Souperbowls

It's chilly, time for hot soup to warm the kitchen and the soul, hopefully soup that brings the harvest of the moment to the table.  Here are some thoughts on that before we return to festivity food for the holidays because these soups will keep you going in the frenzy. And of course they're simple to set up.

Pumpkin black bean soup

not my photo

You can serve this in a small pumpkin for real effect or just enjoy it in mugs with a grilled cheese --or leftover Thanksgiving turkey-- sandwich. It's almost an instant soup if you used canned pumpkin and black beans. 
serves 4-6 (depending on bowls or mugs) Many recipes call for tomatoes: this one doesn't.

1 heaping cup mashed pumpkin
1 medium yellow onion, peeled and minced 
2 tbsp unsalted butter
2 lg garlic cloves, peeled and minced
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground allspice
 lots of freshly ground black pepper
Salt to your taste 
1/2 tsp garam masala or curry powder 
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1 3/4 cups chicken broth
1/4 cup unsweetened evaporated milk*
1/2 cup cooked (canned) black beans, drained 
 2 tbsp cilantro leaves, finely chopped 
*to be vegan use coconut cream
Optional garnish: toasted pumpkin seeds

      In a large lidded saucepan, over medium heat melt the butter . Add the  minced onion. Sauté until onion is soft and translucent, maybe 5 minutes. Reduce heat if necessary to avoid browning or burning.    
 Reduce heat to low. Stir in the pumpkin, garlic, spices and black pepper. Add the broth and stir to blend.  Cover the pot and simmer 10 
minutes.   Taste and adjust seasonings to your liking. Add salt. Add the black beans and carefully stir them in to distribute evenly. Stir in the milk and continue to simmer 5 minutes until the soup is hot enough to serve Do not let it boil. If it is too thick for you, stir in another  2 tbsp evaporated milk. Garnish with cilantro and optionally toasted pumpkin seeds to serve. 

Caldo verde

Welcome potatoes and kale back to the table in this beloved Portuguese winter dish, "green soup." Because the green the Portuguese traditionally use is a cross between kale and collard you could use either one. I find the key to making this fabulous is in the garnish at the end: use the fruitiest olive oil you've got.

Serves 6

2 large chorizo or linguiça sausages

¼ c olive oil

2 yellow onions, peeled and diced

1 bay leaf

2 large garlic cloves, peeled and minced

Freshly ground black pepper

1 lb boiling potatoes (I used yellow), peeled  

1 tsp salt

 4 c vegetable broth (some people use chicken)

2 c water

 ¾ lb kale, washed, stems removed

1 tsp sherry vinegar (or white wine vinegar)

 To Serve: Olive oil, best quality  

Buttered cornbread or rustic loaf croutons

Fill a medium saucepan 2 /3 with water. Over high heat bring it to a boil.

With a small fork, prick holes in the sausages and put them in the boiling water for 5 minutes to leach out the fat. Remove with tongs and discard the water.  When the sausages are cool enough to handle, strip the casing off one and crumble it up.  Slice the other into thin disks. Set aside.

In a large heavy gauge casserole or a soup pot, heat the olive oil. Add the onions and on medium/low heat sauté 5 minutes. Add the garlic, bay leaf, crumbled sausage and freshly ground black pepper, stirring to blend. Continue sautéing until the onions are soft and translucent, 3-5 minutes. 

Add the diced potatoes to the pan with the salt. Stirring, cook over low heat to slightly soften the potatoes, 2 -3 minutes, not letting them stick to the bottom of the pan. Pour in the broth and water.  Bring to a boil, immediately reduce heat to simmer and cook until the potatoes are soft, about 20 minutes. Scrape scum off the top.

While that’s cooking, cut the kale into horizontal shreds. You can do this by rolling up a bunch of leaves as though making a cigar, then cutting across into thin shreds. Once the potatoes are soft, using a slotted spoon, remove 1 cup of them (sausage and onions might come with them, no problem) and set aside. Add half the kale to the pot. Cook 2-3 minutes to soften it. Remove the pot from the stove. Remove the bay leaf from the pot and discard.

before the purée

If you have an immersion/stick blender, put it in the pot and partially purée the contents to thicken the soup.  There’s no exact measure for this. If you don’t have an immersion blender, you can put 2/3 of the pot contents in a food processor and lightly blitz it.  If you don’t have that either, take out 2/3 of the contents and mash them with a potato masher, then return to the pot.  

Put the pot back on the burner on low heat. Add the reserved potatoes, rest of the kale and the sliced sausage. Stir in the vinegar. Simmer 5 minutes. Taste and adjust salt and pepper.

To serve: ladle into large bowls, put a few drops of best quality olive oil around the top and then a few crunchy cornbread or other croutons.  You can also make buttered crostini to top the soup with.    

