Spiced carrot and red lentil soup

I have made this soup four times now, which isn't bad going in the space of two months. It is a hit with all three of us and Mini Bite also enjoys helping me to make it. This is because I pull out the food processor for grating the carrots, and the NutriBullet for blitzing the soup later on, and what self-respecting toddler doesn't enjoy feeding carrots into a food processor and pushing buttons on things that whiz? These steps do make the soup more labour intensive than the chunky vegetable, non-pureed variety, but it is so tasty that I don't mind. Getting Mini Bite involved in the kitchen is a fun development too.

The soup itself is really simple and packs a hearty punch thanks to the lentils. You can play around with the spices and seasonings, and even throw extra vegetables in if you like. This mix is a winner in our household though.

Spiced carrot and red lentil soup

A delicious, satisfying soup that makes 4 generous servings

Lightly adapted from the spiced carrot and lentil soup on BBC Good Food

Blender or food processor needed

Ingredients

1 tbsp dried ground ginger

1 tsp mild dried ground chilli

1 tsp dried ground paprika

1 tsp olive oil

1 bunch leeks, trimmed and sliced

1 L (4 cups) vegetable stock

3 sticks celery, trimmed and sliced

600g carrots, grated (no need to peel)

1 cup dry red lentils

125ml (1/4 cup) unsweetened almond milk

Method

In a very large saucepan or soup pot, dry fry the ginger, chilli and paprika over medium heat for approximately 1 minute. Add the oil and leeks and saute for 2 or so minutes.

Add the stock, celery, carrots and lentils and bring the mix to simmering point. Stir, reduce heat to medium-low, and allow to cook, covered, for approximately 30 minutes (until the lentils are soft). Add the milk at the end and stir through.

Allow the soup to cool before blending in a blender or food processor. Reheat before serving.

Keeps well in the fridge for up to 5 days.

Do you have a favourite soup recipe?

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Illness fighting barley and chickpea stew

I already have a few barley recipes on Bite-Sized Thoughts and pearl barley is one of my favourite grains for adding into soups. At the same time, I have a tendency to forget about it so it can be many months between barley appearances in my kitchen. With being ill this week, I craved it and set about making what was to be a barley containing soup. I packed so much into the saucepan that it turned into a stew as there wasn't room for any more water!

Barley itself doesn't have proven illness fighting benefits, but like all whole grains, it is full of fibre and a mix of vitamins. This stew is then boosted by curry powder, featuring both turmeric (which has proven anti-inflammatory properties) and cumin (with less proven but still reputed benefits), garlic (well documented benefits for immunity and colds), ginger (good for nausea and inflammation), paprika (which contains a mix of vitamins), and heaps of vegetables packed with vitamins and minerals. In addition to all these features the stew is delicious.

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Vegetable stock and soup from scratch

One of the minor benefits of moving house and/or countries is that you get to start over with filling up your fridge and freezer. Our freezer situation in Australia was a little challenging last year, because the freezer section of our combined fridge/freezer stopped cooling effectively. We were fortunate to be able to borrow a full-sized, rather old (but effective!) freezer from my parents, which gave heaps of space but needed to live in the garage and thus required a trip outside to access. As our move was on the horizon, I also refrained from stocking it too full.

Vegetable scraps post stock making.

All of this means that when we reached London, I was pleased to have a functioning fridge/freezer and the opportunity to stock it up. In particular, I wanted to use my new freezer to store vegetable scraps that could. in time, turn into vegetable stock.

Stock

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Moroccan quinoa soup and savoury carrot hotcakes

One of the first dishes I made from my recent cookbook win, The Vegan Cookbook, was this Moroccan quinoa soup. Combining northern African spices with tomatoes, quinoa and kale, the soup is a deliciously hearty meal that is jam-packed full of nutrition and flavour.

I adapted the dish to suit what I had on hand, and to try and cater to Mr Bite's tastes as well as my own. To that end, I omitted harissa, which would otherwise have added a spicy kick; used slightly less quinoa than called for; didn't bother with mint (as I didn't have it); and added parsnip and carrot as well as zucchini (courgette). I also added a dash of lemon juice, which I have found brings out the flavours of tomato-based stews and soups.

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Vegetable soup with split peas and caraway seeds

This soup is, on the one hand, just another vegetable soup. You'll have seen, made, and eaten similar dishes before.

On the other hand, it wondrous and joyful and worth taking the time to get to know. 

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Hearty vegetable soup with barley

I don't think the internet needs another vegetable soup recipe. There are many, many versions out there. The thing is, though, sometimes I blog recipes for entirely selfish reasons.

Of course, I tell myself that others might be interested in the fact that I (i) made soup (something I do relatively infrequently, given how much I like homemade soup) and (ii) made it in this particular way.

In this case, though, it is difficult to really believe that. I am sure you've all made vegetable soup. You probably make it more often (and better!) than I do. But, selfishly, I want to record this recipe for my own reference, and the easiest way to do that is by blogging it.

Sorry.

To even things out, I thought I'd tell you about my weekend too. The only problem there is that it wasn't that interesting, even though it was enjoyable to me.

