African Coconut Curry Soup

Ok so I know I haven't been living up to my 'Healthy Eats' portion of my blog lately... I apologize. I think I may have mentioned this months ago, but with school being pretty busy I haven't been all that creative when it comes to making dinners. I often just make an easy favourite of mine and call it a day. And frankly, it's sooo much more fun to come up with a yummy dessert on my time off than a full dinner.

I have ALSO noticed that taking pictures of food that is not pretty, or frankly just ugly, is fricken hard!! And I'll be honest, this soup isn't that pretty looking. I'm sure if I had superior photography skills and a decent camera I could get it to look nicer, but with what I'm working with, this is the best that I could do. With cupcakes, I can take a dozen photos and each one will look good (well- sometimes), but with this soup, I had to take picture after picture, and I'm still not happy with the end result.

Regardless of how this soup looks though, it was delicious, and something that you could seriously whip up in 10 minutes. I couldn't get enough of it, and was so disappointed when Sean reminded me that he's not a fan of curry and wouldn't be trying any. Oh well, his loss!

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons canola oil

1 medium onion (about 6 ounces), chopped

1 medium red bell pepper (about 6 ounces), chopped

1 jalapeño chili, seeded and finely chopped (optional, I did not use any)

2 large cloves garlic, finely chopped

4 cups vegetable broth. divided 

1 (15-ounce) can chickpeas, rinsed and drained

1 can diced tomatoes

2 teaspoons mild curry powder

1/4- 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley

1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste (I added more than this) 

black pepper, to taste

1 (14-ounce) can light coconut milk

3/4 cup cooked white or brown rice

 

Directions:

In a medium stockpot, heat the oil over medium heat. Add onion, bell pepper, and chili (if using) and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and stir frequently to prevent burning for 1 minute. Add 3 cups of broth, chickpeas, tomatoes, curry powder, parsley, salt, and black pepper; bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat and simmer gently for about 10 minutes or until vegetables are cooked.

 

In the meantime, cook rice as per directions on packaging. Use the remaining 1 cup of broth to cook the rice in, and if more liquid is needed, top up with water.

 

Once rice is cooked and soup has finished simmering, add the cooked rice and coconut milk; heat through until everything is nice and hot and ready to serve.  

Source: slightly adapted from The Tropical Vegan Kitchen, found through Epicurious. Pin It

Carrot Curry Soup with a hint of Coconut

This picture really does not do this soup justice. I LOVE this soup. It is SO tasty, SO easy, and SO healthy (well maybe not SO healthy, but it is all veggies!). I love curry. Or at least I think I do; my experience with curry really has been pretty limited to the few dishes I've made with the spice, and I'd like to make a distinction that I haven't actually had a 'curry' dish, if you know what I mean. For example, when people say 'let's go grab some curry' in the noun sense, rather than eating a dish with the spice in it. I hope I'm making sense. The point of what I'm saying is that I love curry, but I really haven't tried it too much, so maybe I don't like the real curry as much? Whatever.

This soup is really very easy. Half of the ingredients are tossed in first to soften with some oil, and the other half are added when the liquid goes in. Everything is pureed in the blender to create a beautifully smooth soup, and then it's reheated and some coconut milk goes in for a special kiss of flavour. I just love it so much. I will let you know though that the soup is on the thinner side, so if you like a thicker soup perhaps don't add as much liquid, or you could even add some flour in before adding the liquid. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients:

2 1/2 large carrots, chopped
1 med-large onion, diced
2 celery stalks, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
2 teaspoons vegetable oil (or whatever oil you have on hand)
1 heaping tablespoon curry
pinch of cumin
2 medium potatoes, diced
4 cups vegetable stock (or for those meat-eaters, chicken stock works)
1 cup water
1/3-1/2 cup coconut milk
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
Heat a dutch oven or large saucepan on medium high and add oil to heat. Add in carrots, onion, celery and garlic and cook until softened, stirring occasionally to prevent burning, about 8 minutes. Add in the curry and cumin, and stir until fragrant. Add in the potatoes, vegetable stock and water. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat until simmering and cover with a lid. Simmer the soup until all the vegetables are tender, about 25 minutes.

Remove from heat and let cool slightly before blending**. Once cooled, blend the soup until smooth. You may have to do this in 2 portions. Return to heat and bring to a quick simmer. Add in the coconut milk and salt and pepper to taste. Serve when hot. Enjoy!

**I don't know if you've ever made the mistake of putting piping hot liquid into a blender and blending it, but if you have, you know that it almost always equals a disaster. Something about the hot liquid makes the blender explode, and so at least twice before that I can think of my kitchen has been covered with unusually bright red or orange liquid of some kind. Not just my kitchen, but usually myself as well, and when the liquid is hot it can really burn you. Not fun. You don't need to cool it completely, but when you do blend it make sure that the lid is closed tightly and wrap a towel around the top, just in case.

Source: A Sweet Treats & Healthy Eats original

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Edamame Vegetable Soup with Wasabi Cream

Well I must admit, this soup doesn't look overly special in the picture. In fact, I figured that it would be pretty much like any other vegetable soup, with the exception of edamame beans and tofu. But there's something special about this soup; I think it comes in the form of sesame oil and soy sauce- they put a unique and lovely Asian spin on the soup. I thought about omitting the tofu, as I'm not a huge fan, but I'm glad I didn't. The recipe calls for medium-firm tofu, which was purchased, but in reality it was pretty soft. As a result, the tofu almost melted in my mouth and had a silky smooth texture, which was really lovely! Ha ha buttt there was a little blip in the radar. You see, I walk to work most days, and I also bring dinner most days. So from carrying my container of soup in my purse to work, the soup did not look like this picture by the time I got to work. Because the tofu was so soft, it kind of broke up and dissolved. The taste was still the same, but the broth looked creamy with a few tofu chunks. It was odd. I'm not going to lie, it threw me off at first, but then I got over it because it tasted so good!

Super easy, the whole thing takes maybe half an hour to make and cook, and it's nutritious. Now, as you can see in the picture, there appears to be no wasabi cream on top of the soup. That's because I didn't make it. I can't really handle spicy foods, and I'm definitely not into wasabi. However, I've included the recipe for the wasabi cream so that if you're into it, you can try it out!

Yield: 6 to 8 servings
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 carrots, thinly sliced
2 stalks celery, thinly sliced
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
4 cups vegetable broth
2 cups water
1 zucchini, thinly sliced
1/2 red pepper, diced
2 tablespoons sodium-reduced soy sauce
1 1/2 teaspoon grated fresh ginger or equivalent in dry
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
Half package medium-firm tofu, drained
1 cup frozen shelled soybeans (edamame), thawed

Wasabi Cream:
1/2 cup sour cream
2 teaspoon minced fresh chives, green onions or fresh parsley
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon wasabi paste

Directions:

For the wasabi cream, mix together sour cream, chives, lemon juice and wasabi. Set aside in refrigerator.

In a Dutch oven or large saucepan, heat olive oil over medium heat and fry the carrots, celery, onion, garlic and pepper, stirring occasionally, until softened. This should take about 8-10 minutes.

Add broth, water, zucchini, red pepper, soy sauce, ginger and sesame oil; bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until carrots are tender, about 8-10 minutes.

Cut tofu into 1/2 inch cubes. Add to soup along with soybeans and simmer for 3-4 minutes.

Serve in bowls and top with wasabi cream.

Source: Canadian Living; The Vegetarian Collection
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