Sauerkraut Borscht

If you're the kind of hippie who has a mason jar of sauerkraut brewing on the kitchen counter (between the jars of water kefir, yogurt and kombucha), this is a great way to add a new kraut recipe to the rotation.  If you don't brew your own kefir and kombucha, you might not be watching enough Portlandia.

(We wrote this recipe before Ezra was born, so we don't have a picture of him eating it.)

3 tablespoons butter
1/2 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped roughly
2 teaspoons caraway seed
4 cups beets, cut into 1/2 inch dice
1 medium potato, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
2 sprigs thyme, tied with twine or in a bouquet garni
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons minced dill
1 cup sauerkraut (preferably brined)
apple cider vinegar

Toppings:
yogurt or sour cream

Heat two tablespoons butter in a saucepan. Saute the onions and garlic until the onions are soft. Add the caraway seeds and saute for 2 more minutes. Add the beets, potato, thyme, salt and just enough water to cover. Simmer until the beets are fully cooked.

Remove from the heat. Take out the thyme and stir in the dill. Puree half of the soup in a blender or food mill, then stir it back together.

In a frying pan, saute the sauerkraut in the remaining 1 tablespoon butter until softened. Stir the kraut into the soup, reheat if necessary, and taste. If you would like more sour flavor, add apple cider vinegar to taste.

Serve hot, with sour cream or yogurt.

Paprika, Green Bean and Potato Stew

Phoebe was a pretty picky eater as a kid, but always made an exception for her mom's paprika-flavored potato stew. The recipe, which originally included chunks of hot dog or sausage, was passed on to Phoebe's mom by a Hungarian girl back in the 70's and Phoebe's mom started using green beans instead of hot dog chunks. Phoebe's family always called this dish paprikash, but a little wikipedia research revealed that paprikash is a chicken and sour cream sauce over noodles, while this dish is actually called paprikás krumpli.

3 tablespoons butter or olive oil
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 1/2 tablespoons paprika
1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon cayenne (optional)
4 cups green beans, chopped into 1" pieces
4 cups Yukon Gold potatoes, cut into 1" cubes
2 cups canned tomatoes (diced or pureed)
3/4 teaspoon salt

Melt the butter in a sauce pan, then saute the onions until softened. Remove from the heat and immediately stir in the paprika and cayenne. Add the rest of the ingredients and enough water to cover the vegetables. Return to the heat and simmer until the potatoes and green beans are cooked, but still tender.

Golden Beet Soup with Cinnamon

A colorful, warming soup for cold winter evenings, this recipe is decadently creamy without the presence of actual cream (thanks, coconut milk!). Try to use small, fresh beets that are still juicy. The tablespoon of applesauce at the end really brings the warm spiced forward, but you can skip it if you don't want to crack open a whole jar just for this one recipe.


6 yellow beets (4 cups)
1 sweet potato (2 cups)
2 tablespoons butter (or olive oil)
olive oil
pinch of allspice
pinch of nutmeg
1 clove
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup coconut milk
1 tablespoon plain applesauce

Chop the sweet potatoes and beets into 1/2 inch cubes. Melt the butter over medium heat in a large saucepan, then add yams and beets. Cover and saute, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are tender, about 20 minutes. (There should be enough liquid to keep the vegetables from sticking and burning. If your beets and yams don't give off enough liquid, add a few tablespoons of water.)

Stir in a little olive oil, turn the heat up to medium-high, and stir frequently, until the beets and yams are browned. Sprinkle in the spices and stir for a minute. Add the coconut milk, salt, applesauce and enough water to cover the vegetables. Simmer for 5 minutes, then puree well, adding more water as needed.

Kabocha, Beer and Cheese Soup

Due to CSA-induced extreme squash consumption several years ago, there has been a winter squash strike in our house for a while now. If we can eat and love this soup, so can the staunchest winter squash hater at your Thanksgiving table! (Booze and cheese will do that for a vegetable). This recipe was inspired by the pumpkin rarebit soup from The Enchanted Broccoli Forest. Here, we've used kabocha squash, which is less stringy and watery than a regular pumpkin. You can also try this with a buttercup squash.

