Smoked paprika, pumpkin and tomato soup (and naan!)

Most weekends in winter I make soup.

What are your favourite soups? Want any recipes from me? Please comment below.

Correction. Most weekends in winter I intend to make soup. But then there's brunches and friends and parties and SLEEPING to be done, and I forget to go to the Hill Street Farmers Market on Saturday and forget to go to the Harbourside Market at Te Papa on Sunday and I'm forced to buy expensive vegetables from New World Chaffers or cheap-but-odd vegetables from Countdown Newtown. First world problems, huh?

But when I have a weekend to myself or even a few hours spare on a Sunday, (or a Monday, curently I have Mondays off work) I make SOUPS. I freeze the soup and try not to think about Leela from Futurama sadly cooking then freezing all her dinners for the upcoming week.

It's not sad, it's PREPARED. Or something.

Anyway I was really happy to have this soup available in my lovely fiance's fridge (oh yeah, I got engaged) today because I have a cough-cold-flu. Otherwise known as the #lurgy.

I don't know about you, but when I'm sick I crave vegetables, sweet-lemony-things, butter, and salt. OK I crave butter and salt ALL OF THE TIME, but especially when my tachycardia plays up and all I want to do is drink lemonade and eat chips in bed. I'm sure there's a medical reason for all of this, probably something to do with electrolytes and glucose. I try to avoid the sugary White Death and have small amounts of honey instead of giving the viruses glucose to feed on and multiply and eventually take over my immune system (eek) so lemon-honey-whisky it is. And vegetable soup for nutrients and minerals and vitamins and hydration.

This soup is awesome especially if you have a roast the previous night and roast an extra half pumpkin and a head of garlic (and successfully avoid eating all the roasted sweet beautiful pumpkin flesh). I use the stalk of the broccoli in soups and stews because it's delicious and I can't bear throwing it away. Leeks would also be good in this soup. Or turnips, swedes or kumara if they're your kinda thing.

I made a gluten free buttery naan bread to accompany my premade soup because I wanted something fatty and salty, and because of sick-day boredom.

Oh and have you tried making ghee yet? It's kinda crucial to my naanish bread, but it's pretty much my frying oil of choice (other than coconut oil) so go to it, you adventurous cooks!

Oh yes, and you could add some finely chopped bacon to this soup too, I've done so and it's great.

Smoked paprika, pumpkin & tomato soups

Ingredients

Firstly, roast these two (and soak your lentils if you wanna)
1 butternut pumpkin or small Kent pumpkin, roasted
1 head garlic, roasted and smushed

2 onions, diced
1 Tablespoon ghee (or butter, coconut oil, duck fat or lard)
2 fresh tomatoes, skins removed in boiling water
2 stalks broccoli, chopped finely

2 cans tomatoes
1 Tablespoon smoked paprika
750mL real vegetable stock/real chicken stock/real bone broth
1/2 cup red or brown lentils, soaked, or soaked & cooked chickpeas
1/2-2 cups of water, depending on desired consistency

1 sprig fresh rosemary

Preparation

Cook your onions in the ghee until soft and clear. Add the broccoli stalks, fresh tomatoes and 1/2 cup of the stock and cook until soft. Add the smushed pumpkin, garlic, smoked paprika, chicken/vegetable stock and rosemary. Cook until your lentils are a desired texture (you may need to add more water during cooking, I did).

Serve with naanish bread below, or with buttery toast, or with a ladle.

Garlic naanish bread (gluten free)

2 large eggs
1 cup gluten free flour mix (mix your own using these guidelines)
1/2 cup milk (rice or almond milk are ok)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 cup ghee
3 cloves of garlic, chopped finely
1/8-1/2 teaspoon pink Himalayan salt (because it's PINK)


Whisk the eggs and milk, sift in the flours. Heat the ghee in a large frying pan. Pour in the pancake mix, turn when the pancake is firm enough to turn (you may not get the bubbles you would with wheat flour pancakes). Sprinkle with garlic and more butter. Cook until desired texture, flip for 30 seconds to slightly brown your garlic before serving.

Dip slices into your soup (or curry) and enjoy!