Friday night was The Big 21st Party, which will be discussed in its own post before too long.

Saturday was running, cleaning-washing-shopping and an afternoon at a football game (the Western Australia Football League, which I have attended less this year).

Sunday was washing-ironing-shopping, various To Do tasks on the computer, soup making, banana bread making (more on that sometime too), and basketball playing with Mr Bite (I'm still bad at it).

There was also gorgeous, perfect winter weather, with crisp evenings and mornings, maximum temperatures in the high teens, and dazzling sunshine.

All highly enjoyable, but probably not very exciting for you.

I can say, if nothing else, that this soup was everything I wanted it to be: jam-packed full of vegetables, dense enough to be eaten at dinner but light enough to be eaten for work lunches this week, flavoursome, nutritious, and with protein from the butter beans and barley.

You might have your own recipe, but I hope you enjoy this one too.

Heart vegetable soup with barley

Serves 4 - 6

Print recipe

Ingredients

2 cups water

3 cups vegetable stock (see note)

1 leek (white part only), roughly diced

2 carrots, roughly diced

2 stalks celery, roughly diced

~1 cup green beans, sliced

1 large parsnip, peeled and diced

2/3 cup barley, rinsed

1 tin butter beans (or canneloni beans)

1/4 tsp dried oregano

1/4 tsp dried basil

Pepper, to taste

Method

In a large saucepan, saute the leek in 1/2 cup of the water until soft. Add the 3 cups of vegetable stock with the carrots, celery and green beans, and stir over medium heat until simmering.

Add the parsnip and reduce to low - medium heat. Stir regularly for ~5 minutes. Then add the remaining 1 1/2 cups water, barley and herbs and reduce the heat to low. Simmer, covered and stirring occasionally, for ~30 minutes.

Add the butter beans and simmer, covered, for a further 10 minutes. Turn off the heat and allow to stand for at least 20 minutes or up to several hours, before reheating to serve.

Note. I like to buy prepared stock for soups as I don't trust my ability to flavour things sufficiently otherwise. You may be skilled enough to do things from scratch, or be happy to make stock up from a stock cube.

This could easily have been thinned out with an additional cup of water or stock, and if you have a sufficiently large pan you may wish to do that.

As it was, I filled my largest saucepan to the brim and couldn't have added anything extra. I also quite liked the density of this, and of course it is easy enough to thin soup out later by adding water to an individual serve if desired.

The only downside of this soup is that you really do need to like barley to enjoy it. Regrettably for Mr Bite, I only discovered on serving it that he does not. At all. I probably could have predicted this (and on reflection, when I made this barly risotto, I didn't serve it to him), so I can only apologise again for his impromptu scrambled egg sandwich dinner!

Do you have a favourite soup recipe? And what did you get up to this weekend?

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Sweet Potato and Chilli Soup

Over the last month, I have made soup twice and ratatouille once. Thus, I conclude it is getting colder!

I actually find soup for lunch one of the perks of colder weather. If I make a batch on the weekend, I have lunch pretty well sorted for the working week, and I tend to eat more vegetables than if I was trying to cut up salad daily (as I try, but don't always manage, to do in summer).

This Sweet Potato and Chilli soup is particularly satisfying, and is very easy to make if you have a blender / processor. It's also good for cold days, as the chilli packs an extra flavour and heat punch.

Sweet Potato and Chilli Soup

Serves 4 to 6. Adapted from Taste.com.au.

Ingredients

• 1 onion, diced
• 2 dried chillis, chopped and de-seeded (I accidentally left a few seeds in, which somewhat boosted the level of spice in my version!)
• ~800g sweet potato (weight pre-peeling), peeled and cubed
• ~1 tbsp fresh coriander, chopped
• 2 cups vegetable stock
• 1 - 1.5 cups water (amount depending on how thick you want your soup. I used 1.5 cups and think I might use 1.25 in future)
• Olive oil to taste, for cooking the onion

Directions

1. In a large saucepan, saute the onion over moderate heat for ~3 minutes, until slightly soft.

2. Add the chillis and cook for a further 3 minutes, until the onion is golden.

3. Add the sweet potato, vegetable stock and water. Cover and simmer on low heat for ~15 minutes, until potato is soft.

4. Add the coriander and stir through. Turn off the heat and leave covered for ~15 minutes.

5. Process the soup in a food processor or blender, in batches to avoid explosions.

I love the combination of sweet potato, chilli and coriander, so this soup was just right for me. It was quite spicy, but I attribute that to my rogue chilli seeds, and it was still not too spicy.

If you wanted to reduce the chilli, you could easily use just one, or even add a whole chilli at the simmering stage and remove before processing. As the original recipe called for garlic and not coriander, I think it would also be easy to play around with the flavours to taste.

Whilst this was cooking, I tried re-making Apple and Zucchini Muffins with whole-wheat flour and honey instead of white flour and white sugar. Unfortuantely, whilst the resulting muffins tasted beautiful, they were somewhat soggy in the middle! I think I need to tweak the flour amounts and baking time to compensate for the honey, so I won't share a revised recipe at this stage :p.

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