With both cauliflower and carrots in my refrigerator, when I saw this soup prepared over at the TV Food Network, I decided I really needed to make it. Melissa D’Arabian made it sound so good. A friend of hers had served something similar and Melissa worked on the recipe to make it her own. This is a very healthy dish.

Onion is sautéed in olive oil, then you add chopped carrots and chopped-up cauliflower, along with a few red pepper flakes, some lemon zest, ground cumin (one of my favorite spices), a slug of chicken stock, and you let that simmer for about 30-40 minutes until the veggies are tender. I let it sit for awhile to cool down (using my blender with hot food is not one of my favorite things to do). It did take a couple of batches to do it all (actually I made a double batch, using up all of my cauliflower, so it took 3 batches in the blender to puree it all).

After the soup has chilled, add in some yogurt, pour out into serving bowls and top with more salt and pepper, if desired, a large dollop of yogurt, some minced onion, and I added some cilantro just to make it look pretty. It’s delicious. Solid and substantial, but since it’s chilled, it’s very smooth going down.

What I liked: the smooth texture, the coolness of it on a warm, summer evening, the fact that it’s a very healthy soup, can be made ahead. Also loved the cumin in it – if there is a secret ingredient, that’s it. I really liked the silkiness of the added yogurt. It tamed some of the red pepper heat. I couldn’t pick out the flavor from the lemon zest, but am certain it added something.

What I didn’t like: the recipe calls for too much red pepper flakes. I think it needs no more than a pinch, so I’ve changed the below recipe to that effect. A small pinch, if there is such a thing. Since it simmers for awhile, those red chile flakes just permeate the entire pot.

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Maybe I mentioned before, that when I watched the Next Food Network Star last summer, I was rooting for Aarti Sequeira from day one. I was impressed with her good stage presence, her cheery personality, and thought her recipes sounded so interesting and full of flavor. Since her show has been on, I’ve made several and posted them here on my blog already. The other day she was making a cucumber gazpacho – well, really – it’s just a cold cucumber soup. But it has this interesting twist with lychees added into it. Who would have thought?

Since I’m not as inventive about cooking as chefs are, I’ve wondered if, when these TV (or other) chefs or cookbook developers start on a recipe, they have this line of unusual ingredients – let’s say a row of things all lined up on their kitchen counter. Like lychees in a can, anchovy paste, coconut milk, borage flower honey, jarred hearts of palm, Chinese five spice powder, dried figs, peppadew peppers, lemon grass, chili oil and vanilla beans.  And they try to figure out if any of those unusual things could go into a dish to make it really different. You know what I mean?

So, in this case, Aarti’s recipe used lychees. And oh, this soup is a cinch to make. It takes maybe 10 minutes, providing you have some toasted sliced almonds on hand. Otherwise you have to heat the oven and toast those first (about 9-10 minutes at about 400°). The soup is made in a blender or food processor: the cucumber (chopped up), the drained and rinsed lychees, fresh mint, fresh cilantro, some Greek yogurt, salt, pepper, and the toasted almonds. I also needed to add a slurp of water to the container to get it to puree. I tasted it for S & P, poured it into a refrigerator dish and let it chill for a few hours.

It became part of our dinner that evening and I wouldn’t tell my DH what it was – I made him guess, and he was completely baffled. He could see the tiny flecks of green, but he could not figure out what it was. Never guessed cucumber – probably because the lychees give it some sweetness. The nuts give it some finely-ground crunch, sort of, and there’s ample fiber from the pureed cucumber. I’d say it made about 3 to 4 cups of puree. I didn’t measure it, but in small little cups or glasses (I used small espresso cups), it surely would serve 5 or 6+ people. Aarti served this with a toasted baguette slice with some feta cheese and paprika on top. I didn’t do that part, and thought the soup was just fine as it was. I’d definitely make this again.

What I liked: the refreshing taste (from the cucumber), the crunch of the slivered almonds, and how EASY it was to make. A lovely first course for a weeknight or a company meal.

What I didn’t like: nothing at all. It was still delicious two days later too.

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A year ago: Crispy Fried Chicken
Three years ago: Grilled Chicken with Creamy Poblano Red Bell Pepper Sauce
Four years ago: Balsamic Fig Sorbet

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Sometimes, the recipe with the simplest of ingredients can produce the most scrumptious results. This tomato soup can be made in about an hour, with very little effort on the cook’s part, and it’s just full of good, homemade flavor. I do have a recipe on my blog for a really flavorful cream of tomato soup. It’s more labor intensive, and has lots of depth of flavor. This one, though, is easier to make, requires mostly canned ingredients plus an onion and celery stalk. Oh, and some fresh spinach. And it’s really, really good!

