Minestrone Soup

This flexible recipe is a lovely meal all on its own. It’s specially exciting if you have some pesto and croutons to top it.

Ingredients:

2 tbs olive oil

1 onion, chopped

3 or 4 carrots, sliced

2 celery sticks (optional, but add lots of good flavor)

4 to 6 cloves garlic

1/2 cup tomato paste, or 1 cup of tomato sauce, or 3 medium tomatoes, finely chopped

2 potatoes and/or 1 or 2 zucchini or other summer squash and/or green beans, or other seasonal veggies, chopped

2 cups spinach and/or kale and/or turnip greens and/or beet greens or other seasonal greens

1 tbs fresh oregano or 1 tsp dried oregano

1 tbs fresh thyme or 1 tsp dried thyme

2 or 3 bay leaves

8 to 10 cups water and 3 cubes vegetable bouillon or 8 cups liquid vegetable broth

1 tsp salt or more as desired

1 tsp pepper (optional, but cooks in to add wonderful flavor)

1 cup pasta (elbow, rotini or shell pasta works well)

2 to 3 cups cooked white beans (black eyed peas work well, too!)

Optional Toppings—

lemon juice

parmesan or nutritional yeast

parsley

basil

microgreens

INSTRUCTIONS

In a pan, saute onions with olive oil for a few minutes, when starting to become translucent, add chopped garlic, carrots and celery and saute for 3 more minutes. Add a splash of water if it’s looking too dry

In a pot, add the water and bouillon or vegetable broth, cooked beans, sauteed onion, carrots, celery and garlic, chopped potatoes/zucchini, summer squash/green beans, herbs and spices, cover and bring to a medium boil for 10 or 15 minutes, until the potato is cooked through

Add pasta and greens and boil for a few more minutes until the pasta is cooked.

Serve hot and serve with any or all of the optional toppings for your steamy enjoyment!

Vegetarian Quiche

As we look ahead to spring picnics with those we love, I finally took the leap into my first attempt at making quiche. I'm happy to report the kids cheerfully ate it (that’s the ultimate test these days) and I have lots of ideas for making it even yummier next time. It’s the perfect make-ahead-of-time dish to share outdoors. The chickens are happily laying eggs and the chard this week is beautiful, so I figure it is the season. Here’s my flexible recipe for future experimentation:

INGREDIENTS

For the Crust—

4 cups almond meal

1 tsp salt

4 heaping tbs coconut oil (melted)

2 eggs

As a Topping—

½ box (6 to 8) mushrooms, chopped in 1/4s, drizzled with olive oil and salted, baked at 400 until lightly crisped (about 10 minutes)

For the Filling—

Around 6 cups of greens, finely chopped (last time this was ½ bag of spinach and 3 large chard leaves, but kale, amaranth, dandelion, verdolagas --that is purslane, in English-- or even turnip greens would work!)

2 large leeks or 6 green onions or 1 medium onion, finely chopped 

3 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped

1 tbs coconut or olive oil

8 eggs (to make 1 pie pan plus 4 cupcake-sized mini quiches)-- reduce to 6 eggs if you only want the pie. 

1 tsp salt (drop this a bit if you use an herb mix that already has salt)

2 tsp dried herbs or 2 tbs fresh herbs (This first time, I went with the dried --1 tsp Trader Joe’s 21 season salute and 1 tsp thyme--because I was cooking this on a late, rainy night and didn’t want to go harvest the fresh stuff. Next time, though, I’ll be sure to use fresh herbs, I’m thinking marjoram and rosemary. Fresh makes a big difference!)

2 heaping tbs nutritional yeast or ¼ to 1/2 cup cheese, whatever type floats your boat! My boat skips the cheese (C:)

pepper to taste

1 cup sun dried tomato

INSTRUCTIONS

For the Crust—

Mix salt and almond meal in a large bowl. Add in the coconut oil, then the eggs. It’s recommended that you let it chill for a while, but I skipped this step and it came out just fine! In a greased (just rub it down with coconut oil) pie pan, and/or cupcake tin lined with baking cups, press and pinch the dough in to form the crust. Set it aside while you prepare the filling.

For the Filling—
Saute the leeks or onions for a few minutes, then add the garlic and stir for another minute, then add the greens and stir for another minute or two until slightly wilted but still bright green. Let cool.

In a large bowl, mix the eggs, with the salt, pepper, herbs and nutritional yeast or cheese. Then mix in your sauteed greens, leeks/onions and garlic from the pan.

Stir in the sun-dried tomato.

Scoop the filling into the crust.

As a Topping—

If you’re adding mushrooms, place them on top.

Bake at 375 or 400 for 35-45 minutes (25 for the mini quiches!)

