soup – Kate's Garden Kitchen

Vegetable Triage (Tomato Glut Sauce)

August 10, 2022katejerome2020gmail.com2 Comments

This time of year brings so many good vegetables, whether through a CSA box every week with more than you can possibly eat or a garden that is inundating your fridge. Or even friends offer extras from their own gardens. How do you avoid wasting all this goodness as well as stock yourself up for the winter months?

My answer is to roast! Whenever I have loads of extra chard, mushrooms, leeks, onions, zucchini and eggplant, instead of succumbing to feeling overwhelmed, I toss them all into a roasting pan.

Red and yellow tomatoes, onions and garlic

Make delicious soup

It is amazing how combining roasted vegetables of all types with plenty of onions and garlic turns them into savory creations. I roast until everything is quite soft and then purée with a little stock if necessary. Freeze the pureed vegetables to use later as a soup base or pasta sauce. Or, to make a hearty one-dish meal immediately, add some evaporated or coconut milk, chopped sauteed vegetables of choice, cooked beans and/or cooked grains or pasta. A great result of this process is that the sauce never quite tastes the same.

A sauce made of mostly tomatoes is great for traditional pasta sauce. Sauce with spicy chiles added makes a good base for chili.

It’s easy to adjust seasonings according to your tastes. Add basil and oregano for an Italian twist; add cumin and chili powder for Mexican; add marjoram, a hint of cayenne and basil for Mediterranean.

Tomato Glut Sauce

I found this recipe years ago from a magazine called This Organic Life and have adapted and used it ever since. Film a large roasting pan with olive oil and cut up about six pounds of tomatoes – this is a great time to use those that have blemishes or splits because you can simply cut that part away. Chop and add one or two cups of whatever vegetables are coming in at the time such as onions, carrots, zucchini, celery and Swiss chard.

If you plan to use a food mill, you don’t have to take out tomato cores. If you plan to use a food processor, core the tomatoes before cooking. I don’t peel or seed my tomatoes but you can also blanch and peel and/or seed the tomatoes if that’s your taste. Throw in several cloves of garlic, some sprigs of fresh thyme, oregano, basil, and parsley. Splash with balsamic vinegar and roast for about an hour. The sauce will cook down and lose a good bit of moisture, and the vegetables will start to caramelize. Run through a food mill, food processor, or simply put in a high-power blender. Salt and pepper to taste, and use immediately or freeze.

Homemade Vegetable Stock

January 27, 2022January 27, 2022katejerome2020gmail.com2 Comments

It’s cold outside, making me want to stay indoors even if the sun teases me to come outside. So, I’ll stay cozy and warm inside and make a big pot of vegetable stock. There’s nothing like a pot of stock bubbling away on the back burner to fill the house with good smells and portend a great soup.

I’ve made it habit of putting all of my vegetable trimmings into a bag in the freezer instead of the compost. Onion and garlic skins, kale and chard ribs, celery and carrot root ends. The only thing I’ve found that doesn’t work well is potato peelings. But sweet potato peelings are a delicious addition. When the bag is full, I put everything into a large pot, toss in a few herbs, and fill it with water to cover the vegetables. One of my secret additions is parmesan rind. My local grocery packages the ends after they cut away the sellable part, and then they are tucked away for sale in the cheese bin. These rinds add a delectable richness to the stock.

I put the pot on a low simmer for several hours. Once cooked and cooled, I strain it into freezer containers and have a delicious base for just about any type of soup.

Because this stock is well-flavored, it easily replaces the chicken stock that so many recipes call for. My stock is never exactly the same because the mix of vegetables changes. Beet and red chard tops make it a rich purple color. But it is always good, and easily adaptable to almost any soup or stew.

Give it a try – it will make your winter days a bit more enjoyable and the sky’s the limit as to the dishes to use it in.