For the lactose-intolerant or otherwise cheese-avoiding readers, this is also good without the cheese.

1 large kabocha squash
2 tablespoons butter
3 cloves garlic, peeled and left whole
1 large onion, sliced into rings
Vegetable stock, as needed, up to 1 cup
1 12-ounce bottle of beer (we like pale ale)
salt
8 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, grated

Preheat oven to 375. Cut squash into eighths and bake, covered, until tender, about 40 minutes. Meanwhile, heat butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onions and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until onions are browned and soft.

When squash is done, slice off skin and transfer pieces to a food processor with the caramelized onions and garlic. Add just enough stock to blend to a smooth puree. Transfer to the saucepan, add the beer, salt to taste and simmer for 10 minutes.

Ladle into ramekins and top with the cheese, then broil until cheese is bubbly and starting to brown. (Or, if you're not feeling like ramekins, you can just stir in the cheese, add a little extra stock and simmer a few minutes longer). Let sit for a few minutes before serving to prevent serious internal mouth burns!

Rachel's Roasted Asian Pear and Fennel Soup

It's time to start planning exciting veggie side dishes to go with that big, boring Thanksgiving turkey. To jump-start your menu planning, we're blogging hearty, seasonal, late-autumn fare from now until the big day. And check out our Thanksgiving tag for inspiration from years past.

Our first Thanksgiving submission is another genius recipe from Hannah's sister! This soup combines the crisp, delicate flavors of two November favorites--Asian pears and fennel--roasted to bring out their rich, creamy potential. The result is a lovely blend of sweet and savory, an excellent first course if you're serving anything sharply-flavored like arugula. Although there are a lot of concurrent activities here, most of this recipe is inactive: you're basically just waiting around for half an hour or so while the pears and fennel roast, the stock simmers and the onions caramelize.

3 medium-sized Asian pears, diced (save the cores for stock)
1 bulb fennel, diced (save the stalks for stock and the fronds for garnish)
3 tablespoons olive oil
Salt
Freshly-ground black pepper
1 onion, sliced into rings (save skins and trimmings for stock)
1/4 cup whole peppercorns
1/2 cup apple cider

For garnish:
Plain yogurt (optional if you want to make it vegan)
Fennel fronds

Preheat oven to 375. In a 9 x 13 inch pan, toss the fennel and pears with two tablespoons of the olive oil, salt and freshly ground black pepper. Roast for 40-45 minutes, until very soft.

Meanwhile, combine pear cores, fennel stalks, onion skins & trimmings and peppercorns in a saucepan, cover with water, and bring to a boil. Simmer while everything else cooks, about half an hour, then strain out solids.

While the stock is simmering and the pears and fennel are roasting, heat the remaining tablespoon of olive oil in a small skillet over medium heat. Add the onions and saute, stirring occasionally, until the onions are browned and soft.

Now, put it all together: combine the roasted pears, fennel, 3 cups of stock, caramelized onions and cider in a blender and blend until very smooth. (We also passed ours through a food mill to remove any grainy pieces of Asian pear peel and get the texture extra-velvety.) Add salt and pepper to taste and then serve with a swirl of yogurt and some chopped fennel fronds.

Creamy Cauliflower Soup with Leeks and Thyme

Homey and comforting, this creamy soup contains no cream or dairy products of any kind--just vegetables, herbs and stock. Even without cream, it's still very rich, so plan to serve this as a small first course rather than a meal in itself.

3 tablespoons olive oil
1 small head cauliflower, broken into small florets
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 large leek, white part only, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
5 cups vegetable stock (you can use the green part of the leek, thyme stems and leftover garlic or onion skins to make a quick stock)

Preheat oven to 350. Toss 2 tablespoons of the olive oil with the cauliflower and sea salt in a 9 x 13 inch pan and roast for 40-50 minutes, stirring occasionally, until browned in places and tender.

