Zucchini & Tomato Soup

What else do you do with a giant zucchini - or two - but make a pot of soup (if you aren't making my Zucchin-Carrot Relish!) -- here are a couple recipes I have made recently, and since I put the information in on a web app - actually have the caloric data for it!

I threw in 3-4 frozen cubes of home made basil-garlic-raw almond pesto - so made the almonds an optional ingredient here, as well as the olive oil.  I also have a lot of roasted red padron puree in the freezer from last fall - one ice cube is roughly 1/4 c, I think, and I added that in - you could substitute Harissa paste (if you want heat), or chopped fresh red or green bell peppers.  Or throw in any spicy chopped peppers!

INGREDIENTS:

• 8 c zucchini, skin on, cut into large chunks (remove pithy parts and large seeds) (168 calories)
• 4 c crushed canned tomatoes (312 calories)
• 2 oz dried shitake mushrooms (200 calories) - or - 16 oz fresh button mushrooms, sliced
• 6 Carrots (150 calories)
• 1-2 c broccolini greens & florets (45 calories)
• 8 Garlic, Cloves, Fresh (35 calories)
• 1/2 c chopped basil leaves (4 calories)
• 2 c sweet/Vidalia onion, chopped or sliced to preference (128 calories)
• 2 T dried Thyme (or double fresh) (16 calories)
• 3 c cabbage, chopped (66 calories)
• 1/2 c green onion, chopped (9 calories)
• 8 c vegetable stock (160 calories)
• 2 packages Westsoy Chicken Style Seitan (770 calories)    
• 1 bunch of chopped parsley (16 calories)

Optional:

• 1.5 T Red miso (the refrigerated kind) (45 calories)
• 3 tsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil (120 calories)
• 3 Tb raw almonds, finely ground (102 calories)
• 1/4 roasted red padron puree (9 calories)

DIRECTIONS:

1. Break up the dried mushrooms into quarters or smaller and place into a heat proof dish or pan; pour boiling water over the mushrooms and allow to steep while you assemble the rest of the soup.
2. Pour the stock into the pan - note - I used tomato juice from canning tomatoes last year -- which is just the water that was around the seeds.  As I seed the tomatoes before putting them in the pot, I put all the seeds into a metal mesh strainer and then stir them around to get all that water out separately and save it for soups.  In this case, about 5 cups of my vegetable stock was tomato water (not sauce!).  If you like more tomatoey flavor, throw in another can or pint jar of crushed tomatoes -- they'll break down and give you plenty of flavor.
3. Add the Westsoy Chicken-Style Seitan - be sure to keep the broth in the container, it's tasty stuff - and tear up any extra large pieces of seitan with your fingers.
4. Add the carrots first - I slice them on the diagonal for nice big chunks, and put them into the stock first while it's heating up.  Add in the rest of the veggies items as ready -- and add additional water to cover if needed.
5. Reserve for last (as in - just a few minutes before serving) any fresh herbs and the red miso paste (which you can dissolve with a small whisk separately before adding in).
6. Salt & pepper to taste --  and yes, this a HUGE pot of soup but you can eat as much as you want because the entire thing is a whopping 2300 calories -- 12 large servings at 191 calories each!

   
   

Zucchini Vegetable Farro Soup (no onions/no garlic)

I made this giant pot of soup and shared it with my family - the corn kernels mix in with the similarly sized farro and provide a nice counterpoint of flavor and texture.  Tarragon & thyme provide the flavor - no onions or garlic in this soup, resulted in a soup that was sweet from the corn and carrots only.

INGREDIENTS:

• 10 c zucchini, skin on, cut into large chunks (remove pithy parts and large seeds if using monster zukes) (210 calories)
• 6 carrots (150 calories)
• 4 c crushed canned tomatoes (312 calories)
• 2 c farro (400 calories)
• 4 c broccoli or other sturdy greens like collards (140 calories)   
• 1 oz dried shitake mushrooms (100 calories) - or - 8 oz fresh button mushrooms, sliced
• 16 c vegetable stock (400 calories)
• 2 packages Westsoy Chicken Style Seitan (770 calories)   
• 2 ears of corn, cut off the cob (147 calories)
• 3 Tb "Mellow" white miso (90 calories)
• 4 tsp red miso (45 calories)
• Dried herbs to taste - I used lots of tarragon & thyme

