A Split-Pea Soup to End All Split-Pea Soups

One of my New Year's projects was to (is still to) get rid of old stuff. I had a whole stack of old foodie magazines hogging precious cookbook shelf space, and decided once and for all to peruse them for the good recipes to cut out and save, and chuck the rest. My eyes fell (and feasted) on an otherwise inconspicuous recipe for split-pea soup. Split-peas in any form aren't something I grew up with, in fact I can't recall my mom ever making them. Scandinavia on the other hand, has a thing for split-pea soup. Yellow split-pea soup. They call it simply, pea soup (ærtesuppe). I first got real close and personal with it in Finland, when I lived there for that dark, cold semester. Hernekeitto is the national dish every Thursday. Thursday is simply pea soup day, and every Finnish restaurant and cafeteria with any self-respect serves just that on that day. I admit, I liked it, but it's also a notorious dish that people love to hate, indluding my mother-in-law! And I can understand why. The soup is normally heavy on the peas, making it really thick, almost pasty, and this is especially how it turns when people by the packages of "just add water" pea soup. Paste is not, and will never be soup, so folks who like that kind of thing can keep it for themselves. Yuck!

But this recipe will change that. I'm convinced that this soup can make a split-pea soup lover out of anyone. I think the winning aspects of this soup are the "hiddenness" of the peas, and the mighty fine chunks of yummy veg (and bacon, if you add that). I tried it on my husband and kids yesterday. Kids ate everything (under pressure, admittedly), husband loved it. Will serve it to my MIL and get back to you on that one :)

Ingredients:

250 g. split-peas, preferably yellow
2 bay leaves
3 carrots, in small cubes
2 parsnip, or parsley root, in small cubes
3 large potatoes, in small cubes
3 medium onions, diced or sliced as you like
3 sprigs of thyme, or 2 tsp dried
apple cider vinegar to taste
salt and pepper ditto

First off, boil your peas and bay leaves in ample water to cover them, roughly 45 min. Drain afterward, discard the bay leaves, and set aside for the time being.
Now, sauter you onions in some butter and oil, when they're soft, add all your cubed veggies, and 1 liter of water on top of that. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 10 minutes. When you've done that, drain the veggie water on top of you peas, and blitz away until it's all smooth and soupy, mine was pretty watery too, which is fine, because you won't get that characteristic pea-pastyness. Add your veggies to your peas, and put your thyme in as well. Let bubble for a bit, and when you're about ready to eat, season with apple cider vinegar, and salt and pepper. Note that you might need quite a bit of salt, I did in any case.

Notes: this recipe serves 4.
Also, I added about 4-5 slices of thick, diced bacon. I sautered it with the onions, until the onions were soft, and the bacon was glistening. So, leave out the bacon, you have a very tasty vegan dinner.
The original recipe called for a fennel bulb, diced, which I didn't have, so had to make do without. I can only imagine it will be tastier with, if you're into that sort of thing.

Enjoy with fresh bread like we did!

White Chili

One could ask why a "white" chili never occured to one before. Alas I'm afraid the answer is simply - "convention". Chili has simply never been "white". It's been beefy, beef-less, beany, bean-less, groundbeefed, cubed beefed, with or without chocolate, but always always with that dark tomato-ey base to set off the other ingredients.

Recently, perusing teh interwebs, I landed on this recipe, which opened my eyes to the possibility of something different, something unchartered (in my kitchen at least!) in the ways of chili. It had to be tried. And it was good! Really really good, in fact!

I did wing it a bit - for example I didn't use chicken broth, and I only had one can of green chillies, which didn't turn out to be a problem. Try this soon, you'll really enjoy it. Next time, I'll be using quorn instead, to make this vegetarian.

• 500 g. boneless chicken breasts, cubed
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 2 cups white beans, soaked overnight
• veggie broth - however much you need to cover everything up. 
• 1 can chopped green chilies
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/4 tsp cayenne
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup cream

• In a large saucepan, saute the chicken, onion and garlic powder in oil until chicken is no longer pink. Add the beans, broth, chilies and seasonings. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes. I used a pressure cooker, because I hadn't had time to pre-soak the beans. It took a little longer, but I think it lifted the overall dish. The chicken seemed extra tender because of it. Or maybe I'm imagining things!
• Remove from the heat; stir in sour cream and cream. Serve with rice for an extra hearty meal. 

Zesty Borscht with Sour Cream and Veggie "Bacon"

Looking back at my last post - this one is right on time. :)

This is a recipe I used to make about twice a month. For some reason, it fell out of rotation - time to make amends!