Eat right away or refrigerate to save for later. You can put it back in the oven for 10 minutes if you’d like to serve warm at a later time. Enjoy!

Green Potato Leek Soup with Mushrooms

INGREDIENTS

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 to 3 large leeks, thinly sliced

3 to 4 cloves of garlic, sliced

3 to 4 cups greens, thinly sliced and then chopped up into small short pieces (Here, you can consider using up all the limp celery you didn’t get to in the last weeks, leaves and all! Kale, collards, spinach, turnip or beet greens, chard all will work. Mix and match. This is your chance to clear out the old greens to make space for the new!

2 to 3 potatoes, sliced into 1-inch slices and then cut into half moons (No, I don’t peel my potatoes! But I do make sure they’re organic. If you don’t have access to organic potatoes, maybe it is worth the trouble of peeling them. Potatoes are amongst the heaviest-pesticide-carrying crop in the industrialized agriculture fields.)

salt and pepper to taste

2 to 3 bay leaves

1 to 2 tsp thyme

8 to 10 cups veggie broth (or chicken broth if that’s your jam) If I’m using bouillon cubes, I will use 2 cubes Edward & Sons Not-Chick’n and 2 cubes Garden Veggie.

10 to 12 mushrooms (or more!), sliced in fourths (This is about what you’d find in an 8oz box at the grocery store)

fresh parsley leaves and/or microgreens for garnish

INSTRUCTIONS

Place mushrooms in a single layer on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and bake in oven at 400 for about 10 minutes, or until beginning brown, sizzle and crisp a little bit.

Heat oil in pan and saute sliced leeks sprinkled with salt and pepper on medium-high heat for about 5 minutes. Add garlic (and celery, if you’re going with that!) and stir fry for a couple more minutes.

In a pot, add the veggie broth or water and bouillon cubes, bay leaves, thyme, potatoes, greens and your sauteed leek and garlic goodness. Bring to a boil, then cover with a lid and simmer until potatoes are cooked through. Turn off heat when ready.

Now, the quick and easy way to finish up is to get your potato masher (metal please! Don’t stick plastic into your boiling liquid!) and semi-mash your potatoes directly in the soup pot. This leaves you with a soupy/chunky mix that I love to serve topped with croutons and pan-fried veggie italian sausage. Although, doubling the mushrooms is healthier and often filling enough for me to skip the sausage.

Alternatively, and perhaps, more traditionally for a potato-leek soup, you can blend it smooth. An immersion blender works great and you can better control how smooth you want the soup to be. The last method I would suggest, if you love your soup smooth and creamy, is to let it cool a bit, then transfer into your blender. The big blender is faster than the immersion blender, gets it smoother, but takes more patience waiting for the soup to cool enough to transfer to the blender, and then, of course, there’s more clean up because you’re stuck washing the blender. Blend and return to your pot (reheat if necessary) and serve topped with your garnish and mushrooms. The upside of blending to me, is that the kids tend to eat more greens this way. Can’t pick them out if it’s all blended up!

Green Barley Soup with Roasted Root Veggies

This simple barley soup is nourishing and filling—it leaves me feeling warm inside. Barley is known for boosting milk production in breastfeeding mothers, but it’s good for you in so many more ways. Together with the root veggies and greens, this is a stay-healthy-and-strong meal for all.

Ingredients

2 cups barley

3 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced

8 cups water

bouillon (I used 1 cube Edward & Sons Garden Veggie, 1 Not-Chick’n and two tbs mushroom seasoning)

1 tbs pepper

4 cups root veggies (carrots, turnips, radish and/or beets) thinly sliced (to about a 1/4 inch)

salt

pepper

olive oil

1 box tofu (optional for a protein boost), in 1/2 inch slices. Try it sprinkled with garlic powder, paprika, salt and pepper.

1 or 2 bunches of greens, sliced (try turnip greens and/or spinach)

3 cups water (or enough to cover the immersion blender blades)

microgreens (we have pea shoots this week!)

lemon or lime

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. In a pot, add barley, garlic, bouillon, 1 tbs pepper and 8 cups water. Bring to a boil then simmer over medium heat for about an hour until barley is cooked. Hulled barley may take 20 minutes or so longer to cook than pearl barley. If you presoak your barley overnight, or at least a few hours, it will cook in 40 minutes or so.

3. On a baking sheet (lined with parchment paper for easy clean-up), spread a layer of root veggies (I used carrots for first layer). Salt and pepper to taste and drizzle with olive oil. Then add second layer (I used radish and turnips this time, but beets also make a delicious addition to this combination). Salt, pepper and drizzle again. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes, or until they are tender and a bit crispy.