DIRECTIONS:

1. Break up the dried mushrooms into quarters or smaller, place in a heat proof dish or pan and cover with boiling water to steep while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.  When they are soft, add the pieces and the water to the pot.
2. Pour the stock into a very large pot -- if you cut down the stock by half and use water instead, the soup will probably taste just as good!  Use what you have on hand!
3. Add the carrots first - I cut them up into big chunks, and put them in the pot so that they cook up faster.
4. Be sure to add the stock from the seitan package - it's yummy!  If you don't have this brand available where you live - substitute your favorite seitan or even some nice smoked tofu (yum!).
5. Add the miso paste last -- you will want to take some stock or hot water and dissolve it so that it mixes into the soup better.
6. Don't cut yourself cutting the fresh corn off the cob - after cutting off the niblets, be sure to scrape the cob with the back of your knife over the pot to get all the juice and flavor out of the corn cob (yum!).

Cardoon Pot Pies

First date with cardoon from Mariquita box - made into pot pies, along with english peas, new potatoes, cardoon, red onion, spring garlic, carrots, sweet potato and seitan.  I also made a cardoon and new potato bisque.  Both dishes came out fabulous - reminding me how much I enjoy both pot pies and new potatoes. Cardoon has a delicious artichoke-like flavor but without all the leaves!  I'll definitely try cardoon again, esp for soups and pot pies.

Backcountry Vegan Camp Meal - Vegetable Udon Noodle Soup

There can honestly be no backcountry camping meal that is easier to make - one pot is all you need, and a little restraint else you risk exceeding the capacity of your pot!

Less recipe and more about process - especially carrying a variety of ingredients that can be used in multiple dishes. 

Ingredients:

• vegetable boullion
• dehydrated vegetables
• dried wakame and/or hijiki
• udon noodles
• optional: kuro goma (spiced toasted black sesame seeds that add a little flavor and crunch to any soup)
• optional: chili flakes

Instructions:

1. Soak about 1/2 to 3/4 c dried veggies such as carrots, zucchini, peppers, onions and shitake mushrooms (I like to carry these whole and break them up before I dehydrate them) in your wide mouth Nalgene bottle - I like to do this as I am leaving my breakfast or lunch stop so they are soaked for my next meal!
2. Simmer 2 c water in a pot to dissolve your bouillion.  Bring pot to a boil.
3. Add udon noodles - you may need to break them in half or manage them manually til the noodles soften enough to fit in your pan.   
4. Bring water to a boil, add veggies & soaking water.
5. Bring water to a simmer, check veggies & udon noodles for tenderness.  Remove from fire.
6. Add wakame, stir til softened.
7. Enjoy with gusto & share with your campmates! 

Dried seaweed is the key to the savory flavor this soup carries - and dried wakame or hijiki weighs less than nothing!

Don't forget - unless you brought a small mesh strainer or use a bandana to strain the soaked wakame, it's already salty so do NOT add more salt to your soup until you have tasted it.  In addition to providing sodium, most dried seaweeds also provide Omega-3 fatty acids, magnesium and calcium -- all good nutrients to replace after exerting yourself on the trail!

Late Summer Vegetable Soup

Fresh tomato juice is one of my favorite soup bases - it just tastes so good, doesn't it? Since I am getting ready to go on a road trip, I wanted to clear the fridge and what better use for 2 quarts of fresh tomato juice than a soup (OK, bloody marys, but that's not dinner - well, not without spicy dilly beans). So, this soup turned out really amazing - it's all about putting together the right things and not overdoing it, right? And, wanting to make some space in the fridge, I found a quart bag stuffed with ice cubes of tomato juice and added those, too...


Late Summer Vegetable Soup

Step 1: Saute in olive oil, in heavy bottom stockpot:

1/2 large white onion, minced fine

Step 2: when onions are softening and getting clear, add:

2 10-12" squash (1 zucchini & 1 coccozelle in this case), diced

Step 3: as zucchini are starting to brown, add

1 c frozen peas
2 c green beans chopped in 1-2" segments

Step 4: as everything starts to soften, add broth ingredients

3 quarts fresh tomato juice
1.5 quarts chanterelle broth (simmer 1-1.5 c. dried mushrooms, strain & reserve the mushrooms)
2 c of fire roasted red pepper juice (just happened to reserve after peeling & seeding peppers)
1 c orange tomato curry ketchup (some left from last fall's recipe)

