Garlicky Leek Soup Recipe

Garlicky Leek Soup Recipe

This Garlicky Leek Soup Recipe was inspired by my love of potatoes. While there is only a little potato in it, that certain creamy potato flavor is there. The combination of potatoes, leeks, and garlic are more than the sum of their parts – they were made to sing together. Lately, I’ve been on the sub cauliflower for white potatoes in everything train, and I did stir some cauliflower into one bowl of this soup and that was delicious. In this vein (of mashed potatoes) you might top a bowl with a little grass-fed organic plain yogurt. This recipe also has a boost of plant protein with a can of white beans in there. All in all, a nutrient-dense and delicious soup, perfect for a cool spring day.

In my humble opinion, potatoes have gotten a bad rap in the healthy food world. They are rich in fiber and vitamin C, and particularly when you can find smaller colorful purple, red or gold fingerlings – all very worth the space in your garden – filled with disease-busting antioxidants.

Garlicky Leek Soup

In honor of my love for potatoes.
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Total Time 45 minutes
Servings 6

Equipment

  • Soup pot
  • Immersion blender or Regular blender

Ingredients

  • 1 large spanish onion chopped
  • 2 medium carrots cleaned and chopped
  • 4-5 stalks celery chopped
  • 6 large cloves garlic peeled, center stem removed, chopped
  • 1 medium organic potato skin on, chopped
  • 1 Tbsp olive oil
  • 6 cups clean water
  • 3 large leeks sliced and rinsed
  • 2 Tbsp thyme dry
  • 1 15-oz can cannelloni beans (Eden brands is a good choice)
  • 1 small bunch parsley chopped
  • 1 pinch salt and black pepper or to taste

Instructions

  • Place onion, carrots, celery garlic and potato in a heavy soup pot, with olive oil, and simmer over medium heat until vegetables are soft. Add leeks and thyme and stir.  Once you smell the leeks and thyme begin to cook (couple minutes), add water and beans.
  • Turn to medium-low and simmer 30 minutes.
  • If you have an immersion blender, lucky you - blend the soup. If not, use a blender (to minimize accidents, let the soup cool before you blend it). Alternatively, leave it unblended. Add parsley, black pepper and just a smidgeon of salt.
  • Other additions if you so choose:1/2 head cauliflower, chopped. Plain organic grass-fed yogurt.

Potato heads unite!
2014-02-02 07.09.28 2

 

I hope you enjoy my Garlicky Leek Soup Recipe.  For more delicious recipes, visit my Easy Healthy Recipes page.

Hungarian-inspired Mushroom Soup Recipe

Hungarian-inspired Mushroom Soup Recipe

I never met a mushroom I didn’t like, and I’ve had the pleasure of quite a few.  It’s what inspired me to create my Hungarian-inspired Mushroom Soup Recipe.

If you ever get the chance, take a mushroom walk with the Boston Mycological Club(or your local club). They are a perfect collection of culinary, botany and sensation-seeking enthusiasts. When I went, we found baskets full of colorful beauties, then using field guides and spore patterns (the definitive method to differentiate friend or foe from a safe-to-eat perspective), we identified, divided up and took home our bounties for happy times of all sorts.

Gathering mushrooms from the wild is getting ever more popular, but I don’t do it because even though I’ve had some experience with my mycological friends, every year even expert mushroom collectors eat the wrong fungi and that’s it – they can kill you. There are such a phenomenal range of cultivated mushrooms now available, I suggest sticking with and enjoying that.

I love the mushrooms, dill, and sour cream that frame Hungarian mushroom soup. If you can find a good local organic grass-fed sour cream, then by all means, use that (grass-fed dairy has a more favorable lipid profile as well as being easier on the earth relative to its mass-market cousins). If you are dairy-free, you can substitute a bit of soy milk plus an extra squeeze of lemon to approximate the tang you’ll miss from yogurt or sour cream.

Here I’ve aimed to boost the nutrient density by loading up on herbs – both dill and parsley, as well as other vegetables, and lightened it up with yogurt rather than sour cream. I found that when I used this quantity of herbs, I needed to blend the finished product – herbs are so delicate that when they are cooked like this in a soup, they need to be blended or finely, finely chopped or their texture just isn’t what you want it to be.

