-about 1/3 cup (whatever was left in the bag) of frozen white corn
-1 red skinned potato
-a can of kidney beans
-a can of navy beans
-a big can of fire roasted crushed tomatoes
-dried basil
-dried oregano
-a large bay leaf
-about 1/3 cup little pasta stars
-about 1 cup of chopped spinach (had been frozen)
-water/broth

Basically I chopped the veggies, sauteed the onion and garlic in olive oil, and then dumped the rest in the pot (adding the pasta and potato a bit later) to simmer.

I may add some tomato paste (even though I don't tend to like it, in a dish this big I may appreciate the acidic flavor it imparts). I also have fresh parmesan to grate over top, and I may try tossing some of that rind in too.

Oh- I may toss in some peas too-- maybe some green beans if I have any of those chilling in the freezer.

Assuming we may good progress on this GIANT pot of soup (it really is that big...), I'll have a stew in store for later in the week.

Top Secret Corn Tortilla Soup

About 8 or 9 years ago when I was first exploring online recipes, I came across the Top Secret Recipes site. The basic premise is that this guy takes popular restaurant items for which there is no known public recipes and deconstructs them to determine the ingredients and cooking techniques. I remember reading his account of how he did this with a particular Baja Fresh salsa as though I was reading a mystery novel… I swear I think that he camped out near the restaurant to analyze the trash or something crazy like that. In any case, this is a soup, not salsa, blog and one of the recipes that I copied down from the site was California Pizza Kitchen (CPK) Sedona White Corn and Tortilla Soup. Confession: I never had eaten the real deal at the restaurant—but it was vegetarian and sounded promising (with Sedona in the name what wouldn’t be appetizing?). Oops- just saw that you needed to pay $0.79 for this recipe on his site (I think that some of them are still free though??). In any case, this is essentially the same recipe (but I use veg. stock instead of the chicken). That CopyKat site looks like the same thing… and apparently the Top Secret recipes aren’t so top secret after all!

In any case, this recipe continues to be a favorite of mine. I think that the charred corn tortillas that end up soaking in the soup before being pureed into the mix are part of what makes this a unique pot of soup. This is one of those recipes that I definitely will only use the high end frozen corn (or, in the summer fresh corn is delicious!). The corn, cumin, tomato, and slightly spicy kick from the jalapeno are the main flavors, and the consistency is sort of meal-y—but in a good way.

I actually only made a half recipe this afternoon as my week will be a bit off kilter with spring break for our students, so my eating may be off schedule too. In any case, I enjoyed a bowl of this for dinner, along with a really delicious peanut kale salad. Yum!

I may not do yoga, but I eat yoga soup.

This has been a busy week and I’m heading out of town tomorrow for the early part of next week. Although I bought ingredients for a tortilla soup that I love, I didn’t end up having time to make it. Rather than use a ‘bye’ week, I chose to make a standby quick fix: Yoga Soup from VegWeb. I swear there was a  month a few years ago when I had this for dinner every night. I vary the ingredients from time to time, but there is always the standard ginger, edamame, potstickers/dumplings (frozen—after all, this is a lazy soup…), spinach, drip of sesame oil, and Sirracha. This time I added rice noodles (only b/c I had about an ounce of them on hand from a recipe from Mike).

I love this soup. I love that the potstickers (I used Safeway brand veggie potstickers from the frozen case) break apart while they are boiling and add their flavor throughout. I love the ginger. And the edamame. Most of all, I love that this soup is easy, during a week that I’m incredibly thankful for something easy.

I encourage you to try to experiment with this soup if you enjoy Asian flavors and need an easy soup fix!

Soup...Or Sauce?

Last week I turned to a cookbook with beautiful food photography (otherwise known as ‘food porn’… drool…) for a different take on tomato soup. Vegan YumYum’s Spicy Tomato Chickpea Soup. This soup incorporated mustard seeds along with chickpeas, turmeric, and cumin for a interesting blend of spices from different cuisines. The chickpeas added a heartiness that I find is often missing from non-dairy based tomato soups. The photos in this book always inspire me to make gorgeous (and hopefully delicious!) food.

This one was easy to toss together (minimal chopping, all in one pot). I had one serving right after I made it, and it was good (not great, but a solid good). Although I don’t usually mind a bit of chunky or event gritty texture to my soups, for some reason I was hoping that this would be completely smooth- and it was not. I used my immersion blender (same that I always do), but I think that the addition of the chickpeas made it nearly impossible to get a totally smooth blend with this particular soup.

