KALE AND SWEET POTATO SOUP WITH CUMIN AND LEMON

(from Love Soup by Anna Thomas)

2 lg. leeks, white and lt. green part only
1 lg. onion
2 Tbs. olive oil
1-1/2 tsp. sea salt, more to taste
12 oz. sweet potatoes
1 sm. Yukon gold or white potato
12 oz. black or Russian kale
4 green onions, sliced
2/3 c. chopped cilantro
2-1/2 c. vegetable broth, as needed
fresh ground black pepper
1 Tbs. cumin seed
1-2 Tbs. fresh lemon juice
pinch of hot pepper
garnish:  additional fruity green olive oil, crumbled feta cheese

Wash and coarsely chop the leeks, using only the white and light green part, and chop the onion.  Heat the olive oil in a non-stick pan and start sauteing the onions with a sprinkle of salt.  When they are translucent and soft add the leeks and keep cooking, stirring often, until all the vegetables are golden, about 20 min.

Meanwhile, peel the sweet potatoes, scrub the small Yukon gold or white potato, and cut them all in 1/2 inch dice.  Trim the thick stems from the kale and cut the greens into one-inch strips or chop them very coarsely.  Combine the sweet potatoes and kale in a soup pot with 5 cups cold water and a teaspoon of salt, bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for about fifteen minutes.

Add the sauteed leeks and onions to the pot along with the sliced green onions, cilantro and a lot of fresh ground black pepper.  Add as much of the vegetable broth as you need to give the soup a nice consistency--this is a hearty soup but not a stew and it should pour easily from a ladle.  Simmer the soup gently, covered, for about ten more minutes.

Lightly toast the cumin seed in a dry pan just until it is fragrant and grind it in a mortar or spice grinder.  Stir the cumin seed and a spoonful of lemon juice into the soup and taste.  Add more salt, pepper or lemon juice as needed and finish with a pinch of cayenne or any red pepper.

Ladle the soup into warm bowls and garnish each bowl with a swirl of fruity olive oil.  If you like cheese, a heaping spoonful of tangy crumbled feta cheese dropped on top of each serving is fantastic.

ANN'S VERSION

I found this recipe by googling "kale soup" and this was one of the few that didn't have beans and sausage.  My all-time favorite soup (and one I make often) is kale with potatoes, beans and sausage so I wanted one a little different.  The online recipe said it was from an Anna Thomas cookbook, Love Soup.  Her Vegetarian Epicure cookbooks are probably the most dilapidated in my library from frequent use so I was sure it would be good.  I must admit though that I did some drastic comma editing when I posted the recipe as the recipe had commas out the wazoo which drives me crazy.  I would not expect this of Anna Thomas who I suspect is superior in all things so I blame the blogger who posted her recipe.

I chose a kale soup because I had a lot of baby kale in my garden.  Notice I said "had".  I actually took my kitchen scale to the garden to make sure I cut only the 12 oz. called for in the recipe since I want the crop to continue.   I stopped at 8 oz. because it was a big bowlful of kale and the stems were so tender and tiny that I would not be removing them.  The poor kale patch is quite sparse now but should rebound soon.  

I used a sweet onion variety (can't recall the name) grown in Las Cruces,  a red-skinned potato, a whole bunch of cilantro and 3 cups of unsalted chicken broth instead of the vegetable broth.  I'm not a vegetarian and I've never found a commercial vegetable broth that doesn't have an overwhelming taste of one vegetable, usually celery or turnips.  The soup goes together pretty quickly with most of your time spent chopping.  The final consistency was excellent and all the ingredients kept their integrity so it was also very attractive.  Toasting cumin seed has got to be one of the best smells in the world, and when ground in a mortar it is amazing and really essential to this soup.  At the end I also added the juice of 2 small lemons, 2 tsp. of salt and 1 tsp. of Aleppo pepper (one of my favorites). I did not add olive oil to my bowl (because I forgot!) but the feta cheese is a great addition.  The Windmill Dairy (in northern NM) goats' milk feta is the best ever!

Really good soup--healthy and satisfying.  The combination of sweet potatoes and kale is so pretty and very tasty.  I highly recommend this recipe.


