Pea and Basil Soup

I am currently obsessed with basil. I want to eat it all the time. I am always obsessed with soup. I went out and bought new bowls so I could have more soup.

I had half a bunch of basil leftover and decided I wanted some SOUP! I also had this bag of frozen peas that I had bought for a different recipe and never used. I will admit that growing up, I hated pea soup. It wasn't even something my mom would try and force me to eat because she knew I wouldn't. But for some reason, I wanted to try and make pea soup. This was nothing at all like the salty sour canned split pea soup I grew up loathing. This tastes fresh and light and summery. It goes great with some crusty bread!


Ingredients
10-12 oz bag frozen peas
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
4 cups veggie stock
1 cup loosely packed fresh basil leaves
4 large cloves garlic
1/2 cup dairy... cream, milk, evaporated milk, soy milk, whatever
1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese
salt and pepper

Directions
1. Boil stock and about 1 tsp salt over high heat.
2. Lower heat to medium and add peas and onion.
3. Cook for about 5 minutes or until veggies are soft.
4. While the veggies are cooking, put basil and garlic on a food processor or blender and process until very fine. You don't want them to cook very long to keep their flavors fresh, so don't put them in the stock with the veggies.
5. When the veggies are ready, blend them, in batches if necessary, until smooth.
6. Return the veggies to the pot. Add basil, garlic, milk and parmesan cheese. Stir to combine and reheat until parmesan cheese is melted. Add salt and pepper to taste.
7. Serve! Garnish with parmesan cheese and a sprig of basil if you'd like!

Scallop, Leek and Mushroom Chowder

Rainy weather is soup weather. Even though it's supposed to be wonderful weather in Santa Barbara, apparently it rains on Sunday nights. So, time for soup!

I'd picked up some oyster mushrooms at the farmer's market because I am a big fan of wild mushrooms, but I'm too afraid for my safety to go mushroom hunting myself. I think the oyster mushrooms gave the soup a really good flavor that went well with the scallops, but I'm sure you can use any mushroom variety. My friend really wanted to have leeks in the soup. We are an indecisive bunch and it took a while for me to figure out that we should just make a creamy chowder. I think this soup came out really well, and it was all devoured so I think everyone else thought so, too!

I wanted to make it thick, so I started with a roux. It didn't really get very thick though. I didn't use too much flour because I didn't want it to be tooooo thick like a gravy or anything. I have a feeling if this soup had rested it might have thickened up but we ate it all immediately, so who knows. If you want it thicker, then you should use more flour/butter than I suggested in this recipe, but if you don't, then who cares!

The scallops were kind of an afterthought but I think they were really important to the flavor. You could of course vegetarianize this by not adding scallops, but I think if you did this, you'd want to add another vegetable (maybe carrots or something sort of sweet?) and/or a few more spices.

Ingredients
1 large potato, peeled, cut into 1/2" cubes
2 Tbsp olive oil
3 leeks, sliced into thin (~1/8 inch) rounds
1 shallot, minced
5 cloves of garlic, minced
1 1/2 cups mushrooms (I used 1/2 oyster and 1/2 crimini), diced into small pieces
1 tsp thyme
1/2 cup sherry (keep the bottle around, you may want to add more)
3 Tbsp butter
3 Tbsp flour
3 cups vegetable stock
3 cups milk (I suggest using at least 2%)
1 tsp ginger
1 lb bay scallops (the small ones), cut into small bite size pieces if you prefer
salt, pepper, cayenne to taste

Directions
1. Boil the potatoes in salted water until soft, about 5 minutes.
2. In a large pan or skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Add leeks and shallot and cook, stirring, until soft, 3-5 minutes. Add garlic and stir until fragrant. Add mushrooms and thyme and stir until the mushrooms are soft but not browned. (At any point in this step, if the pan is looking too dry, add a little oil or water to make sure things don't stick!) Add sherry and stir until the sherry is reduced to about half.
3. In a large soup pan, melt the butter. Add the flour and stir until it is fully mixed in and becomes a paste. My soup wasn't as thick as I'd wanted it to be, so you might want to start with more flour/butter, but I suggest using equal amounts of both.
4. Slowly add the stock to the roux. You want to make sure it mixes in fully and doesn't get lumpy.
5. Then add the milk and stir to mix fully.
6. Add the mushroom/leek mixture, making sure to scrape out all of the sherry glaze on the pan.
7. Add ginger, salt and pepper to taste. Keep it undersalted a little bit for now. You can add a little more sherry if you want at this point. This will give a rich, sweet taste. You want to add sherry before the next step (boiling) so the alcohol has time to cook off.
8. Bring the soup to a boil. Once it is boiling, add the scallops and boil for 3 minutes. The scallops shouldn't need more time than that, but test one to make sure it's done before serving!
9. Stir in the potatoes and add more salt, pepper and cayenne pepper as desired. I think creamy soups taste great with a strong bite of cayenne.
10. Serve! Garnish with more cayenne if you'd like. This soup goes well with Heather's family recipe bread.