I put the pot in the fridge to chill and the next day Mike asked about the ‘pasta sauce’ in the fridge. It hit me that this could be a good sauce (after all, it was thick and red, with a sauce-like texture). So, the rest of the pot was eaten on noodles or polenta as a sauce. Mike had his with fettuccini and grilled chicken on top and remarked that it was better than ‘regular’ pasta sauce. I too enjoyed this as a sauce.

So, although I doubt I’ll make this one as soup again, as a sauce it was a hit!

CrockPot Fail: Hot and Sour Soup & A Known Winner: One Wild Chick Soup

Sigh. Last week I tried the Hot and Soup from my new vegetarian slow cooker book, and was sadly disappointed. It wasn’t bad… but it wasn’t good either. I should have know when I threw peas into the crock—slowly overcooked frozen peas = bleck. Oh well- I ate a few bowls and tossed the rest today (which I hate to do…).

This week I decided I’d go for a tried and true recipe--- I didn’t want to risk another fail. I turned to Dreena Burton’s latest cookbook, Eat, Drink, & Be Vegan, for One Wild Chick Soup which I first made a few years ago.  I like Dreena’s blog too, but this recipe is actually from the book.  It is another wild rice soup (see this post for a different wild rice soup). I actually prefer this one—as it has chick peas (WILD rice & CHICK peas= fun name for a soup), no tomatoes, and nutritional yeast for that faux cheesy tart taste that I really love. Unfortunately for you readers (anyone out there?), I can’t find the recipe posted online anywhere, and from reading Dreena’s blog I sort of feel like I know her (really, I don’t, I just think that I do…), so I don’t want to post the recipe here. Suffice it to say that this was a delicious soup, and this is a great cookbook for nice vegan dishes.

This is a short post- it is Sunday night and I’m tired. I’m excited for my big pot-o-soup to eat off this week, knowing that it is a good one is comforting in of itself.

My Mom's Vegetarian Chili

Veggie chili can be pretty blah.. I think that it is often over-served by omnivores to vegetarians because it is relatively easy to make, and is often a food that’s accepted even by meat eaters.

My mom has a vegetarian chili recipe that I remember from my childhood. I hadn’t made it in years, but remembered it fondly and decided that it would be (one of…) my soups for the week. I made a half batch only in case my memory was off, I didn’t want to be stuck with a giant pot of something that I didn’t like.

Since I have no idea where she got the recipe, I’m going to post it here (ordinarily I’m not posting recipes, only linking to recipes if available, as I don’t want to violate copywrite and stiff the rightful author of a potential cookbook sale…):

Ingredients:

2 Tbl. olive oil

1 ½ cups chopped celery

1 ½ cups chopped green pepper

1 cup chopped onion

3 cloves garlic

2 (20 oz) cans of diced tomatoes

3 (16 oz) cans of red kidney beans- rinsed and drained

½ cup raisins

¼ cup red wine vinegar

1 Tbl. Chili powder

1 Tbl. minced parsley

2 tsp. salt

1 ½ tsp. dried basil

1 ½ tsp. dried oregano

1 ½ tsp. ground cumin

1 tsp. allspice

¼ tsp. pepper

1 bay leaf

1 (12 oz) can/bottle of beer (or water)

¾ cup peanuts

Directions: Heat oil in a large pot. Add green pepper, onion, garlic, and celery and cook until tender. Stir in undrained tomatoes, beans, raisins, vinegar, and all spices, including bay leaf. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 1 ½ hours. Stir in beer or water and peanuts. Return to boiling. Simmer another ½ hour, uncovered. Remove bay leaf and serve.

My only change (besides cutting the recipe in half) was to sub a red bell pepper for the green (I can’t stand the flavor or texture of cooked green pepper.. yet red and yellow are okay, strange). I also used 1 can of kidney beans, and then ½ can of chick peas. Since I was halving the recipe I didn’t want a half can of leftover kidneys, but figured I could easily make good use of leftover chick peas. Lastly, I don’t know when this recipe was written, but I’m pretty sure that 20 oz. cans of tomatoes are no longer sold. I used 1 (15) oz. can of diced tomatoes and then about 4 oz. of leftover tomato sauce from another recipe.