CASSIE'S VERSION

Yum!  This was delicious, and very, very green.  I might have used more kale than was necessary, as well as more cilantro, but I love greens so this worked for me.  I used one sweet potato, one red-skinned potato, and two full packages of baby kale which didn't require any de-stemming.  As a result I needed to add quite a bit of broth to thin the soup, which then required that I add additional toasted cumin, way more lemon juice (almost three whole lemons), and healthy doses of red and black pepper.  I too used Aleppo pepper as that was close at hand.  The feta was a lovely touch at the end and added a nice saltiness and consistency.  Other than fiddling with the quantities somewhat, I adhered to the recipe and was glad I did.  I would not have thought to combine these ingredients, nor would I have thought a soup could be so tasty with so few components - but this made for a very satisfying dinner.  Thanks for the recipe, Mom!  And it appears that we made the very same modifications, down to the skin of the potato and the variety of the red pepper.  Reminds me of those days that we would inadvertently wear the same color shirt, pants, and shoes and not realize it until the afternoon.  :)

Asparagus Soup

To celebrate the arrival of spring in the Northeast (it's been spring for months in the Southwest!) we are making soup from the springiest of vegetables, asparagus.  The basic recipe is quite simple--an Amish soup from the Midwest--but I'm sure we will fiddle with it a bit (that makes me think of fiddleheads, but I think they are already past their prime in the cooler regions already and they never appear in markets in southern New Mexico).

ASPARAGUS SOUP (adapted from Cooking from Quilt Country)

1 lb. asparagus spears
2 c. chicken broth
2 T. butter
2 T. minced onion
2 T. flour
1/4 t. salt
l/4 t. grated nutmeg
1/8 t. powdered mustard
1/8 c. half and half
Dash of Tabasco
Croutons

Break the tough ends off the spears and cut off the tips and reserve.  Cut the stalks nto 2 inch pieces.  Put the stalks and the broth in a med. saucepan, bring to a boil, lower the heat, cover and simmer for 5 min.  Let cool slightly, then puree with a hand-held blender.  In another saucepan, melt the butter, then add the onion and cook over med. low heat until the onion is transparent.  Stir in the flour, salt, nutmeg and mustard and cook and whisk until the mixture bubbles, about 2 min.  Add the half and half all at once, cooking and whisking until the mixture thickens.  Add the asparagus and broth puree, reserved tips, and Tabasco.  Bring to a simmer and cook over low heat just long enough to cook the tips, about 3 min.  Sprinkle croutons over the top before eating.


CASSIE'S VERSION

I was fairly swift in making this soup, as my mom posted the recipe just before I headed to the grocery store.  I did actually see fiddlehead ferns there (as well as fresh chickpeas and fresh, unpeeled almonds - this is a pretty amazing store).  We also bought a single morel to saute in butter (they were something like $32/pound, so one is all I could justify!).

Because there was so much asparagus available, and the soup sounded so good, I decided to double the recipe.  Made as written, I think it would be fairly bland, but with my modifications it was delicious.  I left out the hot sauce and added a 1/2 tsp. of smoked paprika, as I thought its flavors would complement the other elements of the soup quite well.  I had fresh sage so I added a generous few tablespoons chopped leaves.  I thought the soup could be a bit richer, so I added maybe 1/8 of a cup more of half-and-half.  I had to increase the salt quite a bit, though I'm not sure how much I added.  I also liberally cracked fresh pepper into the soup, added several shakes of hot pepper flakes, threw in some dried marjoram at the last minute, and then finished it off with the juice of one whole lemon, plus the juice of half a Meyer lemon that needed to be used up.

I topped the soup bowls with fresh croutons, which I made using sourdough bread, good olive oil, and garlic salt.  I served the soup alongside chicken sausages.  Delicious!  A great soup for spring.


ANN'S VERSION

I had wonderful local purple asparagus from the co-op for this soup, but I know from past experience that purple asparagus turns green when it's cooked so I wasn't hoping for any special color.  The really cool surprise was that since the tips are reserved and only cooked briefly at the end they actually stayed purple!  So, nice contrast between the green soup and the floating purple tips.  I also doubled this recipe, finding it hard to believe that any Amish family could sit down to dinner with only one quart of soup.  My changes and substitutions are given for the original size recipe.

I added 2 T. minced parsley and 1 T. fresh lemon thyme to the stems as they cooked and also added 1/4 t. urfa pepper (dark and smoky and not too hot) to the flour, butter and spices.  When I went to the refrigerator for my half and half all I found was a partial carton of heavy cream gone quite bad and some 2% milk--oops!  It seemed the soup was going to be quite thick so I used the 2% and upped the quantity to 1 cup, adding 2 T. more butter to make up the richness.  The soup thickened and was very flavorful even with the reduced fat milk.  I added the tips with the pureed broth and stems to the milky mixture and simmered it for about 5 minutes or so.  At the end I added the juice of half a meyer lemon and another 1/2 t. salt. 

