Nutritious home soups -hmmmm!

[Dannielle]

I love curry in soup, too. One soup in my rotation includes curry powder and cauliflower, onion, celery as a base (lots of cauliflower). Then I toss in whatever other bits of veg I have on hand...turnips, zucchini, rutabaga, carrots, cabbage or some other form of leafy green.

I use cabbage in soup a lot...good fiber and nutrients with low calories. And it's affordable. I don't eat grains (so no noodles or rice...cruciferious veggies add good bulk to a soup) or much in the way of starchy foods (so no potatoes for me either) so my grocery bill can easily spiral out of control with the massive amounts of produce I eat lol. Cabbage (and cauliflower!) help keep it in check.

[limewave]

I should try a cauliflower soup! I bet I would love that. I'm going to put it on my list of recipes. The weather is supposed to start cooling down again towards the end of the week

[OakLeaf]

Haven't made potato soup yet this year, but Deborah Madison's caramelized version is my favorite. You slice onions and potatoes very thin and sauté them in olive oil until there's a nice thick brown crust on the bottom of the pot, then deglaze it with stock and simmer until everything's tender. I like to purée it with a stick blender (pulse so the potatoes don't get gummy) before adding chopped greens, but you can leave the potatoes chunky.


ETA: Speaking of curry, I haven't tried this yet: http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.c...ery-root-soup/ but if I find any celery root at the farmers' market, this is on my list! I try to minimize dairy and I'd expect this soup would be fine without any, but if you wanted the added fat, coconut milk would probably work well with the flavors, or maybe the earthiness of unsweetened hemp milk.

[Becky]

For those of you who own immersion blenders for soup-making: what model/features do you recommend?

[Dannielle]

http://www.amazon.com/Proctor-Silex-...8259105&sr=8-5
I have this cheapie immersion blender and it's served me well for years. I almost exclusively use it for soups. I don't love a totally smooth soup and this suits my tastes perfectly as it's not so powerful that I'm left with baby-food soup lol. I like a "thicker than broth" base with some chunkiness.

For the soup I make with cauliflower/curry I usually add Greek yogurt to my bowl before serving to creamy it up and serve as my serving of protein. It's so good!

[OakLeaf]

Well, my old one just died and I went through all that decisionmaking. The one I wound up with is the Kitchen Aid KHB2351. I'm not 100% thrilled with it (mostly because the blender blade isn't super sharp), but it's okay. FWIW my criteria:

(1) Absolutely necessary -
* Removable blender arm. Trying to clean a cheap immersion blender while keeping the motor part out of the water is just not worth the money it saves IMO.
* Chopper attachment. I use that as much or more than the stick part, for emulsifying salad dressings, making tahini, and grinding certain spices.
* Dishwasher safe attachments. What can I say, I'm lazy.

(2) Highly desirable but I was willing to compromise -
* Higher wattage motor. (The one I wound up with is only 200W, which I had to call Kitchen Aid to find out since it isn't anywhere in the product literature. I would have preferred at least 300W and blenders are available up to 500W.)
* Non-polycarbonate chopper bowl (and shake container if supplied). I wasn't too worried about that from a personal safety standpoint since I don't generally let foods sit in the containers for any period of time, but from the standpoint of reforming the industry, it was on my list.
* Sealed bearings/bushings on the attachments, and two sets of bearings/bushings on the blender arm to minimize wobbling and wear.
* A brand name I trust.

(3) Nice, but not necessary:
* Not made in China. (I gave up on that one. I couldn't find a single hand blender at any price point that wasn't. But if you find one post it here!)
* Whisk attachment. The holidays are coming up, and whipping cream or egg whites by hand is a chore and a half ... still, it's probably better not to have the temptation to burn coal to do those tasks.
* Available from a local merchant.


There wasn't a single blender I found that met all of my points. There were others I strongly considered. Now that I have the KA, I like that it's very quiet and easy to clean, I dislike the dull blade and bulky handle. The mid-range price point I thought was a reasonable compromise.

HTH...

[Dannielle]

yeah it definitely depends on the other gadgets you already have in your kitchen. I have a Ninja blender/chopper (love it!!) and a Cuisenart food processor so my immersion blender needs are minor.

