Eggplant and Tomato Soup (more comfort food for fall....)

The theme with all of my recipe posts seems to be that I am trying to use up the veggies that come pouring in from my CSA. In this case it was eggplant --and one can only eat so much eggplant. I mean I love it fried and smothered in cheese and sauce but since my body no longer agrees with that dinner (my digestive system is all that was your gall bladders job girlfriend, if you try to make us do that we will make you pay!) I need to find another way to use eggplant. Much to my chagrin, I don't really like it minus the fried cheesy saucy goodness.

What I have found that I love about making soup is that it is hard to screw up and you can pretty much just dump stuff in a pot (aka cleaning out my fridge). It also freezes well, so I am not stuck with all the freezer burned veggies in January that  I lovingly tried to freeze correctly during the summer. Plus it is something I can throw in the crock pot, let reheat all day and come home to dinner. A dinner my toddler likes because it allows her to dunk things. Boom. It makes me feel awesome all around.

I originally saw this recipe on Smitten Kitchen. (Which is a pretty awesome blog for really cool and
different recipes, although reader be warned most of them, while super delicious are not health recipes. Seriously the pictures alone will make your mouth water. So pin the super awesome dessert or grilled cheese ones for one of your cheat meals for sure!)  You can link to the original recipe here -- but this is what I did (my version involves much less measuring and more dumping and of course no dairy. Since I have found that processing diary was also part of my gall bladder's job description.)

Ingredients --

2 medium sized eggplants

tomatoes (in this case I used 2 large tomatoes and a handful of grape tomatoes I had on hand)

1 sweet onion

Garlic (in this case I used 2 heads of garlic but I love garlic so you can adujust this based on your personal relationship with garlic)

Olive oil

Balsamic Vinegar

32 ounces of vegetable broth

Turmeric

Salt to taste


Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

Chop eggplants onion and tomatoes in half  and place them on a large cookie sheet or two. (Or if using grape tomatoes just toss them on the cookie sheet.) Also add the garlic.

Drizzle veggies with olive oil (I used a Misto to spray my veggies with olive oil) and I splashed them with balsamic vinegar.

Place in the oven and let roast 40 minutes to an hour (they should be slightly browned and tender.) I did add my garlic 20-30 minutes in so it wouldn't burn. With that said, I have also forgotten to roast the garlic and just add it to the pot later. Either way it turns out fine.

Allow the roasted veggies to cool enough to touch. Skin the eggplant -- the skin should peel right off.

Toss everything in a large soup pot.

Add the veggie broth and any spices you want to use. (I think the beauty of this soup is that you can add whatever spices you love. I have been obsessed with turmeric lately so I just dumped some in.)

Bring the soup to a boil. Turn down and let simmer for 45 minutes to an hour.

Allow it to cool slightly and puree. (You can do this in batches in a food processor or use an immersion blender. Side note -- I love my immersion blender and use it daily.) This is where I usually taste test and add salt or any other spices I feel it needs.

Super easy and really yummy. It is one of those soups that is perfect for a fall or winter night with some really good bread. (I mean what is soup without good bread?)

I had a big bowl and packed the rest away in the freezer for later.

I have actually made this recipe twice and have varied the amount of tomatoes each time (based on what I had to use up. The only difference being it just tasted more like a yummy tomato soup the more tomatoes I put in -- makes sense. But you still get the benefits of the eggplant. (For more info on why eggplants rock check this out.)

Cucumber and Avocado Soup (and how green soup makes me feel super healthy)

I get a CSA every summer. And I love it. I get boxes of farm fresh just picked this morning veggies every week. Veggies and fruits that ripen on a plant and not in a warehouse. Super awesome deal.

But my husband travels for work all summer and I am a lazy cook when cooking for just myself (and a toddler who sometimes seems to survive on air and frozen peas.) Lots of the time these wonderful farm fresh veggies begin to fill up my fridge to the point where they are taking over. When I am dodging stray ears of corn when I open the door, I typically start googling for what I can make that will use up a lot of veggies and freeze well (until my husband gets home with his very large and uncomplaining appetite!) and this time it was soup to the rescue.

This time I decided to try cucumber soup. I found an awesome recipe from Eating Well (which you can check out here.) Having only ever really eaten cucumbers raw as snacks or in salads, I was a little hesitant to cook them (what if something weird happens when you cook them? If they were good cooked wouldn't more recipes called for sauteed cucumber? I mean how often do you ever see that?)

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the only bizarre thing that happens when you cook cumbers into soup is that they are delishous. This soup was amazing -- I may actually buy extra cucumbers from my CSA this week so I can make more of this soup.

So here is what I did ---

What you will need:

1 TBS extra-virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
1 TBS white vinegar (the recipe originally called for lemon juice which I didn't have)
4 cups peeled, seeded and sliced cucumbers
32 oz vegetable broth
1 1/2 avocados, chopped
1/4 cup fresh parsley
salt and pepper to taste*

The original recipe called for everything minced or diced. Since I knew the soup was going to be pureed, I just roughly chopped everything. (I told you I was lazy...)

