Simple Split Pea Soup

We recently spent the weekend enjoying copious amounts of indulgent, delicious food and (plenty of) drinks while celebrating a friend's wedding here in town.  On the heels of such debauchery, a simple meal was required.  The following 'recipe' is really just a simple way to put together a few ingredients that are easily stored in the kitchen for a quick, healthy and filling meal. 

In addition, this makes an excellent Friday meal for those observing Lent....

Ingredients:

• 1tbls olive oil
• 1 medium shallot or small onion, finely chopped
• 1 medium garlic clove, minced
• 2 cups split peas, rinsed and picked over
• 4-6 cups of water or low-sodium chicken or vegetable stock
• ~1 tsp salt, divided
• ~1 tsp freshly ground pepper, divided

Directions:
1. In large pot over medium-high, heat olive oil and add the shallot or onion with about 1/2tsp salt and 1/2tsp pepper. Saute until transparent, about 5 minutes.  Then add the garlic and saute for a minute or so more.
2.  Add the split peas and 4 cups of the water or stock, and bring to a boil.  Once boiling, reduce heat, cover and simmer for about 45 minutes, stirring periodically.  You may need to add additional water/stock if the peas absorb it too much.
3.  Once cooked, adjust the flavor with salt and pepper to taste and adjust the consistency with additional stock or water as you like. 

Serve with a good crusty bread (try this one) and if you like, sprinkle with pecorino or parmesan.  Also, I often make it very thick so we can scoop it over a bowl of rice.  Yum!

Shallots here.  I prefer them for their sweeter and more delicate flavor vs. the mighty onion.

Ready!

Kickin' Chicken Soup (naturally gluten-free!)

I should have realized when I was craving soup for three beautiful, sunny days in a row that I was getting sick.  Sun means grilling usually, but not this week.  Soup is usually a winter thing for me, but I couldn't get enough of it.  Miso soup, lentil soup, and then chicken soup.  I love easy soups like this one because they are fast, you can't mess them up, they are totally versatile, they are a great way to use up misc. veggies on hand and they are so light and rewarding.  Plus, Mia loves soup, so it is a great way to pack lots of good nutrients into a quick meal for everyone. 

Easy Chicken Soup (Feeds 2 bigs and 1 little)

2c chicken stock (homemade is best, but otherwise low-sodium)
2   chicken breasts (you could easily substitue tofu or pork or whatever here)
1   celery stalk
1   small zucchini
1   medium carrot (we didn't have any on hand this night, but chicken soup is always best with carrots!)
1c cooked rice (brown preferably) or pasta of your favorite shape
1t  pesto or other fresh herbs (optional)

Directions:

1.  Cut chicken and all veggies into roughly the same size- about 1/2 inch pieces ('cubes' if you must use that word to describe food).  Add the pesto or herbs here if you like.
2.  Bring chicken stock to a low boil and add celery and carrots.
3.  Meanwhile, in seperate pot, bring a quart or so of water to a boil, then put chicken in and cook for ~3 minutes to poach lightly; drain.
4.  Add poached chicken to broth with veggies (keeping at a low boil) and cook for a minute or two.
5.  Add the zucchini and cook for 2 minutes
6.  Add the rice or noodles and cook for another minute then salt/pepper to taste before serving.
7.  Ladel into bowls and maybe top with some pecorino or parmesan for good measure.

Obviously this is always best with a good bread to accompany it.  Let's not kid ourselves, bread needs gluten to be delicious.  However, Great Harvest Bakery makes some pretty good close seconds (especially the one here in West Seattle) and most health food stores will have GF options if you need them. 

Note:  The listed veggies were just the ones we had in the fridge.  You could use anything you wanted to here....  corn, mushrooms, onion, edamame, beans, peas......

Note:  For Mia, I usually toss frozen peas in her bowl, then the soup cooks them just enough while the peas cool the soup

Note:  If the thought of prepping your own chicken tonite doesn't work for you, you could buy a rotisserie chicken at the store and shred it, then just toss that in at the end with the rice/pasta.  The broth would lose some of the delicious chicken-ey flavor, but sometimes the trade is worth it to not touch raw chicken, right?

Basque Red Bean Soup

An amazing recipe and post just in from the amazing Miss Katie M. Read on........ 

I Married a Beige-atarian.

