This soup is really a salad dressing that never made it to the greens!

I don’t know if you’ve ever made something you liked so much, you started eating it right out of the mixing bowl, even before you finished preparing it.

That’s what happened when I made this tomatillo avocado salsa salad dressing. Yes, I know, this is a soup blog. However, I think this dressing is so healthy and scrumptious that it makes a great chilled summer soup.

In other words, it never made the journey from the food processor bowl to the salad greens!

The secret is the tomatillos. A distant relative of the tomato and often referred to as tomate verde or green tomato, they are a staple in Mexican cuisine. I had never really used them before because the paper-like husks intimidated me for some reason.

However, a class at Flavour Cooking School in Forest Park showed me peeling a tomatillo couldn’t be easier. Simply remove the top, papery layer and chop the fruit into quarters before adding it to the food processor. The tomatillos are slightly sticky to the touch, and the flavor is sort of lemony, herbal and tangy all at the same time. Paired with the avocados, jalapeno, cilantro and lime juice, the result is sort of cross between gazpacho and guacamole.

Not that it needs embellishment, but you could crumble a little queso fresco, a firm-textured white cheese also used in Mexican recipes, and/or tortilla chips on top, as garnish.

Of course, you can always use this recipe as it was intended – as a salad dressing. With no added oil other than the avocado, this is off-the-charts in terms of healthy.  Any kind of lettuce and vegetable combination will work. The one we made in the cooking class included frisee, baby arugula, cherry tomatoes and julienned roasted red pepper.

Soup or salad? It’s all a matter of how much willpower you have.

 Tomatillo Avocado Salsa Soup (and salad dressing)

¼ to ½- jalapeno pepper, seeded

1 clove garlic

1/3 cup cilantro leaves

3 scallions, cut into 2-inch pieces

1 pound tomatillos, husked and quartered (approximately 6-8 tomatillos)

3 tablespoons lime juice, freshly squeezed

2 avocados, flesh removed

½ small white onion, peeled

¼ teaspoon cumin

Sea salt and black pepper to taste

Turn food processor on. Drop jalapeno, garlic, cilantro and scallions through feed tube of food processor while machine is running. Process ingredients until minced. Add tomatillos and lime juice. Process until mixture is liquid. Add avocado, onion, cumin and salt and pepper. Let stand 30 to 60 minutes to blend flavors. Taste and adjust.

Serves 4-6 as soup or use as salad dressing.

 From Flavour Cooking School, Forest Park, Illinois

Pea soup doesn't need a hambone to have full flavor and richness.

Soupalooza published its second column in the Daily Herald  … this time we focused on split pea soup, admittedly a love-it-or-hate-it proposition. As a matter of fact, Daily Herald Editor John Lampinen wrote on his facebook page:

There are two phenomena I never will understand: 1) People who can smoke one cigarette every couple of months. And 2) people who will eat split pea soup without a gun pointed at their heads…. But if somehow you’re part of the latter phenomenon, our soup columnist has a creative suggestion for you.

 

Obviously, Soupalooza thinks pea soup is just fine, but we appreciated John’s mention of the column and we would hope that he might give peas a chance!

Split Pea Soup with Caraway

 2 cups dried split peas

7 cups of vegetable stock

1 bay leaf

3 teaspoons caraway seeds

1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and diced

1 large onion, chopped

2 ribs celery, diced

2 carrots, sliced

2 to 3 small potatoes, scrubbed and diced

2 to 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

Salt and pepper to taste

 In a large soup pot, combine the split peas, stock, bay leaf, caraway seeds and jalapeno. Bring to a boil, turn the heat to low and simmer, covered for 30 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients, except the salt and pepper, and continue to simmer until the peas and vegetables are tender, about 30 minutes more. Season with salt and pepper. Serves six.

 From “Dairy Hollow House Soup and Bread” by Crescent Dragonwagon

If you are new to beets, borscht is a good place to start.

I am a latecomer to the whole beet thing. It’s not that I didn’t like them. I just didn’t know them.

Turns out I am not alone. According to The Salt, National Public Radio’s food blog, 2011 was a pretty good year for beta vulgaris.

 Daniel Zwerdling writes:

 Some farmers markets say beet sales have surged since January, and they’ve doubled over the past few years. And it seems like every restaurant across the country serves beets these days — especially the ubiquitous beet salad.

Does all this constitute a beet renaissance? Irwin Goldman says, absolutely, yes. He breeds beets at theUniversity ofWisconsin, where he’s a professor of horticulture. He has been waiting for this renaissance for years.

“I think it’s just wonderful to see because it’s just an incredibly fabulous vegetable that I think is totally underappreciated,” he says.

Soupalooza couldn’t agree more and, to that end, we decided to make … why, borscht, of course!

We found an easy recipe in “The Big Book of Soups and Stews” by Maryana Vollstedt and we made it even easier by using pre-shredded coleslaw cabbage. The hardest part of the whole recipe is cutting up the canned beets without making a mess of epic proportions in your kitchen.

Beets, after all, do stain things, especially clothing so don’t wear your anything you care about when preparing them. If you do manage to stain something, ehow.com has a good article on how to remove the stain, using bread of all things!

In any event, give this soup a try. It is good both hot or cold, but definitely needs a dollop of sour cream when serving either way.