When Mike brought it over to us a few weeks ago we tasted it warm and it was really tasty. Then, a day or two later, based on Mike’s suggestion, I served the small amount left over as a cold soup, like a gazpacho. It was fantastic. Almost better than it had been served hot.

Mike has posted the recipe on his own website – he’s a exquisite woodworker – but he has 3 recipes on his website too, this one included. This soup is a winner.

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A year ago: Avocado Caesar Cream
Three years ago: Fiery Feta Dip

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It’s been years since I made a kale soup. I couldn’t remember what it was really called – the kind with potatoes and kale. Once I did a web search I knew it was Caldo Verde, which means green broth in Portuguese. And, based on what I read online, this soup can be as varied as making your own favorite marinara sauce. So it is with Portuguese Kale Soup.

The inspiration for this soup came from a cooking class I took recently with Tarla Fallgatter. I used her recipe and created my own (but based on looking at about 15 different recipes online), and it was just so tasty. Fortunately I didn’t have to make a special trip to the grocery store as I had kale (Trader Joe’s now has straight kale packages). I had a bit of cabbage, a couple of carrots, a can of kidney beans, a chunk of Kielbasa, and I also had some frozen andouille sausage too. Perfect. Chicken broth? check. Onion? check. Potatoes? check. It took no time to put this soup together, although it did take nearly an hour from start to finish. The next day it was even better, as soups so often are! But it was delicious hot from the cooking pot too.

More traditionally this would be served with linguica, the spicy Portuguese sausage, but since I had some Kielbasa, that worked, but then I used a chunk of andouille as well to give it the spicy kick. I also added some red pepper flakes, a bay leaf, some crushed dried thyme and ample salt and pepper.

As it happened I had a chunk of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese rinds on hand. You know, of course, not to throw out those rinds – what’s left of the chunk of good cheese – don’t you? Stick them in the freezer, wrapped well in foil and in a plastic bag and pull it out when you’d like some added character to a soup or a minestrone. Mine actually had a bit of cheese still attached and it melted into the soup with a few little blobs of cheesy goodness. This soup will freeze well too. As I write this (about a week or so ago) it’s super-cold for a mid-May. We’ve had cold nights and rain, so soup was a perfect dinner choice.

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A year ago: Bacon, Caramelized Onion Focaccia Tart
Two years ago: ButterSCOTCH Pudding

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The first time I had posole – when I was visiting Santa Fe, New Mexico for the very first time, I was blown away with the intense flavors. I attended a cooking class in Santa Fe and learned some of the nuances, and about the important New Mexico chiles and/or powder that must be in it. Whenever I see posole on a menu I usually order it. But really, it’s not hard to make, and I think this recipe is as good, if not better, than any I’ve ever had at a restaurant. It freezes well, too, although the toppings must be made within an hour or so of serving.

I made this a couple of weeks ago when we were visiting our Northern California family, and the grandkids could pick and choose which toppings they wanted on their soup. Our 17-year old grandson doesn’t like vegetables, he says. Pushes them around his plate to avoid eating them, and he picked all around the veggies in this soup. Our granddaughter, though, is game for tasting almost anything (thank you, Taylor! – she reads my blog) and she liked this soup and ate it all.

The soup is pork based – this one uses country style ribs. They are slow cooked for a couple of hours, then the mixture (including the broth) gets refrigerated overnight. Now, you don’t have to do that step, but it makes for a healthier soup since you can remove the fat from the meat and the broth before proceeding. The dried New Mexico chiles are an essential ingredient – I hope you can buy them at your local market like I can. Anyway, the chiles are soaked in water for half an hour, then made into a thin puree in the blender (with some added onion, garlic, salt and water).

The actual soup preparation is easy. I actually add some vegetables to my posole. It’s likely not traditional, but this soup isn’t billed as an authentic posole anyway. You can add what types of veggies you like – I used carrots, more onion, and because I had one, I charred a pasilla chile and added that chopped up as well. The hominy, though, is a necessity. Mostly this stew is all about the hominy. You can find hominy in the canned vegetable aisle. You could substitute other beans, but it definitely wouldn’t be a New Mexican style posole that way. If you don’t like hominy, use canned pinto beans instead. Pictured here you can see the big bag of shredded, chilled pork, all ready to be poured into the soup.