Sunday night Morrocan inspired beef stew

Not sure about you, but growing up Sunday night in winter was when we had the most hearty, easiest meals. Chicken soup, corn fritters, roast chicken, corned beef - nourishing meals to finish the week off well.

In my 20s, Sunday night dinner was always a way to use as many of the fresh vegetables I'd bought from the Dunedin/Lyttelton/Wellington markets, so generally soup or Mega Salad (blanched broccoli  greens, finely chopped red cabbage, grated/sliced carrot, red onion, sweet corn, boiled egg, whatever really). As much as I like spending all Sunday afternoon in the kitchen, I don't currently have a space that is perfect for doing just that, so this stew is just perfect.

Chuck steak is cheap. Slow cooking brings out the flavour of the meat. From a health point of view, slow cooking keeps all of the glorious saturated fats so crucial to helping absorb calcium and providing fat soluble vitamins. Not to mention all the protein and iron in beef. I eat red meat around twice a week.

Ingredients

500g grass fed beef, chopped

2 Tablespoons butter

1 red onion, sliced (or chopped if preferred)

3 carrots

1 kumara/2 potatoes (if wanted)

1 green capsicum, sliced (optional)

1 Tablespoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon tumeric

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 can tomatoes

The can from the tomatoes filled with water

Preparation

Small packet frozen baby peas/frozen or fresh spinach or kale

In a large pot (or frying pan), caramelise the onion in the butter until light brown. In a large pot (either the same one or a clean one if you used a frying pan) place tomatoes, spices, carrots, potatoes, beef, capsicum, and water. Simmer, covered, for two hours or so, checking every half hour that you've still got plenty of water in the pot.

Ten minutes before serving add whatever greens you want to include.

Enjoy with a spoon and maybe a wee glass of red wine.

Photo LauraFries.com 

Apple-y brown rice pudding

This is simultaneously the best breakfast and the best afternoon snack ever. I prefer it hot with lots of milk (cow's, or homemade almond) for breakfast, and cold with greek yoghurt for a snack.

It's high in carbohydrates so will keep you full for ages, but the extra protein from an egg or two helps you grow big and strong. Or something.

Other possible taste combinations would be orange zest and chopped dried apricots, lemon zest and sultanas, coconut milk and cinnamon, all spice, and nutmeg...go experiment.

To serve a couple of hungry people:

Ingredients

1/2 cup brown short grained rice (uncooked measure), cooked
1 litre raw milk/coconut milk/homemade almond milk
1-2 green apples, grated, cooked in a little water
1-2 eggs
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Bananas, extra milk to serve

 Preparation

Add the rice and half the milk to a saucepan, stir on a medium heat makes sure your milk and rice doesn't burn at the bottom. After five minutes or so add the apples and water. Cook for another five minutes before adding the rest of your milk. Cook until the pudding is the texture you like it - for a really thick creamy rice pudding up to 30 minutes.
While warm, stir in an egg or two and enjoy hot or cold. I prefer heaps extra heated milk and a sliced banana for breakfast, yum!

Gluten free vermouth, grape and banana cake

The title of this recipe sounds quite a mouthful. I'd probably just explain it to my friends as "Vermouth grape cake". It's gooooooood, and I can't believe I've never baked grapes into a cake before. I'm gonna have another slice right now.

I'd eat this cake with friends and a cup of Lady Grey tea. I wouldn't eat my friends, that is. Well, maybe, they're pretty delicious people.

I freeze old bananas when they go brown (or black) and use them for future caek.

Ingredients

2 ripe bananas (over-ripe, if you have them)

1 egg

1/2-1 cup rapadura sugar (use less if your bananas were huge)

100g butter

1/4 cup dry vermouth (or dessert wine)

1 cup gluten free baking mix (I used Purebread's almondy rich mix, but equal parts almond/rice flour'd do)

1 teaspoon gluten free baking powder

20 or so seedless grapes (I used red grapes but green would be just as delicious and pretty)

Preparation

Cream your butter and sugar (soften in your mixing bowl in a sink of warm water if your butter is straight from the fridge), add your egg and bananas. Chop that banana up with your mixing spoon real good and mixedy-like. Sift in your baking mix and baking powder.