Heat the oil in a large pot. Add garlic and onion and cook until tender, stirring occasionally.

Add vinegar and cook for 1 minute.

Add the cucumber, broth and avocado and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat and cook until the cucumbers are soft (between 5-10 minutes)

Transfer the soup to a blender or use an immersion blender to puree the soup. Salt and pepper to taste.

*The original recipe also called for a dash of cayenne pepper. Since I don't do spicy I always omit this kind of thing. But for those of you who love the heat, it might be a nice option.


It was delicious (even if the color is a little strange.) Not what I expected at all but really good. I actually packed it up for lunch the next day since the recipe said it could be served chilled. But it wasn't great. Room temperature or warmish was the way to go with this one! (With some yummy bread of course!)

What To Do With All This Sweet Corn (you know you live in Western PA when this is a problem!)

So maybe it has to do with the fact that I am getting over some sinus and respiratory stuff but I have been craving soup like crazy. It is all I have wanted to eat (with some yummy bread to sop it up, of course! Who eats soup without bread?)

I have also been overloaded with corn from my CSA (community supported agriculture - you should
totally look one up and join. It's awesome.) My fridge is completely full of sweet corn and it is getting out of control. I have no where to put any other food and when I move something it all rolls around and it is getting silk everywhere (you know it's summer in Western PA when your floor is covered in corn silk ALL the time.)

In order to address my soup addiction and get this corn out of my fridge, I decided to goole some corn soup. I mean it has to exist, right? Somewhere people eat this? The idea of a creamy bowl of pureed sweet corn sounded amazing to my aching sinuses. (Maybe I will find something to fill the void that Panera's Broccoli and Cheese soup left in my life -- and yes with a bread bowl. Hello this girl, in love with bread. It's kind of an addiction.)

*Google*

And yes, it does exist! There are actually a lot of recipes for sweet corn soup, much to my suprise. But I didn't anticipate how much of a pain it was going to be to make. In my head I was going to cut it off the cob. Cook it up. Add some broth and whatever else it called for and then use my fancy immersion blender to make it all smooth and awesome.

Generally, things don't seem to turn out the way I picture them in my head. Ever. (You would think I would have learned that by now.)

Almost all of the recipes I found wanted me to grate the corn off the cob to make a mushy mess of corn puree. Well I knew what kind of mess that would be. Corn juice all over my kitchen and a starchy mess all over my hands (plus the possibility of some scraped fingers.) I don't think so. This was the perfect instance to use my immersion blender for something other than my daily Shakeology. Look at me being versatile in the kitchen and making good use of my appliances. (And apparently so much smarter than the 400 people that have probably made this before.)

So I cut and sauteed and cooked and added broth and coconut milk. My house smelled awesome. And I blended, dodging flying hot lava soup when the blender got too close to the surface of the pot.

Then I tasted. And the taste was awesome. What was not awesome....the corn skin left in the pot even after I blended forever. So I blended more. Still corn skin. And I tried to convince myself it wasn't a problem. That it made it more authentic and corny to have the skins in there. That it gave it a more palatable texture. And it was all lies! All of it. I could not justify leaving the corn skins in the soup and I was not happy with what I knew had to happen next. (Why didn't I listen to all the people who grated their corn. Messy hands are so much easier to deal with than the straining of the corn skins.)

So I busted out a strainer and put it over a large pyrex measuring cup and ladled. Ladle-full by ladle-full I strained, using the back of a spoon to work the liquid through the strainer. Ugh. Talk about boring and time consuming but it was well worth the effort. The result was creamy and yummy corn goodness. If you are a corn on the cob lover (borderline obsessed) then this is a masterpiece in a bowl.

I froze two jars of my liquid corn gold and promptly enjoyed the rest for dinners (with some really good toasted sunflower whole wheat bread! yum!) while my sinus yuckyness cleared up.

The original recipe I found here and adapted it to meet my non-dairy preferences.

So this is what I did:

1 or 2 TBS of olive oil
10-12 ears of sweet corn - kernels removed*
1 medium sweet onion
3 small shallots
32 ounces veggie broth
2 cans coconut milk
3 TBS water
2 TBS arrowroot
Salt (to taste - I used Himalayan salt)
White pepper (to taste)

In a large pot saute the olive oil and onion and shallots.

When they are almost translucent, add the corn and cook for five more minutes or so.

Add the veggie broth and let it all come to a boil.

Turn down the heat and let simmer, covered, for about 45 minutes.

Add the coconut milk, stir and allow to simmer for 15 more minutes

Whisk the arrowroot with the water and add to the pot along with salt and pepper.

Strain *

Serve

* Many of the recipes I found called for grating the corn off the cob with a grater so it turns into a puree rather than starting with kernels cut off the cob. After the frustration I experienced with straining I recommend this method. Maybe 90% of the people posting recipes for this online knew what they were talking about or maybe I had a really sad strainer that kept getting clogged. Either way - totally your call.