The garnishes, though, are what make this dish. Truly they do. You simply must have some corn tortillas chips. You can use packaged chips – or visit your local Mexican restaurant and buy a small bag of their homemade chips if you don’t want to make your own. Do add the finely shredded Romaine lettuce, some diced avocado, radishes (very finely sliced or diced), some freshly chopped cilantro and if you really want to cap it off, serve with a couple of lime wedges on the side of each bowl.

This would make a very fun company meal – especially if you make oodles of toppings to put out. Cheese isn’t traditional, but maybe some of the Mexican crumbly white cheese (queso fresco) would be good too. The finished soup flavor is spicy, but not overwhelmingly hot. The dried chiles add a really delicious depth to the soup, and a gorgeous red/orange color. This soup is really flavorful!

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A year ago: Plum Compote (oooh, that was delicious – try it during plum season)
Three years ago: Iceberg Wedge with Blue Cheese

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In the years since I started writing my blog, I’ve made this chili a few times – the first time in early ‘07 before I started writing a blog. I’d left a comment on Joe’s website about how great this chili tasted. All the credit goes to Joe at Culinary in the Desert (blog), or maybe to Cooking Light, since he says that’s where he got the origin of it. Joe’s recipe uses just ground turkey. I decided to add some pork, but it’s up to you – whatever you’d prefer. Pork is very lean these days, so using half and half is what I did.

What’s different about this chili?

1. black beans;
2. making a home made sausage mixture (using ground turkey and ground pork) with a lot of unusual ingredients in it that marinates in the refrigerator overnight before you make the chili;
3. whizzing up some of the black beans in a blender or food processor to give the chili a kind of black bean gravy consistency. The chili just has a thicker consistency – not that you can see the black beans in the sauce.
4. it’s also quite healthy – there is almost no added fat, and it isn’t missed.

Otherwise, it’s an ordinary chili. But I wouldn’t call the taste ordinary at all. I don’t think I made this in 2010 – I just forgot about it. I don’t know that I even made chili last winter for some reason. We went out to eat one day last week and the cafe had black bean chili on their menu. I ordered it and it got me to thinking about Joe’s black bean sausage chili.

You do need to plan ahead by one day when making this. There is the one unusual step – marinating the turkey/pork mixture with wine, sherry vinegar and all the spices overnight – before you start cooking. Besides which, I don’t keep ground pork in my freezer stash. Or ground turkey either, for that matter. This time I made a huge batch (I quadrupled the recipe, so I could freeze numerous dinners for two, allowing 2 cups per serving) and needed to use freshly prepared meat, not defrosted stuff, which would only get frozen a second time (not good for the taste molecules).

So, once the meat has marinated overnight you cook it with onions, garlic, cumin, oregano, some chipotle chiles, ample black beans, some chicken stock or broth, and at the end you add some freshly squeezed lime juice and top it with cilantro. I added a little blob of sour cream too, but that was just for show. All I can say is yum. When I made it in ‘07, my notes say I topped some English muffins with shredded cheddar cheese, broiled it, and served that alongside the chili.

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A year ago: Beef & Biscuit Casserole (with sweet potato biscuits)
Two years ago: Radicchio Salad
Three years ago: Chinese Meatloaf

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You know, of course, that lentils are a wonderful nutritious legume? Actually, they’re a pulse, but pulses are part of the legume family. They contain about 25% protein, so they’re certainly healthy!

After our fantastic Indian meal in Christchurch, New Zealand in mid-November, I’ve been on an Indian food kick. Can’t seem to get enough of it. I’ve made this red lentil curry, and a black lentil curry too, a cauliflower curry soup, and Indian rice pudding. My DH finally said to me last night, could we have some regular American food? Okay, honey. Maybe. Perhaps I’ll have to go out for Indian food to get my fill of it.

After watching Aarti Sequeira on the Food Network make this, I needed to do it myself. And it’s delicious with the different flavorings in it. (Far right: the spices – turmeric, paprika, cumin seeds and black mustard seeds.) Do be careful about adding too much heat, though – I used more ginger and a whole jalapeno. I shouldn’t have, as it was too warm. So I’ve had to dilute it with chicken broth and make a soup-like mixture instead. My friend Kunda suggested I add some yogurt to it – that always tames heat, especially if it’s dolloped on top, to eat with each bite. This could be a main dish with some bread and a salad. Or, as I suggested earlier, add more liquid and make it into a soup. Or, serve it as a side dish to a grilled meat, perhaps? With the leftover of this one I added some fat-free half and half, some chicken paste (concentrate), and a whole bunch of baby green beans cut up into small pieces. Made a wonderful soup on a cold day.