This traditionally Russian red beet soup is made for this very season. Not so much the holiday season, more like the season where long lasting root vegetables abound. The selleriac, carrots, and beets all lend such a welcome sweet flavour that's balanced out by the tartness of the vinegar and the subtle smokiness of the veggie "bacon" - that is, dehydrated kale with a sprinkling of salt and smoked paprika (or chipotle powder, whatevs). I made it a day ahead for some strange reason (I'm usually never that prepared), and the flavors were even better for it. We had an unexpected dinner guest yesterday, who love-love-loved this soup, so you don't just have my word for it.

Borscht with Sour Cream and Veggie "Bacon"

2 medium onions, peeled and chopped
5 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
1/4 selleriac, peeled and grated
5 medium-large carrots, grated
1 lb. beets, peeled and grated
3 bay leaves
1 tsp whole caraway ground
2 tsp fennel seeds, ground
pinch cayenne
2 tbsp veggie boullion powder
1+ liter water
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp wine vinegar
salt, pepper to taste

Sauter the onion and garlic until soft, add the grated veggies until they start to go soft. Add your spices, boullion, water, and sugar. Let bubble gently on the stove for about 45 minutes. Add the vinegar, and season more to taste (this is the part where I admit that it was a bit on the bland side, so I added a bit of say sauce, worcestershire sauce, miso, and a darker, thicker balsamico before I was ready to serve this puppy).

Veggie "Bacon"  

Wash and thoroughly dry a bunch of kale. Separate the thick stalks from the leaves and discard. Roughly chop the leaves, and massage them with a few tbsp of olive oil. Spread out on a baking tray, and sprinkle liberally with smoked paprika (or chipotle powder), and salt. Dry/bake anywhere from 15-30 minutes in a low-medium heat oven. The higher the temp, the more vigilant you must be. The kale is done when it's bright green, crisp, and crunchy. The sooner it's eaten the better, it gets a little tough after  a while.

Serve your delicious beet soup piping hot with a dollop of sour cream (to make this vegan, use a dollop of soy yogurt instead) and a liberal sprinkling of you smoky veggie bacon.

* This version of red beet soup is inspired by the Borsjtj in Geniale Gryderetter, with a few amends, not in the least my veggie "bacon".

Rooty Coconut Chowder

I really really wish I had a picture of this. Alas, I have yet to find a replacement for my kaput camera (tips on better versions of the old point and shoot welcome), so an enthusiastic description will have to do.

I had yet another box of seasonal veggies staring me in the face, daring me to make something tasty out of them. Unfortunately, the biggest offering this time was a rutabaga! Wtf. Well, I actually enjoy the challenge of making anything tasty, but when you're pressed for time and have a hungry brood waiting small droplets of sweat form on your brow, and the nagging question of "what exactly am I doing" plagues you. Luckily, it went well. Really well.

1 rutabaga (by nature a large creature), peeled and cubed
.5 - 1 kg sunchokes, peeled and halved
1 large onion
1 tsp dried ginger
1 can coconut milk
sprinkling of cinnammon
1 tsp herbamare

- Start off by boiling the sunchokes and rutabaga together in a pot of salted water until soft. Drain, and set aside for next step.
- Finely chop the onion and fry it up in a little bit of coconut oil with the dried ginger until soft and fragrant. Add the boiled rutabaga and sunchoke, coconut milk, plus the herbamare. Let bubble, maybe adding a bit of water if it's too dry. When the taste is about what you want, take about half of the contents out of the pot, and blend them until nice and creamy. Add to the pot again, adding the dash of cinnamon. Stir well and serve with homemade bread.

Really really lovely chunky, creamy soup here. Enjoy!

Celeriac Schnitzel

Admittedly, we haven't sprung out as full blown vegetarians here, but the other day, when someone asked if we had, I couldn't even remember the last time we'd had meat for dinner. Sometimes, I do have to make an effort, since you can't just make a salad, and expect two small kids and one metabolically active husband to be satisfied. We eat burgers, just with soy patties. We enjoy "chicken" fajitas with quorn instead. Someone mentioned making schnitzel out of celeriac once, I gave it a try, just winging it, and wasn't that impressed. I decided to give it another try, and scoured up some tips on teh interwebs. This time, I loved it! Not only that, my boys wolfed it down as well, oblivious to the sneaky veggie hidden inside, just happy to eat something pan fried and crunchy.

