Moosewood Vegetable Soup with Extra Mushrooms and Alphabets

Mmm Moosewood.  Mollie Katzen's Classic cookbooks are all well worn around these parts.  I've mentioned them here before, but somehow forgot to share our favourite soup during last year's soup swap recipe posts.  

The Moosewood Vegetable Soup from The Enchanted Broccoli Forest
 and it's many variations are a regular part of our fall meals around here.  There's a big pot of it boiling on the stove right now for our dinner so there's no time like the present to share this classic.


As the title suggests, this is a basic vegetable soup recipe with  bunch of great suggestions on how to mix it up.  This is our favourite way to make it, with a gazillion mushrooms and a rainbow of carrots, but it changes seasonally.

Boil together until the potatoes are just tender:


4 cups vegetable stock
1 large potato sliced thinly
a dash of sea salt




Next you'll need


2 tablespoons of butter
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 large white or yellow onion chopped
1 large clove of garlic crushed
1 teaspoon of salt
4 carrots, we use a mix of orange and purple carrots
a handful of button mushrooms
a bunch of enoki mushrooms
1/2 teaspoon each; thyme, savoury, marjoram, basil
freshly ground pepper to taste

Heat a heavy skillet, add butter, olive oil, onions, garlic and salt and sauté on medium heat for 5 minutes or until onions clear. Add the remaining finely sliced vegetables and herbs.  Continue stirring for 8-10 minutes.  Add the skillet full to your pot of stock and potatoes. Simmer for another 20-30 minutes.

Before serving we add little italian soup noodles, especially the alphabet ones.  This is how my mother made it and now how we make it for our family. 
You need to cook the noodles separately or else its a big mess.  So cook one cup of soup noodles until al dente. Drain, rinse and put them in the bowls.  Serve the soup on top of the noodles, mix gentle and enjoy.

We're sending some over to a some friends with new babies, so we send the noodles separately with the instructions written on the lid of the jar.
Now I'm off to eat some.  I can't wait for a reasonable dinner hour.

Soup Swap Recipe: Anna, Jeff and Papa Bear's Lentil Soup

My cousin Anna and her husband Jeff brought this amazing soup to our swap.  Everybody loved it, especially the people who are pregnant or just learning to eat solids.  It apparently blew the babies' minds.

Its so easy too.  Two guests have already made it for themselves.

Anna, Jeff and Papa Bear's Lentil Soup

1 qt Vegetable stock
1 qt Water
1 lb Dried lentils, washed and picked over
2 medium Potatoes, peeled and diced
2 medium Onions, diced
2 Tomatoes, peeled, seeded and quartered
2 large Carrots, peeled and diced
3 Cloves of Garlic, minced
1 tsp dried Oregano
1/2 c Olive oil
Salt and Pepper to taste

In a large pot, bring soup stock and water to a boil. Add all the other ingredients at once.

Bring to a boil; continue boiling for 15 minutes. Then simmer over low heat for hour and it’s done.

Ta Da!  Delicious!

Soup Swap Recipe: Poppy's Curried Carrot & Apple Soup

So many good soups!  I am actually eating this one as I type this great veggie soup recipe out for you.
Rebecca too, but her's has some brown rice baby cereal mixed into it to make it easier to eat.

Poppy's Curried Carrot & Apple Soup

2 tsp sunflower oil
1tbsp curry powder
11/4lb (500g) chopped carrots
1 large chopped onion
1 large chopped apple
4 cups (1L) vegetable stock
salt & pepper
chopped parsley

Heat oil in a large, heavy pan and gently fry curry powder for 2-3 minutes.

Add chopped carrots, onion, and apple.  Stir until well coated with the curry powder, then cover the pan.

Cook over low heat for 15-20 minutes, until softened.

Spoon the vegetables into food processor or blender.  Add half the stock and blend until smooth.

Return to pan and pour in remaining stock.  Bring soup to a boil and adjust seasoning to taste.  Garnish with parsley.

So Delicious!

Mmm Mmm Marla's Mushroom Mash!