Happy Eats!

Betty Goes Vegan Tacos (my adventures into the world of Tempeh)

After reading many recipes and blogs in the vegetarian and vegan world, I started to become familiar with the things that are used to substitute meat. And out here in the Pacific Northwest, many of these things are available in grocery stores. I can find things like bee pollen, veganaise, tofurky and soy yogurt and cheese (yet I cannot find whole wheat lasagna noodles. *shakes head*) I can also find plenty of substitutes for meat. One that I have heard a lot about is tempeh. I have seed many comments on recipes and blogs from people who aren't too crazy about tofu but love tempeh. So I grabbed some at the store. And it sat in my fridge.

Every time I opened the fridge, the tempeh and I kind of had a I know you are there but I am going to ignore you if you ignore me relationship. Then it got to the point where I had to acknowledge the tempeh by either cooking it or throwing it in the trash. Since I am not a big fan of throwing my money away, I chose to attempt to cook it. My default to attempt anything I know nothing about is to

*google*

*google*

*google*

And those searches brought me to ohmyveggies.com which is a delightful site I was happy to add into my rotation of sites to search for dinner ideas. On there I found a recipe for tempeh tacos and who doesn't love a taco (I actually didn't love tacos for a long time. They totally grossed me out. And then I met Moe's which lead to a love affair with Chipotle which has turned into me making vegan/vegetarian tacos in our home a lot and I am always looking for a variation on the black beans as protein.) So this was how I decided to cook up the tempeh in my fridge. It was starting to dare me, all I know you can't cook me. There is no way you can do this.

The recipe I found was from the cookbook Betty Goes Vegan. While I have read and tried things from many cookbooks, this was one I had yet to pick up (or borrow from the library. Libraries rock!) The blog put in lots of pretty pictures and even made me want to use crunchy shells (I am team soft taco.) My trip to the grocery store that carries weird but not basic things out here lead me to find that they do not in fact carry organic taco shells or hard taco shells. Seriously. So I went with wheat because at least the GMO chance there is lesser (as there isn't supposed to be any GMO wheat but the whole thing with the wheat in Oregon make me skeptical.) So soft tempeh tacos it is.

When I took the tempeh out of the package it was slimy and chunky. It has whole and halved soybeans in it and at that point I was missing the smooth texture of tofu. (And trying not to gag - visually the texture- I just can't.) I started breaking it up into pieces and then all urges to be sick disappeared. I mixed it up with the seasonings and the lime juice added some onion and was done. Super easy. (These are the kinds of recipes that make me all I love cooking. Especially when they turn out awesome and it is something that sounds kind of scary -- like tempeh sounds super intimdating. It makes me feel very victorious inside. It's the little things kids. Sometimes they are what you need to get through the day.)

So I threw it all in a pan until it is heated through (another one of the bonuses of meat free cooking. I don't have to worry about if things are cooked all the way through because someone could die. I just have to heat and serve. Whoop!) Then I threw it all in a warmed taco shell with some avocado and olives (for me and B anyway. John is an olive hater.) Balance out with a green salad with a cilantro lime vinigerette and whala dinner is served.

The link to the original recipe is here. I skipped all the liquid smoke and other things that sounded strange and just used what I had in my pantry. Maybe they would have been better had I included these ingredients, maybe not? I also skip the spicy and rely on John to use his own special blend of 85 million hot sauces that live in my cupboard.

Here is what I did:

For the Filling:

1 8oz package of tempeh
2 cloves of minced garlic
1/2  red onion minced
3 tsp cumin
1 tsp onion powder
2 tsp dried oregano
Juice of 1 lime
salt and pepper to taste
2 tbs water

You will also need:

Taco shells and toppings (I used avocado, pico de gallo and olives)

Instructions:

Crumble your tempeh into a large mixing bowl.

Then mix in the garlic, cumin, onion powder, oregano and lime juice.

Once the spices are well mixed, add the onion.

Drizzle the water in 1 TBS at a time into your mix while stirring.

Taste and add salt and pepper as needed.

Spray a skillet with olive oil  and heat to medium heat.

Add the tempeh mix and stir a few times so it browns evenly.  (About 10 minutes)

While the tempeh is cooking you can warm your taco shells and prep any toppings you may need to prep.

Fill, top and serve.


Once cooked up I really enjoyed the tempeh. It gave the tacos more of a ground meat texture than bean or another meat substitute does. The spices are true to what a traditional taco spice mix would be. All in all it was tasty and I count my trip into tempeh land as a success. (And it might be a place I come back to visit every once in a while. Especially when I am bored with my regular dinner rotation.) I was also so excited to eat my creation that I forgot to take pictures. Luckily, John came home late that night so I was able to play food photographer with his taco creations and I took photos of my leftover tempeh mixture (which was also yummy on a "taco" salad the next day for lunch.)