Monday 29 January 2018

Hearty Vegetable Soup

Ended up deciding to make this soup after contemplating potential applications of celery. The celery certainly doesn't take centre stage here, but it uses a few ribs and makes a really tasty, hearty soup, so I'm pretty happy with that.

I based the soup off of a recipe I found here, but I ended up improvising a bit on some of the ingredients. In theory it was supposed to have carrots, celery, onion, green and yellow split peas, green lentils, butternut squash, celery root, potato, olive oil, and kale. In practice... I didn't have any green split peas, so I just used all yellow split peas. I had green lentils, but I've really been enjoying my French lentils lately, so I swapped some of them in. I thought I had some cubed butternut squash in the fridge, but I guess I'd had it in the fridge for a little longer than I'd realized because it had gone kind of sad and mushy. But I ended up uncovering some forgotten sweet potato fries in the freezer, so I ended up chopping them into little cubes and tossing those in in place of the missing squash. And I knew I didn't have any celery root or potato but, rather than trying to run out and grab some at the last minute, I decided to just toss in a bit of brown rice, some extra celery, and a bit of celery seed to make up for the missing components. Seeing as the sweet potato fries had a bit of oil added to them, I ended up deciding to skip on the extra olive oil added at the end. And, since we'd already used up all our kale in the kale extravaganza, I tossed a bunch of frozen spinach into the pot instead. And then, because we still had a serving or so of the lovely spicy kale and beans, I figured I might as well throw those in too. So... yeah, definitely not "recipe as written", but it's still following the same general idea. And it was really flavourful and tasty!

Hearty Vegetable Soup
Adapted from Life Made Simple
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 yellow onion, diced
3 ribs celery, diced
1 large carrot, grated
~1/3 c. garlic paste (I didn't really measure it)
10 c. chicken (or vegetable) stock
herbs de provence1
40 grinds black pepper
1/4 tsp. hot paprika (might up this to 1/2 tsp. next time)
1/2 tsp. dried rosemary
1/4 tsp. celery seed
2 tsp. red wine vinegar
1 c. yellow split peas
1 c. French lentils
2 c. diced sweet potato fries (or squash or just regular sweet potatoes)
1 c. long-grain brown rice (although I think I'd reduce this to 1/2 c. next time)
8 frozen spinach discs2 (~2 Tbsp. each)
leftover kale and beans (optional)
1/4 c. fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/4 grated Parmesan

1. Heat oil over medium heat.
2. Add onion and let cook for a minute or two.
3. Add celery and allow to cook for another two minutes.
4. Toss in grated carrot and garlic paste and allow to cook and sizzle for a minute.
5. Pour in chicken stock.
6. Season with herbs de provence, black pepper, paprika, rosemary, celery seed, and vinegar.
7. Bring to a boil and add split peas and lentils.
8. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes.
9. Add sweet potato, rice3, and frozen spinach and simmer for an additional 30 minutes.
10. Stir in parsley and Parmesan and (if using) the leftover kale and beans (or whatever other miscellaneous leftover veggies you might have).
11. Serve with garlic toast and extra cheese.



1 Original recipe calls for 1 Tbsp. herbs de provence. I don't have pre-mixed herbs de provence, so I just eyeballed it. I think I put in 1 bay leaf, ~1 tsp. fresh parsley, maybe 1/2 tsp. each of {marjoram, basil, rosemary, and savory}, and ~1/4 tsp. {thyme, fennel seeds, and oregano}. And I would've put in ~1/4 tsp. tarragon if I'd had any. I guess that works out to a bit more than a Tbsp. Oh well, it was delicious and I certainly didn't mind a bit of extra seasoning. It smelled amazing while it was cooking!
2 If using fresh spinach, I recommend using a full, lightly packed, 2 c. The frozen spinach is packed very densely, so 8 discs (1 c. equivalent) seemed like enough. Fresh spinach, even lightly packed, will not be nearly so dense. Also, if you plan on using fresh spinach, I would add it at the same time as the parsley and Parmesan since it just needs to be warmed rather than thawed.
3 If you put in the full cup of rice, you may need to add more water part-way through cooking. I found I needed to add ~3 c. This is why I said I'd go with only 1/2 c. of rice next time.

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