I'd put some homemade croutons to bake in the oven while making the soup and croutons and soup were done at the same time.  My croutons are just cubed french bread, a fair amount of olive oil, herbs de provence and kosher salt.  The soup was wonderful and the lemon thyme was the real star.  It's the perfect herb for asparagus and luckily I used just the right amount so it was noticeable but not overpowering.  I ate the croutons on the side (much better than crackers!).  Great soup for a spring day!

CHEDDAR AND BEER SOUP (Adapted from Real Simple magazine)

4 T. butter
1/2 onion, finely chopped
1 stalk celery, finely chopped
2 small carrots, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 c. flour
2 c. water with 2 tsp. chicken bouillon powder
2 c. whole milk
1 12 oz. can beer 
3 c. grated sharp cheddar (about 3/4 lb.)
1-1/2 t. kosher salt
1/4 t. black pepper
1 T. sugar
1 t. hot sauce
1 baguette
1 t. olive oil

Melt butter in a large pot over medium heat.  Add onion, celery, carrots and garlic and cook until soft (5-7 min).  Add flour and stir for 3 min.  Still stirring, add water and bouillon powder and cook until smooth (about 3 min.)  Stirring constantly, add milk and beer and cook until foam subsides and soup thickens slightly (about 5 min.).  Add cheese, salt,  pepper, sugar and hot sauce.  Simmer over med. low heat for 20 min, stirring occasionally.  Let cool 5 min.  Thinly slice baguette, put on baking sheet and brush with olive oil.  Bake at 350 degrees until golden. Top soup with bread and more cheese.

NATHANIEL'S VERSION (WITH ANN'S ASSISTANCE)

Nathaniel had made this soup for us our last night of our Christmas/New Year's visit so I only got one bowl and had been craving it ever since.  Our next trip to Greeley was in February to meet our brand new granddaughter, Josephine, and since she of course was the focus of all our attention we didn't get around to making it until the last night of our visit again.  Nathaniel and I made a grocery run for the ingredients (nothing exotic!) and thought we were all set, but of course midway through making the soup we realized the milk container in the fridge was not nearly as full as we'd thought and he had to run back to the store.  We used the generic block sharp cheddar and grated it in the food processor.  Nathaniel prefers the chicken bouillon powder everyone in New Mexico uses for Mexican cooking (I think it's Knorr) over canned chicken broth.  We doubled the recipe (except for the hot sauce) and some of us ate the baguette in the soup and some on the side.  It was so good--more brothy than most cheese soups which so often are just basically a cheese sauce.  

ANN'S VERSION

I pretty much stuck to Nathaniel's version since it was so good.  I did use 2 c. unsalted chicken stock instead of the bouillon so had to increase the salt by about a tsp.  I had 2% milk on hand, so in place of the whole milk I substituted 1-1/2 c. 2% milk and 1/2 c. half and half.  I added an extra tsp. of hot sauce (no surprise!) and for some reason my soup was not as brothy as Nathaniel's so I used an extra half bottle of Tecate.  I didn't do the toasted bread but just ate some untoasted on the side.  Again, this soup was so delicious!  Nathaniel says he's made it using various kinds of beer (stout, etc.) and it's always good.  Very comforting cold weather soup!

CASSIE'S VERSION

Yum!  I absolutely despise beer and cannot drink it.  This soup, however, is delicious.  I made it almost exactly as written above, using a bottle of Samuel Adams Boston Lager (appropriate, given my location).  And the hot sauce I used was Portuguese (also appropriate for the area).  The only issue I had was that it was quite salty.  Next time, I will cut down on the added salt.  Maybe my Better than Bouillon is saltier than regular bouillon.  Other than this, I was surprised by how much I loved this soup, especially because I don't like beer.  The beer really does cook away, leaving a complex flavor that goes well with sausage and broccoli on the side.  This was perfect for the rainy, chilly weather we are currently having.  Thanks for the recipe, Nathaniel!

