Potato Kale Soup

Recipes created spontaneously, and dishes cooked for people we love always come out the best... this soup was born out of both! It has a wonderful texture, beautiful, rich colours, and has become one of my favorites.  

4 C water

1/3 C red lentils

2 C chopped kale

2 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped

1/2 C frozen green peas

1 T olive oil

1 t cumin

1 t coriander

1/2 t turmeric

1/2 t black pepper

1 medium tomato, diced

3/4 t salt

juice of half a lemon

garnish with paprika

Rinse lentils, add to the 4 cups of water and bring to a boil. Simmer, covered, until they are almost tender (about 10 mins). Add kale and cook 5-10 more mins. In the meantime, boil water in a second pot and cook potatoes until tender, adding the green peas for the last 2 minutes of cooking. Strain and set aside. Remove the lentils and kale from heat and puree. Return to heat and let simmer. Add in the cooked potatoes and peas.  In the now empty potato pot, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add spices and tomatoes and saute for 2-3 mins. Add this spice mixture, salt, and lemon juice to the soup. Garnish with paprika. Serves 2-4.

Vegetable Soup

Mennonite cooking, which shares many similarities with traditional German cooking, has a reputation for being delicious and, well, extremely rich, at least for those of us who don't burn off tons of fat and calories working hard on the farm from dawn till dusk. There are cheesy, creamy entrees, a constant wealth of fresh bread and butter, molasses cookies and brown sugar sandwiches, cold and delicious full-fat milk, puddings and pies, and sticky buns with rich homemade jams. Personally though, my favorite part of Mennonite food is the abundance of simply cooked fresh vegetables straight from the garden. The epitome of this is my grandfather's vegetable soup. 

This is a great soup to make if anyone at home is sick since it's so soothing and has a very mellow taste, but is absolutely delicious enough to prepare anytime. I made this once in the ashram, and felt a bit shy about serving something so simple and plain as the main part of the meal, and I was completely taken aback by the response. People were crazy with praises, told me they were on their 2nd or 3rd bowl, and everyone wanted to know what was so special about the taste. As you'll see from the ingredients, I had nothing to respond! There is no secret ingredient. The secret, rather, is in the flavour combination of these particular four vegetables (the only other veggie my grandmother, mother or I have added with success has been green cabbage), and the specific timing and order in which you add them...

4 C vegetable broth

1/4 dried lima beans*

pinch of salt

pinch of pepper

pinch of celery salt

3/4 C chopped celery

3/4 C chopped carrots

3/4 C chopped turnip

3/4 C chopped potato

Soak lima beans overnight (or bring them to a boil, remove from heat and let sit, covered, for an hour). Drain beans and add to vegetable broth. Add salt, pepper, and celery salt. Simmer, covered, for 45 mins. Add celery and simmer for 5 mins. Then add carrots and simmer for 5 mins. Then add turnip and simmer for 10 mins. Finally, add potatoes and simmer for another 10 mins. Keep covered during cooking.

Serve with toast or biscuits. Serves 2 - 3. 

* I've used lima beans in this recipe, but kidney beans, navy beans and pinto beans, or a mix of a couple of them, are great. Cooking times for different beans can be found here. If you are using canned beans, rinse well. 1/4 C dried beans = about 3/4 C cooked beans.

Sweet and Sour Soup

There's nothing quite like a hot bowl of sweet and sour soup - it's one of those dishes that seem to enliven taste buds I forgot I had. Craving such an experience this morning I whipped up what soon proved to be a perfect bowl of soup. 

This recipe is packed with protein and nutrients. The tofu and the seaweed provide lots of easily absorbable, complete proteins - one bowl will give you about 1/3 the daily recommended intake. Nori is also the most nutritious of all the seaweeds, and is packed with vitamins and minerals (more so than the same amount of any vegetable!), especially A, B, C, calcium, and precious trace minerals. Cabbage is also a nutritional powerhouse, with tons of great stuff including massive amounts of vit. K and C and a fair amount of those elusive omega 3 fatty acids. 

2 C vegetable broth or water

1t tamari 

2 slices ginger (about half a centimetre wide)

1/4 C Japanese rice

1/2 C shredded cabbage (red or green)

1/2 C cubed medium tofu (silken tofu would also be great in this soup)

1 sheet nori, cut into strips (use scissors, and make the strips about 1 by 4 centimetres)

1/4 t cayenne pepper

1 t corn starch mixed with 1T water

2 T maple syrup

1 T rice vinegar

juice from 1/4 of a lemon 

garnish: seaweed and sesame seeds

I keep a tin of vegetable bouillon powder around for times like these, and added 2t of it to the water to make an instant broth. If you don't have any, and are in too much of a rush to make a broth from scratch, water will work fine. Put the broth on high heat, and add above ingredients down to and including the cayenne. Bring the soup to a boil, then turn it down to low heat and let it simmer. Cover, and stir from time to time for 15 mins. 

At this point add a touch more water if it looks more like vegetables than soup, but if it was covered during cooking this shouldn't be necessary. Add the cornstarch/water mixture and allow it to simmer for 3-4 more mins while stirring. 

Take it off the heat and add the remaining ingredients. If you've used red cabbage the soup will be a beautiful deep purple; with green cabbage it will be a nice light brown. Remove ginger pieces and garnish with seaweed and sesame seeds.

Makes 2 bowls of soup, which I thought would be a meal for one, but I was amazed to discover how filling it is - one bowl and I was stuffed!