11.01.12_Roasted Veggie Soup with Herb Dumplings

Phillip found a recipe for Roasted Vegetable Soup with Herb Dumplings and immediately added it to our "must try" list. Growing up in Ohio, I guess he had a fair share of chicken and dumplings as a kid (a dish that to this day I still have not had) so needless to say he was excited to have dumplings again.

I'm not gonna lie, this soup took a fair amount of work. None of it was hard by any means, but it definitely took time since I had to roast all the vegetables first, then blend them, simmer the puree, then make the dumplings. The end result was well wroth the effort though. The recipe makes a TON of soup. I gave some of the leftovers to my vegetarian cousin Hannah and we still have more than we know what to do with. So I highly recommend cutting the recipe in half, or freezing half of it for another time.

Roasted Veggie Soup with Herb Dumplings
Adapted from The Kitchn

For the soup:

• 1 medium butternut squash (I bought already peeled and cubed)
• 3 carrots
• 2 medium daikon radishes (The recipe called for parsnips but Whole Foods didn't have any)
• 1 sweet potato
• 1 large leeks
• 1 yellow onion
• 4 cloves garlic, unpeeled
• Extra virgin olive oil
• S&P
• Chile powder
• 7 cups veggie stock
• 1 bay leaf 

For the dumplings:

• 1 cup flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 TBSP cold butter, cut into small pieces
• 1 TBSP oregano
• 1 TBSP parsley
• 1 TBSP thyme
• 1/2 cup milk

1. Preheat the oven to 400º. Peel and chop the butternut squash, carrots, radishes, and sweet potato into large chunks. Chop the white and light green part of the leek into large chunks as well. Peel and quarter the onion and leave the garlic cloves in their skin. Toss all the veggies with olive oil, salt and pepper and a sprinkling of chili powder. Spread veggies onto baking sheets and roast for 30-40 minutes. 

2. After the veggies are roasted, remove the garlic from their skins. Blend the veggies a little at a time until they are well pureed, adding veggie stock as necessary to make the puree nice and smooth. I used an immersion blender for this but I'm sure a regular blender would work equally as well.

3. Add the remainder of the stock to the puree and bring to a boil in a large stock pot. Lower heat and simmer.

4. While the soup is simmering, prepare the dumplings. Thoroughly mix all dry ingredients. Add the butter to the mixture and use your fingers to mix the butter in. You don't want big clumps of butter. Keep massaging the mixture until it is well incorporated. Add the milk and fresh herbs and stir until combined. 

5. Drop TBSPs of the dough into the soup. Cover the pot and let simmer for 10 minutes or so until the dumplings are cooked. 

06.13.12_White Bean Kale and Pesto Soup

I know I say this in every blog post but talk about easy. Seriously I don't know why people don't make homemade soup more often. It is so simple, tastes great,  and there are endless possibilities. I have bookmarked a lot of soups but never really got around to making them (except for the Roasted Corn Soup and Matzo Ball Soup) but when I saw this recipe for White Bean Kale and Pesto Soup I knew we had to try it sooner than later. 

Normally on Wednesdays during the summer Phillip has softball with his colleagues after work. He had asked me to come watch this week so I decided I would go ahead and make the soup the night before so that when we got home from the game, dinner would just need to be heated up. I thought this would be a good recipe to make the night before since soups and stews always seem to get better the longer they sit as the flavors marry.

All I had to do was cut up 4 carrots, dice an onion, and mince 4 cloves of garlic. After that laborious (italics=sarcasm font) prep work was complete, I put a couple of TBSP of oilve oil in a big stock pot over medium heat. I dropped in the carrots and onions and cooked them until they started to soften, about 5-8 minutes. Next, I added in the garlic, oregano, parsley, and cooked for another minute until until everything was nice and fragrant. Finally I poured in 4 cups of veggie stock, the white beans (which I had strained and rinsed), and the kale. Whole Foods had frozen kale so I opted for this so that I would be able to use as much as I wanted without worrying about left overs. So often kale is sold in those massive bags so I thought the frozen would be a better option since I didn't have a need for 2lbs of kale today, but I digress. Finally, I brought the mixture to a boil, lowered the temp and let it simmer for 15 minutes.

