French Onion Soup Recipe

I've found a new food blogger I really like. I add new food blogs to my reader all the time, and sometimes forget they are there. But then an individual recipe stands out, or I see an amazing picture, and I realise the last three things I cooked are inspired by the same blog. So go see the 99 Cent Chef because it's all easy and cheap and fun.
But maybe I lied a little. When it started to get cold last week, I saw a picture of French Onion Soup on a different food blog - but the recipe was pretty bland. So I took the 99 Cent Chef recipe and tweaked it and it was the best soup recipe in ages, and the best food to be eating as the acorns start to fall and the possums run rampant in the dark.
French Onion Soup
2 Tbs butter
2 Tbs olive oil
6 big brown onions, roughly chopped
1 bay leaf
4 or 5 sprigs of fresh thyme
2 C red wine
1 Tbs plain flour
1L beef stock
Thick slices of crusty bread
1/2 Cup grated cheese
Heat the olive oil and butter gently in a large soup pot. Add the onion, bay leaf and thyme, and stir occasionally, over a low heat, until the onion is caramelised (don't let it brown and stick! it's much better if it just slowly turns to goo). This should take about 30 minutes. Add the flour, cook for another 2 minutes, stirring, then add the wine. When it's gently simmering, add the beef stock and keep simmering for as long as you can wait - or until the soup is reduced by a third. I couldn't wait that long - it smelt too good.
Toast the bread. Pour the soup into bowls, top with toast and cheese and cook under the griller until the cheese is bubbly.
yum.

Soup, glorious soup

I like soup. I've realised that if I take soup for lunch, it's a good thing for my weight. It fills me up, is chock full of vegetables, and generally low in fats and simple carbs. Cheap, tasty, healthy, filling. So I made a big batch of vegetable stock from my new Women's Weekly cookbook.
6 Litres is a lot of stock.
I froze a lot. Some got turned into beetroot risotto (Steve at work said 'who did you kill to make that?'). Some got turned into Carrot and Coriander soup. The last bit got made into Spicy Spinach and Chickpea soup. Steve said, 'Oh yuck! You've blended kermit!'
So just in case you want to pack your freezer with nutritious lunches (or gross-out your workmates) I'm posting my recipe for spinach soup. Yummy, healthy and entertaining.
Spicy Spinach Chickpea Soup
1 small onion
3 cloves garlic, crushed
2 chopped green onions
1 tsp whole coriander seeds
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp cumin seeds
2 tsp chilli flakes
2 Cups vegetable stock
1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2 Cups packed chopped fresh spinach
Fry onions, garlic and coriander in a saucepan, until the onion is translucent. Add the tumeric, cumin and chilli, then half the veggie stock to deglaze the pan. Add the rest of the stock and the spinach, and cook until just wilted. Remove the pan from the heat and use a stick blender to puree the soup. Gently reheat (to much heat will cause it to lose that kermit colour!). Add the chickpeas and stir until heated through.

Taste & Create: Carrot and Coriander Soup

I found a great new food blogging even called Taste & Create. When you register you get a partner blog, and the plan is to cook a recipe featured on their site. I got Chronicles of Culinary Curiosity - a blog that was new to me.
Chronicles is a great blog with awesome pictures, but my first thought was 'oh no, she bakes!' Anyone who's read this blog for a while knows that Ryan makes the bakery stuff. I'm, well, bakingly challenged. Dolores' Blueberry Sour Cream Ice Cream looked much more my speed. But then, I put on 4 kilo's last week, so I thought I'd steer clear of dessert. Finally, I saw a great post about Carrot & Cilantro Soup. This, I could make.
I modified the soup a little (left out the cream and used veggie stock instead of turkey) but I really liked the final result. As Delores mentioned, it makes a great lunch.Carrot and Coriander Soup
1/2 onion chopped
Olive oil
2 cloves garlic chopped
2 Tbs ground coriander
1 Tbs ground cumin
5 enormous carrots
1 bunch of coriander – leaves coarsely chopped and stems tied with string
1L Vegetable Stock
Saute the onion and garlic until translucent in a big pot. Add spices and stir until fragrant, then add the carrots. Stir until coated. Add the stock and the coriander stems. Bring to the boil and simmer, cover, until carrots are tender. Blenderise, add coriander leaves and season to taste.

Roast Pumpkin Soup Redux

I've posted this basic recipe before, but it's the kind of week where I desperately need comfort food. It's also a great recipe to mess with, so this version it has less pumpkin and lots of carrots.

I apologise for the photo - the resident photographer is in Darwin. After I took the photo, I remembered about Lisa's No Croutons Required event. I thought it fit quite nicely.

Roast Pumpkin Soup with Garlic and Rosemary

Half a butternut pumpkin

4 carrots

2 cloves of garlic

1 brown onion

2 sprigs of rosemary

1 litre vegetable stock

Chop and peel everything but the stock. Combine on a baking tray, drizzle with olive oil, and bake in a hot oven for 45 minutes. The vegetables have to be really soft. Put everything in a saucepan, whizz with the hand blender, and heat through. I like serving this with a big dollop of sour cream.