Fennel soup
I didn't include this French nouvelle cuisine recipe with all those recipes in the fennel post a few weeks ago to greet the arrival of fennel season. It's on the delicate side. It could be the warm up act pre-dinner or served with a sandwich for lunch.
 serves 4

2 tbsp olive oil
1 med yellow onion, peeled and minced
2 small leeks, white parts only, cleaned and minced
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp salt
several grinds of fresh black pepper
 6 c chicken broth (if you're vegetarian use vegetable)
 3 fennel bulbs, trimmed and finely chopped (reserve fronds)
2 tbsp skim milk or similar
 4 sprigs flat leaf parsley, leaves only, finely chopped
GARNISH: optionally, a dollop of red pepper sauce or muhamarra or just plain slivers of roasted red pepper (aka pimentos) OR small parmesan crostini

 Heat the olive oil in a small lidded soup pot or large lidded saucepan over medium heat. Add the onions, leeks, thyme, salt and pepper and sauté on low heat 1-2 minutes.  Add 1/4 c broth, cover the pan  and simmer until the vegetables are soft, 8-10 minutes. Add the fennel, cover the pot again and simmer until the fennel is soft, about 15 minutes. Add the remaining broth, bring it to a boil, lower heat  to simmer and cover the pot. Cook 25 minutes. Chop the fennel fronds.

Either with an immersion blender or tabletop blender, purée the soup. (At this point you can refrigerate for tomorrow.) Return to simmer to get it warm, then remove from heat and whisk in the milk. Ladle into bowls and spread chopped fennel fronts around the top. Optionally garnish with red pepper something or parmesan crostini.  
 
Beet borscht without meat

Borscht, heavy Russian winter soup, is most often made with red beets and shanks of beef simmered for hours, then served with sour cream and pumpernickel bread. I often make this much faster, much lighter but just as tasty vegetables only version in the Fall while beets are still smallish, bright and with their greens. It can also be served with a dollop of sour cream and pumpernickel, dark rye or caraway seeded rye bread and butter.

Serves 4-6

3 large or 8 small fresh red beets  

2 tbsp olive oil

1 bunch of beet greens, washed, dry and finely chopped

1 large yellow onion, peeled

2 large carrots, peeled

2 lg Tokyo/Hakurei/salad turnips, washed and peeled Or 1 small daikon, peeled

1 medium yellow potato, peeled 

6 lg Brussels sprouts, finely shredded

2 cups vegetable stock

2 tsp. dill seed (for a variation use caraway or both) 

1/8 tsp. Szechuan pepper or Nepali timur, or for a slightly different taste crushed juniper berries

1 tsp. celery seed

freshly ground black pepper

Juice of one lemon

1 tsp balsamic vinegar

½ cup fresh dill, chopped

Sour cream or thick yogurt and 1/8 tsp. caraway seed to garnish

Wash the beets very carefully and trim any roots.  Put in a large saucepan or small soup pot and cover with 3 inches of water. Add a pinch of salt. Bring the water to a boil, reduce heat to low and cook, checking often, until the beets are tender. With a slotted spoon remove them from the red broth and let them cool so you can peel them.  (The skins should slip off.)

Either grate the onion or chop it in a food processor into tiny pieces.

Grate the carrots, turnips and potatoes.

Strain the beet cooking water through a coffee filter or the like to get out any dirt from the beets. While it is out of the pot, put in the olive oil and get it warm over medium heat. Add the onion, carrots, turnips and potato. Stir them around in the oil and cook on low heat 3-5 minutes to soften them. Add the Brussels sprouts, dill seed, celery seed, Szechuan pepper and salt.  

Grate the beets and add them to the pot with the chopped beet greens. Add 1-2 c vegetable broth if the pot has lost much of it original liquid and doesn't look soupy.  Add half the lemon juice and  stir to blend. Bring to a boil, then lower heat to simmer. Cover the pot and simmer 20 minutes.

Stir in the remaining lemon juice and balsamic vinegar. Taste for salt and add to your taste. Season with black pepper.       

Remove from heat.  Toss in the fresh chopped dill.  Ladle into soup bowls and serve with a dollop of sour cream or yogurt in the middle of the bowl.

  
Kale, black-eyed peas and lentil soup

 not my photo

Here is another way to welcome kale and potatoes back to the table.   The original recipe has sausage in it but this hearty soup can be made without it, and instead of chicken broth with vegetable broth. That makes it a very heartwarming, nourishing, even vegan meal. 

serves 6-8
2 tbsp olive oil
2 med yellow onions, diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 lb mild Italian sausage (again, this can be optional)
1 bunch kale (try not to use the curly kind)
 1 qt water
4 c chicken or vegetable broth 
1 box or 14oz can chopped tomatoes with their juice
2 c black-eyed peas (canned is fine)
1 c brown or green lentils
1 lb waxy potatoes, cut into 3/4 " cubes 
1 tsp dried thyme
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp mildly hot ground chili or paprika
 1 tsp kosher or sea salt
 Freshly ground black pepper
 2 tsp sherry vinegar  

If using sausage, remove from the casing and crumble it. Put it in a skillet over medium heat and brown it. Drain way the fat by drying the sausage on paper towels.
   Take the kale leaves off the thick stems, roll them up like cigars and chop them.             

In a large stockpot, heat the oil over medium heat. Add onions and garlic and sauté until the onions are soft and translucent, maybe 5 minutes. Add the water, broth and juicy tomatoes to the pot. Bring it to a simmer (small bubbles around the perimeter). Add the sausage, kale, lentils, potatoes, thyme, bay leaves and paprika/chili. Stir to blend and simmer 30 minutes. Drain the black-eyed peas, rinse and add to the pot. Continue simmering the soup about 45 minutes until everything is tender.  Season with salt, pepper and sherry vinegar. Remove the two bay leaves. 
Serve with cheese or garlic croutons.