Stock, mirepoix (carrots, celery, onion, garlic) in the slow cooker

Lentil soup for two

½ medium yellow onion, diced
1 medium carrot, diced
1 medium celery stalk, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ c. dried green or brown lentils
1 c. diced tomatoes (fresh or canned)
2 ½ c. stock (homemade if you have it, canned if not)
¼ teaspoon dried oregano

Salt and pepper to taste

Film a heavy-bottomed pan with olive oil and add the onion, celery, carrot and garlic. Saute until soft, about ten minutes. Add the oregano and stir for about 30 seconds. Add the lentils, tomatoes and stock and bring to a simmer. Simmer for about 45 minutes until the lentils and vegetables are tender.

Put about half the soup in a blender and pulse until creamy. Return to the soup and add salt and pepper to taste. Serve drizzled with olive oil, sriracha, harissa or your favorite flavoring. You can also top it with grated cheddar and/or sour cream.

To slow cook, put all ingredients in the slow cooker. Cover and cook on low for 7-8 hours or on high for 5-6 hours, until the lentils are tender.

Riffs:
Add 1 T. chiles in adobo and ¼ t. cumin
Add ½ c. homemade or commercial pesto
Add ½ c. finely chopped kimchi
Add any cooked sausage of choice

Resolutions and Vegetable Soup

January 2, 2021katejerome2020gmail.comLeave a comment

I’m not one for making resolutions, mostly because I don’t want to be disappointed when I can’t keep them. But I am in the mood for some food cleansing to start the year off right. One of the best and easiest things I can do for my family is to make homemade vegetable broth. It has a clean, crisp flavor that is perfect for a soup base. It gives just about any type of soup a rich, savory flavor that you simply cannot get from canned stock or broth. It’s rich enough to drink on its own, flavored with a little salt and pepper.

As simple as possible

Although I’ve seen fairly elaborate recipes for broth, I want to keep this as simple as possible. To help me keep the resolution to do it. So, I keep a plastic bag in my freezer, and every time I trim a vegetable I rinse the trimmings and toss them into the bag.

I use the trimmings from garlic, onions, greens, mushrooms, carrots, celery, etc. Onion skins in particular give a wonderful flavor to the broth. When the bag is full, I dump it all into a large stockpot, add a couple of bay leaves and a handful of whatever other herbs I have in the garden or dried on the shelf.

Simmer slow and long

I cover the vegetables with water and simmer very gently for four or five hours. Once they’re all reduced to mush, I pour the stock through a strainer and divide it up to freeze. I freeze it in one cup batches so it’s simple enough to pull out a chunk, thaw and use it. Toss in some pasta, some sauteed onions, a handful of chopped greens, a can of cannellini beans, and Voila! You have a hearty soup with tons of subtle flavors on the table in 15 minutes. And there’s also a bit of nostalgia about always having a pot of soup bubbling on the back burner.

Mirepoix

You can make almost any kind of brothy soup by starting with a mirepoix (French – named for Duke of Mirepoix and the community he ruled) or soffritto (Called the Holy Trinity in Italian – translates as fried softly).

Chop a small onion, small carrot and a couple of stalks of celery. Saute gently in two tablespoons of olive oil until soft but not browned. This releases the flavors to infuse your soup. Add other vegetables and greens as desired, cooked beans, cooked grains or pasta. Add 2-3 cups of your homemade vegetable broth and heat through, seasoning as desired.

Cabbage White Bean Soup

Olive oil
1 small onion, diced
1 small carrot, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1 clove garlic, minced (optional)
2 medium thin-skinned potatoes, sliced
1 c. sliced swiss chard or kale
½ small head cabbage, sliced
1 c. cooked white beans
3-4 cups vegetable broth
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat olive oil in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan. Saute onion, carrot, celery and garlic if using on low-medium heat, stirring often, until the vegetables are soft. Add the rest of the ingredients and bring to simmer. Simmer until potatoes are soft when pierced. Season to taste and serve hot.

Kale and Kasha Soup

2 T. olive oil
1 ½ c. chopped onion
1 large clove garlic, minced
4 c. vegetable broth
¼ t. dried oregano
1 ½ c. cooked kasha or other grain
1 can crushed tomatoes
1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed and divided
½ lb. kale, trimmed and chopped

Heat 1 T. oil in large pot over medium-high heat. Add onion, and cook 3 minutes, or until softened, stirring occasionally. Add garlic, and cook 5 minutes more, or until onion is lightly browned. Stir in broth, kasha, tomatoes, 1 cup beans, oregano. Bring to a boil. Press half of the kale into the liquid with a wooden spoon until it wilts. Press remaining kale into liquid. Reduce heat to medium, and simmer 15 to 20 minutes, or until kale is tender.