Meanwhile, heat the remaining tablespoon of olive oil in a cast-iron skillet. Add the leeks and saute, stirring frequently, for 10-20 minutes, until wilted and starting to color. Remove from heat.

When cauliflower is done, combine cauliflower, leeks, thyme and stock in the blender and puree until very smooth. Pass through a food mill to remove any twiggy bits of thyme and get the texture ultra-silky.

Sambhar with Okra

Do we spend enough time talking about how much we love okra? Probably not. We'd start another blog called I Heart Okra, but we're assuming there's a limited market for I Heart [Green Thing] blogs. Here's another way to showcase our favorite mucilaginous vegetable. This sambhar--inspired by versions we had in Kerala and adapted from Savoring the Spice Coast of India--is like an Indian answer to gumbo: thick, satisfying, spicy, and okra-licious.

1 and 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup yellow split peas, rinsed

3 tablespoons coconut oil
1/8 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
1 cup pureed tomato
2 medium-sized Yukon Gold potatoes, cubed
1 cup minced onion
1 jalapeno chile, sliced lengthwise (you can scoop the seeds out if you want less spice)
12 branches cilantro: stems and leaves minced separately
4 teaspoons coriander powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon asafoetida*
Salt
1 teaspoon tamarind paste

1/4 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 dried red chile
1 sprig curry leaves, stemmed (optional, if you can find them)
1/2 lb. okra, ends trimmed, sliced lengthwise

Combine water and dal in a small saucepan and bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer 30-40 minutes, until dal is soft.

In a large saucepan, heat 1 tablespoon of the coconut oil over medium-high heat. When hot, add the fenugreek seeds and stir for 3o second or so, just until they brown. Add 2 cups water, potatoes, tomato, onion, jalapeno, cilantro stems, spices, salt and tamarind. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 15-20 minutes, until potatoes are fork-tender.

Meanwhile, heat 2 tablespoons coconut oil in a wok. (Yes, we're making you dirty three separate pans! It's worth it, though). Add the mustard seeds, and when they pop, add the curry leaves and chiles and stir quickly. Throw in the okra and fry until it starts to brown, about 10 minutes or so, stirring constantly.

Now put it all together: pour the peas and okra into the large saucepan with the veggies and taste for salt. Top with the minced cilantro leaves and serve.

*ETA: Apparently asafoetida is not gluten-free, so please leave it out if you're cooking for anyone who is! Don't worry, the sambhar will still be okra-tastic and yummy.

Banana Dal

We've been trying to perfect a household dal for a while (sometimes getting stymied by lack of Indian ingredients). And then we went to the motherland of dal, learned this recipe, and hit on perfection. Bananas are a favorite special occasion dinner ingredient around here, particularly because one of us wrote a senior thesis in college about bananas and needs to periodically bombard the other one with random trivia about ripening stages.

We've made a few adaptations at home to personalize this recipe and tweak it for the American stove. Instead of grated fresh coconut, which is used in Kerala, we've substituted coconut milk and grated dessicated coconut. This recipe was presented to us with toor dal, but we used chana dal instead because that's our favorite. We also added some tomato paste and ginger.

1 cup chana dal (or toor dal, or just plain yellow split peas)
6 cups water
2 green bananas, sliced (we're referring here to the most unripe bananas you can find in your produce section, not to unripe plantains)
4 large shallots - two for paste, two sliced into rings
1/4 cup grated coconut
4 cloves garlic
1-inch piece of ginger
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 tablespoon coconut oil
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1-2 sprigs curry leaves
1 dried red chile
1 green chile, sliced lengthwise
1 teaspoon tumeric
1/2 cup coconut milk
1-2 tablespoons tomato paste
about 1 teaspoon salt

Bring dal and water to boil. Lower heat and simmer, covered, for about 45 minutes or until dal is soft. Add bananas when dal is nearly done and simmer gently for five more minutes.

