Quick and Simple Vegetable Soup

What do U do next  after baking a big batch of smelling so good kinda  and of course so yummy bread sticks ? You make a soup for the dinner. I know it doesn't look very tempting but taste wise it's not a compromise. Simple enough to put together in just a few minutes, let it simmer for little bit and it's ready.

It also happened to be the day when I was running out of  my fresh groceries. I did had enough carrots,celery & garlic to make a base for this soup. I used up whatever I had on hand but one can easily change the vegetables as per their taste & convenience. Use olive oil & vegetable stock and it's a perfect vegan soup.

What I used :

• three stems of celery
• two carrots
• one small turnip
• 3-4 radishes
• 1 cup chopped asparagus stems/bottoms *(see notes)
• few cloves of garlic(I used 6)
• small floret of broccoli ( I added it because I had to use it, usually I don't put broccoli floret in the soup)
• 1 Tbsp. of extra virgin olive oil/ butter
• salt (as per your taste)
• black pepper (as per your taste)
• 2 tsp. of any kind of hot sauce
• 2 big squirts of tomato ketchup
• 1 Tbsp. of white vinegar
• 4-5 cups of vegetable/chicken stock

* Notes : cut the coarse woody ends of the asparagus stalk. Technique here is, hold the bottom end of the stalk with one hand & with the other hand hold the center part of it & now try to break it, where it breaks taking that as guideline cut the bottom from all the stalk usually around 2-3 inches from the bottom. For the soup we are only using bottoms, so peel them because skin of those hard part of the stalk  doesn't get soft even after cooking.

 

What I did :

1. Chop all the vegetables into small cubes, try to keep them equal size.
2. Chop the garlic.
3. Heat oil/butter in a pot.
4. Add garlic, sauté it for 30-40 seconds. Add all the chopped vegetables, sauté them till they get soft around 7-8 minutes.
5. Add salt, black pepper, hot sauce and ketchup, stir.
6. Add chicken/vegetable stock. Once it reaches boiling stage turn the heat to low & let it simmer for 15-20 minutes.
7. Once it's almost ready. add vinegar mix it up & turn the heat off.

Soup is ready to be served with sun dried tomatoes & cheddar cheese breadsticks. To turn it into complete meal on a cold day(which this year seems to be never ending) I pan fried some chicken sausages, oven roasted some asparagus and sweet potatoes.

 

Kale and Vegetable Soup

Right now is the perfect time, to start back on to the blogging. Nothing special about this time, it's just that once you take a break from something it's always difficult to go back. So, right now and I really mean that, hardly 5 minutes back(before I started to write this post) while checking some old photos I saw this photo taken back on August 24th of this year and I decided right now is the right time to blog about it. If I don't do it right now it'll again take months.

 

This soup was not made for blog. But when I made it for the first time back in august and one spoon of it and first thing I said to myself(actually to my family) was that this recipe needs to be shared. It's so tasty, specially with the onset of cold weather it's perfect for any night of the week. Since then I have made few different versions of this but the one I'm gonna share today is the original one. Kale is the star ingredient in this. Kale is one of the super foods, it has lot of good qualities but it's also the food which has lot of residual pesticides, so organic is the way to go for this.

 

Notes :

•  It's not easy to buy everything organic but in my household I have my own list of what to buy organic and what not to. So kale, celery, carrots and corn from this recipe falls under the organic list. I so want to discuss more about organic food here but it has to wait.
• I like to chop veggies, specially kale, very fine for this kinda soup. Pressure cooker method does make veggies very soft but the veggies used in this soup still retain their shape & the reserved sautéed veggie mixture of mushrooms, peas & corn give the final soup a nice texture.
• In case if Kale is tough you can skip using it's stem or chop little extra at the bottom to discard & chop rest of the stem very finely. In my case I'm getting some really young & soft  organic kale in my local grocery store.
• I'm using Pressure cooker but this soup is very easily doable in any regular pot/pan.
• The peas and corn I use are usually very tender, in case if you have tough ones you can also boil them first.

What I Used :

• 1 small bunch of fresh organic kale, chopped(approx. tightly packed 3 cups)
• 2 stems of celery(pref. organic)
• half red onion
• 4-5 cloves of garlic
• 2 green chilies
• 2 medium size carrots
• one cup chopped mushrooms
• half cup peas (I used frozen)
• half cup corn kernels(I used organic frozen)
• water/chicken stock/ veggie stock around 4 cups
• salt as per taste
• 2 pinches of black pepper
• squirt of tomato ketchup (don't miss this, it add a nice flavor)
• Lemon juice as per taste
• 1 Tbsp. extra virgin oil (divided use)
• few spoons of grated cheese of your choice for garnishing(our new fav. is Jarlsberg)

What I did :

1. Clean and wash all the vegetables. In case of Kale if using fresh bunch, chop around 1 inch stems from the bottom & discard.
2. Finely chop all the veggies, garlic & green chilies.
3. Heat the pressure cooker on med. high and add 1/2  tablespoon of oil and sauté chopped mushrooms in it. Once they start to get little brown add peas & corn. Sprinkle pinch of salt and sauté  for 3-4 minutes, stirring in between.
4. Using a slotted spoon take out half of this mushroom, peas & corn mixture out of the cooker and save it for using it later in the soup.
5. Turn the gas to med. and add rest of the oil to the cooker. Add chopped garlic in the cooker. Let it cook for 30-40 seconds & then add rest of the veggies. stir everything and sauté  for 3-4 minutes.
6. Add salt, black pepper, green chilies and tomato ketchup. Add around 4 cups of water. Close the cooker lid and let it cook.
7. After one whistle turn the gas on slow & keep for another 2-3 minutes. Turn the gas off. Once all the steam escaped then only open the cooker.
8. When ready to serve. Pour soup into the soup bowls, add some lemon juice, mix and  garnish each bowl with tablespoon or so of reserved mixture of mushrooms, peas & corn and top it with some grated cheese. Enjoy it with some hardy toasted bread.