Indonesian Spicy Chicken Soup (Soto Ayam)

Adapted from The Complete Asian Cookbook by Charmaine Solomon

3 lb. chicken parts
8 c. cold water
3 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. whole black peppercorns
few celery tops
2 onions
2 T. peanut oil
2 fresh red chiles, seeded & chopped
6 curry leaves
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp. grated fresh ginger
1 tsp. dried shrimp paste
1 tsp. ground turmeric
1 1/2 T. ground coriander
2 t. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. ground fennel
1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
lemon juice to taste
2 small bundles egg noodles
Garnish:  3 hard boiled eggs, chopped
                 6 cloves garlic, sliced and fried
                 8 sliced green onions
                 fried dried chiles
                 crumbled potato chips
                 sambal olek

Wash chicken parts and put in pot with cold water, salt, peppercorns, celery tops and one onion.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover and simmer for 35-40 min. or until chicken is tender.  Strain stock into a bowl.  Remove bones and skin from chicken parts and cut into small pieces, then set aside.  Heat peanut oil in large pot, slice the other onion and fry it in the oil with the chiles and curry leaves until the onion is soft and starts to brown.  Add garlic, ginger, shrimp paste and fry, crushing shrimp paste with a spoon.  Add the ground spices and fry for a few seconds longer.  Add the strained stock, bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover and simmer for 10 min.  Add lemon juice to taste.  Cook the egg noodles in boiling water for 5 min., then drain and add to soup together with the chicken meat.  Serve in bowls and garnish with the hard boiled eggs, fried garlic, green onions, potato chips.  Add sambal carefully each bowl to get the heat you desire.

Ann's Version

This soup is absolutely delicious!  The Spicy African Chicken and Peanut Soup had been my favorite so far, but this one is just as good.  Perhaps "spicy chicken" in the name bodes well.  I used 3 lbs. of boneless, skinless chicken breast and it made for a very rich broth.  Since there were no bones or skin it seemed like a lot of meat so when the broth was done I fished one breast out and fed it to my husband.  (Okay, that sounds strange!)  For the chiles I used 3 red serranos from my last summer's harvest that were in the freezer.  Freezing chiles definitely seems to temper the heat but since the sambal olek goes in as a garnish I figured that would ramp it up.  I could not find the shrimp paste I thought was in the pantry so instead used a couple of tsps. of some really thick Vietnamese anchovy sauce, figuring what was important was the funky fishiness. I used the juice of two whole lemons for the "lemon juice to taste" and it was perfect.  For everything else I stuck to the recipe.

I used chopped hard-boiled egg, chopped green onion, sambal olek and fried garlic as garnishes and they really make it special.  The garlic was sliced very thin and fried at quite a low heat in peanut oil until it was light brown (I could eat a lot of this all by itself!).  I had just bought a jar of sambal olek so it was really nice and fresh and spicy.  For a good-sized bowl of soup I used about a tablespoon, but of course this was for someone who loves hot chile! Crushed potato chips were suggested as garnish in the original recipe but soggy smashed chips did not appeal to me. 

This is is actually quite a hearty soup because of the noodles and the amount of chicken, but because of all the lemon juice and the wonderful spices it tastes light and healthy.  I will definitely make this one again!

Cassie's Version 

Perfect soup for a snow day - which this ended up being.  I went to class this morning, then all of metro Boston closed down because of heavy snowfall to be followed by freezing rain.

As I said in a previous post, I'm always looking for ways to use the habaneros in my freezer, which are from my mom's garden.  They are simply too overpowering to use in most dishes, but because I knew this recipe would make quite a lot of soup I thought one habanero would actually work better than several milder chiles.  This was a good move - the soup is definitely spicy (I did not seed and de-vein the habanero), but not overly so. 

I found what turned out to be a very nice shrimp paste at the grocery store.  My previous experience with shrimp paste resulted in disaster.  When I was in high school, my mom bought a really beautiful Asian cookbook full of color photos.  We decided to make an attractive-looking eggplant dish from this book that called for shrimp paste in it, and it started out really promising - until we added the paste.  We ended up tossing the entire skillet of food into the trash.  Its odor was so vile and pungent that I believe we opened up all the windows for several hours even though it was quite cold out.  So I was hesitant to use it here but I think I've found a paste that is a lot less potent - a Thai paste in oil.  I'm actually looking forward to cooking more things with it.

I used one very large lemon to brighten up the soup and threw in cooked lo mein noodles at the end.  I also topped my soup with hard-boiled egg, green onion, sambal oelek, and fried garlic.  When I was looking for shrimp paste in the Asian section of the grocery store, I also came across jars of fried garlic and fried onion.  I thought a jar of fried garlic would actually prove useful for quite a few dishes - as a garnish for stir fries, for example.  The garlic is shelf-stable and somewhat similar in consistency to French's fried onions (though not nearly as salty).

My one problem with the dish was really my fault.  I simmered the chicken either too long, or at too high a temperature.  This resulted in a lovely broth, but the chicken itself was overcooked.  So if you make this, be sure to check the meat as it simmers so you don't get past the pleasantly tender stage.  Even with this problem, the soup is extremely good - and just what I needed on a cold, snowy winter day! 

