How about a nice bowl of cheery orange-colored soup to warm your tummy on a cold winter night? I only recently began to appreciate soup, having been too lazy to properly appreciate it in the past — soup isn’t often stick-to-your-ribs fare and I’m pretty side-dish impaired, as far as getting out bread or making a salad to go with the soup.

There are two kinds of soups that tickle my fancy. If they meet one of these two criteria and are vegetarian, I’ll likely try them, no matter what the ingredients. One is the all-day kind. Prep everything in the morning or the night before, and the whole lovely melange of vegetables and broth putters away in a crock pot or on a stovetop all day. The other is the quick kind. From cookbook to table in an hour or less, the quick soup earns its flavor not from slow simmering infusing the vegetables with flavor, but more from shots of spice that deliver a quick punch.

This winter soup is of the latter variety; a thick purée resembling nothing other than a carrot or sweet potato baby food, it’s chock full of grown-up flavors like ginger and cumin that blend together in silken bliss. You’ll certainly get a perk-up of summery beta carotene from this soup, whose vegetables straddle an epicurean line between apples picked from autumn trees and carrots pulled from warm late-summer soil, and hearty ingredients pulled from winter storage.

It satisfies winter’s comfort-food cravings while delivering a whisper of the autumn just lost.

winter soup of carrots, lentils, apple, and sweet potato

I use an immersion blender for in-the-pot puréeing. It’s a zillion times more convenient than the conventional method of pouring the soup into a blender in batches and puréeing that way. However, If you don’t have an immersion blender, feel free to purée it in a blender or try it chunky. Recipe adapted from Allrecipes.com

prep: 20 minutes
to table: 60 minutes
servings: 6
special equipment: immersion blender

1/4 cup (4 tablespoons) salted butter
2 large sweet potatoes
3 large carrots
1 apple
1 onion
1/2 cup lentils, any variety
1/2 teaspoon minced fresh ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon paprika
4 cups vegetable broth
plain yogurt, for garnish (optional: destroys the vegan-ness, of course)

Peel and chop sweet potatoes, carrots, and apple. Chop the onion. You’ll be puréeing this later, so it’s not necessary to be super-precise.

In a large saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the onion and cook five minutes, until translucent or nearly so. Add chopped sweet potatoes, carrots, and apple and cook another five minutes.

Now dump in everything else (except the yogurt, of course): Stir in the lentils, ginger, black pepper, salt, cumin, chili powder, paprika and vegetable broth. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat, cover, and simmer about 30 minutes, until the lentils and vegetables are soft.

With an immersion blender, purée the soup until smooth. Serve garnished with a healthy dollop of plain yogurt. You may garnish with sour cream if you like, but I’ve tried both and the yogurt tastes better and melts into the soup better when stirred in.

© Amy for Shiny Cooking, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: apples, carrots, ginger, lentils, sweet potato

I know, I know, you’re just antsy for that currant chiffon pie. Because there are no recipes for currant chiffon pie in existence (Google tells me so) I had to tweak from recipes for inferior fruits like lemon and orange. As a result, the first pie (yesterday) was good, but I decided it could be better, and I just shoved the adjusted-recipe version into the fridge.

In the meantime, comfort yourself with a nice, healthy salad. Ha ha.

There’s this gigantic, wizened old apple tree in the front yard. This tree is so ancient no one remembers what kind of apples grow on it, only that they’re tart, ripen really early, get soft quickly, and make good applesauce. As a result, not much usually gets done with them.

At the same time, the second planting of kohlrabi is coming ripe. You know what kohlrabi is, don’t you? Here’s my lovely aunt Linda holding one up for professional photography. You know it’s professional because the wind was blowing so hard this was the only place the leaves weren’t being twisted into even more alien shapes I put the gas tanks and grain bins distractingly behind the kohlrabi on purpose. *nods* (Also, she cherishes her anonymity on the Internet, but she never gets to read this, so let’s not tell her, shall we?)

Everyone seems to think it’s some mystery vegetable. I always had it growing up, so that surprised me. What? Your life experiences differ from mine?

Kohlrabi likes cool temperatures, produces 1 bulb and 1 bulb only, and that above ground. That’s it. It blows its wad making this one not-very-big chunk of vegetation that tastes a bit like cabbage and jicama, and a bit (only a bit) sweet.

what do i do with this green-tentacled space alien?

To prepare kohlrabi, pull off the stems and cut off the root, leaving the bulb. I’m told the leaves may be cooked like other greens but I’ve never tried it.

Now peel off the green outside. It’s soft and not very deep. The end of the kohlrabi near the root tends to get woody, especially near the outside, and especially on kohlrabi that have been neglected and allowed to grow a tad too big, like this one. See the area in the bottom of the pic where the kohlrabi flesh looks stripey and a bit yellower? That’s going to be tough and woody, and you may as well cut it off unless you’re really hurting for fiber.

One the kohlrabi is peeled, you can cut it up however you want. I like to cube it for straight up snacking, but for this recipe I sliced it thin and then cut it into matchsticks.

You know, I like how coleslaw kind of mushes up the cabbage a bit when it’s been made for a day or two. I decided I don’t like that mushing effect with this salad, though. If you like your apples and kohlrabi to have a nice crunch, plan on eating this the same day.

The black pepper, of all things, brings out the apple flavor in this salad. I don’t know why, but that bit of spice in the creamy honey yogurt makes it swoon-worthy.

kohlrabi and apple salad

You may want to put your apple bits in lemon water or sprinkle some Fruit Fresh on them if they’re prone to browning like the ones I used are. I.e., if they brown as you’re cutting them.

prep: 20 minutes
servings: 4

1 large kohlrabi or 2 small, peeled
1 large tart apple or 2 small, cored
1/2 cup plain yogurt
juice of half a lemon, or 2 tablespoons
1 tablespoon honey
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/8 teaspoon salt

Julienne the kohlrabi and apple. You can use a mandolin or do it manually. If doing manually: Slice the kohlrabi and the apple thinly, then stack slices and cut into matchsticks.

For the honey yogurt dressing:

In a medium bowl, whisk together the yogurt, lemon juice, honey, pepper, and salt. Toss in the julienned kohlrabi and apple, and mix well. Let sit 10 minutes before eating to allow the flavors to mingle.

The kohlrabi and apple salad will keep in the fridge, but as it sits, it will soften.

Variations: Grate the kohlrabi and apple instead of julienning. Use cabbage or jicama in place of kohlrabi.

© Amy for Shiny Cooking, 2009. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: apples, kohlrabi