The verdict? I like this. I don’t love it, but like it more than other veggie chili recipes. The peanuts, raisins, and vinegar make it more interesting than just beans, tomatoes, and spices. I also think that I like it because it definitely is familiar from childhood. Something about peanuts and raisins together- in any dish/combination- reminds me of my mom (probably related to her care and concern for ensuring that I was getting enough protein and feeding me tons of peanuts… this was before the ubiquitous peanut allergy of course)!

Mike had a bowl too, so I’m down to just 2 servings left for the rest of the week, which means that I’ll be making another soup this week too….

Yam and Black Bean Soup with Orange and Cilantro

I was looking for a different sort of black bean soup, so I settled on Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s Yam and Black Bean Soup with Orange and Cilantro from Appetite for Reduction.  I’ve had this book since it came out, though haven’t cooked much from it (yet).

I cut the recipe in half, but otherwise followed it at written. This is definitely more of a yam soup than it is a bean soup. It is okay, but not great. Granted, I don’t tend to like orange or citrus savory dishes in general, so perhaps I should have know that I wouldn’t love this one. A few notes in case I want to make this again:

1.     Chop the onion, rather than slice it. I don’t like onion strings hanging off my spoon!

2.     The serrano could be increased to make the soup more interesting.

3.     The recipe calls for partially mashing the yam base with a potato masher before adding the beans. I did this, but wonder if I would have preferred a smoother puree, rather than the chunky mixture that I had (?).

4.     The orange flavor wasn’t bad… it just wasn’t good (to my taste). It became somewhat more subtle over the few days that I ate this soup.

5.     I mostly served this soup over a corn fritter dish from Cooking Light. I think that the sweetness of the corn was a nice pairing for the yam (which should be sweet… but really was more acidic because of the orange juice).

Overall, this was good, but not great. I’m realizing so far through this blog that I’m a fairly picky soup critic. A soup has to be really fantastic for me to love it (that sounds like such a ‘duh’ statement…but worth noting).

We are in in the midst of a decent winter storm… here’s hoping that we have tomorrow off from work! If so, I’ll be sure to spend some time perusing new  soup recipes.

Also, I am now one moth in o my year of serving soup and I’m ahead of pace with my challenge to have cooked 50 veg*n soups by the end of the year!

Curried Split Pea Soup

I had some of the leftover carrot miso soup earlier in the week, and was then considering what soup would be a complement for the remainder of the week. Rather than trying something new, I decided to go for one of my tried and true recipes from Vegan with a Vengeance. First, a note about Vegan with a Vengeance—this book seriously changed my life. My dad got if for me for Hanukkah about 8 years ago. I think that he read a review of it in the New York Times or something like that. This book was my introduction to veganism. Although I’ve never identified as a true vegan, I have eaten a primarily vegan diet off and on (and always a vegetarian diet) since he got it for me. As such, I was able to lower my cholesterol to healthy levels, and have upped both my cooking skills and scope. Some of my absolute favorite recipes are in this book. My peanut sauce go-to recipe, my carrot ginger soup, my seitan recipe, tofu ricotta, and I could go on… More VWAV soup recipes will surely be reviewed here.

For now, back to the split peas. I think of Split Pea Soup as one of those polarizing foods—love it or hate it. I’ve loved it ever since my mom would make the Manischewitz dried mix kind as a kid.  I’ll fully admit that when I want a standard split pea soup, I still go for the cellophane wrapped tube of dried peas, barley, dehydrated onions and carrots, and spice packet (amazingly sold in the itty bitty kosher section of my King Soopers). However, when I want something a bit different, the Curried Split Pea Soup from Vegan with a Vengeance has been my choice. This soup is almost as easy as the packaged mix (just chopping the garlic, carrots and onion and mixing the spices). I used a mix of hot curry and maharajah curry powders—but it wasn’t particularly hot, so I think that all hot curry powder would be interesting to try too. I actually only made a half recipe of this recipe, as it was Wednesday night when I made it, and I wanted to have a need for a new soup by Monday or Tuesday of next week. True to history, this was a tasty and hearty soup. It isn’t so different from ‘regular’ split pea soup, yet it has a unique flavor that sets it apart.

I also decided to get creative and make a mixture of the leftover carrot miso soup and the curried split pea. California Pizza Kitchen (which has delicious soups for a mall/chain restaurant…) serves thick complimentary soups side-by-side in the same bowl. I did the same—fully realizing that it might very well be disgusting. Lucky for me it was a winning combination (though now I only have the leftover curried split pea, so it was a short lived combination).

