Chowder Sans Seafood

Quick. It's dinner time. What are you going to make that takes no time at all and tastes like you've slaved all day?

Soup. Or chowder, which was my option tonight.

I made this one up on the spot. Don't skip the blending process -- it gives it a great texture.


Potato Corn Chowder 
(vegan)

1 Tbl or so of oil (I use a combo of olive and vegetable oil)
1 celery stalk, sliced thin
4 medium golden potatoes, unpeeled, cubed (I went with about 2-inch chunks)
1 medium red bell pepper, chopped small
1 1/2 c. frozen corn
4 c. vegetable broth (I make my own, and I blend all veggies without straining, so it's thicker than typical broths)
2 tsp. dried thyme
2 tsp. fresh parsley, chopped
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper


Add oil to a large saucepan. Add celery and bell pepper and saute until the celery starts to soften (about 4-5 minutes). Add corn and potatoes and a skosh of veggie broth (I put in maybe 1/4 cup). Cover and let the steam from the broth soften everything a bit. Take off heat when potatoes are firm, but softening.

In a blender or food processor, add about 2/3 of the vegetable mixture and 1 cup of broth. How much you use depends on how many vegetables you want in your chowder.

Blend on puree setting (or low on your food processor) until it's all pureed. While the blender is on, pour in another cup of broth, let it mix a tad, then turn it all off and pour it back into the pan with the other veggies (the ones you haven't chopped up).

Return the pan to the stove, add your spices and seasonings, stir, and heat until the potatoes are soft (if they aren't already).

Add more salt if you like.

Farro and Away

I like to say that the secret to a great food experience is to serve something simple that makes you look brilliant. I have a few of those go-to dishes that do just that -- fettuccini Alfredo, risotto with smoked Gouda, bananas Foster...

And now I have one more.

I don't know what made me buy farro, but I did. I had read something online about its texture and nutty flavor, so I thought I'd try it. So glad I did! I'm now addicted to farro. Seriously, if you can form an addiction to a grain, I have it. I've considered using it for burgers, risotto (why not instead of arborio?), and maybe even farro cakes.

But this is by far my favorite way to make it. And on what has turned into a rainy, cooler August day, I made it for lunch today. I didn't pay too much attention to the time it took for each ingredient, so play it by ear.

Farro Soup

2 Tbl. olive oil
2 shallots, sliced
2 celery stalks, sliced
1 tomato, cut into chunks
1 cup farro
1 can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed (pinto beans would work, too)
2 cups water
3 cups vegetable broth
1 handful of fresh basil, torn (about 1/3 cup)
3/4 cup frozen peas
Freshly grated Parmesan

In a larger pot, heat oil and saute shallots about 3 minutes. Add celery, saute for a few more minutes, then throw in the carrots. Brown a little (another 3 minutes), then add everything else except for the cheese.

Cook on medium heat (barely a boil) for about 20 minutes or until the farro is cooked. Ladle into bowls and top with Parmesan.

Would taste fantastic with rosemary focaccia bread.

The Sweetest Potato

I love sweet potatoes. But I'm a little tired of eating them candied, sugared, or casseroled. So why not soup?

Here's my version of sweet potato soup that got rave reviews here at home. It's super low fat, and it's got this great mixture of flavors that make you feel like you're being treated instead of deprived of fat.

Sweet Potato Soup
Oil for frying (or water if you want to go oil-free)
1 large yam or sweet potato (about 3 cups), peeled and cubed
3 cups vegetable broth
1 Tbl. maple syrup
1/4 tsp. frehly ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. Adobo seasoning
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper

Topping ingredients:
1/2 cup apple sauce
1/4 cup chopped pecans
1 Tbl. lemon juice
2 Tbl. maple syrup

Heat the oil or water in a saucepan and add the potatoes and Adobo seasoning. Brown and cook for about 5 minutes.

Add broth, maple syrup, and spices. Cover and cook until potatoes are soft.

In the meantime, mix together the topping ingredients. If you'd rather use fresh apples, dice a pie apple, such as a Granny Smith.

Puree the soup. Now either add the topping directly or spoon it on top of the soup after it's in the bowl.

The Russian Front

The farmer's market this week had some interesting finds, including the nicest looking Russian kale I've ever seen. Well, the only Russian kale I've ever seen. I had to have it. Then came the obvious dilemma - what to do with it.

I decided soup. Soup seems to be the easiest way for me to test out new things, to mix their flavors with old familiars, maybe creating new familiars in the process.

If you don't have Russian kale handy, any kale will do.

