Winter warmer soup

Well ... yes, it isn't officially winter yet, but it is *so* damn cold outside! And yet, there isn't enough snow in the mountains! Where's all the fresh powder, huh? *grumble* *grumble*

Cold weather often brings nostalgic cravings for warm and cozy food - a cup of piping hot chai (like Nags' daily drink :)), yummy onion pakoras, my mum's rasam or maybe a bowl of thick soup replete with late fall flavors!

Well, the last is what I settled for, especially with all the yummy bread left over from the Daring Bakers' Challenge. An old favorite cookbook - the Complete Encyclopedia came to the rescue here with a fabulous sounding smooth soup - just the ticket to warm the soul!

The original recipe called for potatoes and turnips - well, the bread was teeming with potato flavors, so I chose to skip that. And I was sans turnips, so that was out too! Instead, I went with some extra parsnip and some garlic.

Winter Warmer Soup
Perfectly legal on a cold fall day! :)

Servings: 4

2 carrots - chopped
1 large parsnip - chopped
1 medium onion - chopped
4 cloves garlic
1" ginger
1 T olive oil
1 t red pepper flakes
3/4 cup of milk
1/3 cup yogurt
freshly ground pepper
salt
1 t fresh lemon juice
a handful of chopped basil

Heat the oil in a stockpot and lightly roast the vegetables (other than the ginger) along with the red pepper flakes for about 3-4 minutes.
Once you can smell the roasted veggies, especially the parsnip (trust me, you can! :)), add about 1 cup of water and cook partially covered on low for about 20 minutes.
Strain the veggies (retain the water in the stockpot) and puree them along with the ginger in a food processor.
Add the puree back into the stockpot and mix it with the residual water.
Add the milk, heat gently and stir for about 2-3 minutes.
Take the soup off the stove and stir in the yogurt along with the pepper, salt and lemon juice.
Stir in the chopped basil before serving.


A few slices of the potato bread topped with tapenade was the perfect accompaniment to this yummy winter soup. I used a couple of variations here - one was to use minced olives with bell peppers and feta cheese. The other one was chopped eggplant, zucchini and peppers marinated lightly in an olive-oil/wine vinegar reduction.

Happy! Very Happy!

I think Kalyn will like this for her current Weekend Herb Blogging event - basil is always a favorite - especially with all the cultural associations. I love memories of the tulsi plants in our backyard - my mum would do the puja for it everyday while my sis and I nibbled on the leaves! *so* delicious :)


This soup is totally in honor of Bindu - a true reminder of all the fall days we spent together eating, talking and hanging out.

Roasted vegetables + Spicy polenta = close to perfect meal

I could term this a perfect meal, but nothing's perfect, right? :) Wait, the last post was about a perfect seafood meal ... hmm, guess that was just marred by the totally imperfect picture!

I've kind of rediscovered The Complete Cookbook in the last few weeks - this is one of my oldest cookbooks and I've used several recipes from it, but it seems like I've also skimmed through a lot of other truly mouthwatering recipes. As I was flipping through the pages yesterday, this roasted vegetable salad totally caught my eye - it seemed like another of those "let's get into Fall" recipes and we had most of the workings for it :) Turned a few more pages and we stumbled upon a polenta recipe that seemed like a good match.

The veggie salad called for parsnips along with dutch potatoes, onions and carrots - Hmm ... no parnsips! We just went with a bell pepper and some pearl onions instead. Worked pretty well, especially with the killer dressing we made for it!

Roasted Vegetable Salad

5 baby dutch potatoes - halved
20-25 pearl onions - soaked in hot water and peeled
4 carrots - cut into 4" long strips
1 green bell pepper - quartered
2 t poppy seeds
1 T olive oil
a few pieces of brie

Toss the vegetables in the olive oil and bake uncovered in a greased pan at 400 F for 50 minutes. Once the veggies are done, toss them with the poppy seeds and set back in the oven for 5-7 minutes. This browns the poppy seeds a bit and makes them even crunchier.

Dressing:
========
1/3 cup orange juice (the pulpier the better)
1 T horseradish paste (dijon mustard would work too, but we liked this flavor better)
1/4 t thai red chilli paste
1 t sesame oil
kosher salt

Whisk all the ingredients together and toss with the vegetables. Top with the brie once these are laden onto the plates.


We started working on the polenta as the veggies were being roasted. Again, the original recipe called for leeks, but we didn't have any on hand. So, we went with a bunch of green onions instead - a worthy substitute!

Spicy polenta with green onion topping

1.5 cup of cornmeal
6 cups of water
1 t garam masala
1/2 t chilli powder
1 t cumin seeds salt
3-4 oz fontina cheese - finely cubed
7-8 green onions - chopped

Saute the green onions in about 1/4 t of butter and set aside.

Once the water boiled, we poured the polenta in a fine stream, stirring constantly to avoid lumping. Well, we didn't avoid it - but we worked at it with a vengeance till it got smooth again. Phew! Stirring polenta is such a pain! But this was worth the effort. We tossed in the spices and kept stirring - about 20 minutes till it was finally done. I doled it out on a plate - kind of like a mound and topped it with the green onions and a few cubes of fontina. After the stirring workout, it tasted delicious! :)

Chowder?

What could be better than a bowl chowder to welcome fall? Though I'm not quite ready to admit that summer is over as yet (I'm still hitting the farmers' markets seeking out summer vegetables!), nothing quite like a chunky corn'n'leek chowder to embrace autumn!

Seriously, this is one of my best soup recipes *ever*. I pored over my Soups book hoping to find the perfect chowder recipe that I could use with the leeks and tomato from my veggie patch. Hmm ... couldn't quite find the right recipe, so I morphed several ideas together and came up with this:

Fiery Leek and Corn Chowder

6 leeks (small)
corn kernels scraped off from 2 ears of shucked corn
3-4 cloves of garlic
1/2 green bell pepper - finely chopped
1 medium ripe tomato - peeled and chopped
3-4 thai chillies - sliced lengthwise
1/3 cup of nonfat milk
some chives

Chop off the greens from the leeks and cooked them for 3-4 minutes in 1/2 cup of water. Once wilted, puree these along with the tomato pieces and half of the corn kernels. Chop the rest of the leeks and saute in 1/4 T of butter - I've noticed that just a teeny bit of butter brings out the smell and flavor of leeks so much better than oil! Throw in the garlic, thai chillies, bell pepper and the rest of the corn. Cook for about 4-5 minutes before adding the leek-tomato-corn puree. Cook covered on low for about 10 minutes after seasoning with salt. Finally, simmer the chowder for 1-2 minutes after throwing in about 1/3 cup of milk.


Hmm ... seasoning? Snipped chives from my veggie patch :) And a few gratings of oaxacan skim cheese. *wow*! Seriously, this was the perfect way to welcome fall! The chowder was warm and comforting, yet had a zing to it courtesy of the thai chillies!