Oven Lovin' Girl

the ginger burned, so it became roasted carrot soup

the recipe in The Soup Book by Sophie Grigson said “maple roasted ginger and carrot soup”. maple syrup might make it too sweet, right? i think roasted carrots are pretty sweet on their own, so i didn’t add the syrup to the veggies and just roasted them with olive oil. glad i did!

i love fresh ginger and carrots together. my other favorite flavor combo is chocolate and bananas, but this one is slightly healthier.

carrots, ginger, onion all get roasted with olive oil. i also added salt and pepper. the ginger pieces were really small, so of course they got burned. duh. i should have added them later in the roasting process or cut larger chunks.

i added the roasted veggies to the blender with my homemade chicken stock and blammo — soup!

another meatless monday

i love mushrooms. i ate them more often when i didn’t have a husband who hates them. it’s not like he forbids me to eat them or anything, it’s just easier to cook one dinner a day, ya know? so the other day i’m pinning (yes, and i am slightly obsessed) when i came across a lovely photo of mushroom barley soup from mango & tomato. i pinned it with the intention of making it soon. i thought it would be perfect for a dinner and some lunches this week.

so guess what i made today? and meatless for monday, no less!

here are the veggies cooking before adding the broth and barley. can i just tell you how amazing my kitchen smelled at this moment? i actually took this photo to remind myself of that yummy smell. the recipe is very easy and the soup comes together quickly. i didn’t use as much stock as the recipe calls for, but i may end up adding some as the week goes on. the soup is full of wonderful earthy flavors with the mushrooms and thyme. i only had fresh thyme and i added some dry oregano, too — just for kicks.

this is good stuff! easy to make and very tasty. olga recommends adding leftover meat to the soup, which would make it even heartier. yum!

Recipe from Mango & Tomato

i had a souper wednesday!

i did it again. i made another pot of soup. i know, i know, don’t go crazy, fg. trust me, i’m nuts and i know it!

we called it chicken pho, but it wasn’t really pho. very similar, but not exactly. i used martha’s recipe out of everyday food magazine (thanks mom for the free subscription!), but went with my own broth rather than use her soup base, just like i did with the minestrone last week. i used 2 cartons of trader joe’s chicken stock, 1 low-sodium and 1 free range cos i’m not a salty kind of girl.

i made the pot when i got home from yoga, ate my share and then left it on low until hubby got home 2 hours later. the soup has rice noodles in it which don’t absorb liquid the way regular pasta would, so they didn’t get all gooey and the broth stayed the same as when i had it. to make this even easier than it already is, i used a store-bought chicken and just shredded the meat myself. quick, quick, quick! i added some sliced jalapeno, cilantro and basil for flavor. hubby put sriracha in his and loved it. now all i need are some big bowls and those cool little asian soup spoons for the full effect. hubby said, “you can make this over and over and over if you want”, so i believe it will be in the regular soup rotation!

Recipe from Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food magazine.

warm soup on a cold night

guess what i had for dinner tonight? yep, a big bowl of minestrone and it was darn good! the recipe was for chicken minestrone, but i decided to add extra veggies and ditch the chicken. hello meatless monday! except it was tuesday. ;)

this is how the soup was supposed to look, but i used different pasta and 86’d chicken. i also didn’t use the soup base recipe that martha made, i did my own thing. i used organic chicken stock and added some low sodium chicken base for extra flavor and the soup was done much quicker. i also recommend adding the parmesan rind because it adds a rich flavor to the broth. yum!

Potato leek soup — CSA week 1

We’re doing a CSA again through Two Small Farms. We subscribed several years ago, but then we moved, got busy, blah blah blah and we didn’t renew the following year. We decided to give it another try this year and start with the 9 week option first. And I’m glad to report that we’re already starting off the season with a bang! I’ve used almost everything in the first week’s box.

Week 1:
Carrots
Cilantro
Purple Top Turnips
Loose Spinach
Calcot Onions
Winter Density Lettuce
Delicata Squash
Collard Greens
Baby Leeks

I made potato leek soup with the leeks. I found a really easy recipe without cream on Allrecipes.com and it turned out great!

These are the 3 basic ingredients — potatoes, leeks and chicken stock. I had made my own stock the day before using the carcass of a chicken I roasted the night before that. I’ve only made my own stock three times and the first two I just used it to make chicken noodle soup. I was going to freeze this batch to use at a later date and then discovered I had leeks to use up. Yay!

I then peeled 5 lbs. of potatoes, which was so fun. Har. I don’t buy a lot of potatoes and forget how cheap they are. A 5 lb. bag was $1.49 at Lunardi’s! My point is this soup is easy and cheap to make.

You then boil the potatoes in the chicken stock until tender. This took about 30 minutes, but I turned mine down to medium heat once they boiled, just to keep them from falling apart too much.

Saute chopped leeks in butter. Yep, real full-fat butter. They get all soft and smell amazing! You later add them to the pureed potatoes and broth and let simmer.

The soup is creamy without any dairy and very satisfying. One word of caution if you like to heat your food at lava rock temperature like me: Cool this soup down a bit before eating! Unlike a brothy soup that just kinda goes down easy, this stuff adheres itself to the roof of your mouth, your tongue and the back of your throat and it burns! I’m still feeling little bits of scalded skin falling from the roof of my mouth. OUCH! I garnished with a few of my homemade croutons and it was most delicious. Bust out the food processor and give it a whirl.

Recipe from  JJOHN32 on Allrecipes.com