Bean and Russian Kale Soup

1 large bunch Russian kale (about 1 1/2 cups), chopped
2 small carrots, diced
1 celery stalk, diced
2 tsp. fresh thyme, chopped
1 tsp. fresh parsley, chopped
1 can Great Northern beans (or your favorite), drained and rinsed
1/2 can diced tomatoes or better yet, 1 fresh tomato, diced
2 cups vegetable broth
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup parmesan cheese

In a soup pot, heat a scant amount of cooking spray. Add celery and carrots and saute, adding water to keep the lot from burning and to keep the fat low. Cook about 4 minutes. Add beans and kale and stir. Then add the remaining ingredients and cook about 20 minutes, covered, until all is soft. Place in bowls and sprinkle with cheese.

Cold Day, Warm Bowl

It's been what I consider to be a fairly cold March/April here on the Eastern seaboard. While I was raised on frost warnings in May (western PA), I've gotten used to the milder weather in eastern PA. However, this is the year that sweaters were made for.

So last week between the 60-degree days, we were hit with a 40-degree day or so with some mighty high winds. Okay, I can take it, but not everyone here can. It was that rainy, windy cold that seeps into your bone marrow and practically begs you for soup.

Soup it was. I wanted something minestrone-like without really being minestrone, so I opened the fridge and tossed in what appealed. It came together beautifully, and made a wonderfully rich soup without all the fat involved.

Mock Minestrone

1/4 cup chopped onion
2 carrots, sliced
1 stalk celery, sliced
4 cups vegetable broth
1/2 tsp. vegetable buillion (I used Better than Buillion)
1 can white beans, drained and rinsed
1 tsp. thyme
1 handful veggie crumbles, optional (I used frozen)
2 heaping handfuls spinach
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

In a saucepan, add about a tablespoon of water and heat. Saute onions, celery and carrots in this for about 3 minutes or until water mostly steams off. Add vegetable broth one cup at a time, stirring in buillion to make sure it dissolves. Add beans, thyme, crumbles, salt and pepper. Heat for about 20 minutes, until veggies are softer and the flavors have blended. Turn off heat. Toss in spinach and stir in for a few seconds until it's wilted.

My Version of Fast Food

I worked a little later yesterday, despite trying to get away from the computer at 3. I was here until nearly 5:30. When I got up, I realized I hadn't given one thought to what dinner might be. Time to go quick-and-easy. But do you sometimes feel that you can't make something either quick or easy that tastes good?

Since I'm not a processed-food user (or eater), opening a can of soup isn't going to work. I dug through my recipes and there on top was a white bean soup that saved the night. It took about 15 minutes to cook thanks to the potatoes, but we were eating by 6. Amen. Soup saves the day again!

Actually, I have a few soup recipes that are fast and perfect for when you're tired and don't want to take forever to get something good on the table. Here are a few:

Tomato Soup
4 tomatoes, chopped (I prefer Roma, but whatever is on hand is great)
1 or 2 Tbl. of fresh dried basil (or a small handful of fresh basil, chopped)
1 Tbl. sugar
2 tsp. salt or to taste
1/2 to 1 cup water

This recipe requires you to measure less, eyeball and taste more. Don't get hung up on amounts so much as how it tastes. It's literally 10 minutes from start to eating.

Heat all ingredients in saucepan until tomatoes are soft. Put all in blender and puree until smooth. If you like a thicker soup, serve as is. If not, press mixture through a sieve (I use a handheld metal colander). Serve.


White Bean Soup
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 Tbl. olive oil
2 carrots
1 medium-to-large potato, cubed
2 cups vegetable broth
1/2 cup water (or more broth, if you like)
1 bay leaf
1 tsp. parsley
Dash Herbes de Provence (or toss in some thyme)
salt
fresh ground pepper
1 can cannelini beans, drained and rinsed well

In a saucepan, heat oil and add onions and carrots. Saute until onions are soft. Add the rest of the ingredients, cover, and cook until potatoes are soft. If you want to make it creamy, try processing a cup of the soup and mixing it in to the rest of it.

Emptying the Fridge

I bought cauliflower? Really? No one here is a huge fan, but there it sat in the veggie drawer. Now what? I know when I bought it I'd had a plan, but the plan was lost in the brain matter and the cauliflower sat there staring at me, threatening to turn black if I didn't do something soon.

When in doubt, soup. This one turned out fantastic - and I may have converted a few non-cauliflower believers with it. Unlike a lot of "cream of cauliflower" creations, cheese is not a main ingredient, though it adds that extra layer of taste.

Cauliflower Soup with Cheese

1 head cauliflower, separated into flowerettes
2 Tbs. butter
1 Tbs. oil (I use olive)
1/2 cup sweet onion, chopped
3 leeks, chopped
3 sticks celery, chopped
1/4 cup flour
3 cups vegetable broth
1 cup milk
4 oz. Gruyere cheese, cubed
White pepper (or black if you're not picky about the color) to taste

Steam about a cup of the cauliflower and set aside. You'll be putting this in the soup after you puree it, so steam it to your preferred level of crunchiness.