Here's another one of my talented friend's delicious Soup Recipe. We are trying to name them as we eat them and Mmm Mmm Marla's Mushroom Mash! is certainly fitting. The exclamation point is part of the title.

So straight from Marla, how to make one of the best soups I've ever tasted:

First, I took enough of the garlic cloves you get in the big bags from Chinatown to cover the bottom of a 9" pie plate, and roasted them slowly covered in olive oil until they were gorgeous and smushy and sweet.

That went in the bottom of my soup pot, to which I added a little more olive oil, a good hunk of butter, three medium onions, coarsely chopped. I simmered that for 10 - 15 minutes, until the onions were golden and there were starting to be lovely little browned crusty bits of garlic skating around the bottom.

While that was happening, I took four large sweet peppers, sliced and roasted them under the broiler until the skins were black and easy to peel off.

Then, I chopped about a grocery bag full of various mushrooms, plus about six large Portobello mushrooms and added them to the pot, and liberally salted, peppered and added a handful of Emeril's Rustic Rub (you can google the recipe for that, or choose your own spices). At that time I added the peeled roasted peppers.

This simmered, with occasional stirring, for about 50 minutes until it cooked down quite a bit.

Now, here is where I would normally have added vegetable stock - but since I didn't have any but PC Organic (which has wheat and soy ingredients), I tried water.

But you should add vegetable stock, and let it simmer another ten minutes at least.

Use a stick blender, or transfer to to a regular blender, and puree until as smoooth or as chunky as you like, and cook a little longer.

Add cream and more butter to taste, and more rub to taste.

Now, because we had to be gluten-free for the swap, it still tasted too thin with the water, and I panicked. So, I cooked down another big bag of mushrooms, more onions, butter, rub, roasted and fresh garlic and added extra garlic powder, plus a whole bunch of chopped parsley and the rinds from some Parmesano Reggiano, and added that in and mixed it all with the stick blender, added it in and re-mixed it all together. That made it better - but veg stock is what I needed.

Soup Swap Recipe: Shana's Super San Marzano Soup

Here is Shana's Fantastic San Marzano Tomato soup recipe.  It is  adapted from a Tyler Florence recipe from Tyler's Ultimate.

Ingredients: 
• 2 1/2 pounds fresh tomatoes (mix of fresh heirlooms, cherry, vine and plum tomatoes) or two 500ml cans or jars of tomatoes 
• 6-8 cloves garlic, peeled
• 2 medium yellow onions, sliced
• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 cups finely chopped leeks (white and light green parts only)
• pinch of red chili flakes
• 1 small can or tube of tomato paste
• 1 litre stock (I used veg but chicken is good too)
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 tbsps fresh thyme leaves
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh basil leaves
• 3/4 cup heavy cream, optional

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
Wash, core and cut the tomatoes into halves. Spread the tomatoes, garlic cloves and onions onto a baking tray. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper and half the fresh thyme. Roast for 30 to 40 minutes, or until caramelized and the onions have gotten some good brown colour.

In a large stockpot over medium low heat cook leeks in butter until transparent and lightly golden and add chili flakes. Remove roasted tomatoes, garlic and onion from the oven and transfer it to the pot (scrapping down the baking tray well to get all the good brown baked on bits). Add stock, tomato paste, bay leaves, and parsley. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes or until liquid has reduced by a third.

Wash and dry basil leaves, if using, and add to the pot. Use an immersion blender to puree the soup until smooth. Return soup to low heat, add cream. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Soup Swap Recipe: Catherine's lemony-not-like-chilli Black Bean Soup

This week I will be sharing all our delicious vegetarian soup recipes from our soup swap.


Enjoy!

Catherine's lemony-not-like-chilli Black Bean Soup (from Laurel's Kitchen)


1 1/2 cups black turtle beans
1 1/2 quarts/litres vegetable stock
2 T oil
1 carrot
1 onion
1 potato
2 stalks celery
1 bay leaf
1 t oregano
1/4 t savoury
2 t salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
Juice of 1 lemon
1/2 lemon, thinly sliced

Wash the turtle beans and put them in a saucepan along with the stock and 1 T oil. 