Meanwhile, grind two of the shallots with the garlic, ginger and cumin in a food processor until you have a coarse paste. Add the grated coconut last, and pulse a few more times.

Heat the coconut oil in a wok on medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, add mustard seeds and pop. Add curry leaves and dried red chile and stir for a minute. Add the two sliced shallots and chile and fry until browned, stirring continuously. Add the tumeric and stir to coat the shallots. Stir in the garlic/shallot paste and keep it moving until the raw smell is gone and there's a nice golden color.

Add the contents of the wok, the tomato paste and the coconut milk into the pot with the dal and banana. Stir to mix, then simmer for another 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally, to meld the flavors and allow the banana to fully cook. Add salt and serve with a delicious flatbread -- the one shown here is uttapam.

Carrot, Sweet Potato and Coconut Soup

We had a spoonful of a friend's sweet potato and coconut soup at Paul and Elizabeth's when we were home for the holidays that we wanted to replicate at home. The richness of the coconut and the warmth of the spices are perfect for a filling winter meal. The key here is to cook the carrots until they're really soft--it's OK for the sweet potatoes to get a little broken-down if that's what needs to happen for the carrots to blend smoothly.

2 teaspoons butter or oil
3 carrots, diced
1 large sweet potato, diced
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon garam masala
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1 cup coconut milk
Salt to taste

Heat butter or oil in a large saucepan over medium-high. Add carrots and sweet potatoes and stir, then add spices and saute 2-3 minutes to coat. Add water just to cover, bring a to a boil, then lower heat and simmer 25-35 minutes, until carrots are very tender. Transfer to a blender, add coconut milk and blend until smooth. (Optional: pass through a food mill for a perfectly velvety texture.) Return to saucepan, add salt to taste and simmer 2-3 minutes more.

Toor Dal with Tahini and Parsley

This was originally supposed to be a luscious Indian dal with coconut milk, shallots and curry leaves. But it was raining hard enough on Sunday to deter a supermarket run, and we were out of curry leaves & shallots, and the jar of leftover coconut milk in the fridge that inspired the whole dal idea had developed, shall we say, a very mature aroma. The result: there is absolutely nothing Indian about this soup besides the toor dal (split yellow pigeon peas) and because it relied on whatever we had around, it's taken on more Syrian flavorings: tahini, browned onions, chopped parsley and cumin. It's rib-sticking comfort food, and has been doing an awesome job as warm, motivating breakfast during the first week of bone-chilling rainy weather.

If you don't have toor dal, yellow split peas are fine--you might need a slightly longer simmer to get them soft.

1 cup toor dal or yellow split peas
4 cups water
1 tsp turmeric
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, sliced into thin rings
1 teaspoon ground cumin
2 tablespoons tahini
a teaspoon or so of good kosher salt or sea salt
Black pepper to taste
2 tablespoons chopped parsley

Combine dal, water and turmeric in a medium-sized saucepan and bring to a boil. Skim off the white foam that rises to the top, and simmer 40 minutes, until dal is very soft.

Meanwhile, heat oil over medium-high heat in a cast-iron skillet or heavy-bottomed frying pan. Add the sliced onions and fry, stirring occasionally, for 15-20 minutes, until they start to brown.

When dal is cooked, add the onions, cumin, tahini, salt and pepper and simmer for 5-10 more minutes to thicken the soup and blend the flavors. Garnish with chopped parsley.

Carrot Fennel Soup

For reasons unclear to us, Gourmet started showing up in our mailbox about six months ago--we never ordered it, so either someone at Gourmet reads the blog or one of you really, really loves us. This soup is a variation on the carrot fennel soup in the recent Thanksgiving issue: velvety, elegant and simple, a fantastic showcase for fennel.

2 medium fennel bulbs with fronds

1 lb carrots, quartered lengthwise
1 medium red onion, quartered
1 garlic clove
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Salt to taste

Preheat oven to 450°F. Thinly slice fennel bulb. Mince some of the fennel fronds and save them for a garnish. Start a vegetable stock with 6 cups of water, carrot trimmings, onion and garlic skins, fennel stalks and any extra fronds.