Some people marry vegetarians, I married a Beige-atarian. He only eats things in shades of beige: meat, pasta, potatoes, yogurt, pork, chicken, rice. Ocasionally, he'll throw in something orange (gasp!) like mac n cheese. So, it really surprised me that he told me that Basque Red Bean soup is one of his all-time favorite meals. I worked at a Basque restaurant in high school, and it was the signature item, everyone loves it. The recipe I've adapted was the closest one I could find to the real thing. I have to admit that it's delicious. I just have to make sure I don't let him see what's in it...

Basque Red Bean Soup - Recipe adapted from http://everything2.com/title/Basque+red+beans

Ingredients

• 2 cups dried small red chili beans
• 8 cups beef stock, I used the boxed kind
• 2 large carrot, diced
• 1-2 garlic cloves
• 2 bay leaves 
• 1 medium green bell pepper, diced
• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 leek, white and tender green parts, diced
• 2-3 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
• ½ pound Basque chorizo, diced (don't use mexican chorizo)

Method

Put the dried beans in a large bowl and cover them with water. Let them soak for four-ish hours. Drain and rinse the beans.
In a big stock pot, mix the beans, stock, carrot, bay leaves, pepper, and onion. Note: If you have a food processor, you could run all the veggies through that. They are pretty much undistinguishable when the soup is done because they cook down completely. Bring it all to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Simmer for 90 minutes.
Add the leek, potatoes, and chorizo. Simmer for another 30 minutes. If you can find it, use Basque Chorizo (cured), but don't use raw mexican chorizo. If you can't find the Basque version, try a Portuguese linguisa. At the end of the cooking time, the soup will thicken up.

Let the beans cool, and then cover and chill them in the refrigerator overnight. The next day, reheat them just before serving. Don't forget to remove and discard the bay leaves. Serve it up with a Fred Meyer baguette (it's the best one around) or sourdough. This serves a lot of people, I'd say at least 6.

All the ingredients. Look at the size of those leeks!

Getting ready to add the beans.

 Meat and leaks added. Soup is still thin and looks stringy because of the leeks. The leeks will completely disentegrate later.

The soup gets really thick and delicious. The longer it sits the better it is.

Adrienne's white bean chicken chili (soup)

I always look forward to the soups that Miss Adrienne cooks up and I always want the recipe afterwards.  This was no different.  I am very much looking forward to her Tortilla Soup this winter and I am already trying some corn-desensitivity training as I plan for it.  Anyway, the other day we got to enjoy more of her delicious soup as we celebrated the hubbin's birthday.  What I especially loved about this chili recipe was that it was less 'stew-like' and more 'soup-ey'.  This leaves much more room for delicious bread (gluten-free, of course) and birthday treats!  Soup is so great for freezing leftovers and having healthy, easy dinners weeks later when you need a night off from cooking.  Even better- look at how simple it is to make! (serves about 4 bigs and 2 littles)

Adrienne's Soup recipe:

1T olive oil

1 small onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2lb chicken breast, cut in 1/2in pieces and cooked

1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped

2 (15 oz) cans white beans, undrained

1 (4 oz) can diced green chiles

1/2tsp ground cumin

1tsp chili powder

1 (14 oz) can chicken broth

2T lime juice

2T minced fresh cilantro (or 1T dried) I usually omit it altogether since i usually have all the other ingredients, but around here cilantro is a specialty item

(Editor's note: Cilantrophobes unite!  I can only assume that by 'specialty item', Adrienne meant 'gross'- I assure you this soup does not suffer from it's absence)

In a large pot, heat olive oil. add onion, garlic and red pepper. saute 5 mins.

Stir in white beans, chilies, cumin, chili powder and broth. bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes. stir in chicken and simmer 5 mins. 

Stir in lime juice and cilantro (if you must).






Finished in the Pot.  Yum!


I might even add some celery in with the onions and pep next time for some bonus texture.  Or maybe some zuke just before serving.  Of course we added a touch of pecorino or Pepper Jack just before the spoons!



A final editor's note:  We had it again for left-over's tonite.  Much of the broth was absorbed into the beans and whatnot, so I added some more broth and put in some diced zucchini as I heated it up.  The fresh zuke was a nice contrast with the heat of the soup.  Just enough to make it seem like a slightly different dish for two days in a row.  So tasty!