Hungarian-inspired Mushroom Soup Recipe

I love the mushrooms, dill, and sour cream that frame Hungarian mushroom soup. If you can find a good local organic grass-fed sour cream, then by all means, use that (grass-fed dairy has a more favorable lipid profile as well as being easier on the earth relative to its mass-market cousins). If you are dairy-free, you can substitute a bit of soy milk plus an extra squeeze of lemon to approximate the tang you'll miss from yogurt or sour cream.
Course Dinner, Lunch

Equipment

  • Heavy Soup Pot

Ingredients

  • 1 - 16 oz package organic mushrooms
  • 2 Tbsp olive oil
  • 3 large carrots
  • 1/2 yellow onion sliced & cubed
  • 1/2 medium yellow turnip peeled and sliced
  • 2 cups organic chicken or vegetable stock
  • about 1 cup fresh dill chopped
  • about 1/2 cup fresh parsley chopped
  • 2 Tbsp organic grass-fed yogurt or sour cream

Instructions

  • In a heavy soup pot over medium heat, sauté onions in olive oil until translucent.
  • Slice carrots, and clean and slice mushrooms, and slice turnip, discarding any waxy covering it may have. Add these veggies to the pot and sauté for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking.
  • Add stock and simmer 45-60 minutes.
  • Meanwhile, chop herbs.
  • Add herbs and yogurt or sour cream.
  • If necessary, cool and run through a blender for a smooth and creamy texture.

 

Enjoy!

Looking for more delicious and healthy soup recipes?  I highly recommend my Wild Mustard Asparagus Soup!

Gwen’s French Carrot Soup Recipe

Gwen’s French Carrot Soup Recipe

Gwen Gaillard was the belle of Nantucket’s culinary scene for years. We have a tattered cookbook filled with Gwen’s recipes from her heyday. This carrot soup is one of them, with a little of my own updates and thoughts.

Carrot Soup Ingredients Are So Simple

Carrots, turnips, potatoes and onions are really all this carrot soup consists of. Simplicity. But it packs a grounding sweetness – rooting I should say – of tubers. Perfect for this transitional season of surprising coolness and breeziness, when you get hungry for hearty but don’t want to slide into dough-eating.

We got a beautiful bunch of carrots from the Farmer’s Market in Great Barrington this week, along with a turnip, so it was time to get this one rolling. This carrot soup is a great base for adding a variety of other flavors – toss in an apple, or a thumb-sized piece of ginger, or some spicy peppers for variety. Gwen’s recipe calls for butter, but you can easily make this soup vegan and delicious by simply sautéing the onions in olive oil rather than butter. Easy.

Looking for another delicious soup recipe.  I highly recommend my Wild Mustard Asparagus Soup!

Gwen's French Carrot Soup

Carrots, turnips, potatoes and onions are really all this soup consists of. Simplicity.
Course Dinner, Lunch, Soup

Equipment

  • 1 Saute' pan
  • 1 Soup pot

Ingredients

  • 1/4 large yellow onion sliced
  • 2 Tbsp butter
  • 1 1/2 lbs fresh carrots scrubbed and sliced
  • 1 large turnip washed and cubed
  • 2 large potatoes washed and cubed
  • 2 quarts water
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp peppercorns

Instructions

  • Saute the onions in the butter over medium-low heat.
  • Place the carrots, turnip, and potatoes in a soup pot with water, and simmer over low heat. After a half-hour, add the sautéed onions, salt and pepper.
  • When vegetables are soft, blend with a hand-blender (or a regular blender if need be).

 

 

Wild Mustard Asparagus Soup Recipe

Wild Mustard Asparagus Soup Recipe

Wild Mustard Asparagus Soup Recipe by Annie B Kay - anniebkay.com
Please resist the temptation to spray weed-killer on your lawn as it is filled with nutrition free for the taking. Eat your “weeds” instead! Wild garlic mustard, for example, is considered an invasive weed but is also a nutrient-dense green with a spicy garlic flavor. This green is filled with antioxidant vitamins and minerals, and eating a little something wild every day connects us more deeply to nature.

I love the fact that just when we need to brush out the sludge from that long cold winter, the very tonics we need to help that happen literally spring up under our feet. Dandelion, ramps, wild strawberry and garlic mustard to name a few are everywhere now, and all we need to do is accept the invitation and support to detoxify deliciously.