Everyday meal : Sabut Masoor & Chana dal /Whole Red Lentils soup

Dal is an important part of any Indian meal. We all love chicken and fish in our house but it's dal which comes under the category of everyday food. It's comfort food for us. Growing up soup was a fancy meal it was dal which was our soup/stew, without it dinner felt incomplete. Even now after so many years it's same. If there's no chicken or fish, there has to be dal, that's our protein part of the meal. No particular one but any dal, depending upon how much time you have to cook and what kinda mood you are in.

 

I have 21 different dals/lentils/dried beans in my pantry(yes, I counted them). So, there are many different combinations which are made out of these  and then there are some dals which are cooked standalone, just made like that, no mix and matching. Every household have their favourite and further every family member have preference of one dal over other.

 

Coming to today's recipe Sabut/whole masoor and chana dal, is one of the hit combination in my house. While growing up I don't remember my mom making this combination, though both the dals were popular but separately. I don't remember when I started cooking them as a mixed dal but we like the texture & taste both and also chana dal makes it more nutritious.

 

 

It's very simple, the only thing is whole/sabut dals usually take little extra time to cook as compared with dhuli(skin off) dals. I have used 2 part masoor & one part chana dal, feel free to change the proportion as per your taste. Same recipe can be used for making only masoor dal also. 

 

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Sabut Masoor (Whole Red Lentils)
• 1/3 cup Chana Dal (Bengal Gram)
• 1 onion, finely chopped (around 3/4 cup)
• 1 tablespoon chopped garlic
• 1 tablespoon chopped/grated ginger
• 2 tomatoes finely chopped (or puree them in the blender)
• 2-3 green chillies
• salt
• 1/ tablespoon Jeera (cumin)
• 1 tsp. dhania powder (ground coriander)
• 3/4 tsp. haldi (turmeric)
• 3/4 tsp. Kashmiri Mirch powder/deggi mirch (or Paprika can be used ) *see notes
• 1 tsp. garam masala
• A big handful of fresh dhania/ cilantro ( finely chopped)
• 3-4 tsp. cooking oil/ghee
• Water

Method :

1.  Pick out any stones from the dal, specially sabut masoor, because this dal do have small stones in it. Wash both the dals in running water together and soak them in enough water to cover them, for at least 3-4 hours.
2. Once ready to cook, drain all the water in which dal was soaked and boil them with fresh water(3 times of the dal), turmeric & salt. Like most Indians I also use pressure cooker, I have never tried to boil them without pressure cooker.
3. Cooking in pressure cooker : Put dal, water, turmeric & salt in the cooker close the lid. Put it on high flame. After first 3 whistles turn the flame to med. low & let it cook for 5-7 minutes more. DO NOT OPEN the pressure cooker till all the steam escapes by itself. Once all the steam escapes open the cooker  and check dal, if you press cooked dal between your fingers it should be easily squished. It might look separate (water & dal) but once U mix tarka, mix it & let it simmer together for few minutes & it'll be all good and delicious looking.
4. While dal is boiling in the pressure cooker,start working on tarka/seasoning. Take a heavy bottom pan. Heat it on med. high, add oil.
5. Once oil is hot, add cumin seeds, once they start to sizzle, add Garlic. Few seconds and garlic is cooked(do not let it get brown) add chopped onions & sprinkle a pinch of salt.
6. Turn flame to med. low, slowly onions will turn translucent(around 6-8 minutes), keep stirring them as we are not using lot of oil then add ginger.
7. After 30 seconds or so add coriander powder, Kashmiri mirch powder, mix & cook for few seconds. Add tomatoes and chopped green chillies, mix well.
8. Keep the flame med. low & let tomatoes get cooked properly .
9. Once the tomatoes are cooked add this tarka to cooked dal , mix it and let it simmer for 6-8 minutes, check the consistency of dal. If it's too thick add some water & let it simmer for 5-7 minutes on med. low. And if by any chance dal is too soupy let it boil for a while till it comes to the right consistency.
10. Add garam masala & chopped fresh cilantro(hara dhania).
11. It tastes good with both rice as well as any kinda flat bread,

 Notes:

1) Here's the pic of uncooked sabut masoor, they are also referred as brown flat lentils :

 

2) Kashmiri mirch/degi mirch powder is relatively mild but flavorful and gives very nice color to the final dish. If not available use paprika.

3) If U don't have time to soak the dal, you can boil them straight away but it'll take extra time.

4) If boiling without pressure cooker, try to soak dal a night before, it'll cut the cooking time. Also do check in between boiling to make sure there is enough water in the pot.

5) This dal tastes good when it's not too soupy or not too thick.

6) If you are new to whole lentils, so let me share this tip: make these little ahead of time at least 3-4 hours before meal time, they taste better once they are sitting after getting cooked. Just warm it before eating.

 

This delicious & hearty dal stew is on it's way to  My Legume Love Affair # 57 event hosted this month by PJ of Seduce Your Tastebuds. This event is brain child of  Susan of The Well-Seasoned Cook and now this event is administer by Lisa of Lisa's Kitchen.