The lowdown:

- Take 1 whole celeriac, peel or cut the hard skin off. Cut in in half, and take each halve and slice it into finger thick slices.
- Steam/boil the celeriac until a knife easily pierces them, app. 16 minutes. Let them cool off a bit before the next step, and drizzle them with lemon juice while cooling. Don't go easy on the lemon btw.
- Prepare two shallow bowls. One with 1 egg, beaten. The other with bread crumbs. Add a good amount of salt and pepper to the crumbs, to ensure a flavourful crust.
- Melt a knob of butter and a drizzle of your choice of oil in a pan over low heat. Low heat is key here, you want these to fry up delicately and not be darker than golden.
- Dip each slice of steamed celeriac in first egg, then crumbs, and fry 'em up (in butter!), turning after the golden color has been attained.

Serve with a side of salad and/or potatoes like I did. Next time I might do a sauce/gravy to beef it up a bit, but even without this is a mouth watering dish!

This bears repeating. Black bean and Tortilla Soup.

It all started when I was thinking up dinner tonight. I looked in the cabinets for inspiration. Found an opened packet of tortillas that my husband had thrown back in, after our fajita dinner the other night. The two tortillas left in the pack were dry, stale, inedibe. I was about to get mad in the way that only an anal housewife can, but then I remembered that tortilla soup is pretty popular back in my home state of Texas....voila.

First off, cut your leftover tortillas in strips, and fry them on a pan with a little oil. I used canola. They'll brown and become crispy, and that's just what you want. Set your fried tortillas aside.

- Fry up an onion in some oil.
- Add a tsp. each of turmeric, cumin, garlic powder and paprika.
- When onions are soft, add one can of tinned tomatoes, and one can of black beans. (I used canned, because I wanted to make this quick, and I hadn't any pre-soaked)
- Add a little extra water and a broth cube. (I use Herbamare from the health food store)
- Let it all simmer together, adding salt and pepper and a dash of cayenne to taste.

Serve with a dollop of sour cream, chopped coriander, a few drops of lime juice, and a handful of your fried tortillas. Some of the tortillas will go soft in the soup, but that's ok. Also, for extra nutritional value, I added to finely diced potatoes to this soup, to bulk it up, and so my kids wouldn't only get full on the fried tortillas. A hearty inconspicuous addition! Enjoy.

Harira Stew

When my family and I were in Morocco this past summer, I made it a point to try the national soup, Harira. It's the soup traditionally eaten to break the fast of Ramadan, but it's eaten any time of the year besides. And every local eatery with respect for themself serves it, most likely coming from a pot of ginormous dimensions simmering the whole day through.

I had several versions. With lamb. With chicken. Vegetarian. All excellent. I tried my own hand at it on a cold winter's eve, gleaning elements here and there. The traditional must-have elements are there, but I beefed it up a bit physically, to make it heartier. I stuck with the veggie version though. I imagine this fairly easy dish will be a great hangover cure New Year's Day.

Ingredients:
2 onions
half tsp cinnamon
half tsp turmeric
half tsp cumin
half tsp ground ginger
1 can tomatoes
a few pinches of saffron
1 liter broth
1 cup lentils (f.ex Puy)
1 can garbanzo beans
2-3 carrots, cubed
1 or 2 handfuls whole buckwheat
1 tsp freshly crushed pepper ( I used red peppercorns)
salt, to taste
cayenne, to taste, if you'd like it spiced up a bit.
lemon wedges

Gently fry up the onions in oil, adding the spices to fry along.
When the onions and spices are soft and incorporated, add the remaining ingredients, one by one, letting them incorporate. Let simmer until lentils, carrots and buckwheat are soft.
Add, salt, pepper and cayenne to taste.
The more it simmers, the more the buckwheat will absorb, so add water accordingly.

Serve with a little fresh squeezed lemon.

Baked Salad, Better than You Think.

Have I ever mentioned the fact that I get a CSA box thingie at home, from Årstiderne? I have? Well, I'm still getting it, despite the fact that it's pretty predictable, since Autumn and Winter rolled around, and the pickings got slimmer and slimmer. We're pretty much down to turnips, potatoes, kale, white cabbage, jerusalem artichokes if we're lucky....*sob*. It's pretty boring. A few weeks in a row now, they've thrown in some endive, which is fitting, since in Denmark they call it julesalat aka "Christmas salad". It sat there in the fridge for a spell, while I looked at it, scratched my head, and wondered how the hell I was going to get my kids to eat it. As a kid I saw my dad chomp on the stuff raw, but I never saw it consumed any other way.

