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Moroccan Red Lentil Soup w/Arugula
6 servings Prep time plus cooking time: 45 min. (Easy)

Ingredients
3 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 medium onion chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. ground cumin
6–1/2 cups vegetable stock
1 cup dried red lentils
1/2 lb. arugula or fresh spinach, washed and roughly chopped
salt & pepper

Method
Reserve 1 tbsp. of the olive oil. Heat the remaining 2 tbsp. oil over medium heat. Sauté the onion and garlic until translucent, about 5 min. Stir in the cumin powder and cook 2 min. Add the stock and the lentils and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer 20 min. until the lentils are soft, but not disintegrating. Add the arugula to the soup, and cook 2 min. Season to taste with salt and fresh ground pepper.
Serve the soup with 1/2 tsp. of the remaining olive oil drizzled on the top of each bowl.

I am on a ridiculous soup binge at the moment. I find myself making 2 and 3 batches of soup a week! Somebody stop me!

Anyway, here are some:
Black Bean & Roasted Red Pepper Soup
Corn Chowder
Loaded Baked Potato Soup (Skip the bacon)
Sausage Bean and Barley (Sub fake sausage or omit altogether)
Butternut Squash Tortilla Soup (My current favorite - Sub barley, farro or rice for the chicken)

curried coconut anything:

saute onion, garlic & ginger -- add whatever veggie(s) (water or veggie stock) you like -- add a can of coconut milk and then puree the veggies when cooked (i use either cauliflower or butternut squash)... then a garnish the heck out of it -- noodles, cilantro, spinach .... scallions -- oh i forgot to tell you, i use the green thai curry paste - as hot as you can stand it.

it's a very 'loose' recipe and can be applied to just about any vegetable or chicken soup -- just make sure you add that ginger, garlic, onion thing...

You could check out the recipe index for the Spanish soup Caldo Gallego. I loved it but I did not use the bacon and I used kale.

I make soup every sunday from whatever is in the fridge, leftovers make great soup and its a wonderful way to use up produce that is starting to show its age. Since we dont eat lot of meat its usually a roasted veggie soup with lots of herbs. You dont need a recipe, just get creative and put in what you like, SO laughs that i could make the same thing 4 times and it would never taste the same.

You can modify this to suit your tastes:

Pumpkin Carrot Soup

1 stick butter
2 onions
2 1/2 cups peeled, cut pumpkin pieces
2 carrots
1 tbs curry
1 tbs Chinese five-spice powder
1/4 cup Thai chili sauce
1/4 cup Dijon mustard
1 quart heavy cream
4-5 shakes black pepper
1 cup sour cream
Dill garnish
Pot of chicken stock

Heat up a large pot with a stick of butter. Add the onions next so that they'll cook at the bottom of the pot and brown a little. Cut some carrots into chunks big enough to go into a food processor and add those to the pot. Add some peeled, cut pumpkin chunks to the pot with a heaping tablespoon of curry, Chinese five-spice powder and lots of black pepper. Last, add your chicken stock (or water base). Now, boil your soup for about two hours. Pureé the mixture in a food processor to your desired thickness and refrigerate overnight.

The next day, while you are heating your soup, add sour cream, Thai chili sauce, Dijon mustard and a little salt and pepper into a bowl and mix. Pour a quart of heavy cream into your soup while it's heating and add some salt. Pour the soup into individual servings (if your soup is still too thick, try adding some water), then add a dollop of the sour cream mixture and a handful of dill garnish to each bowl.

*From Cookin' In Brooklyn - Alan Harding*

I love soup!! Recently I've been making minestrone: soften shallots in olive oil and salt, add a couple of cloves of garlic and some thyme, basil, and oregano, add diced carrots, a few tomatoes, vegetable stock, a cup of white beans or lentils, then cook until everything's tender, throw in a handful of whole wheat rotelle and cook until al dente, add a bunch of torn-up mild greens, then salt, pepper, and lemon juice to taste.

Here are links to a couple of other recent soup recipes I've come up with and really liked:
smoky split-pea soup with greens
lentil pepper-pot soup

Creamy Wild Mushroom Soup

Ingredients

2 C. sliced mushrooms (any variety will work well)
1/2 C. heavy cream
4 C. vegetable stock
2 stalks celery, finely diced
1 small onion, diced
2 tsp. ground sage
1/4 tsp. black pepper
Pinch of salt
2 Tbs. dark soy sauce
1 Tbs. butter
1 Tbs. olive oil

Directions

In a covered pot, melt butter and add oil, heat. Add onion and celery. Sauté until soft. Add mushrooms, salt and pepper. Turn down heat and cover, allowing the moisture to escape from this mixture for about 15 minutes. Add the vegetable broth, soy sauce and sage. Simmer 5 minutes, test seasoning, and add salt, pepper and/or sage as needed. Pour into a blender or you can use a food processor (even a hand blender will work well) in two batches. Process until desired consistency (I like mine to have little chunks of mushroom, so I process less time). Place in a pot, add cream and heat through, but do not allow boiling. You may want to check seasoning once more, since you added a new ingredient. Serve with a little drizzle of cream in a spiral, cut through from center to edge. This makes a fancy spider w eb-like design. Serves 4.

Hillary
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