African Peanut Soup

based off of this recipe



Ingredients:
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 large yellow onion, chopped
2 medium red peppers, chopped
1 red (very hot) or green (hot) jalepeno, keeping the seeds if you like the extra heat, chopped (optional)
8 cloves garlic, minced
28 oz can crushed tomatoes
6 cups vegetable stock
1/2 cup water
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 tsp chili powder
dash Vermouth
1/2 cup brown rice
1 cup chunky peanut butter
salt to taste

Directions:
1. Heat oil in a large soup pot over medium heat.
2. Add onion and peppers to pot and stir until soft.
3. Add garlic and stir until fragrant.
4. Stir in tomatoes, stock, pepper, and chili powder.
5. Simmer uncovered for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
6. Add brown rice and simmer until rice is soft. This took me almost 45 minutes, which was surprising, maybe I had very dehydrated rice?
7. Add peanut butter and stir until incorporated.
8. Salt to taste.
9. Enjoy!

Verdict: This was pretty good. I wasn't sure what I was expecting it to taste like. It has a mild flavor, there obviously aren't many spices. The jalepeno wasn't in the original recipe, but I am glad I added it. To be honest, at first taste I wasn't thrilled. But I had a bowl and by the end, I wanted more! It is a good comfort food. It's been a rainy week here in Santa Barbara, so I've been craving a lot of soup!

Black Bean Squash soup

So I'm slow to start contributing to this blog. Though I've talked about starting my own blog for ages, I haven't been doing much cooking lately. And sadly this recipe is more like an idea rather than a true recipe; I invented it, not lookng at a single recipe for inspiration nor measuring a single thing. The result was surprisingly tastey, even my roommates agreed.

We had a squash that's been sitting on the mantle above the fireplace since one of the last Columbia City (our neighborhood) farmer's markets in October, and it's slowly turned reddish from it's original green color, rather like leaves in the fall. Taking this as a sign that it was begging to be eaten and on the verge of rotting, I created this soup around it. I'm includying measurements here that I think are good estimations of what I actually used, but honestly I don't know for sure.

Ingredients:

cooked black beans, maybe about 3 cans worth or half a 1lb bag
1 squash, I used kabocha (I think, though acorn squash or a similar type might even be better) cut into bite sized cubes and roasted until soft
1 medium onion, minced
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 jalapeño, minced
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp paprika
as much water/leftover bean broth from cooking as you want to make the soup the consistency you desire

The trickiest part is removing the skin from the squash, which can take a while. Once removed, cut the squash into bite sized pieces and coat with neutral oil. Roast the squash at 400 degrees about 30 minutes, maybe less, until it is soft. I'm not even convinced that roasting adds that much flavor, so alternatively you could cook it with the black beans unil soft and let me know how it tastes.

While the squash is roasting, saute the onions until softened, then add the garlic and be careful not to brown it too much. Then add all the ingredients to the black beans in a big pot and cook about 10-15 minutes until the flavors blend. Serve and enjoy!

Despite the Japanese name of the squash I used, all squash is native to central america, and therefore I decided to loosely use mexican seasonings for this recipe. The soup is slightly spicy, contrasting nicely with the sweet squash. If you make it too spicy, you can always add yogurt, sour cream, or even Mexican crema if you have it to take the edge off. Enjoy!

Curried Acorn Squash Soup

based off of this recipe

Ingredients:
1 small (sweet) onion, chopped into small pieces, about 1/2cm
4 stalks of celery, chopped into very thin slices
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
1/2 tsp dill weed
1 tsp yellow curry powder (maybe more)
1/2 tsp chili powder
dash vermouth or white wine
2 cups vegetable stock
12 oz can evaporated milk
3 cups cooked, mashed acorn squash*
cayenne pepper, salt, black pepper to taste

Directions:
1. Melt butter in a large pot.
2. Add onions, celery, and garlic and saute on medium heat until vegetables are soft.
3. Add flour, dill, curry powder, chili powder, and vermouth and stir in.
4. Add stock and milk in ~1/2 cup increments, stirring to incorporate after each addition. Bring to a boil and cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly.
5. Add squash and stir to mix fully.
6. Add salt, pepper and cayenne to taste. I like things salty and hot, so I added quite a bit. The salt is partly in lieu of bouillon (which is very salty), and the squash and onion are sweet so you may need to add a lot. Add slowly so as not to oversalt! You may also want to add more curry (the original recipe called for 1/4 tsp and I ended up adding more like 2tsp), so feel free!
7. Cook, stirring constantly, until heated through.
8. OPTIONAL: Put soup in blender (small batches at a time) or a food processor and blend until smooth. I didn't do this, mostly because I am lazy, but also because I like things chunky. It tastes great unblended, just make sure the squash is fully mixed in! If you are going to blend, chopping the onions and celery very small is less important since they will be blended anyway.
9. Enjoy! Great with crusty bread!

Verdict: This was delicious! I loved it and want to eat it all the time. It could easily be veganized by using a vegan milk (unsweetened) or cream. I liked that the recipe called for condensed milk instead of cream, so there wasn't much fat in this soup even though it is very rich tasting. This soup is very thick. If you prefer a thinner soup, I'd suggest adding 1c more stock. You can always add more stock at the end, but you'll have to adjust the spices to taste.

This recipe makes about 6 large (or maybe 10 small) bowls of soup.


*I used 3 small acorn squashes. To cook them, I cut each in half, scooped out the seeds (save and toast them later!), put them face down on a plate and microwaved for 25 minutes. They are very hot! Put them in the fridge or freezer for a few minutes then when they are cool enough to touch, scoop into a bowl and mash with a masher or wooden spoon.