Easy Borscht

½ head (about 1 ½  pounds) cabbage, core removed shredded (I used two packages of coleslaw mix)

1 carrot, chopped

½ cup chopped yellow onion

1 ½ cups vegetable broth

1 can (15 ounces) Great Northern beans, drained and rinsed

1 can (14 ½ ounces) diced tomatoes with juice, slightly pureed

1 can (8 ounces) tomato sauce

1 can (14 ½ ounces) pickled beets, coarsely chopped, with juice

½ teaspoon salt

Freshly ground pepper to taste

Sour cream for topping

In a large soup pot over medium heat, combine all ingredients except sour cream. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, covered, until vegetables are tender, about 30 minutes. Add more stock if soup is too thick. Serve with a dollop of sour cream.

 From “The Big Book of Soups and Stews” by Maryana Vollstedt

Use canned roasted tomatoes for a soup that is mmm-mmm good.

This is a big day for soupalooza. The Daily Herald is running our column once a month on soup. We decided to start with a favorite …. cream of tomato soup. We showcase a great recipe from our guru Mark Bittman of the New York Times (you can never go wrong with Mark).

Soupalooza tinkered with Mark’s recipe a tad by using canned roasted tomatoes and it is awesome …. even better than the kind in the red and white can. Really!  Hard to imagine, but it is almost as easy and twice as yummy. Check out the column in the Daily Herald. We are so excited!

OK, so every time I make this soup, it turns out differently. But it is delicious each and every time.

Here’s my question for you, fellow soup savants:  Why is it when you  remake a tried and true soup recipe, the end results can turn out so differently?

I know. I know. We soup lovers like to make soup because, well, because it’s a little more free flowing than, say, baking puff pastry.  Add a little here. Adjust. Toss in some more water. A splash of lemon , a pinch more salt …

The art of making soup is just that. It’s an art, not a science. Still, it’s amazing how different one batch can be from the next — even when you actually follow the recipe.

Case in point:  The following Lentil Swiss Chard Soup that I found on food.com.

Any gardener knows that the only thing more pernicious than zucchini is  swiss chard . It just keeps on keepin’ on. And the only thing to be done with large batches of it is to  soupify it. (Hey, if Rachel Ray can make up words, so can I.)

In any event, I like this recipe a lot … it’s got a lot of spicing in it and is more like a very healthy chili.  It may vary from one batch to the next, but it’s always good.

Lentil and Swiss Chard Soup (courtesy of food.com)

1 cup dried lentils, sorted and rinsed
1 bunch swiss chard, rinsed and roughly torn, stems removed
1 (16 ounce) can diced tomatoes
2 red potatoes, washed, cut in 1-inch cubes
1 white onion, chopped
2 medium carrots, scrubbed, sliced
3 garlic cloves, pressed
5 -6 cups chicken broth or 5 -6 cups vegetable broth
2 bay leaves
2 tablespoons fresh thyme, chopped
1 tablespoon chopped fresh marjoram
1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon seasoning salt  (or to taste)
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Place all ingredients in a 5 to 6 quart crockpot, stir, and cook for 4 hours on high or 6 to 8 hours on low. Lentils and other vegetables should be cooked but not overly soft. Remove bay leaves, stir and serve with fresh baked cornbread and jalapeno pepper sauce on the side.

Green beans and Marmite? Really? Yes, really!

When my friend and yoga teacher Catriona first mentioned green bean soup with Marmite, I have to admit I balked.

First of all, there’s no real need to make soup out of green beans.  After all,  why mush up something that’s meant to be served with a bit of snap? (My favorite is to blanche green beans and then saute them in butter with shallots, chopped hazelnuts and rosemary. Amazing!)

As to the Marmite, I really didn’t know exactly what it was, but it didn’t sound good.

For the uninitiated, Marmite is a sticky brown yeast paste that’s basically the gunk left over after beer is made.  Let’s just say it’s strictly  a love it or hate it proposition, which actually is the company’s slogan.

It is a true testament to my faith in Catriona that I plunged ahead. (How can you not adore a yoga teacher with an English accent and a Ph.D in biology?)

Oh, and she also told me it was a great hangover cure.

In any case, her recipe  called for adding Marmite to taste. I wasn’t sure how it tasted so I gave it a whirl. I took a big old heaping teaspoon of the paste and popped it into my mouth.

Arghhhhh!

In true faux English fashion, I carried on.  And you know what, the soup was delicious. The green beans are sweet and the milk is creamy and the Marmite, well, the Marmite adds just the right spunk to the whole endeavor, as does the addition of  Tabasco and red pepper flakes.

I haven’t tried it on a real hangover, but it does have that perfect combination of comfort and kick that one needs to get out of the fog of over indulgence.

Catriona’s Green Bean Soup
(Adapted from “A Busy Person’s Guide to Preserving Food” by Janet Chadwick)

Top and tail the washed green beans, cut them up into 1-inch pieces. Cook until tender. You will need 3 cups of pureed beans (made from 3 cups of cooked beans and 1 cup of stock).

Saute 1/4 cup of onion; add 1 cup of light cream or milk and the pureed beans. Stir.

The original recipe called for 2 dashes of Tabasco, 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder, 1/2 teaspoon basil, salt and pepper. I thought it was too sweet and anemic so I added Marmite to taste and my fail-safe standby:  1/4 teaspoon of each of the following: red pepper flakes, allspice and dried thyme.