02.06.15 Coconut Curry Sweet Potato Soup

The winter months are long and cold. Laziness sets into your bones. You go to work, it's dark. You come home from work, it's dark. Dinner? What to make? Who knows. Who cares. You just want to get under the blankets and curl up for a night in front of the TV or a good book. You know you need to eat something, but what?

As I've said before, my soup obsession is real. When you're too lazy to grocery shop, soup is the best (and easiest) thing to reheat from frozen.

The other day, I was looking for a coconut curry soup recipe, but couldn't find exactly what I wanted. I decided to wing it and this wonderful concoction came to be!

I wasn't planning to post this, so my measurements are approximations. 
Modify as you wish.

INGREDIENTS:
1 tbsp of grated ginger
1 tbsp of coconut oil
1-2 cloves of garlic, minced
1.5 - 2 tbsp of curry powder
1-2 large carrots
2 sweet potatoes
4 tomatoes, small-medium sized* (I do this instead of diced tomatoes in a can, feel free to use diced)
2 cups of cooked chickpeas
1L of vegetable broth
1 can of coconut milk (I used full-fat)
2 cups cooked quinoa

DIRECTIONS:
*If you have decided to make your own diced tomatoes, prepare them now according to these steps: cut X's in the bottom of each, submerge into boiling water, and wait until the skin starts lifting at the "X". Remove the tomatoes from the pot and peel back the skin - discard the skin. Caution: I burn myself on this step EVERY time. Chop up the rest of the tomatoes, keeping the juices.

Peel and chop the carrots and the sweet potatoes.  Add to large soup pot and set to medium heat: coconut oil, ginger and garlic. Fry for a minute.

Add coconut milk, vegetable broth and curry powder. Bring to a boil.

Add carrots, potatoes, tomatoes and chickpeas. Once it comes to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for about 30 minutes, or until potatoes and carrots are tender.

Blend soup, and add quinoa to the blended mixture, stir and serve.


Voila! One of my favourite soup combinations so far. Bon appetit!

01.11.15 Dairy Free Broccoli, Cauliflower and Potato Soup

I'm not a chef. I don't know how to make special fancy dishes. I mean, I just recently learned how to cook Brussels sprouts. But I like to experiment with new recipes.

I like simple. I like minimal work. I like as few dishes and ingredients as possible.
At the same time, I like to eat dairy free if I can. And I like to eat vegetarian most days.

I've been on a huge soup kick lately. When my boyfriend asked me "when are you making me some broccoli soup?", I figured today would be as good a day as ever to try it out.

By combining a few different Pinterest recipes, I came up with my own version of Broccoli, Cauliflower and Potato soup. Bonus: it's dairy free!

Ingredients:
1/2 head of cauliflower
1 bunch of broccoli (not sure how much in cups. I cut up the whole head I bought from the store)
3 white potatoes
1 tbsp of onion powder
5-6 cups vegetable broth (I eyeballed it)
Salt and pepper as desired

Directions:
Peel and chop the potatoes. Chop the broccoli. Chop the cauliflower.

Add vegetables, vegetable broth, and onion powder to a large pot. Bring to a boil.

Once boiling, reduce heat to medium-low.

Once potatoes are cooked through, remove the pot from the element. If you want your soup to be a bit thicker, you can remove some of the broth at this stage. I didn't do this, so it was a bit runny. I don't mind it either way.

Transfer the soup into a blender.  Blend until smooth. To get through all the soup I need to blend about 3-4 batches. My blender is quite pathetic and needs to be retired.

Once the soup is blended, add salt and pepper as desired. I use no-salt broth so I can control the amount of salt I want to add.

And voila. Serve with crackers, a warm bun, or enjoy it as it is!