Purée remaining beans in food processor and add to the soup. Season with salt and pepper, and serve with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar or sriracha.

Bean soup

May 26, 2020katejerome2020gmail.comLeave a comment

I always keep canned beans in my pantry. And, now that I have an instant pot, I’m gaining confidence in cooking them from scratch as well. Before the instant pot, my favorite thing to do was put on a pot of beans and promptly burn them since they have to cook so long. Lost a lot of good pots that way.

Another dirty little secret is that I have dribs and drabs of leftover vegetables, meats and grains in bags in the freezer. I cannot stand to waste food, so if there’s a little bit left, I’ll freeze it for use in soup later. Labeled of course.

Anything goes

The great thing about soup is that you can add simply anything to it and have unique flavors. Leftover bits of chicken or turkey with white beans and noodles make a great soup. Add some swiss chard or spinach, a can of chopped tomatoes and it turns into something different. As vegetables start coming in from the markets and our gardens, change up your soup accordingly. If hot soup isn’t appealing in the summer, remember that adding chiles will make you sweat, cooling you off. And, try bean soups cold!

Start with broth

The basic recipe for a soup is to start with good vegetable, chicken or beef broth. You can make an even richer soup with bone broth. Use store- bought if you don’t have time to make your own – you’ll still get a wonderful pot of soup (no guilt!). Saute some onion and garlic in a bit of broth or olive oil to get your flavor started.

Add protein and grain

Then add a protein like black beans, garbanzos, canellini or kidney beans. Use leftovers from a roasted chicken (again, store bought roasted chicken is good), leftover Thanksgiving turkey (you know you have some, somewhere in the freezer), tempeh or tofu. If you want to use cheese, add it at the very end.

Next, add a cooked grain like brown or white rice, farro, quinoa, or a pasta such as egg noodles, farfalle, linguini or orzo. Whole wheat pastas which may not be as palatable for spaghetti are hearty and delicious in soup.

The best part – vegetables

Then comes the best part – the vegetables. Add whatever you have in the fridge or freezer – cabbage, corn, peppers, spinach, broccoli, carrots, kale, Swiss chard, cauliflower or zucchini. The vegetable combinations can vary depending on the flavor you want.

Season according to the flavor you desire. For Mediterranean, use thyme, oregano, a pinch of sage and basil. For Mexican, cumin and chili powder give it a kick. For Italian, use oregano, basil and smoked paprika.

Although you really don’t need a recipe to make a great bean soup, here’s a start on a Mexican bean soup:

Recipe for Bean soup

2 cups broth

1 large clove garlic, minced

½ spanish onion, chopped

1-2 cups black beans, rinsed and drained if using canned

½ bag frozen corn

½ cup chopped sweet peppers

¼ chopped chili peppers

½ c. diced carrots

½ t. smoked or regular cumin

½ t. chili powder

Saute garlic and onion in two tablespoons of broth for about a minute. Add peppers, carrots and corn and saute for another minute. Add beans and seasonings and simmer for about 45 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste, and serve hot with a dollop of sour cream or plain yogurt and a splash of sriracha if you like more heat.

Roots!

February 20, 2020February 20, 2020katejerome2020gmail.com1 Comment

It seems that when we are sequestered indoors, our bodies yearn for warmth, both internally and externally. We naturally crave those earthy flavors of root vegetables such as carrots, beets, parsnips and even rutabagas. So, plan a visit to the winter farmers’ market or raid your own root cellar for any combination of delectable root vegetables. Cook up your roots into a rich soup (with the added sweetness of a butternut squash), dish up a bowl, cut a slice of rustic bread, and pull your chair up next to the fire.

