Veggie Soup

The yummy end product.

This has become a favorite recipe in our house as I'm trying to increase my iron consumption. Pairing ingredients that are high in Vitamin C with those high in iron helps increase the absorbency of iron in the body. This is a quick recipe that is healthy, budget-friendly & single-mother friendly, 'cause it's so easy to make that the kids can do the chopping & cooking while the pregnant Mama knits & blogs about soup recipes! This is a chunky soup. As always, it's best to go local and/or organic with ingredients. The best produce comes from your garden!

Veggies chopped. Yay for clean teenager-fingernails!

You'll need:
A bit of olive oil
1 onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, pressed
2 stalks of celery, diced
3-4 medium carrots, diced
4 oz. fresh (baby) spinach
2 cups of water
2 - 28oz. can of pureed tomatoes
1 cup of pasta (We like the colorful spirals from the bulk isle.)
A bit of heavy cream
A broth cube (I'm a Rapunzel girl.)
A few sprigs of parsley, chopped
Sea-salt & pepper to taste

Gettin' it goin'.

To make it:
Sautee the veggies in the olive oil until onions are glassy, spinach is soft. Add the pureed tomatoes, water, the garlic & the broth cube. Bring to a boil. Add the pasta & reduce to simmer. Season to taste. Remove from heat when pasta is 'al dente.' Add a bit of heavy cream to increase the yummy factor. (I'm not a low-fat cook. Nourishing Traditions is a good read if you're wondering why.) Garnish with parsley.

Serve with a handful of roasted pumpkin seeds to add even more iron. And maybe have a shot of Floradix with it, too. ;-)

Feeds a pregnant mother & 2 hungry sort-of-teenagers with some leftovers for lunch the next day. (Oh, and it also is enough to feed the friend of one of the boys who shows up unexpectedly & makes the pregnant Mama remember that we did invite him over yesterday.)

Well, the boys are done cooking the soup. I'm done blogging about it. Off I go to eat. I must remember to tell them a good cook cleans the kitchen, too.

I'm A Soup Girl!

Yesterday I received some home-grown goodness from a friend. With the boys still out of town & being the soup girl I am, I decided to fix some cream of squash soup for dinner today.

1/2 onion sauteed in a bit of butter. Two yellow squashies & a russet potato thinly sliced. Added some water, salt & pepper. Boiled to softness. Pureed with blender stick. Added a bit of cream & some chives. Such a simple, good meal. This would easily be enough for the three of us!

Pumpkins In July

Nothing better on a cold July 4th in the midst of winter than a hot bowl of homemade pumpkin soup. Yum.

Salmon Chowder

We've always been fans of the chowder at Whole Foods. I always thought chowder was difficult to prepare. Not! I started following a recipe from one of my favorite cookbooks, "Soup!" by Pippa Cuthbert & Lindsay Cameron Wilson. I love to cook soup. I unique-ified the recipe along the way & I'm gonna write it down here for future reference.

3 strips of bacon, cut into small pieces
3/4 pound salmon
4 medium potatoes
1 cup frozen corn, thawed
1/2 medium red onion
3 tablespoons flour
4 cups milk
1 cup heavy cream
a bit of fresh chives & 3 or so sprigs of parsley
a bit of olive oil
salt & pepper to taste

Bake the salmon in the green clay baking pan with a bit of olive oil, salt, pepper & dill, then set it aside to cool. Cut the potatoes in half, leaving the skin on and arrange them cut-side down in the olive oil/seasoning/salmon drippings pan & bake them in the oven.

In the big ole pot brown the bacon & add the red onions until they become glassy, then add the flour making sure there are no lumps. Add the milk & half and half and let it all come to a boil. Reduce it to simmer adding the salmon & baked potatoes & the corn & the chopped parsley. Serve warm in hot bowls.

Yum. Yum.

Next time have some French bread & homemade garlic butter to make garlic bread!