Simplest Broccoli Soup

This is not cream of broccoli soup but rather soup in its purest form. I love the flavor of broccoli and love to eat it in salads or stir fry just as it is.

So this soup is the perfect way to have broccoli if you are a fan of broccoli like I am. This soup is creamier without any cream and tastes delicious with just salt and pepper.

Give it a try and let me know if you any suggestions or comments down below. Happy Cooking Everyone!!!!!



Ingredients:

1 broccoli head - separated into florets
4 cups water
salt and pepper to taste
slice of goat cheese - cut into small pieces

Recipe:

1. Take water in a deep saucepan and boil over high heat. Once it starts to boil, lower the heat to medium and add broccoli florets. Cover the lid. Boil for 4-5 minutes or until knife pierce the floret easily.
Note: Do not over boil the broccoli else it will loose its color and you will not get that perfect green you are looking for.

2. Once boiled, strain the broccoli florets.

Note: Do not throw away the water. It will be used while pureeing.

3. Puree the floret when hot and use the water in which you boiled the florets for pureeing. Add enough water so that you get a creamy puree. Do not over add it else it will be watery. After pureeing, add it to a pan over low-medium heat.
4. Add salt and pepper to taste. Heat it for 2 minutes. Serve hot with goat cheese on top.

A Quick Vegetable Soup

Soups are in general a way to eat different vegetables in a tastier way. And vegetable soup for me is the one soup where I can eat lots of veggies without thinking which one I don't like or which one I do like. I put as many veggies as I can or whatever is available with me at that moment. I always keep vegetable broth handy, just in case if I crave for vegetable soup or any soup for that matter.

Vegetable broth can be used in many other ways. You can use it for making rice/pulao in case you want to elevate the flavor profile of the dishes. Vegetable soup for me is a heart warming soup which
reminds me of love and comfort.

This is a very simple and quick recipe, which you can make in less than half an hour and enjoy on a cold evening or any time of the day for that matter :). Give it a try.

Please let me know if you any suggestions or comments down below. Happy cooking!!!!


Ingredients:

1 small onion - finely chopped
6 cherry tomatoes - cut in halves
7 baby carrots - finely chopped
2 green onion sticks - finely chopped
1/8 cup peas - par boiled
1/8 cup corn - par boiled
1 celery stick - cut in small cubes
31/2 cups vegetable broth - try to use low sodium one, else it leaves behind a little bitter taste in the end
2 tbsp coriander - finely chopped
11/2 tbsp lemon juice
1 inch ginger - thinly sliced
salt to taste
Freshly crushed black pepper to taste
1 tbsp oil

Recipe:

1. Add oil in a deep pan and heat it over medium-high heat.
2. Once oil is hot, add ginger. After 30 seconds, add onions and saute them until translucent in color.
3. Add this point, add carrots, celery stick and green onion stem part. Saute them until half cooked.

4. Add tomatoes, peas and corn. After 30 seconds, add vegetable broth, salt and pepper to taste. Boil this over medium heat for 15 minutes or until you reached the consistency you want for your soup.

5. After 15 minutes, close the heat and add coriander and lemon juice.
6. Serve hot with croutons or just like that. :)

Chicken & Dumplings - One whole meal

This recipe has every nutrients you need in one bowl. If love chicken soups, this will elevate it to another level. In a cold night, this is a life saver.

One hot bowl of this soup with the combination of a novel. You can just imagine how awesome it will be.

This recipe has chicken, veggies, milk, herb in one bowl. This can't get any better. I love this soup and hope you will too.

Do leave comments or suggestions if you have any.

Ingredients:

For Soup gravy:

2 chicken thighs - cut in bite size pieces
2 tbsp all purpose flour
1 small onion - chopped
1 large carrot - chopped
2 celery sticks - chopped
1/4 cup chopped pumpkin
1/4 cup boiled peas
1/4 cup heavy cream
3 cups chicken broth
2 cup water
2 tbsp vegetable oil
crushed black pepper
salt to taste

For Dumplings:

1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup milk
2 tbsp heavy cream
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp finely chopped thyme/parsley/rosemary (add what you like or not add anything at all)
crushed black pepper
salt to taste

Recipe:

1. In a large deep non-stick pan, add oil and heat it up over medium heat.
2. Meanwhile, take chicken pieces add 2 tbsp flour, salt and pepper. Coat chicken pieces properly in the mixture.
3. Once oil is hot, add chicken pieces to it. Cook them until they start to get golden brown color. Keep rotating them in between so that they get cooked on all sides. Once cooked take them out.

4. In the same pan add all the veggies,pepper and salt. Cook until translucent and cooked halfway through. I didn't add any extra oil because after cooking chicken in it there is already enough oil left to cook the veggies.

5. Once veggies are cooked, add chicken broth, cream and peas. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add water to this if you feel it is thick. Keep in mind when we add dumplings they soak water too. I added water because I love soup like consistency.

6. Heat it over high. Once it starts to boil, cover it and reduce the heat to low. Let it simmer for 45 minutes.
7. After 40 minutes are over, start preparing dumplings. In a bowl, add all the ingredients and mix well. It will be of sticky consistency.