Start planting roots crops

It’s time to start planting root crops. They are perhaps the easiest of vegetables to grow. Cool season crops, they bracket the garden season or can be planted multiple times for yield all season long. You can put the seeds into the garden as early as possible. The seeds will not be harmed even by heavy frost, so as soon as the thaw starts, get them out there. If your garden is prepared, you can even cast the seeds on the snow to get the earliest start as soon as they hit the soil.

Don’t forget fall planting

At the other end of the season, start planning the fall crop in July. Carrots and beets go in around the middle of the month, turnips the first week.

Easy to grow

Root crops grow well in any spot in the garden that receives six to eight hours of sun. The most critical element to healthy growth is preparing the soil deeply to have good tilth, with nothing to impede the growth of the roots. We’ve all seen carrots with forked roots – this usually is due to the tender root hitting something it cannot grow through so it moves off at an angle. The soil should be of average fertility and the plants should be mulched to keep the soil moisture even.

Plant frequently

Planting every two or three weeks will keep you in carrots and beets all season. My favorite beet is Chioggia, an Italian beet that is creamy white or pink with dark rings. The best feature is that these beets will stay tender all season, not becoming woody as some beets do when left in the ground.

And now for the soup:

Winter Root Vegetable Soup

You really can use any combination of vegetables. Vary the flavors with different combinations and add herbs to give you further nuances of flavor. This soup is creamy, savory and slightly sweet, an amazing comfort on a cold winter evening.

Use one cup of vegetables for each serving. This recipe serves 6-8 although you can cut it half easily. It also freezes well.

Beets, carrots and parsnips ready for roasting

6-8 cups root vegetables (any combination of carrot, beet, parsnip, rutabaga, turnip, salsify, celery root, sweet potato, butternut squash) cut into ½ inch pieces

2 cloves garlic

¼ c. olive oil

1-2 t. salt as needed

¼ – ½ t. fresh ground black pepper (to taste)

1 small sweet onion, diced

2 stalks celery, diced

1 quart chicken or vegetable broth

½ t. dried or 1 T. fresh herbs of choice – basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. In a low-sided broiler or jellyroll pan, place vegetables and drizzle with about two tablespoons of olive oil. Roast in a preheated oven for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally until all vegetables are tender when pierced. Sprinkle with salt immediately upon removing from the oven.

While vegetables are roasting, in a large pot over medium heat, saute onions and celery in the remaining olive oil, stirring until the onions are translucent. Add pepper, herbs and stock. Bring to a simmer. Stir in roasted vegetables and heat through. Puree with an immersion blender or in small batches in a food processor or blender. If soup is too thick, thin with water, more broth, or creamy it up with half and half or coconut milk.

Ladle into bowls, grate fresh pepper on top and drizzle with fruity olive oil. Serve with crusty, rustic bread and a crisp cabbage salad.

Aromatherapy

February 5, 2020February 5, 2020katejerome2020gmail.comLeave a comment

You can certainly have your lavender (I love it too) and your patchouli. But when I need scent to make me feel better, I turn to the kitchen. There is nothing as uplifting as the aroma of sauteeing onions in butter. It smells delicious and reminds me of happy times in my grandmother’s and mother’s kitchens. It is the great beginning for just about anything savory and tongue pleasing.

Minced onion and garlic sauteed in a little olive oil and a touch of butter brings a simple green like spinach to something sublime. This is a wonderful dish all by itself, but can also be added to soups, stews, risotto, eggs………only limited by imagination.

One of my favorite breakfasts:

Spinach and Avocado Toast

(called tartine if you want to be fancy – a tartine is a slice of bread with a sweet or savory topping.

1 medium bunch spinach, coarsely chopped

¼ onion, chopped finely

1 T. olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

2 slices whole grain bread

Grainy brown mustard

2 oz. your choice of cheese

½ avocado (optional)

spinach toast with avocado and sriracha sauce

Sriracha (optional)

Saute onion and spinach in olive oil until the spinach wilts. Salt and pepper to taste. Toast bread, spread with mustard and pile on spinach and avocado if using. Top with cheese. Broil until cheese melts.