Normally what you would do next is remove the soup from the heat and mix in 1/2 cup of grated cheese and 1/2 cup pesto, top it off with some fresh nutmeg and you'd be all set. Since we weren't eating it until the next day I stopped here, then when we were ready to eat it the next night, I reheated the soup on the stove, and mixed in the cheese and pesto then. I used store bought pesto because I was being lazy but obviously you could use fresh and it would probably taste even better. I would have never thought of mixing pesto into a soup like that but it added that extra flavor to make the soup special. We served the soup alongside some crusty bread for dipping. Scrumptious. Here's the recipe.

White Bean Kale and Pesto Soup
From Katie at the Kitchen Door

Serves 4 to 5

• 2 TBS olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 4 carrots, sliced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp dried parsley
• 4 c. veggie stock
• 1 1/2 c. frozen kale (I ended up putting in almost 3 cups of frozen kale because it just didn't seem like enough/we love kale)
• 1 can cannelini beans, rinsed and drained
• 1/2 c. pesto
• 1/2 c. grated pecorino cheese
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg

1. Heat oil in a large stockpot over medium heat.  Add onion and carrot, and saute, stirring occasionally, for 5-8 minutes, or until vegetables have begun to soften.  Add garlic, oregano, and parsley, and cook 2 minutes more, stirring.
2. Add chicken broth, kale, and beans, bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer for 15 minutes, until kale and carrots are tender.  Remove from heat and stir in pesto, cheese, and nutmeg.  Serve hot with additional grated cheese.

12.27.11_Fresh Corn Soup with Roasted Corn Guacamole

Happy Holidays! Man has it been a busy couple of weeks! Phillip and I just moved into a new apartment right before Christmas so needless to say we've been all over the place. We finally got the chance to cook the first meal in our new apartment. One of the gifts Phillip got me for the holidays was an immersion blender so I wanted to make something that I could use the blender for. We decided on a soup and I thought a corn soup would be good since I had never made it. We found this recipe that they served with a roasted corn guacamole so I thought that would be perfect since in my mind I wanted to soup to be tex-mex-y.

This was the first meal where Phillip and I were actually able to cook together because our kitchen is finally big enough to have two people standing in it! To get the corn ready for the guacamole we added a tablespoon of olive oil, salt and pepper to 2 cups of defrosted frozen corn. I spread the corn out evenly on a foil-lined baking sheet before putting the corn into a 450° oven for 20 minutes. Phillip decided he wanted to tackle the guacamole so he diced a tablespoon of red onion, a seeded jalapeno, and then zested and juiced a lime over an avocado before seasoning with salt and pepper.

Phillip zesting in the new kitchen!

While Phillip was dicing, I made the soup. All I had to do was defrost some frozen corn, then blend 3 cups of it. I then had to saute half a red onion, a clove of garlic, and a jalapeno after it was seeded. After the onions were translucent I blended the sauteed veggies and added it to the corn mixture. In a pot I combined the blended veggies and cooked them for a few minutes before adding in 1.5 cups of vegetable stock. The soup simmered for 15 minutes while we finished making the guacamole.

After the corn had roasted for 20 minutes we took it out and let it sit for a few minutes to let it cool before adding it to the guacamole Phillip had made.  After the guacamole was finished and the soup had simmered it was time to eat. We ladled the soup into our bowls before putting a large spoonful of the guac into the center of the bowl. I then drizzled some good olive oil (another gift for the holidays) over the soup. It was super tasty and as always incredibly easy. The recipe didn't make as much as I had expected. I would say it was closer to 4 servings but luckily we had refried beans on the side and extra guacamole to eat as sides.