Step 5: finely mince or julienne mushrooms, add to broth

Step 6: chiffonade into pot with scissors 2 handfuls of kale (red russian winter and lacinato), stems trimmed, more kale is good - depends on what you have (chard, arugula, parsley would all be good)

Step 7: add herbs, salt & pepper to taste:

1 t. dried tarragon
1 t. dried sage
1 t. dried marjoram
1 t. dried savory
1 T. dried rosemary
1 t. powdered garlic
1 t. black pepper
1 T. salt

Step 8: cube 16 oz block of extra firm Nigori tofu into 1.5' chunks, stir in gently

Step 9: prepare 2-3 c orrechiete pasta in salted water with olive oil (to keep it from sticking together - you aren't tryig to get sauce to stick to this pasta, so it's ok) - once broth is about where you want it, still thin - add cooked pasta to soup

Step 10: eat yummy soup and bring some to work in a nice big quart size mason jar.

YIELD:
Serves A FREAKING LOT! Ok, about 8 quarts. Get eating!

Gumbo z'herbes

SPRING IS COMING! The days are getting longer and the markets in Northern California are full of all sorts of amazing greens. Last week, I bought several bunches of greens and then realized: this is more than one person can/should eat in a week!

A nicely timed newsletter from Grist gave me the idea to make gumbo z'herbes. It's the traditional gumbo during the Lenten season -- all full of good seasonal green stuff and no meat. It doesn't traditionally have a roux (as a commenter corrected the writer of this other article - ignore the first recipe, the one in the last comment is much better).

Basically, you get out your two biggest pots, a whole lot of bunches of greens, take off all the stems and put them in one pot with water to make stock, chiffonade or chop or tear your cleaned greens into the other pot with some stock to start softening it. Most of the recipes call for cooking down the greens for about 2 hours before adding anything else but fail to mention that it takes about 2 hours to clean and trim your greens. Seriously!

Here's the recipe & process I used for my gumbo z'herbes:

1 bunch of beet greens
1 bunch lacinato kale
1 bunch purple spiky kale
1 bunch broccoli rab
1 bunch cilantro
a pound of tatsoi and mizuna
2 small radicchio
15 cups of chard, arugula and parsley from my yard
3-4 6" long wands of fresh oregano
lots of fresh thyme

4-6 turnips (whatever was attached to the turnip greens!) cut into 1" cubes
handful of carrots (more or less to taste) cut into 1/2" rounds

1 large yellow onion
1 lb fresh chanterelles
8-12 cloves garlic


1. Clean, remove the stems and chiffonade all the green stuff. I had 2 c. stock in the freezer from sweating out spinach-dill-garlic-onions for spanakopita, so that worked really nicely as a starter stock. I put all the stems and rejected bits into another pot and simmered it down to make a bit more veggie stock. I added a quart of store-bought veggie broth to the green stuff and continued adding veg and putting stems to the stock pot.

2. Once the green stuff cooked down, I strained it, combined all the stock and let the veg cool a bit in a bowl away from the stove.

3. Simmered down the stock more with 5 cubed turnips, and about 3/4 c sliced carrots.

4. In the other pan, I sauteed 1 onion, 1 lb of golden chanterelles (cut into big chunks), 8 cloves of garlic (pressed). Once the onions are transluscent, add the chanterelles - once they released their water, I added about 3 cups of the green stuff.

5. Puree the rest of the green stuff in my Breville blender.

6. Return all veg puree, veg/onion/mushroom mix to pot with stock, turnips and carrots. Season to taste - salt, cajun seasoning, more thyme & oregano if you have them (I have unlimited fresh thyme & oregano thanks to deleriously happy plants).

I had to do some mixing and transferring since I don't have a big enough stock pot. My biggest stock pot is 6 qts (I know - it makes preserves making challenging but keeps me from going too nuts in terms of quantity - could you imagine last year's output if I had bigger pots?)

The most time consuming part was pulling the stems and ribs from ALL the green
stuff -- I was at this since about 7pm and finished around 11pm! I ended up with my biggest rubbermaid container full of the gumbo - somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 cups.

Serve over rice - or let it cool down, refrigerate it and serve over rice the next day, in my case. Pictures coming if I can manage to not eat it all first!