Creamy Mushroom Soup

December 9, 2019katejerome2020gmail.comLeave a comment

If you are a mushroom fan (believe it or not, some are not), this is a delectable, warming way to use just about any kind of mushrooms.

Vitamins galore

Packed with over a dozen minerals and vitamins, including copper, potassium, magnesium, zinc and B vitamins, mushrooms also contain antioxidants which help protect cells from damage and reduce chronic disease and inflammation. Also, mushrooms contain Vitamin D, the only produce that does, and you can increase that amount by setting your mushrooms on the windowsill for more sun exposure.

Immune system, depression

If you look up mushrooms and the immune system you’ll find all sorts of research showing how different types can boost your immune system, lower cholesterol, decrease anxiety and depression, improve sleep and clear brain fog. We’re not talking magic mushrooms here – just the culinary ones that are readily available.

Roasted mushrooms lend an even deeper flavor

Mushroom varieties

The standard white mushroom is perfectly acceptable, but you can give the soup added flavor with portobellos, shiitakes, or any other wild mushrooms. The only one recipe doesn’t work well with is the puffball – they are simply too mushy when cooked this way. Serve with whole grain crusty bread and a fresh salad for a complete, easy meal.

Creamy Mushroom Soup

3 oz. mushrooms sliced
½ medium onion diced
1 clove garlic minced
2 T. butter
2 c. chicken stock
¼ c. white wine
1 medium russet diced
½ c. heavy cream
Salt and pepper

Sauté mushrooms in 1 T. butter; set aside. Sauté onion and garlic in remaining butter until soft. Add stock, potatoes and wine and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until the potatoes are soft, 20-25 minutes. Add half the mushrooms to the pan and puree with a stick blender. Add remaining mushrooms and cream. Warm but don’t boil. Serves 2.

Vegan option:

Replace the chicken stock with vegetable stock. Replace the heavy cream with coconut milk. Saute in olive oil.

Ugly Fruit

November 26, 2019katejerome2020gmail.com3 Comments

Let’s be honest – none of us is perfect. Including the vegetables we so carefully nurture in our gardens. But why shun the forked carrot, the split beet or the knobby tomato in favor of their more perfect counterparts? If a peach has a bruise, can’t we just cut it out and enjoy the rest of the peach?

Food waste is an international issue, and one of the best ways to help stop food waste is to shift our thinking to accepting imperfect vegetables and fruits in our own kitchens and at our tables.

I’ve recently become acquainted with a wonderful organization called Bounty and Soul (https://bountyandsoul.org/), whose mission is to get food and nutrition and wellness education into everyone’s hands and to build community while doing it. I get to help out with cooking demonstrations and food distribution at their markets.

Every week I see wonderful smiles as people from all types of life walk away with not only free food, but information on nutrition bringing the food to their tables. Much of the food is donated by local farmers, markets and groceries, and the truth is that it’s not the picture perfect produce you see in the grocery store. It is all perfectly serviceable and delicious, just not perfect in appearance.

The French started a national campaign several years ago called “The Inglourious Fruit.” It was a public relations campaign to get French citizens to slow food waste by purchasing and eating those fruits and vegetables that are not perfect. These were discounted in grocery stores and markets, and the campaign was a huge success.

There is a new website from which you can order imperfect vegetables and fruit and have it delivered right to your door. Check out https://www.imperfectfoods.com/ for great information on food waste, not to mention access to wonderful produce. Their slogan is “Eat Ugly With Us”.

For my own resolution to reducing food waste, I’ve started keeping all my vegetable trimmings and am using them to make a delicious broth for soups. As I trim vegetables for a meal, I make sure to wash the leftovers well (getting all the dirt out of the onion top), and then throw them in a bag in the freezer. Once I have a bag full of not-so pretty beet greens, carrot tops, leek greens, parsley, mushrooms stems and cilantro stems, I put them in a slow cooker along with the remains of tomatoes and a few garlic cloves. I cover with plenty of water and let simmer twelve hours or so.

Once it’s done, I either strain the broth, squeezing out all the liquid I can, or I puree it (depending on what vegetables I’ve used). With a seasoning adjustment, this becomes the base for a delicious, nutritious soup. You can use it right away or freeze it for later.