[Becky]

Oak- Thanks for the very thorough list of considerations. It gives me a great place to start my search.

[spokewench]

This is one of my favorites. chop 1/2 large onion, 2 stalks celery, 3 carrots, 2 garlic cloves, saute in canola oil, add whole chicken thighs, chicken broth, to cover, plus a little bit, pepper, bay leaf, 1 can of tomatoes or two-three medium chopped fresh tomatoes. cook till chicken is tender; take the chicken out; shred it and return it to the soup pan. add some chopped potatoes, cabbage (chopped in strips); chard (chopped in strips). When the cabbage and potatoes are tender, let the soup cool just a bit, and add 1/4 cup of sour cream (don't want it to curdle when you add it). If you like a russian flavor, add a little bit of caraway seed when cooking. This is almost a russian borscht recipe. I have been known to add roasted golden beets since they don't turn the soup pink. I've tried red beets, but the pink colored soup kind of turns me off but it really does not ruin the taste. Still tastes good!

Yummy!

[shootingstar]

Mmm, soup! I really love potato based 'cream' soups. Broccoli, sweet potato and mushroom (separately, of course!) were my favorites. Lately though, I've been experimenting with soups that are a little more similar to the Cantonese ones my mother made while I was growing up. The other day, I made a carrot, potato and sweet corn soup in a base that's somewhat similar to Tonkotsu ramen broth, it was delish. Savory, slightly sticky with collagen and full of veggies. Mmmmm...

I'm not as enamoured of a soup with potato in it. This might be due to having grown up on non-cream, non-potato soups as a kid. Dearie might occasionally throw in a potato but to me, it seems to leach the sweetness out of a ie. squash soup or other types of soups. Though with leek, it would be nice.

Recently he made a kohl rabi dish which required him to lightly boil the kohl rabi before braising it. So I used the kohl rabi stock and made a lovely Chinese noodle consomme soup with fuzzy melon (savoury melon) and lotus root. See here. It was lovely and with 2 bowls, that was supper! The lotus root, etc. is something my mother occasionally added and works best for consomme soups.

Setting aside consomme soups, pureeing a celery root with squash or with leek, is an intriguing touch. (Roasted celery root is lovely as a side dish.)

Oak: We have a Braun immersion hand blender. (Braun as you know, is a favourite brand of the Germans.) Of course, it works best if the food has already been softened alot and cut into small pieces.

[OakLeaf]

Oak: We have a Braun immersion hand blender.

They don't make those in a 110/120V North American version any more.

[carlotta]

I love making soups! Especially when I have all day around the house and I can take my time and build flavors in it...there's nothing like a pot of stock simmering away and making the apartment smell good

I made one yesterday that's sort of an Italian-ish soup. Started with the chicken stock--chicken carcass/bones, celery, onion, garlic, carrot, parsnip trimmings, fennel tops, pepper corns, bay leaf.

Once that was done, I sauteed some good pancetta with onions, red bell pepper, fennel, carrots and parsnips until everything was a little carmelized, then added a can of diced tomatoes, a can of cannelini beans (wish I would've taken the time to cook those from dry...the canned ones were lacking in the texture department), and all the stock, simmered for 30 minutes or so, then added a big pile of shredded kale.

Made some pesto with the end of my basil, some parsley, cheese, walnuts, garlic and olive oil and stirred a spoonful of that into my bowl....mmmmm! And I have a massive container of leftovers for us to eat this week

[jahnin24f]

I love soup out of veggies and minimal spices. Just a plain sweet, little salt and without creamy taste is the best for me.

[itself]

I have a Vitamix, and tried their version of butternut squash soup and it didn't come out so good. Looking forward to hearing more recipes.

[azfiddle]

We tried a new recipe to use up some of the leftovers and broth we made from the Thanksgiving turkey- Caribbean turkey soup

4 cups of stock
1 cup of orange juice
2 cups of diced cooked turkey
1 sweet potato, peeled and diced
1 onion, diced
1 green pepper diced
1 teaspoon cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Chopped cilantro (coriander leaves) for garnish
lime wedges for garnish

Add all ingredients into a pot, bring to a boil then reduce heat and simmer about 20 minutes, until veggies are cooked.

*We didn't have either cilantro or lime, and it was still delicious. I'm sure they would just improve it.