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: 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.

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!

Recipe: Almost Moosewood Mac & Cheese

Mac & Cheese, an essential autumn comfort food is really not much harder to make for real than out of the box.  The recipe our family uses started out with the Moosewood version but has changed a bit over the years.  I highly recommend any of Mollie Katzen’s cookbooks; the recipes are delicious, vegetarian and very easy to follow.  I grew up with The Enchanted Broccoli Forest and personally don’t think you should even attempt vegetarianism without it.  Well, the good sort of vegetarian, not the kind in 1^st year college where you eat vegetable flavoured Mr. Noodles and bread for dinner every night.  Or Kraft Dinner for that matter.

You’ll need:

1 ½ cup cottage cheese

1 ½ cup milk

1 tsp dried mustard

¼ tsp nutmeg

½ tsp salt

¼ teaspoon ground pepper

1 small onion finely chopped

1 block of extra old sharp cheddar grated

½ lb uncooked elbow macaroni (this is about ½ a bag)

¼ cup bread crumbs

some parsley (fresh or dried)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Butter up a pyrex baking dish.

In the food processor whizz up the onion and then set it aside. Next you need to combine the cottage cheese, the milk, and the spices, mix them up in the processor. Grate your cheese right into your mixture.  Throw the onion back in.  Pulse a few times then pour onto uncooked macaroni in a mixing bowl. You’ll switch from chopping blade to grater and back again.

Once everything is nicely coated, pour into your buttered baking dish.

Last but not least is a good covering of breadcrumbs.  You can buy these but I make them simply by toasting some (stale) bread, usually twice, then putting the toast in a bag and hitting it with the cast iron frying pan (also important in the vegetarian diet).  I like to add dried parsley during the smashing stage.


Then bake for 45 minutes

Here it is, a little overdone, but delicious and cheesy.  At my house I insist that we eat at least one vegetable with it, but really that's your call.


Roasted Brussels sprouts go really well with it.

If you don’t have a food processor you should get one.  But in the meantime; chop up your onion, grate your cheese and use a blender and this recipe will work just fine.

Real Food Recipe: Heavenly Baked Beans

We have always been relatively healthy eaters but everybody has their vices, mine is canned beans.  So this is the first instalment in a series of processed food replacement recipes. Due to the baby’s soy allergy/intolerance, our participation in the Nestle boycott, and the desire to eat more whole foods we’ve been making things from scratch.  There’s little as satisfying as taking an over processed comfort/junk food and using it as inspiration for a delicious meal.

Baked Beans are very easy in a Crockpot but do take a long time.  It sure is worth it though. As is all the sugar (I didn’t say this was health food).  They also freeze well.

1 lb of beans (if I can find solider beans I use those, generally I use navy beans)

1 large peeled onion studded with 3 cloves

½ cup of brown sugar

½ cup of molasses

¼ cup of maple syrup

2 tsp of apple cider vinegar

½ tsp of salt

1/8 tsp of ground pepper

2 tsp dried mustard

1/2 cup of butter (or vegan or carnivore fat of your choice)

Rinse your beans under cold water.  Cover with water and soak overnight/all day.  This soaking helps soften up the beans and starts the germination process, which helps you digest them. 

12 hours later, drain and rinse the beans really well. Toss any split beans, loose skins or generally ugly beans.

Put them in your Crockpot/slow cooker with the clove studded onion.

Add all your ingredients in no particular order.  Stir around a bit.

Turn the Crockpot on low and start the cooking.  Cook them for 12 or more hours.  I have let them cook for as long as 20 hours if that’s how the timing works out.  I know it’s a little excessive, but they really are delicious and the smell of molasses filling your house is spectacular.  Check them a few times, if the liquid has reduced too much, add a little water, if the beans seem close to ready and they’re too wet, take the lid off for a bit.  Pull out the onion bits before serving.

Although the cooking time is long, the amount of work is minimal, probably 5 minutes worth of actual labour.

