Cauliflower Pesto Soup

Cauliflower Pesto Soup (page 210)
served with a simple green salad and creamy Italian dressing, and whole-wheat cheezy garlic dinner rolls.

So this was super duper yummy! It has great flavor and texture, and once again, it was totally easy. It's basically a matter of throwing ingredients in a pot, letting them simmer a bit, and then pureeing the results with the fresh basil.

Fun fact about this soup: there are only 50 calories per serving! I guess that's entirely possible, since it's based on cauliflower, which is a naturally low calorie food. So, theoretically, you could eat the entire pot of soup for only 200 calories. That's a lot of soup.

The final product was not quite as intensely green as I had expected, but it was still a nice, light and appealing green color. The toasted pine nuts were a nice finishing touch. Another fun fact: Bulk pine nuts at my neighborhood H-E-B cost $27 per pound! It's a good thing you only need a couple of tablespoons for this recipe.

The girls were a fan of this soup also. To round out the meal, I made a simple green salad and quick whole-wheat cheezy garlic dinner rolls.

So far, one of the most valuable takeaways for me from Appetite for Reduction has been the amazing nature of cashew-based creamy dressings. For tonight's salad, I whipped up a simple creamy Italian-like dressing, with cashews, water, a little red wine vinegar, onion, garlic, and Italian seasonings. Yum.

Anyone interested in my quick dinner roll recipe? We think they are really quite good, and they are the perfect addition to a soup and salad type meal. Also, they are about 100 calories per roll.

Mix together in a bowl:
2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon granulated garlic
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons yeast
1 1/2 cup warm water

It'll be a little sticky. There should be enough dough to fill a lightly greased standard muffin pan (12 pieces). Let rise for 20-30 minutes. If you like, lightly sprinkle the tops with more nutritional yeast or a mixture of vegan parmesan (1 tbsp) and paprika (1/4 tsp). Bake at 375F for 15-20 minutes. Yum!

Tortilla Soup

Tortilla soup (page 208)
garnished with crumbled blue corn tortilla chips, and chopped cilantro and jalapeno

Alright, so I made a few modifications to this recipe. I know my way around tortilla soup; I've made plenty a pot-ful in my lifetime. Admittedly, I have never before made Isa's recipe exactly as it is written, but I believe my modified version is probably, dare I say it... better than the original.

First of all, instead of using two jalapenos and one poblano or bell pepper, I used two poblanos in the soup, and saved the jalapenos for garnishing at the table. I wanted to keep the soup relatively mild for the kids, and let the adults add spice as desired to individual bowls.

Probably the most important modification I made, in terms of flavor, was to roast the peppers. I just set them on the burner grate over my gas flame, giving them a turn every now and then with tongs, until they got nice and blackened all over. Then, I scraped off the blackened skin (mostly - I left little bits here and there for flavor), chopped them up, and proceeded as usual. I added the peppers to the pot after the onion had cooked, since they were already somewhat cooked by the roasting process.

Finally, I used a few crumbled up stale corn tortillas to thicken up the soup, instead of crumbled tortilla chips.

I left the rest of the recipe pretty much intact with no other changes. The result: delicious and satisfying!

Arabian Lentil & Rice Soup

Arabian Lentil & Rice Soup, page 206

After breaking triple digit temperatures here every day for over a week (nine days in a row, I think?), it finally cooled off a little. Today, it was only ninety-nine degrees Fahrenheit. I wore a hoodie and made some soup.

This was really easy to put together with simple ingredients: red lentils, brown basmati rice, and few other staple ingredients. The only chopping required was for the onions, garlic, and carrots. The end result was flavorful and hearty, without being heavy. With both lemon zest and lemon juice, the soup had a lovely bright taste that paired well with the cumin and coriander seasonings.

This recipe made a lot; I think I may try a few additions with the leftovers, something green, perhaps, like spinach or peas, and a sprinkling of chopped fresh cilantro.

Bistro Broccoli Chowder

Bistro Broccoli Chowder, page 204

El Hombre was the biggest fan of this chowder. He said it had a really good chowder-y taste to it, and that the seasonings were good.

I had a hard time deciding if I really liked it, or not, and why. I haven't cooked very much with parsnips before, so maybe I'm not a fan of parsnips...? I think perhaps I'd like this better if I replaced the parsnips with cauliflower, and the rosemary with some fresh basil instead.

The girls gave mixed reviews. SweetPotato was not into it at all. SweetPea at least finished her bowl, but I'm not sure that I can say she liked it.

And now I have a few more parsnips leftover in the fridge... any suggestions on what I should do with them?

Ceci-Roasted Red Pepper Soup

Ceci-Roasted Red Pepper Soup, page 200

It wasn't exactly soup weather today (98F? Really??), but this soup still managed to hit the spot tonight. This recipe received favorable reviews from the entire family; in fact, the girls both went back for second helpings. I love super (souper?) simple recipes that pack a powerful flavor punch, and this one certainly did just that.

I made a few modifications to the recipe, which actually made this recipe even easier and faster to put together. First, I totally cheated and used a jar of roasted red peppers, instead of roasting my own. Also, I didn't have any fresh tomatoes to chop up and toss into the pot, so I used a can of crushed tomatoes instead. I figured this would be fine, since the tomatoes are expected to break down anyway while simmering in the pot. Finally, we have a ginormous rosemary bush, so I used fresh rosemary instead of dried (two tablespoons of chopped fresh in place of the two teaspoons of dried herb). Fresh herbs are always superior in taste to dried, anyway.

The soup turned out quite tasty. I never would have thought to combine coriander and rosemary in the same dish, so that was interesting and I was pleased that it worked so well. I will certainly make this again, especially since the kids enjoyed it so much.

Lotsa Veggies Lentil Soup

Lotsa Veggies Lentil Soup, page 198
with a whole-wheat Carrot Spice Muffin

This was one of those really easy throw-stuff-in-a-pot-and-call-it-soup recipes. I love those kinds of recipes. Especially when they turn out yummy.

Now, I've made my fair share of lentil soup before. Who hasn't? But this recipe is different from my standard lentil soup fare for a couple of reasons. First, it calls for French, or du Puy lentils, which I had never cooked with before until I made the Upside-Down Lentil Shepherd's Pie. These lentils are different from regular ol' lentils; they are a bit firmer, and they don't cook down to mush quite as quickly. The texture is good and hearty. Also, Isa calls for tarragon in this soup recipe, which is an ingredient I don't normally keep stocked in my pantry. The tarragon is nice, though; it adds a different dimension to lentil soup that I haven't quite had before this recipe.

While the soup simmered away on top of the stove, I had time to whip up some whole-wheat Carrot Spice Muffins from the FatFree Vegan Kitchen, which were the perfect complement to the soup.

I also loved all the veggies in the "Lotsa Veggies Lentil Soup." In addition to the amount of zucchini called for, I used an extra zucchini squash that was hanging out in my refrigerator. The more the merrier, as they say!

All-in-all, a superb soup, and a recipe worth hanging on to for another day.