Cover tightly, bring to a boil, and simmer for 2 1/2 hours or so, until beans are quite tender.

Chop the onion and saute in the remaining oil until soft. 


Chop the celery, including the leaves. 


Grate potato and carrot on a large grater. 


Add celery, potato, and carrot to onion and cook over medium heat for several minutes, stirring all the while. 


Add the vegetables to the beans, along with the seasonings, in the last hour of their cooking. 


Bring the soup to a boil and lower the heat to simmer until the beans and vegetables are done.

Add the lemon juice

Add lemon slices when the soup has finished cooking.

Makes about 9 cups.

Soup Swap was a Smashing Success!

A dozen or so of us with quite a few pets and babies had a great soup swap yesterday.  We represented Toronto in (Inter)National Soup Swapping day and next year we'll be participating, but on a much larger scale.


We gathered in the afternoon.  We ate a crockpot of chickpea soup, some nice bread and crackers and polished off some wine.  The babies made play food soup in the living room while the snow fell out side.  We also collected a nice basket of food for the Daily Bread Food Bank.


Here's a little photo essay of our day.  I'll be posting our recipes all week.

  

Shana and Rebecca making soup

Penny & Poppy

Ninjas.

It is hard to be a dog at soup swap

It is great to be a baby at soup swap

Rebecca is reading the recipes with Anna & Jeff

Please, I just want some soup

bffs

Basket for Soup? No! basket for toddles.

Mitch is going to be an excellent danger parent 

Gorgeous pregnant lady.  Can't have a party without one.

Jenna and Penelope 

Everybody's here! Soup with recipes!

SOUP!

Stick a fork in me! I'm done!

In the past 24 hours I have:

• shipped a gazillion seeds to their new gardens
• build a bed and convinced Rebecca to sleep in it
• made 2 lasagnas for ladies who just had babies
• and made 2 super huge batches of soup for soup swap: One to eat while we swap: Jamie Oliver's Pasta e Cici but with lots of carrots and one to swap: The Enchanted Broccoli Forest 's Alphabet Soup, but with lots of mushrooms.

I'm done. Except I'm not.

How to: International Soup Swapping Day! (No really)

After a holiday cookie swap we decided that although we like cookies, what really what we wanted was each other’s dinners.  Within hours Shana had discovered National Soup Swapping Day, which as Canadians we have changed to International Soup Swapping.  We made a facebook event and had 8 interested couples/families/groups/embryonic ninjas quite quickly.

The idea behind soup swap is simple.  Make a big batch of soup and swap it with friends who also make a huge batch of soup. There are official rules over on www.soupswap.com.  We’re doing things slightly differently because it seemed simpler, but I can already tell it isn’t.  Next year we’ll try it the official way.

Here is our group’s variations on the official rules.  As you can see, we are dealing with a disproportionate amount of food restrictions and allergies in our group which is why we broke the rules in the first place:

Soup should be:


1. Vegetarian! Easier to share :)


2. Gluten Free! Should not be an issue since most soup is any way. If you are using pasta just get the rice stuff, it loves soup. If you are unsure of the finer details of glutenfreeness, don't worry about it. 


3. Nut free please! Let's not kill each other! That would be sad, and really what soup has nuts?


4. Delicious and Freezer Friendly.



5. Please bring seven batches of soup, divided into suitable containers for freezing. Mason Jars, ziplock tubs (all seem to be on sale post xmas), yogurt containers are all acceptable. Please make sure its at least two servings.

6. Please bring a can of soup for the food bank. Not everyone is a spoiled by soup as us. 
 It has been pointed out that what the food bank really wants is cash so feel free to make a donation here or online from the swap.

7. Please bring at least one copy of your recipe. There is a high likely hood of blogging from multiple participants. This will also help the allergics.



Our soup swap is also going to be a little party with homemade crackers, some wine, babies, dogs and what else, but some more soup.

Anyone else is hosting/participating in soup swap?  Its not to late to join in this weekend or plan one for another time.

I'll be posting an update next week featuring our recipes.

Link up your soup recipes or soup swap posts in the comments below!