Pour/spoon/spatula (is spatula a verb?) your batter into a lined cake tin (or if you're using a fancy silicone cake tin like I did no need to waste precious baking paper!

Bake at 150 deg C for 20-40 minutes or so until golden and cooked (depending on the size of your cake tin this could take heaps longer, test it after 20 minutes anyway then every 5 minutes after that.

Turn out upside down onto a pretty plate, garnish with flowers, eat with a fancy cake fork and a fancy cup of tea.

Spinach satay buckwheat pasta salad

So I was eating very basic things to save money, and I've been holidaying in Christchurch, for my mum's 60th, and celebrating Seder with my Jewish boyfriend... then all of a sudden it's the end of March and I haven't blogged in weeks.

Sorry kids, now I have a video camera (thanks, Sarah) AND a decent digital camera (thanks, Jay!) I have no excuse to post pictures of what I've been cooking.

Tonight is the committee hearing for the Marriage (definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill and I'm going to a little picnic down in the Parliament Gardens as part of a peaceful demonstration of our support.

I've baked a Vermouth Banana Grape cake to bring, and wanted something light but filling, so I'm making my satay pasta salad. I've made variations of this with and without peanuts, with brown rice, a myriad of vegetables, plain and spicy, vinegary (I love vinegar), salty... Play around with this recipe until it tastes how YOU like it to. I like using fully grown spinach plants because I slice up the stems for extra crunch.

Apple cider vinegar may even help prevent Type 2 diabetes!

I've made this with buckwheat pasta because it's delicious, but you could use rice pasta, brown rice, jasmine rice, spaghetti, zucchini sliced with a vege peeler and blanched, whatevs.

Ingredients (serves 4)

1 250g pack of Orgran Buckwheat Pasta

2 eggs

1 large onion, diced

3-5 Tablespoons olive oil/coconut oil/ghee/lard

2 small spinach plants (chopped), or a few handfuls baby spinach

2 fresh tomatoes, diced

2 Tablespoons peanut butter or nut/seed butter of your choice (I used Purebread almond & hazelnut butter)

1 Tablespoon tamari (or gluten free soy sauce)

1 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon honey/palm sugar/rapadura sugar 

1/4-1/2 teaspoon minced chili pepper, or chili powder 

3-5 Tablespoons homemade stock (for meat eaters chicken/beef stock, but for vegos vegetable stock)

1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar (or white wine vinegar, or malt vinegar if you like strong flavours)

Salt and white pepper to season (be generous here, peppery pieces of peppercorns are also good)

Preparation

Cook the pasta in plenty of boiling, salty water. I find buckwheat pasta takes a little longer than normal pasta to cook. Rinse, and cool in a colander.

While the pasta is cooking, caramelise your onion slowly in your oil/fat of choice. A low heat for a long time, with an iron frying pan is perfect for this.

Chop your grown-up spinach's stems and dice your tomatoes and add to the onion, cook a few minutes more.

Add your sweetener, nut butter, tamari, chili, stock and stir until combined. Add the vinegar, pepper, pasta and chopped spinach, and stir. Season and add more vinegar as necessary.

Hardboil your eggs, then add to the salad.

Serve outside, in the sunshine, or have a picnic under the moon and the stars.

Would you believe I have photos of this, but I can't quite get them off the camera, yet? My laptop is NOT behaving.

http://www.listofimages.com/

Chicken and kumara curry

Such a great Tuesday night dinner food, and pretty healthy. Read about why you may want to include more coconut in your diet, especially using coconut oil for cooking here.

But seriously, how comforting is a creamy curry in a bowl sound? This recipe is dairy-free, and would be vegan if you substitute chickpeas for the chicken, or vegetarian if you include some boiled eggs at the end of cooking instead of the chicken.

What's even better is the carbohydrate portion of this meal is low G.I. and included in the same pot so, less cleaning up!

