Tag: vegetable soup

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Lazy ‘South of the Border’ Soup

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You’re wondering on the lazy part here? Well it all started out with me not feeling like doing much but having to eat like everybody else. So from what I had on hand, I concocted a soup, and here is the real lazy part about it: using up half a jar of tomato sauce that was leftover from a ‘quick-take-to-a-friends-house-Lasagna’. Even I, who make most everything from scratch, (often including tomato sauce) do have some jars of good store bought sauce on hand. A word of caution here: Read the labels, I never buy any jarred sauces with sugar or cornstarch or vegetable protein or really anything other than what you would put in it at home. Lets face it, when is the last time you reached for that soy isolate or sprinkled some monosodium glutamate on your food? Alright then, you might not want to eat that I am guessing. I am even weary of ‘spices’ as they can legally stick all kinds of stuff in there under that label, but I am getting off the subject here.

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Where were we? Lazy, oh yes, so I made a soup for a cold winter day when the soul is longing for some sunshine but you really don’t want to put a lot of thought or energy into the food making process…

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I added spices and peppers, eggplant and cumin, and I had a name picked out and everything! Life was great. Until I bit myself eating the soup three (yes, 3) times!!?  Montezuma apparently misunderstood the title, I mean it was in English and all…          ‘Lazy Mexican-soup‘ there, happy?

Well I do have to say, I ate all the rest of the soup and no more biting myself…

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Ingredients

  • 1 medium red onion, diced
  • 4 ribs celery
  • 1/2 medium eggplant, cut into cubes
  • 1 lb campari tomatoes (they are about ping-pong ball sized), quartered
  • 1 red bell pepper, diced (optional: roasted)
  • 1/2  a jar Marinara (Spaghetti) Sauce (about 12oz)
  • 1 tbsp cumin seeds, whole
  • 1 tsp marjoram, dried
  • 1 tsp oregano, dried
  • 1 tsp chili powder, medium or hot, depending on taste
  • 2 tsp chipotle powder
  • 1/2 tsp ground white pepper
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 2 qts plain beef stock (for vegetarian option, use vegetable broth)

Directions

  1. If you are roasting the red pepper: Spread the peppers on a line baking sheet and roast in a 400°F oven until blackened in spots. (You can do this alongside other vegetables, like while making the cumin roasted carrots) or alternately, place under the broiler with the door ajar until some brown spots appear.
  2. Add some oil to a large stockpot, add the diced onion, stir and then cook until softened and browned in parts.
  3. Add the celery, eggplant and cumin to the pot. Cook for about 2 minutes, then add the tomatoes, pepper and all the spices. Stir and wait about 1 minute until adding the broth so the spices have toast a bit and time to release their flavor.
  4. Add the Marinara Sauce and bring to a boil.
  5. Cook until the vegetables are tender, about 8 to 10 minutes. Enjoy!
See? It doesn’t get much easier, lazier or cheaper than that!

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Copyright © 2012 Simple Healthy Homemade. All rights reserved

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Colorful Vegetable Soup with Celery Root

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Celery Root or Celeriac is what we use back home as winter vegetable for soups, salads, stews, you name it. It’s cheap, readily available and has a great flavor both raw and cooked. You could most definitely use regular green celery, which has a bit more of a pungent flavor, compared to the almost a bit nutty or earthy flavor of the root crop.

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Making vegetable soup from scratch could not be easier, and I am giving you a basic recipe that can be made in as many variations as there are cooks.

For this particular soup I chose colorful veggies, and I am foregoing the usual potato for the sake of the ‘getting lean in the new year’ and all the paleo eaters out there and I am using, as I just said, celery root instead, which has a much lower Glycemic Index (GI) than a potato. choosing vegetables (and foods in general that are low on the glycemic scale keeps you full longer, therefore helping to control your appetite. In very simple words (yes there is more to it, but I’ll spare you) the idea behind the glycemic index is to measure how quickly a particular food affects your blood sugar/insulin response, meaning how quickly the sugars in it get digested and find their way into your blood stream.
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Alright, now that we fed the brain, let’s look at our tummy 🙂

Ingredients

  • 1/2 medium onion, peeled and chopped
  • 1/2 celery root, peeled and cut into chunks
  • 3-4 large tomatoes, diced * see note
  • 2 carrots, diced
  • 1/4 to 1/2 a head of cauliflower, separated into florets (depending ont he size of the cauliflower you get)
  • 1/4 of a head of a medium savoy cabbage, cut into chunks (or use some leaves off a large one)
  • 4-5  stalks Swiss Chard, chopped(any color you like, rainbow colors look pretty)
  • 1 tsp salt

* I used frozen ones from my Garden in the summer: when they are at the peak of ripeness, just chop and put in zip top bags for soup in the winter. Alternately you could use a can of no salt added diced tomatoes)

Makes one 3 1/2 qt pot full

Directions

  1. In a stock pot (mine is 3 1/2 qts, or so it says on the bottom) heat one tablespoon on olive or coconut oil over medium, then add the onions,a dn cook until translucent but not brown
  2. Add the celery and carrots, stir and cook until the onions are beginning to brown
  3. Add the tomatoes, with any juice that collected on the cutting board (if using frozen, partially thaw in the fridge overnight) stir and allow to cook 5 minutes to allow some of the juices to come out
  4. Add water to cover the vegetables and bring to a boil, cook 5 minutes, then add the cauliflower and chopped Swiss Chard, bring to a boil again,then reduce the heat, add the salt and simmer until celery, carrot and cauliflower are tender when pierced with a fork.
  5. Serve hot with some crackers or a slice of rustic bread, or enjoy as a first course.

To make this your own:

  • Instead of celeriac, use 2-3 stalks of celery and a medium potato
  • Use kale instead of Swiss Chard (but remove the tough stems)
  • Use spinach,  but add right before serving into individual bowls, ladle hot soup over
  • Don’t like cabbage? Leave it out
  • Instead of cabbage and kale, use thin cut or quartered Brussel sprouts
  • Add green beans or snow peas towards the end of cooking time
  • Leave out the tomatoes
  • Go through your fridge, anything vegetable can most likely be used up in your yummy soup, the potions are endless 🙂

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Copyright © 2012 Simple Healthy Homemade. All rights reserved