My other favorite way to save the uglies is to make a batch of “glut” where everything goes in to roast and then gets pureed for a pasta sauce or spaghetti sauce base. This is the perfect way to use all of those tomatoes toward the end of summer. You can add any other vegetables and herbs you have an abundance of. It will taste a little different each time, but that’s the fun! Because it is milled, you don’t have to core the tomatoes or peel anything. Simply make sure everything is washed well.

6 lbs. tomatoes, quartered (or for an eggplant-based sauce, substitute eggplants)

1 ½ c. coarsely chopped carrots, tops and all

1 ½ c. coarsely chopped celery

1 ½ c. coarsely chopped onion

9 gloves garlic, chopped

6 T balsamic vinegar

1 bay leaf

1 ½ T fresh thyme, oregano, basil, parsley

1 ½ t. salt

1 T. pepper

Roast 45 minutes or until vegetables are soft. Run through a food mill, bag and freeze. Makes 2 quarts. Use for pasta sauce, over fish or chicken, or use as a base for chili or minestrone.

Pumpkins and squash

November 11, 2019katejerome2020gmail.comLeave a comment

The nip of frost in the air and the smell of wood smoke outdoors are sublime companions to the scents of cinnamon baked apples and nutmeg-laced butternut squash in the kitchen. This is the perfect time to raid the last of the farmers’ markets and pumpkin farms to pick up the end-of-season bargain squash in every hue and flavor. Load the car with pie pumpkins, buttercups, Turk’s turbans, blue hubbards and kubochas.

Storing squash and pumpkins

Winter squash and pumpkins can be stored for months in a cool basement if you wash them with soapy water and dry them well. Store on wire racks in a cold room. A basement that stays in the 50’s is just about the right temperature.

Pumpkins are king

Pumpkins are the kings of winter squash. Pumpkin pie made from fresh pumpkin is unlike anything you’ve ever tasted, and pumpkin is also delicious when baked and mashed like potatoes. Look for small pie pumpkins, cheddar pumpkin, Cinderella pumpkin and pink or green pumpkins.

Easy to bake

Although often daunting because of the size, all it takes to bake most winter squashes is to cut them in half and invert them on a rimmed cookie sheet. You can remove the seeds before baking, especially if you want to toast the seeds, or you can bake with the seeds intact and remove them after baking. They come out more easily this way.

Bake for an hour or so at 350 degrees, depending on the size of the squash. Serve with butter, brown sugar, maple syrup or stuffed with whatever sounds luscious. All winter squashed are cooked the same way, and can be interchanged in almost any recipe.

Freeze it

The cooked flesh freezes well, and if you measure it into freezer bags in one cup batches, it’s ready to pull out for use whenever the mood hits to make muffins or squash bread. Or soup!

Spaghetti squash

Spaghetti squash is a little different in that when it is cooked, you can separate the flesh into strands that really do resemble spaghetti. The “spaghetti” is delicious with a little butter and parmesan or even spaghetti sauce. And it doesn’t have the high calories of pasta.

My favorite recipe of the season is squash or pumpkin soup, flavored in any number of ways.

Easy Squash Soup

small butternut squash, pumpkin or other winter squash
1 c. chopped onion
2 t. oil
5 c. chicken or vegetable broth
2 T. molasses
1 t. curry powder or 2 T. red curry paste
¾ t. salt
1/8 t. cayenne or more to taste
⅔ c. half and half or coconut milk
Sliced red sweet or chili peppers for garnish

Mix onions with oil and spread on pan around squash. Roast at 425 45 minutes or until tender. Scoop out pulp, measure about three cups, and add with rest of ingredients to heavy pot. Bring to boil and simmer 5 minutes. Puree in blender and return to pan. Add half and half or coconut milk and warm until heated.

Serve with a drizzle of Sriracha or coconut milk, sliced red chilis, crumbled crisp bacon if you have meat eaters in the house, or chopped parsley or cilantro if desired.

                                                                                ©Kate Jerome 2019