Here is a nice light green spring soup recipe that I whipped up with the crew of people coming for Detox at Kripalu in mind. And of course, all my friends who are Kripalu Detox alums. Between the garlic mustard and asparagus (which is bursting with glutathione, the mother of all antioxidants and a detox power food) this recipe is made for spring nutrition. Enjoy!

Wild Mustard Asparagus Soup Recipe

Course Dinner, Lunch

Equipment

  • Heavy Soup Pot
  • Immersion Blender

Ingredients

  • 15-20 stalks asparagus snapped into 2-inch pieces
  • 5 stalks celery chopped
  • 2 Tbsp good quality olive oil
  • 1 scallion chopped
  • 15 oz chicken or vegetable stock I used Pacific Natural Organic Chicken
  • 2 cups fresh wild garlic mustard leaves
  • 2 tsp Dijon mustard
  • 1 Tbsp grass-fed butter
  • 4 Tbsp toasted sunflower seeds
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

  • Saute celery in olive oil in a heavy soup pot until soft.
  • Add scallion and asparagus, and continue to saute until vegetables are soft.
  • Add stock, garlic mustard, and Dijon, and simmer medium-low for 15 minutes.
  • Go to it with your immersion blender.
  • Stir in butter until melted and incorporated into the soup. Add salt and pepper to taste.
  • Serve warm, topping each bowl with a Tbsp of toasted sunflower seeds.

Wild Mustard Asparagus Soup Recipe by Annie B Kay - anniebkay.com

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Spicy Corn and Black Bean Soup Recipe

Spicy Corn and Black Bean Soup Recipe

Spicy Corn and Black Bean Soup Recipe by Annie B Kay - anniebkay.com
I love black bean soup, and this recipe loves me (and you) too with nutrient dense vegetables, lime, nutmeg, pepper and chili for a touch of heat. And of course black beans, a fiber-protein power combo. This recipe makes a flavorful thick soup perfect for a snowy day.

I live with an unapologetic carnivore, so the addition of uncured bacon (which at least eliminates nitrites) or turkey bacon vs going for a vegan version (my preference for mind and body) is always a weighty decision. For this go-round, as my husband and I have been doing some happy-lovely bonding lately, it’s bacon!  I used 3 trimmed slices of Applegate naturals uncured Sunday bacon. This recipe would still be thick and flavorful in it’s vegan version if you skip the bacon and sauté the vegetables in olive oil. I also used Full Circle organic vegetable broth as I’m just getting into the soup swing and don’t have my own made yet.

All vegetables are organic – important for these particular veggies as several of them are on the dirty dozen list.

Spicy Corn and Black Bean Soup Recipe

Course Dinner, Lunch, Main Course, Soup
Prep Time 45 minutes
Cook Time 2 hours
Servings 4

Ingredients

  • 3 slices uncured bacon or turkey bacon trimmed of fat and sliced (optional - for a vegan version, sauté vegetables in 1 Tbsp olive oil over low heat)
  • 4 med stalks of celery tops on, chopped
  • 4 med carrots chopped
  • 1 red onion chopped
  • 1/2 spanish onion chopped
  • 1 3/4 cups organic black beans soaked overnight, rinsed several times
  • 2 cups vegetable stock
  • 4-6 cups clean water
  • 1 cup frozen organic corn
  • 1 small bunch fresh cilantro
  • 1-2 tsp ground nutmeg
  • 1-2 tsp fresh ground black pepper
  • juice of 1/2 lime
  • chili pepper heat to taste - I used a Tbsp Sambal Oelek a Thai chili paste - make sure you get one without sulfites if you are sensitive

Instructions

  • Toss bacon into heavy soup pot, add onions, carrots, celery and simmer over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until onions are soft and slightly golden - about 10 minutes. If you are skipping the bacon, sauté the above in a Tbsp of olive oil.
  • Add black beans, stock, nutmeg, black pepper and water. Simmer until beans are soft - 1-2 hours.
  • Add lime juice, corn and half of chopped cilantro.
  • Add chili to taste: add it slowly and taste until you reach desired heat. You can always make your soup more spicy, but once you overdo it, sorry you've got practice in tolerating extra heat.
  • Simmer all for another 10 minutes, top with remaining cilantro and enjoy warm.
  • Freezes well.

I would say the secret to this soup is the flavor combo of nutmeg, lime and chili – yum. What are your favorite ingredients for a black bean soup?
Spicy Corn and Black Bean Soup Recipe by Annie B Kay - anniebkay.com

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