Parmesan Broth with Kale and White Beans

Adapted from the Smitten Kitchen blog

Broth:  
8 oz. parmesan cheese rinds
6 c. water
1 lg. onion, peeled & quartered
3 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
1/2 t. whole peppercorns
Handful of flat-leaf parsley
Salt to taste

Soup:  
2 to 3 oz. tuscan kale, chopped
1-1/4 c. cooked white beans (from about 1/4 lb. dried), with their cooking liquid (about 1-1/2 c.)
Olive oil and parmesan and thin slices of toasted baguette

Bring all the broth ingredients to a boil in a lg. pot, then reduce to a simmer for 1 hour.  Pour through a fine strainer. It will yield about 4-1/2 c.

To make soup:  Add beans and liquid and kale to broth and simmer until the kale is cooked and the beans are warm.  Serve topped with a toasted baguette slice, drizzled with a bit of olive oil and sprinkled with grated parmesan.

Ann's Version 

 

I had some beautiful dried heirloom beans which I put to a soak the night before.  The variety was Good Mother Stallard, a medium size dappled russet and cream.  I soaked the whole pound bag which wasn't necessary for this soup so the excess went in containers into the freezer.  I drained the soaked beans, then covered them with about 3 times as much water, added a couple of fresh bay leaves and a tsp. or so of dried thyme, brought the pot to a boil, and simmered it for about an hour and a half.  Cooking dried beans at our altitude (which isn't really that high) and in our very minerally water usually takes quite a bit longer than indicated in most recipes. 

While the beans cooked I made the broth, using 8 cups of water instead of 6 since I just knew that wouldn't be enough and doubling the parsley (was an accident but it worked).  For the first half hour the broth cooked it was pretty bland and I wondered if it could really make a tasty soup, but in the second half hour the cheese infused the water and it smelled and tasted amazing.  I let it simmer until the beans were done, then poured the broth through a fine strainer into a clean pot, then back into the original pot so as to save any stuck-on cheese.  A word of caution:  clean the strainer immediately!  I just rinsed it and put it through the dishwasher and I'm still poking cement-like particles of parmesan out with a toothpick.

To the hot broth I added a 2 oz. bag of dried kale chips, cilantro/lime flavored since that's what was in my pantry.  I keep kale chips on hand all the time for soup since they don't go bad and I often don't want to make a grocery run just for fresh kale.  Unseasoned ones are hard to find though, hence the unusual flavor addition which in this case really worked.  I added another cup of water since the chips would be reconstituting in the soup and cooked it all for about 20 min.  Then in went the still hot beans with their liquid and it all simmered for another 15 min.  I added 1/4 c. of olive oil to the pot when it was done.

I had a bowl right away with a handful of grated parmesan on top (can't ever have too much cheese!) and it was great.  Definitely a recipe I'll make again, particularly since we eat lots and lots of parmesan which I always grate myself and the rinds pile up in the freezer.  The 8 oz. this recipe called for used less than half my stash!  If you didn't have the rinds I'll bet the recipe would work with just an 8 oz. chunk of parmesan but would probably be quite a bit cheesier.

Cassie's Version 

 

I finally made this soup today.  It took a while to get around to it because I simply did not have Parmesan rinds on hand.  I even asked today at the cheese counter of my (rather excellent) grocery store and they were all out.  I ended up buying two different hard cheeses, whose rinds became the base for my soup: Grana Padano and Romano, both of which were less expensive than Parmesan.  They both tasted great when I sampled them, but neither is as strong as Parmesan so my broth turned out less flavorful than what was probably intended.  I used dried Great Northern beans that I soaked overnight and cooked in the same manner that my mother cooked hers (I actually just followed her directions, above).  I froze the extra beans and cooking liquid to use later.

The only other changes I made to the soup itself were the following: I increased the water to 8 cups (following my mother's advice) and added in dried red pepper flakes, salt, and ground pepper.  I used regular(?) kale instead of the flatter Tuscan variety, which I didn't have on hand.  I also added olive oil at the end, as my mom did, because it needed an extra shot of flavor and some additional body.

This was definitely a good soup, though it seems like a recipe that requires the highest quality ingredients to become really great.  While I think that I generally do a good job selecting produce, I supposed I could do better at choosing (and investing more money in) other ingredients.  Or my next soup could employ more pungency - chile, citrus, and other spices can do wonders at covering up lackluster cooking skills and less than fancy ingredients!  Stay tuned!