Two-Mushroom Barley Soup

This soup made our house smell delicious! Last weekend we wanted to get some work done in the yard, so put this soup together in the morning. Like the title of the recipe indicates, there are two kinds of mushrooms. We used white mushrooms and 1 oz of dried porcinis. The porcinis add a nice rich woodsy flavor. We ended up using carrots, celery and thyme from the garden and homemade vegetable stock. It was perfect after a long day outside building wooden compost bins.

Winter Squash & Sweet Potato Soup

Yum, winter squash. Over the summer, I grew acorn & butternut squash in the garden. Then I put them in the cupboard for winter. It got cold towards the end of December, so it was the perfect time for hot soup from the slow cooker. This recipe was super easy & delicious.

Basically you slow cook onions, sweet potatoes & butternut squash in veggie stock with thyme & sage. Then blend. Full recipe can be found in Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker.

Flageolet Beans with Rosemary and Thyme

Damn good. This recipe came from the December issue of Sunset magazine. It was super simple & took very little time to cook. The fresh herbs came straight from the backyard and really made the beans flavorful. I used small white beans from the regular grocery store instead of trying to find the called for flageolet.

Ingredients:
12 oz dried flageolet beans
6 garlic cloves, peeled
2 tsp salt
2 tsp finely chopped fresh rosemary
2 tsp finely chopped fresh thyme
2 carrots, cut into 1/2 in slices on diagonal
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/4 c flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped

1. Put all but parsley into slow cooker. Add 5 cups boiling water & stir. Cover & cook until beans are very tender & most of water is absorbed, 2-3 hrs on high or 4-4.5 hrs on low.

2. Stir in 3 tbsp of parsley. Transfer to serving dishes. Add more oil to taste if desired. Garnish with sprigs of rosemary & thyme & remaining parsley.

Tomato Soup

So glad I had this to come home to after a cold, rainy spring day.

All I had to do was blend it up & add some Israeli couscous. Put together with a fresh salad & dinner is done!

To make: saute a chopped, medium onion & a minced clove of garlic in olive oil. Add to crockpot. Add 3 cups veggie broth, lg can of chopped tomatoes (I used a quart of canned garden tomatoes), 1 tbsp tomato paste or ketchup, 2 bay leaves, a pinch of sugar, salt & pepper to taste. Cook on low for 6-8 hours. Remove bay leaves. Blend in food processor or blender or better yet, use immersion blender right in the crockpot. Add more salt & pepper if desired. Eat!

Veggie Stock

4.1.10
It was going to be a cold & rainy week and I had been saving some some random veggie stalks to make into veggie stock, so I started to throw some items into the pot.

1 tbsp olive oil
2 onions, quartered
1 large carrot, cut into 1-inch pieces
1/2 bunch swiss chard stems, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 bunch beet green stems, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 bunch carrot tops, leafy parts only, torn into 1-inch pieces
2 fennel stalks, feathery parts only
1/3 c parsley leaves, coarsely chopped
3 garlic cloves, unpeeled and crushed
1/2 tsp celery seed
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp black peppercorns
8 c water
2 tsp soy sauce or braggs
1 tsp salt

Drizzle olive oil into slowcooker. Add veggies & spices. Pour in water. Add soy sauce & salt. Cover & cook on low for 8-10 hours.

Let cool for a little while. I then used a sieve to squeeze the juices out of the cooked veggies. This didn't really get me a ton of extra liquid, but I bet it was some of the strongest and didn't really take me very long, so might as well try it. I left the carrot & onion chunks in the pot and used a stick blender to blend it all up. I ended up with over nine cups of broth. I had enough to make lentil soup for dinner the next night, cook up a giant pot of potato broccoli soup to share with my friends who just had a baby and freeze some for the next rainy week. And it was super yummy!

Lentil Soup with Ribbons of Kale

1.12.10
This was the first recipe I tried out from my new vegetarian slow cooker cookbook. It was turning into a pretty rainy January and it was time for soup. This recipe needed the basic soup veggies -onion, celery, carrot - to be cooked before starting the pot, so I chopped the veggies the night before. I thought that you would just be able to throw everything right in to the crockpot and press start, but sometime you have to pre-cook. It's not really a big deal, just have to be ready to use the stove in the morning. This soup was definitely worth it - very filling and went well with garlic bread.