Toss the fennel with carrots, onion, garlic, oil and salt on a greased baking sheet and roast, stirring occasionally, for about half an hour, until soft. Puree vegetables in a blender with 4 and 1/2 cups stock until very smooth. Taste for salt and serve sprinkled with reserved fennel fronds.

Beet and Cumin Soup

This was inspired by beet soup we had at Dosa last month that was smooth, earthy and swirled with a little creme fraiche. Our attempted reconstruction came out equally satisfying--make sure to be persistent in pureeing the soup, since the creaminess is a big part of this soup's apppeal.

We made our own stock with the trimmings, and while that may be too fussy for some, we find that making stock out of beet trimmings for a beet soup really brings the sweetness forward. It really doesn't add much time.

1 tablespoon butter
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
1 large leek, white part only, diced
2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
2 lbs beets, peeled and diced into 1/2-inch cubes
2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
Salt to taste
Yogurt for topping

First, start a stock with the leek tops, beet trimmings, thyme stems, garlic skins (also, whatever other veggie bits you have lying around) and 4 cups of water. Bring to a boil and then simmer while you do everything else. Strain.

Melt butter over medium-high heat in a stock pot and add cumin seeds. Stir quickly, then add leeks and garlic and saute for 3 minutes, until leeks start to soften. Add beets, thyme and barely enough stock to cover. Simmer about 30 minutes or so, until beets are tender. Transfer to a blender (in batches if necessary) and puree until very smooth, adding more stock if necessary. Return to pot, salt to taste, and simmer for a few more minutes. Serve with a swirl of yogurt.

Cauliflower Bisque with Miso

This soup may look and taste like it's packed with cream, butter and decadence, but it's just roasted vegetables, stock and miso. It's warming, velvety and a great dead-of-winter pick-me-up. Save out some of the roasted cauliflower florets for the top--they're delicious!

We used Russian banana fingerling potatoes, but anything waxy will work here. Use potatoes with a nice thin skin so you don't have to peel them. In this recipe, the garlic cloves get roasted with the other vegetables, but we also tried this with the delicious preserved garlic we made last winter (still good!)--if you go that route, just add them when you're ready to blend it all up.

1 head cauliflower, chopped into bite-sized florets
1 lb small waxy potatoes, diced into bite-sized pieces
4 cloves garlic, peeled
about 2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
3 cups vegetable stock
1 tablespoon miso

Preheat oven to 350. Toss the cauliflower, potatoes and garlic with olive oil and salt in a large pan and roast for 40-50 minutes, stirring occasionally, until cauliflower and potatoes are fork-tender. If you don't already have vegetable stock, you can make some now while you're waiting.

Set aside a third of the roasted cauliflower and potatoes, then puree the rest of the roasted vegetables, miso and stock in the blender. You might need more or less stock depending on the consistency of your potatoes, so add it slowly. Be patient and keep blending until the texture is as creamy as possible. Add in the reserved vegetables and enjoy!

Curried Coconut Corn Soup with Yogurt and Lime

Vegetable Soups from Deborah Madison's Kitchen is one of our favorite cookbooks. The recipes are organized seasonally, so you end up with soups that naturally pair whatever comes into season at the same time and involve appropriate amounts of cooking for the temperature outside: roasted vegetable soups for fall, quick simmers and cold soups for summer. This is one of our go-to soups from that cookbook, and a great way to use the last of the summer corn.

We've modified the recipe only slightly: Madison adds the garam masala (an Indian spice blend available at Indian groceries and the spice aisle at Whole Foods or easily made at home) with the onion, but we've been noticing lately that garam masala ends up tasting bitter when we add it too soon. So we add it later, with the corn and coconut milk.