*Cut to 25 years later, enter Belgium*

Turns out, in Belgium (which you can read about on the innernets), they bake it. With cheese. Sign me up!

The rundown is this:

- Slice your endive lengthwise, remove damaged outer leaves, cut off knobby bit at bottom.
- Steam gently for app. 10 minutes.
- Prepare a small amount of Bechamel sauce, adding a handful of grated parmesan here, and a handful of grated gruyère there, stirring until well incorporated.
- Arrange the steamed endive in am oven-proof dish,
- If you want to get crazy, wrap the endive in slices of ham, parma or serrano would be nice, but the Belgians use thick slices of boiled ham, which just ain't my style. No ham is just as nice though, if you're a veggie.
- Pour the cheesy Bechamel sauce over your endive, and throw some more grated cheese on top.
- Bake on medium/high until the cheese is bubbly and golden.

I swear, my 2 yr. old couldn't get enough! My husband thought baked salad was a bit much, but truly, it was delicious.

Another version to try out is to add slices of chorizo on top, instead of ham, and add cheddar to the sauce, instead of parmesan/gruyère. A little on the Tex-Mexy side, but not bad, not bad at all.

Moist, Dense, Perfect Gingerbread

This is another re-post from my family blog. From back in 2007 I think. But still just as fine as it ever will be. I am a busy bee with my last term paper, my innumerous jobs, and taking to the streets on the behalf of our climate.

This cake is...perfect. I remember tweaking it just a tad here and there, as I didn't have the exact sugars called for, but nevertheless, it was...perfect. And popular.

Kille Enna's Gingerbread

300 grams flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp allspice
50 grams dark chocolate
250 grams butter
2 dl boiling water
3 tbsp fresh finely grated ginger
200 grams dark muscovado sugar
200 grams molasses cane sugar
4 eggs

Sieve the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and allspice in a bowl.
Melt the chocolate in a water bath.
In another bowl, whisk the butter until frothy.
Add hot water, ginger and sugar and whisk well.
Add one egg at a time while whisking.
Fold the chocolate in the mixture, then add the dry ingredients. Whisk well.
Pour into a buttered and floured cake pan (20 cm x 25 cm).
Bake at 170 Celsius for 45-60 minutes.
It's done when a knife comes out clean.

French Onion Soup

Oh, now this is real childhood favorite of mine! In the picture you actually see it as I did as a youngster. My parents got these Danish bowls together, and after divorcing, my Dad took a few of him up north to the Chicago area, and when he died, I took them back to their place of origin. I also ate my cheerios from these bowls, broth when I was sick, strawberries with sour cream and brown sugar for an impromptu dessert...these are the bowls of my childhood. And I'm so happy I have them again, even if it does mean my dad is dead. Life is bittersweet like that.

French onion soup on the other hand is warm, delicious, inviting, comforting and cheap to boot. You'll need:

10 yellow onions
butter
oil
sugar
flour
few drops Worchester sauce
salt to taste (or few drops Tamari sauce)
broth (beef broth is usually used, I make do with vegetable)
thyme
slices of stale bread
grated cheese (gruyère, sharp cheddar etc)

I start off my slicing my onions. Some halve the onions first, slicing thin lunar shapes. Some slice through the whole onion, creating rings. I like halving them, and slicing along the poles. Makes for a chunkier bite of soup I find.

Sauté gently in a bit of butter and oil until they go a bit glassy on you.
Add a few tsp of sugar to caramelize slightly.
Now add a tbsp of flour or so to thicken and brown.

*Now, I have to add here, that if you use a beef broth, you should be fine, colorwise. I prefer not to, opting instead for vegetable broth, but this gives a light colored soup that's otherwise meant to be on the dark side. So at this stage, I add my Worchester sauce and Tamari to get the onions nice and dark before adding my broth.

I add about 1.3 liters or so since that's how much water I can boil in the kettle at once. Let it bubble for a while before tasting it. Add a few pinches of dry or a sprig of fresh thyme at this stage. I like to let mine boil down until it's quite thick with onions.

Now arrange the soup in an oven-proof bowl, lightly set a slice of bread on top, and cover with grated cheese. Grill in the oven until bubbly and brown as you like it. I like mine slightly less brown than most, but it needs a bit of crunch to be just right.

My kids aren't quite hooked on this yet, but I'm planning on breaking them in with this recipe this winter!