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A year ago: Wensleydale cheese with cranberries
Two years ago: Chocolate Citrus Almond Torte GF

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Finally, I got myself back in the kitchen yesterday to actually cook, from scratch. As I write this on Tuesday (yesterday when this publishes) it’s been two weeks since we arrived back home from New Zealand, and then all hell broke loose. Dave is improving some every day, although certainly not fast enough for him! His pain meds are his best friend. He’s able to move around the house with no difficulty, including up and down our different flights of stairs. He can shower himself except for drying off his back. And he no longer carries his red heart pillow everywhere he goes, although coughing is still excruciatingly painful. He was having a problem with edema (fluid retention) but that seems to be getting under control now, thank goodness. He’d gained over 20 pounds in fluid, but as of yesterday morning he was back to his normal weight. Dave is a slender man anyway, so 20 pounds on him is a lot. He can’t drive for another two weeks.

So anyway, with turkey leftovers crowding the refrigerator, I pulled out my old tried and true, favorite Southwestern Turkey Chili recipe that I’ve been making for about 15 or so years. Dave told me I made it too hot this time – I didn’t have Anaheim chiles, so substituted one jalapeno instead – so I’ll need to dilute what’s left to make it more palatable for him. It’s definitely a heart-healthy entrée (instead of butter, I used about 2 tsp. of olive oil). I added just the barest smidgen of salt. I didn’t cook up the beans myself, but used canned ones (which do contain sodium). I don’t oversalt things anyway. I always buy light sour cream, and I did use regular cheddar cheese. I don’t like low fat cheeses, so I just use less of the regular cheese instead.  So if you still have some turkey in your refrigerator, do try this if you enjoy the spicy flavors of the Southwest (cumin, chili powder, ground coriander, oregano).

This soup/stew comes together quite quickly once you chop up all the veggies. Vary the vegetables to suit your family’s taste. I use the fire-roasted corn from Trader Joe’s, but plain corn (fresh or frozen or even canned) works just fine too. Use cheddar or Jack, or whatever you have on hand. The sour cream garnish (to me anyway) is a necessary ingredient – it softens the heat and gentles the flavors. And, as always, it’s much better the next day.

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A year ago: how to do a spatchcocked turkey
Two years ago: White Turkey Chili (a different recipe than the one above)
Three  years ago: Apple Parsnip Soup

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On Thanksgiving Day our daughter-in-law Karen brought over a container of this soup for us to enjoy as we all stood around the kitchen cooking. Her sister Janice had made it (thanks!). It was so delicious. She also sent along the recipe (from Cooking Light, 9/2009). Janice uses soy milk, and says that she is able to buy soy half and half. I’d never heard of it until now. Will have to look for it!

This is the kind of soup that sticks to the ribs. Would be great for a cold night, even New Years’ Eve around the fireplace. You could alter the proportion of corn and potatoes to suit your tastes. You’d swear it has bacon in it and there is none. The natural sweetness of the corn just shines through. I’d make this anytime.
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A year ago: It’s December (a list of things I like to bake most Christmases – maybe not this year)
Three years ago: Cardamom Crumb Cake

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Really, I thought I’d posted this recipe ages ago. I’ve had it for years. Have made it a few times. It’s incredibly easy. You can make it in less than 30 minutes. Which is probably why it was one of Rachel Ray’s recipes, although I got it at a cooking class some years ago. It was credited to Rachel, but I could not find this recipe anywhere online, so perhaps the cooking instructor had changed it a bit. Or perhaps it’s in one of Rachel’s cookbooks and not available online.

What’s a stoup, you ask? Something in between stew and soup. A thicker soup than a traditional soup. But not quite as thick as a stew. And I think Rachel Ray coined the word stoup. What makes this one thicker is the addition of 8 ounces of cream cheese. It could be made with ground turkey, I suppose (I use ground beef). And you can use any kind of pasta, really. I used egg noodles this time just because they were the handiest to reach in my pantry. You could use elbow macaroni, or penne, or bowtie pasta. It would be best to use some kind of short pasta – not long noodle type. Just keep that in mind.

First you cook up the ground meat, add garlic, then stock, Italian seasonings, then you add canned kidney beans (or any kind of beans would do – it’s just that the dark kidneys look good against the creamy backdrop of the soup) and canned, chopped tomatoes. Lastly you add in the pasta and cook just until al dente and add the cream cheese. It melts quickly enough if you stir it gently. Serve and sprinkle with fresh basil. Done. Now, wasn’t that easy? It’s all made in one pot. Great for a fall cool evening, I think. It’s almost soup weather around here.

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A year ago: Gingerbread Cupcakes with Lemon Frosting
Three years ago: Drop Biscuits

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