If you’re adding the tofu to this meal, spread it on a second baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Drizzle with oil. Try roasted sesame oil for extra flavor. Bake along with the root veggies.

4. In another pot, add three cups water and the sliced greens. Cover and cook over medium heat until just wilted. Then blend using an immersion blender, if you’ve got it. Otherwise, you can let cool a bit, then transfer into a regular blender. Add the blended greens to the barley pot.

5. Serve a bowl of green barley soup and top with roasted veggies and fresh microgreens and a dash of lemon or lime.

Sinigang-Inspired Tamarind Soup

This recipe was adapted from here.

Right up front, I want to tell you that I’m not of Filipino descent, nor have I had the pleasure of tasting an authentic bowl of Sinigang (which is Tagalog for “stewed [dish]”). However, I’ve heard of this dish for years and have yearned to try it. Being vegetarian, I haven’t found a Filipino restaurant that offers veggie options. If you have, PLEASE let me know where it’s at! In the meantime, I want to thank Vicki for reminding me that this soup exists and encouraging me to try to make it myself. Being Mexican, I am always excited about any food with tamarind in it! And I can’t seem to get enough caldo (stew), no matter the weather or time of day. So, here’s my attempt at making a pot of vegetarian Sinigang using in-season veggies from this week’s Fresh Five CSA.

INGREDIENTS:

2 small onions, chopped

8 cloves garlic, chopped

1 tbs oil (palm, or olive)

1 cup dried shiitake mushrooms (these, I get from our local vietnamese market)

12 cups water

28oz can of tomato sauce or 4 fresh tomatoes, finely chopped

2 or 3 tbs tamarind paste (more if you love sour; I use Aunt Patty’s Tamarind Paste, which I can usually find at Sprouts. I love it because I don’t have to spend a bunch of time picking seeds out)

3 cups turnips or radish, chopped

3 cups carrots, chopped

1 bunch of turnip greens and/or spinach, finely chopped (2 to 3 cups)

1 or 2 boxes tofu (depending on whether you want this soup as a side dish or the main course)

1 tbs salt

1 tbs pepper

miso paste

microgreens (This week, we have kale, kohlrabi and arugula. The more spicy ones are great for soup toppings, too—Try last week’s cress!)

Instructions:

1. Saute onions in oil (I used palm oil) until translucent and slightly browned

2. Add garlic and shiitake and saute for another minute

3. In a pot, add water, tamarind paste, tomato, chopped root veggies, greens, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil and simmer until veggies are cooked.

4. Serve hot and mix in a spoonful of miso paste to each bowl. Top with a handful of microgreens.

Receta de Quelites de mi Nanaita (My Great-Aunt's Quelite Greens Recipe)

Quelites in Mexico

What exactly are “quelites” is a contentious issue amongst some because the plant most commonly known as “quelite” varies from region to region in Mexico. So, my grandmother’s quelites might not be your grandmother’s quelites.

On my quest to find clarity over the years, I came across this poster and this great article. Quelites are a pre-columbian dish indigenous to the americas. The name comes from the Nahuatl word Quilitl which translates roughly to
”tender and edible green”. Another key characteristic is that they are wild-harvested, a weed, not something you plant in your garden. At least that’s how it used to be. The one my father excitedly found growing as a weed in our yard, that his mother called quelite de monte, was green amaranth. The plant my Nanaita used the day I was introduced to this quelites recipe was spinach (not a traditional quelite, but available and delicious nonetheless). I felt nourished and was in love with the simple magic of her recipe. Since then, I make it with whatever I have around, including amaranth, spinach, chard, collards, chaya, beet greens, turnip greens, arugula, kale, and the list goes on. So here it is—-

Ingredients:

1 bunch of greens (try chard, kale, amaranth, chaya, spinach, collards, beet greens, turnip greens, arugula…)

olive oil

1 tsp coriander (ground)

1 tsp sea salt

black pepper (to taste)

2 cloves garlic (sliced)

1 handful of organic corn masa

1 cup water

lemon or lime

Instructions:

1. Thinly slice your greens

2. In a pan (I prefer to use cast iron), drizzle a little bit of olive oil (maybe a tablespoon) and saute the garlic, coriander, salt and pepper for a minute.

3. add water to the pan, then sprinkle the masa into the pan immediately (before water gets too hot) while stirring so the masa dissolves and doesn’t clump up too much.

4. Bring to a low boil, add greens and cover to simmer for just a couple of minutes (unless you’re using some of the tougher greens like collards or chaya, which you’d want to cook for a few minutes longer).

5. Remove from heat, add a little squeeze of lime (or the juice of a whole lemon or lime, like me, depending your preferences!) and serve.