Butter Chicken Soup

This is my entry for the Weekend Cookbook Challenge. It's hosted by $40 a week this time, which also makes a great theme. I haven't been cooking much lately, but I knew immediately which cookbook I needed to dust off.

Ryan gave me Everyday Smart Food for the Family for my birthday last year. Like all the Destitute Gourmet books, it's about really clever food that's affordable. It doesn't have as many pictures as I like, so I don't turn to it often for inspiration. However, every single recipe I've tried has been a winner. This challenge had me trying a few new ones, like veggie samosas - but this soup was the winner. It's spectacularly good, has a very authentic flavour, and is rich without being heavy. I may have been over-generous with the chilli though. Our chilli powder is very hot.

Butter Chicken Soup

Marinade

1 Tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp coriander

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp chilli powder

1 tsp grated fresh ginger

2 fat cloves of garlic, crushed

Soup

1 large, boneless chicken breast (or equivalent weight of boneless thigh meat) marinated

1 Tbsp butter

1 finely chopped onion

1 tsp coriander

1 tsp cumin

1/4 tsp chilli powder

1 tsp grated fresh ginger

1 Can tomatoes, chopped without losing the juice

3 Cups chicken stock

1/4 C basmati rice

2 Tbsp tomato paste

1 Tbsp plain flour

2 Tbsp brown sugar

1/4 cup cream

Natural yoghurt and fresh coriander to garnish

Combine the marinade ingredients in a glass bowl. Cut the meat into small pieces or slice thinly and mix into the marinade. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

To make the soup, melt the butter in a medium suacepan and add marinated chicken and chopped onion. Stir constantly until chicken is sealed and the onion is soft. Add the dried spices and ginger, then stir in the tomatoes and chicken stock.

When simmering pour in the basmati rice, stir, and simmer for 10 minutes. Mix together the tomato paste and flour and whisk this, a little at a time, into the soup. Add the brown sugar and cream, and season to taste. Serve in soup bowls with a dollop of natural yoghurt and some chopped fresh coriander. Provide torn-up naan bread for dunking.

Simple, spicy, sweet potato soup

This recipe is great. It's quick, tasty, and you can substitute pumpkin or carrot for the sweet potato. You can also vary the flavour by experimenting with different stocks, different curry pastes or replacing the coconut milk.
It freezes well, too.
Spicy sweet potato soup
2 Tablespoons Curry paste of your choice (I used green this week)
1 kg sweet potato (or carrots, or pumpkin - parsnip maybe?)
1 L stock
1 can coconut milk (optional, or easily replaced by evaporated milk, normal milk or cream)

Heat the currypaste until fragrant, in a large saucepan. Add the stock and the sweet potato, and boil until the sweet potato is tender. Take the soup off the heat, and blenderise it until smooth (I use a hand blender in the pot, but whatever works). Add the coconut milk and heat through.
Yum.

Mushroom Wonton Soup

It is deep soup weather here. It was negatve 3 last night! Ice on the car, gloves on the hands. I needed hot, spicy comfort food. Anh at food lovers journey also has a beautiful soup recipe - and much prettier pictures than me.

The instructions for making wonton soup are here, thanks to taste magazine. I pretty much followed the wonton part, except I used chopped fresh shitake mushrooms instead of the pork mince. The recipe I want to share is the broth, which is equally good with dumplings, meatballs or wontons. Wonton's are fun though.

Simple Spicy Soup

1L Chicken Stock

2 big tablespoons of fresh grated ginger

Sliced shitake mushrooms

a pinch of chilli flakes

1 star anise

a splash of soy sauce

a splash of fish sauce

fresh coriander

There isn't much in the way of a method. Get the stock boiling, then turn down the heat to simmer. Add everything else, and let it simmer until the wontons are ready! I like boiling the wontons in a separate saucepan, because I like a LOT of wontons. I drain them, add them to bowls and then pour the soup over the top.

Vegetarian Minestrone

My house smells pretty good right now, and it feels lovely and warm. I'm cooking soup. It's the time of year again, when soups and stews seem to be all I feel like. This one's pretty good and based on a recipe from a 1985 cookbook "The Gradual Vegetarian". Not exact, because I never have all the veggies, and I usually have a few extra one's I'd like to throw in.

Meatless Minestrone
220g yellow split peas
1 large onion, chopped
1 large potato, chopped
400g tin of tomatoes
dried oregano, basil and 1 bay leaf
5 peppercorns, 1 clove
3 carrots, chopped
200g baby spinach
1 C green beans, chopped
2 small zucchini, chopped
2 Stalks of celery, chopped
1 can of kidney beans
100 g cooked macaroni

Rinse and drain the split peas, then boil for 30 minutes in around a litre and a half of water. (The recipe book says 2 1/3 1/2 pints of water, but i've no idea how much that is). Add the onion, potatoes, can of tomatoes, carrots and herbs. Cook until the potatoes are soft. Add the rest of the vegetables, cook for a few minutes, then add the kidney beans and macaroni. Cook for 15 more minutes, adding more liquid if necessary.
Very simple. Very yummy.