Curried Corn and Coconut Soup with Yogurt and Lime
modified from Vegetable Soups from Deborah Madison's Kitchen

4 ears corn, yellow or white varieties, shucked
8 cilantro branches plus 2 tablespoons finely chopped cilantro leaves
1/2 cup finely diced red onion, trimmings reserved
1 tablespoon butter or roasted peanut oil
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon hot or mild paprika
1/2 teaspoon garam masala
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
1 tablespoon flour (gluten-free friends, we've tried this with rice flour and it works)
1 can light or regular coconut milk (1 and 1/2 to 2 cups)
Juice of 1 lime, or more to taste
1/2 cup yogurt
Cilantro sprigs for garnish

Heat 6 cups water in a saucepan. Meanwhile, slice the corn off the cobs, taking just the top halves of the kernels, then reverse your knife and run the dull edge down the cobs to press out the liquid. Break the cobs and put them in the heating water with the cilantro branches and any onion trimmings. Simmer for at least 15 minutes--longer if you can--then strain.

Melt the butter in a soup pot over medium heat. Add the onion, cook for 3 to 4 minutes, then add all the spices except the garam masala and cook a few minutes more. Stir in the flour, pour in the coconut milk, and add the corn and the scrapings, the chopped cilantro, 1 and 1/2 cups stock, and 1 teaspoon salt. If the soup is too thick, thin it with more water. Simmer over medium heat for 10 minutes. Squeeze in the lime juice and taste, adjusting the salt if needed. Refrigerate if you want to serve the soup chilled.

Beat the yogurt with a fork until smooth. Serve the soup with a swirl of yogurt and sprigs of cilantro in each bowl.

Tomato and Tahini Soup

For our final tomato soup week recipe, here's a simple, creamy version that gets its bulk and protein from a swirl of tahini. The concept was inspired by Mark Bittman's Tomato and Onion Salad with Tahini Dressing; here, we've added some honey, substituted scallions for the onion and put it all in the blender.

2 lbs tomatoes, chopped roughly
2 scallions, minced
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cumin
juice of one lemon
2 tablespoons tahini
1-2 teaspoons honey

extra minced scallion for garnish

Combine everything in the blender. Puree. Garnish with extra scallions.

Green Tortilla Soup

For the fourth day of tomato soup week, we bring you this greener, rawer version of our tortilla soup. Green zebra tomatoes, shown below, are an heirloom variety that stay green even when fully ripe. This wouldn't be delicious with what we usually consider green tomatoes (i.e. unripe red tomatoes), so if you can't find green zebras at your farmer's market, go ahead and use whatever delicious ripe tomatoes are on hand.


15 green zebra tomatoes (about 2.5 lbs or 5 cups pureed)
1 small avocado
juice of 2 limes
1 jalapeño pepper (or some cayenne), diced, seeds removed if you're not into spice
1/4 teaspoon smoked spanish paprika
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon salt
water, as needed

6 corn tortillas, sliced into 1/4 inch ribbons
canola oil

Combine tomatoes, avocado, lime juice, jalapeño, paprika, cumin and salt in a blender and puree until smooth. Thin out with a little water if it's too thick--you want soup texture, not guacamole.

Fry the tortilla strips in canola or peanut oil until golden and crisp, then remove to a paper-towel-lined plate. Ladle soup into bowls and garnish with tortilla strips.

Potato Gazpacho with Avocado

OK, gluten-free friends, we hear your pain: why the incessant thickening of soups with slices of day-old artisan bread? (Also, non-Alice Waters friends, we hear your pain as well: why the incessant assumption that you just happened to spend yesterday at a boulangerie?) We answer your well-placed concerns on the third day of tomato soup week with this gluten-free gazpacho, which gets its texture from a cold cooked potato. Obviously it's best to have the cooked potato ready, but nothing catastrophic will happen if you boil the potato when you're ready to make the soup and chill it in the freezer for half an hour, since the only other thing this soup involves is throwing stuff in a blender and pressing go.