Heat butter and oil in soup pot at medium heat and add onions, leeks, celery and remaining cauliflower. Cook until onions are clear and veggies are fairly soft. Stir in flour thoroughly (no lumps!), then add broth slowly, stirring well between each addition. Add the milk last, then reduce the heat to low, partially cover it and simmer for 20 minutes. Make sure to stir it often lest your milk and flour burn on the bottom.

Blend the soup in a blender on a low speed (to avoid splashing and burning). Return to pot and stir in cheese (if you choose to turn on the burner, make it very low so as not to scorch the entire thing). Add pepper and stir. Ladle into bowls and add the reserved cauliflower flowerettes to the bowls.


I served this with buckwheat (kashi), which we stirred right in. It's definitely not a main course because of the lack of protein, but it goes well as a "side" for all sorts of dishes.

Low-fat Chowder?

Since it was gawd-awful cold here yesterday morning (according to the spouse - to me, it was a typical western PA morning transplanted in southeastern PA) and since we'd spent a mighty frigid day in Manhattan on Saturday, I decided it would be a good soup day. Since the youngest is home from college, I am once again challenged to find something to fill her meat-loving body. To say she's picky is an understatement. She has a reperitoire of ONE meat - chicken - and one vegetable beyond an iceberg-lettuce salad - broccoli. Corn doesn't count; everyone loves corn! I swear I raised her better, but she's stubborn.

I knew she liked potato soup and hated mushroom soup (see? she's impossible). And any hint of it being vegetarian-specific has her in a mood. The fact that we were able to go to Angelica Kitchen with her was a large sacrifice for her, I'm sure. She didn't fuss, though she did look as though we were trying to kill her (and in fact uttered that a few times over her salad). And yes, we had to find her "real" food afterward. Ugh.

Anyway, potato soup was yesterday's menu. Thanks to a few moments of "Oh lord, I've forgotten to stir!" it turned out to be the best I've made. Here's how I wowed even the picky one:

Low-fat, High-taste Potato Chowder

1 celery stalk, sliced small
2 Tbs. (more or less) onion, diced
2 Tbs. fresh chives, cut about 1/2 long
1 pat butter (less than a Tbs)
2 tsp. celery salt
2 cups vegetable broth (I used homemade blended and unstrained so all the veggies remains are still in there)
2 large-ish potatoes, skins on, cubed (I used red-skinned potatoes, but you could use Idaho, if you prefer)
1 cup fat-free milk
Fresh ground black pepper to taste

Melt the butter in a soup pot and saute celery, chives, and onion over medium heat to avoid burning butter, until veggies are soft. If you like, add a touch of water to help with softening the veggies while not burning things. Add 1 cup of the vegetable broth and continue sauteeing until the broth is reduced to about 1/2 cup (or until you remember you forgot to stir it). Add potatoes and the other cup of broth and cook on low heat, covered, until the potatoes are soft. I let it cook about 15 minutes. Turn off heat and stir in milk.

Take some of the soup (I took the majority of the potatoes and left just a few chunks) and blend on low in a blender for a few seconds. Return to the pot and stir in. If you have to, heat it up on low with the lid on just until it's hot. This makes a very creamy, thick soup without having to add any flour or cream.

I'm guessing there are about 350 calories in this and maybe 15 grams of fat. Not much, as there is very little butter (only to give it flavor) and fat-free milk. In fact, if you don't like butter or are vegan, skip that altogether. I've not worked with soy milk enough to know how it heats up, but since this milk is stirred in at the end, you should be fine.

What to do with Leftover Squash and Coconut Milk

I'll admit I was a little nervous trying this combination. This was a case of use-the-stuff-in-the-fridge. In this case, it was some leftover parsley, butternut squash, and half a can of coconut milk. What a creamy, rich flavor this turned into! Here's what I did:

Creamy Butternut Squash Soup

1 cup chopped butternut squash
1/2 green pepper, chopped
1/2 cup cheap merlot wine
3/4 to 1 cup coconut milk
1 1/2 to 2 cups vegetable broth
2 Tbs. fresh parsley, chopped
salt
freshly ground pepper

Spray bottom of soup pot with cooking oil (I used Pam because it was on hand). Heat pot and add squash and pepper and saute for 5 minutes. Add red wine and reduce (about 5 minutes). Add vegetable broth, parsley, and coconut milk and heat until the veggies are soft. Add salt and pepper to taste.

I also added 1/3 cup rehydrated TVP. You can even add seitan or edamame, if you like.