WINTER VEGETABLE SOUP-Garnished with cranberry goat cheese and scallions
I enjoy food. I seriously enjoy eating a great meal. How I define a good meal, depends on my mood. Sometimes a slice of pepperoni pizza and an Italian chop salad is a great meal. One of my favorite meals is spaghetti and meatballs–just like my Great Grandma DeFranco used to make–oh, is that ever a great meal!
As the depth of winter reaches in and tries to snuff out my light, I know I need to eat more vegetables. I don’t know if anybody else experiences this, but I know I do.
There are times when I’m going forward with my day, minding my own darn business, when all of a sudden I have a beet attack! Seriously, I crave beets. Not only that, but once I get my hands on some beets, I eat them so fast I have to remind myself to stop and breathe! Obviously, something in my body is craving the nutrients of the beet, and I need to pay attention to it.
Every now and again, I get these little whole food cravings: carrots, curried soups, sauteed spinach with pecans, chard with garlic and crushed peppers, fruit salad, pomegranates, sweet potatoes with butter–the list goes on and on.
In the middle of writing this, I have succumbed to another craving–avocado with oranges and vinaigrette. I just sliced up an entire avocado, chopped an orange, mixed them together and sprinkled them with olive oil, red wine vinegar, and salt and pepper. See? I feel better now.
I was having a vegetable soup craving the other day, and I found a recipe at Epicurious.com that looked quite appetizing. I cooked it last night and served it with my homemade honey wheat bread. It would also be wonderful with a roast chicken dinner.
This soup is vegetarian, but you can replace the vegetable stock with chicken stock, which I did.
Leave off the goat cheese and you have an amazing vegan soup.
Winter Vegetable Soup (Click on recipe name for original recipe)
This soup calls for: 1 c. chopped: turnip, sweet potato, butternut squash, granny smith apple, carrots, and onion(I doubled and added 2 cups of each)
Also, 3 Tbsp olive oil ( I doubled it to 6 Tbsp) 5 cups chicken stock (I doubled and used only 8 or 9 cups) 1/4 cup maple syrup and cayenne pepper to taste. I used 1/2 tsp for the double batch–it was indeed spicy!
I thought buying organic vegetables and maple syrup was going to put me over the top and make the cost too high, but I ended up with enough vegetables to double the recipe! I didn’t double the maple syrup, as I found it sweet enough with the 1/4 cup. For less than $12, I had a huge pot of vegetable soup that will last us all week.
I might experiement with this soup by adding curry and coconut milk or cinnamon and cloves.
Of course, no soup is complete without a great loaf of homemade bread!
Allow me to start, by saying, I’m not a fan of wheat bread. I’m a white bread gal. Seriously. I’m trying to acquire a taste for wheat bread because I’m told it is so much healthier than white bread. I’m not about to give up my Artisan bread or baguettes, Italian bread, or any white bread for that matter. I am, however, open minded, and I have wanted to try this bread recipe every since I watched the documentary, “How to Cook Your Life”. I went right out and bought The Tassajara bread book too!
This is the first Honey Wheat bread I’ve ever loved! I’m not kidding, I love this stuff. Now, granted, I did add two cups of regular white flour–yes, I know that is cheating, but there is a whopping 6 cups of whole wheat flour in this recipe as well.
These babies were bursting out of my large bread pans!
The next day, it still sliced and tasted beautiful!
Want to see the Tassajara Wheat Bread process and read the extensive instructions with photos? Click below…
Continue reading Winter Vegetable Soup and Tassajara Honey Wheat Bread…
ABOVE: Mark pointing out the mussels to Sean and Olivia.
More chicky butts than faces in this photo, but they were trying to stay warm until we set up the lamp!
Ciabatta Bread looks like a fluffy slipper–it is flatter than a regular loaf of bread.