I like to eat them with mustard and whole wheat toast.  I hear this is an East Coast thing.  I think I need to go have some right now…

Happy to be participating in Vegetarian Foodie Fridays.

Recipe: Perfect Pesto

The last pesto of the season is always delicious but also a little sad.  I suppose not having fresh pesto all winter just makes it more delicious in the spring.  I’ll try to make this quick and painless so I don’t miss it too much.  Pesto is so, so, so simple to make and absolutely one of my favorite foods.

You’ll need:

4 cups of washed basil with stems and flowers removed

1 cup of pine nuts

¼ - ½ cup of olive oil

4 cloves of garlic

1/8 teaspoon pepper

½ teaspoon of salt

garlic scapes

¼ cup of parsley

We typically pick basil right into the salad spinner, then we can collect it, wash and dry it really easily.

Its important to sample your ingredients.

In your food processor, combine pine nuts and garlic and pulse a few times to start your chopping.  Add the basil, parsley and scapes, probably in two batches.  Add the olive oil to keep things moving as you continue chopping with the food processor.  Last but not least, add the salt and pepper.

We used to use a blender, but after two were destroyed by making this recipe, we invested in a real food processor.  Blenders are for smoothies, not nuts.

It will keep for up to a week in a tightly sealed container in the fridge, but we've never been able to last that long with out eating it all.

Our favourite way to eat it is on pasta with tomatoes from the garden. Beyond pasta, it is essential on tomato sandwiches, wonderful on pizza and our old roommate even used to eat spoonfuls straight out of the fridge in the middle of the night.     

Stayed tuned for a post on BBQed pesto pizza by the end of the week. 

Recipe: Autumn Soup

This is a staple at our house once the weather starts to get colder and the vegetables from the garden start to take over the house.  Currently we are overrun with carrots and squash so it must be time for soup.

First things first we need to make the stock.  I like to have some made ahead but lately I’m just not that organized.  We avoid store bought stock for a few reasons; BPA in cans, high levels of sodium especially for the baby, and all vegetable stock seems to have soy, which we just can’t have.  Stock is so easy to make that there’s really no need for the prepared stuff anyway.

Soup stock:

Fill a big pot ¾ full of cold tap water

Add 1 carrot cut lengthwise

4 stocks of celery, the more leaves the better*

2 peeled onions

1 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of peppercorns

2 bay leaves

Let the water reach a boil then turn down to a simmer for about an hour.  Once everything is soft and the stock has a nice colour, strain out veggies.

*We like to use organic celery.  It tastes better and it’s the number one food on the dirty dozen; the EWG’s list of foods with the highest levels of pesticides and therefore the most important foods to buy organic.

If I haven’t prepared the stock ahead of time I start roasting the veggies as the stock simmers.  They will be finished at about the same time.

Roast your veggies on the barbeque:

Roast together with a pinch of salt and a liberal amount of olive oil:

A handful of orange carrots

A handful of yellow carrots

2 red onions

A handful of tomatoes

1 zucchini

Squash.

Normally I would use one squash, but this time I used 3; 2 Waltham Butternut and 1 Royal Acorn. We officially have too many squash.  I normally would never use this much, but we need to use them up and we have a lot of people to feed this weekend.

Sprinkle each half with brown sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon and salt.

Put 1 clove of garlic in each cavity.

Drizzle with olive oil.

Grill veggies at 400° for 45 minutes and squash for 1 hour.

Make the soup:

Scoop out the squash into your pot of stock.  Add your veggies.   Add a chopped up potato for each person. Bring back to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes. 

Blend the soup:

An immersion blender would work best, but since I don’t have one I whizz it up in the food processor in a few batches.  Generally we continue to cook it for at least 20 minutes, or until its time to eat, once the soup has been blended.

Eat! 

Garnish with a nasturtium or some chives and serve with a nice piece of bread (like Ace Bakery’s Rosemary Focaccia) with too much butter.