Ingredients

1 large or 2 medium organic onions
2 cloves organic garlic
2 Tablespoons coconut oil
2-3 Tablespoons curry powder
2-3 Tablespoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons garam masala/cinnamon powder
750g chicken breasts, cubed
400g peeled kumara cut in 2-3cm chunks (potatoes or pumpkin is fine here)
400g can chopped tomatoes in juice (or 400g fresh tomatoes with skins removed with boiling water)
400g can coconut milk OR cream (I like Ayam because reasons)
1/2-1 cup homemade chicken stock (straight from the freezer is fine if you've frozen in cubes!)
200g green beans (spinach, silverbeet, whatever green vegetables you have in your fridge)
1 tsp salt (more to taste)

Preparation

Chop onion(s) and lightly brown in the oil in a fairly large cast-iron casserole or pot.
Add curry powder and cumin according to taste and cook uncovered, stirring often, until fragrant.
Add the coconut cream, tomatoes, and kumara (or potatoes or pumpkin), then cover and simmer until tender.
Add the chicken and stock and cook for 15 minutes.
Add the coarsely chopped green vegetables and simmer 5-10 minutes until cooked.
Add salt and adjust seasonings.
Test one piece of chicken is cooked by cutting into it and checking for pinkness. Cook longer if it's pink!
Serve in bowls, topped with plain yoghurt and chopped coriander/baby spinach leaves.

I like mine with poppadoms and maybe some cauliflower rice.

10 foods I've been cooking recently

My favourite food writing is sometimes just lists of inspirational recipe starters, just to pique interest. Cuisine magazine does that really well, if I achieve employment any time soon that's a magazine subscription I'd wanna have. So if I was to make a list of recent food I've been cooking so far in 2013 it'd look a little like this:

1) Mashed potato with butter, caramelised onions, homemade beef stock gravy (thickened with GF cornflour), and sausages

2) French onion soup with Purebread Organics buckwheat bread and delicious delicious cheese

3) Bacon and tomato soup with courgettes, canned tomatoes, fresh parsley, homemade chicken stock (from free range organic chickens cos I'm a hippy)

4) Lemon meringue pie with an oat and gluten free flour mixed base (I can eat a few oats but they don't like me heaps eh)

5) Chocolate gelato with Whittakers Dark Ghana! I used this recipe and it was AMAZING.

6) Pineapple lump icecream with Whittaker's Dark Ghana chunks, canned pineapple, and slices of pineapple lumps

7) Quinoa cooked in vegetable stock served with butter, beef and lentil chili, spinach

8) SALAD. Most of my meals in Summer are salad. I love just a traditional mesclun, red onion, tomato, fresh herb salad but sometimes I finely slice carrots, celery, capsicum, add kidney beans or chickpeas for protein, lemon juice for acidity, apples and walnuts for sweetness and crunch, grapefruit because YUM GRAPEFRUIT, blanched broccoli because it's been sitting in the fridge for a few days and I hate to waste food... you get the idea. I'm not a big salad dressing type other than balsamic and olive oil, but avocado oil (or just a jujed-up avocado) with pepper and salt works for me.

9) PHO. I could eat pho forever. I can't write a recipe better than Michelle over at Health Food Lover so I won't even try. Just make this recipe, you'll thank me. Oh, and grow yourself some Vietnamese mint on your kitchen windowsill. Michelle's going to tweet me thanks for the link love, I just know it. NO MICHELLE, thanks for the AMAZING BLOG <3

10) Frittata! I eat a lot of free range organic eggs from the happiest chickens I can afford to buy from. OK that sounds like chickens are selling me their eggs directly, weird phrasing. Chickens aren't that clever. They really, really aren't. Eggs are way more than just a breakfast food. I make crispy coin purse eggs fried in ghee or coconut oil to serve as a protein accompaniment to steamed vegetables or salad. The egg yolk even dresses the salad, it's divine. I blend a banana with eggs and almond flour to make a very quick pancake batter. (I soak buckwheat groats overnight to make a pancake batter too, using this pancake recipe. Frittata is somehow so different from omelettes even if the ingredients are the same. Kumara (sweet potato), spinach or silverbeet, caramelised onions, eggs, salt, pepper, that's my most simple frittata. Caramelised onions take a long time to cook down and caramelise without adding sugar, but it's worth it for all the flavins.

So there's a list of 10 things I've been cooking recently. I hope you enjoyed it, feel free to leave a comment because I'd love ideas on recipes you'd like from me!!!