6 large tomatoes, chopped
1 scallion, chopped
1 large clove garlic, minced
juice of 1 lemon
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
1 boiled Russet potato, cooled, peeled and diced
1 finely minced jalapeno chile (leave out the seeds if you're a spice wuss)
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
1 cucumber, diced
1 avocado, diced

Combine tomatoes, scallion, garlic, lemon juice, cilantro, potato, chile, olive oil, salt and pepper in a blender and puree until smooth. Pour into bowls and top with the cucumber and avocado chunks. Best served at room temperature!

Gingered Raw Tomato & Coconut Soup

Day two of the great tomato soup challenge! Sometimes we post recipes knowing that most of you won't really make them. I mean, we have to give our moms something to forward to their friends. This is not one of those times; with whatever power you've vested in us, we now strongly urge you to drop everything and make this smooth, addictive soup. This recipe came about because we wanted to try the tomato-coconut soup we made last fall with raw tomatoes, to let the tomato flavor really shine. Result: the best soup we've had this summer. Really. The richness of the coconut milk, the fruitiness of ripe tomatoes and the heat from the garlic, ginger and jalapeño all cooperated to produce a final product that had us squealing with tomato-induced joy. (Sorry, heartburn sufferers, you should probably sit this one out).

We used Early Girl tomatoes, which are about the size of a racquetball. Use whatever delicious tomatoes are at your disposal.

16 Early Girl tomatoes, chopped (which came out to 5 cups pureed)
1 cup coconut milk
1-2 cloves garlic
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1 jalapeño chile, minced (seeds removed for the heat-shy)
2 teaspoons minced ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
lemon wedges and chopped cilantro for topping

Combine tomatoes, coconut milk, garlic, cumin, chile, ginger and salt in a blender and puree until smooth. (If you have a hot date later tonight, drop the whole cloves of garlic into boiling water for minute to mellow them out. ) Serve at room temperature with cilantro and lemon wedges.

Yellow Tomato Soup with Cucumber and Yogurt

It's a tomato explosion all this week on iheartkale! The Berkeley Farmer's Market is bursting at the seams with heirloom tomatoes in every size and color, and we've created a rainbow of raw* tomato soups. Soup number one -- yellow tomatoes!

We started with your regular old cucumber-yogurt soup and took advantage of this tomato challenge to mix it up a little. The result: a creamy, pale green puree, perfect for a light summer meal or first course. We used a mix of yellow heirloom tomatoes, but feel free to use whatever tomatoes are accessible, ripe and delicious (although the color will obviously be quite different).

1 and 1/4 lbs tomatoes (it'll be 3 cups pureed)
1/4 cup chopped fresh dill
1 cup plain yogurt
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon salt (more to taste)
1 cup grated cucumber (we used two lemon cucumbers, but half of a regular-sized one will work too).

Combine tomatoes, dill, yogurt, garlic and salt in a blender and puree until smooth. Stir in cucumber, taste for salt and serve.

*Okay, picky raw food folks. We call them "raw tomato soups" because the tomatoes are always raw, but other ingredients may have been heated above 112 degrees Fahrenheit. Pay $30 at Cafe Gratitude if you want the real thing.

Spicy Raw Carrot Soup

The latest in our "homemade recipes from Cafe Gratitude" mission: an attempt to emulate the spicy, smooth and refreshing "I Am Divine," without all the abundance-creation schtick and cash-forking-over. Creamy. Invigorating. Yum.

A word on portions...we're not just being cute with the photography, this is actually best consumed in itsy-bitsy servings. It doesn't make a lot (unless you have the patience to juice more carrots, in which case...wow), and the avocado makes a pretty rich base. So think of this as an appetizer or palate-cleanser, perfect for when dinner party guests get there early or when you just need a little something extra to round out a big salad. It's also best made in small batches because like most raw food, it doesn't keep long.

2 and 1/2 cups carrot juice (juice it yourself if you have the gear)
2 small avocadoes, diced
2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
juice of 1/2 a lemon
1/8 teaspoon cayenne

Combine all ingredients in blender and blend until smooth. As you eat, feel the abundance of not having paid $7 for your portion.