Carrot-Miso Soup

I have a carrot soup standby. It is sweet and delicious—with both coconut milk and maple syrup to sweeten an already sugary base of carrots and ginger. I am sure that I’ll make that one at some point this year. However, today’s soup is a different sort of carrot soup. This soup blends the natural sweetness of carrots (2#s of them…) with the salty sea-like flavor of miso.

One of my friends recently turned me on to Smitten Kitchen, a food blog about the trials and tribulations of cooking great food in a tiny NYC apartment, and that’s where this soup was created. I followed her recipe for Carrot Soup with Miso & Sesame as written. I am in complete agreement with her commentary--- this is a refreshingly different type of carrot soup. Besides looks, it hardly resembles my other carrot soup recipe. The flavor of the miso is pronounced (only try this one if you know that you like miso….). Since miso is often found in, well… Miso Soup, which has a brothy base, the hearty puree of the carrots is a different sort of pairing with the miso. I did swirl in a little bit of toasted sesame oil before serving, and sprinkled the top with scallions. This made for a really stunning presentation (bright, bright orange, with a little subtle swirl of oil, topped with bright green scallions). I’m not usually one to get overly excited about how my soups look (and frankly they aren’t often pretty…),  but this one made me step back and admire!

The verdict on this one is that is really good. I’m not sure that I’d go as far as calling it great, but really, really good.

Note: Be sure to use good fresh (as you can get) carrots for this one. I sprung for the fancy top-still-on organic kind, and can imagine that this would be even better with carrots from your own garden, or the farmer’s market. Alas, it is January, so the best of the grocery store will have to do.

Soup as a Party Food!

We had a party at our house last night. The “main course”? Soup, of course! We had about 25 friends over for beer, appetizers, and 2 soups that I cooked in advance and then kept warm in crock pots. I knew that I’d want something tried and true for this party. After all, a part is no time to test something new.. .and have it come out no good. I also knew that I wanted relatively “normal” and mild soups. By “normal” what do I mean? Well, with nothing too too strange in it. In my mind, that ruled out the following ingredients (which otherwise can be found in many of my favorite soups!): nutritional yeast, miso, faux meat of any sort (sorry Gardein, seitan, Quorn and the like…), and/or any other odd ball item. I also knew that I didn’t want anything too spicy, or with too strong of a bite of a flavor that’s not  widely liked (i.e. cilantro). So that takes care of normal and mild. I also ruled out anything with beets (the idea of kids running around the house with bowls of beet soup made both Mike and I nervous… the potential for spillage on the light carpet downstairs was just too great…).

So, with those parameters in mind, I chose 2 soups that were different enough to please different pallets:

·      Wild Rice and Vegetable Soup (compliments of VegWeb.com)

·      Apple Rutabaga Soup (thanks, Aunt Kay for bringing my attention to this recipe from the Inn at Little Washington!)

Both were a hit- and I’m glad that I picked different types of soups. Let’s start with the Wild Rice & Vegetable Soup. First, my modifications:

1.     I used 2 cans of Muir Glenn Fire Roasted diced tomatoes (with no added salt) in lieu of ‘regular’ canned tomatoes. I find these particular tomatoes to add a richer tomato flavor and when used as a base ingredient, as was the case here, they really enhance the overall flavor of the dish.

2.     I added a handful (probably about a cup) of good sweet corn at the end.

3.     My wild rice was about ¾ cup of a wild rice blend, with ¼ cup of true black wild rice mixed in (there was some wild rice in the blend itself, but I wanted a higher ratio of actual wild rice in my soup).

4.     I used my standby Better-Than-Bullion as the broth (organic vegetable flavor), and just added it to taste (I think that I used less than the called for amount).

This soup is hearty, flavorful, and was even popular with the kids at the party. It is fairly thick (especially since I made it the day before and the rice then absorbed more broth and plumped up overnight; I added more water when I reheated it to serve). I really like the addition of corn too.

The Apple Rutabaga Soup could actually be called Butternut Squash/Carrot/Yam/Apple/Rutabaga/Maple soup! It looks (and tastes) much like a traditional butternut bisque, but has a more complex flavor, which makes sense, considering the veggies in the pot! My main modification was to use evaporated fat free milk and light coconut milk as the creamy addition, rather than heavy cream. My Aunt Kay made this soup for Thanksgiving a number of years ago, and she gave me the recipe afterwards. She had made the change to evaporated ff milk then, and passed it along to me. I didn’t actually realize that it even called for heavy cream until finding the original recipe to link to here. I also used less maple syrup (I had good sweet carrot, so I correctly predicted that I might not need as much added sweetness). Of course, I used veggie broth vs. chicken. Lastly, I usually make this as a fairly spicy soup. However, given the kids who I thought would be there, I eased up on the cayenne, and instead set out a bottle of Siracha for people to swirl in as they wanted (which I did, yum!).

I made the recipe 50% greater for the Rutabaga soup, so had more of that than the Wild Rice. I ended up with about 3 cups of leftover Wild Rice Soup (which Mike and I enjoyed this afternoon), and probably about 4 cups of leftover Rutabaga soup. One of our friends was raving about that soup, and when she stuck around after people had mostly left the party, I offered to send it home with her and she kindly obliged. Not bad portion predictions for a party with 25+ people in attendance!

First “Official” Recipe of the Challenge: Tomato Coconut Curry Soup

Here we are in the first full week of January.  It is time to get this 50-soup challenge officially underway! I couldn’t wait to try the Tomato-Curry-Coconut Soup that I posted about earlier. As mentioned, this is my favorite restaurant soup. It is served regularly at Watecourse Foods in Denver,  an excellent vegetarian restaurant.  I grabbed the recipe from the Rocky Mt. News (here). A few initial cooking notes (I had to try it right away, even though I had eaten dinner only a few hours beforehand…).

·      I started out following this recipe precisely. I mean, I measured my ½ cup of chopped carrots (!!). Oh, I did ½ the recipe, but otherwise was precise with my measurements. Note: Although I always usually measure my spices, measuring chopped veggies and not just ‘eyeballing’ them is not my normal cooking styles.

·      I used what I think is a good curry powder. I bought it at this store in Breckenridge last spring. It is the Maharaja Blend, which they claim is their premium curry powder, as described here.

·      I didn’t have crushed tomatoes on hand, so instead I hand crushed petite diced canned tomatoes. Yep—betcha had a picture of me with my hands in the tomatoes… not really (I used a potato masher). 

·      I used light coconut milk (I had ½ a can on hand, which was just the amount I needed for ½ this recipe).

The verdict:

….It is good, but not as good as I recall from eating it at Watercourse. A few possible issues:

·      It may taste better tomorrow (it seems like the type of soup that holds out it’s full flavor for a day or two…no fair!)

·      I may have glorified my memories of this soup/I may have too high of expectations.

·      The chef may not have actually given the Rocky his true recipe (entirely possible, right?)

·      One of my very minor modifications (or the curry powder used) altered it.

The ‘problem’ (not really… it really is good!) is mostly with the texture. I remember a silky smooth and more brothy soup than my version. I don’t recall tasting the chunks of carrots/celery (though the slight chunks of tomato and cabbage seem familiar). My version is more of a stew, with carrots and celery that you can make out fairly easily- in both taste and texture. I may try immersion blending/pureeing just a portion of the batch (though note that the recipe specifically says not to do this…).

I’ll likely report back later in the week and/or with my next post if it changes as it ages, or if the ½ puree process makes a significant difference. Overall, I’m disappointed, but I’m sure that’s because of my unfairly high expectations for this soup. 

Finally, I'll add that this  soup is only 4 PP/serving, as calculated at 3 servings for my 1/2 batch. Wondering what PP stands for? Check out www.weightwatchers.com. I used to work for them, so feel bound by their request to not post actual PP values on external sites, so really basic abbreviations are how many bloggers get around this pesky rule. Note: I don't add "free" fruits/veggies to my recipes in the recipe builder, so this calculation only includes the olive oil and coconut milk.

National Soup Month...and a long awaited recipe!

No surprise here... but according to several sources,  January is National Soup Month! It also just so happens to be National Oatmeal Month (I love oatmeal almost as much as I love soup…). Hooray for January!

In other good news, I found the recipe for my favorite restaurant soup—the Tomato Coconut Curry at Watercourse. I LOVE this soup. Back in March of 2007 I emailed Watercourse asking for the recipe. The response was:

“Thanks for all the compliments.  That soup is amazing, thank you.  We
don't give out recipes, but the more you eat it the more you'll figure
out. Have a great day.”

I then had proceeded to try to replicate it on my own, but it turns out I’m not very good at that. I had pretty much given up hope of making this in my own kitchen, but on a whim today I googled the name of the soup and the restaurant, and ta-dah--- there it is! Right in the (no longer) Rocky—so I’m fairly confident it is legit. I have high hopes for this soup in 2012!