8. After 45 minutes, with help of spoon add dumplings one by one to the soup mixture. Try to do this step as fast as you can so that they all get even cooking time.

9. Once all dumplings are added, cover the lid, increase the heat to medium and cook it for 15 minutes.
10. Once done, close the heat and let it sit for 10 minutes. Serve hot and enjoy.

Spicy lentil vegetable stew or Sambhar

Lentil vegetable stew or Sambhar is a very popular south indian recipe which gets cooked in every south indian home on daily basis. This recipe has lots of variations and this is one of the many variations.

Best part of this recipe is that you can add any vegetable you like and make it your own. I generally like it sour and spicy so I add tamarind paste and chili's. Quantities for both are adjustable according to your palate preferences.

If you want to make it more sour you can always add lemon on top of it while eating it. This recipe serves 4. It can be stored for up to 3 days in refrigerator.

Give it a try. You are gonna love it. Please leave comments or suggestion below. Happy Cooking :)

Ingredients:

4 handful of toor daal or split pigeon peas - washed thoroughly
1 large eggplant - cut in cubes
6-7 baby carrots
1 medium tomato - cut in cubes
1 medium onion - cut in cubes (you can use baby onions or sambhar onions too)
1 drum stick
1 tbsp tamarind paste
5 cups water
2 tbsp sambhar powder
1 tsp ginger - finely chopped
1 tsp garlic - finely chopped
1 tsp green chili - finely chopped
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp red chili powder
1 tsp dried/fresh curry leaves
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp oil
salt to taste

Recipe:

1. In a pressure cooker, add toor daal and 5 cups water on a med-high heat.
2. Add salt and 1/8 tsp turmeric powder.
3. Add eggplant,carrots, tomato and onion to this. You can always add other vegetables you like. Few of the vegetables which goes well with this are pumpkin or bottle gourd.
4. Close the lid of the pressure cooker and cook until 3 whistles at medium heat.
5. Once it is cooked, close the gas and let it rest until all the gas comes out of the pressure cooker naturally.
6. Meanwhile on other side, take a small pan. Add oil in it and heat it over med-high heat.
7. Once heated add ginger, garlic and green chili's to it.
8. When garlic starts to turn brown a little, add mustard seeds and cumin seeds.
9. When they start to crackle add turmeric powder, red chili powder and sambhar powder to this.
10. Cook this for few minutes or until sambhar powder is cooked properly. Keep in mind to keep stirring it at all times since it has tendency to stick to the bottom.
11. Add curry leaves to this and close the gas.


12. Open the pressure cooker, mix everything well so that it gets blended together. Add the tempering to the boiled lentil and veggies.
13. At this point, add tamarind paste and drum stick to it. Close the lid of the pressure cooker again and let it cook for 2 more whistles over medium  heat.
14. Close the heat. Serve hot with rice/idli/dosa or eat it like a soup on its own.

Green Pea Soup with poached egg

Soup is one kind of food which we always think of as comfort food. Be it any kind, tomato soup, mixed vegetable soup, lentil soup or in this case peas soup. It fills us with happiness on cold evenings. It is like a hug in a big bowl.

I love soups in general and is always ready to try new soups anytime. This soup came from the necessity of using eggs. Since Navratri is starting soon I wanted to finish all remaining eggs in my fridge. So instead of eating it normally like omelette, I decided to use them as poached with a soup.


Poached egg goes very well with green pea soup. When you cut through that perfectly cooked poached egg, the ooey-gooey yolk flows out it and gives an extra edge to the already oh-so-yum soup.

Give it a try. Trust me it is worth it. Please leave any suggestions or comments you have about the recipe. :)



Ingredients:

1 cup peas boiled
1/4 cup onion
1 inch piece of ginger - finely chopped
2-3 cups vegetable broth
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
2-3 whole black pepper
1 tsp crushed black pepper
salt to taste
1 tsp oil

For poached Egg:

5 cups water
1 large egg
1 tsp white vinegar

Recipe:

1. For poaching egg, take water and vinegar in a medium size container and boil it over high heat.
2. Break the egg separately in a small bowl.
3. Once water starts boiling close the heat and with a help of spatula or eating knife stir water vigorously in one direction.

4. Take the spatula out and pour the egg in the same direction as water rotation.
5. Let the egg wrap in its own white and leave it for 2-3 minutes.
6. Once cooked and covered totally, take it out gently in a plate. Keep it aside for serving with pea soup.

For soup:

1. Take a pan, add oil and heat it over medium heat. Once heated, add ginger.
2. Once ginger cooks half way, add cumin seeds,fennel seeds and whole black peppercorns
3. Once they start crackling, add onions. Cook them until translucent in color.
4. At this point, add peas and cook for 2 minutes.
5. Add 2 cups vegetable broth and crushed black pepper and salt to taste.
6. Let it boil for 5 minutes.
7. After 5 minutes let it cool for 10 minutes than transfer to a blender.
8. Blend the mixture properly. After blending reheat it after transferring it to a pan.
9. Add lemon juice and mix well. If you want a thinner consistency, add little more vegetable broth at this time.
10. Take it off heat once it starts to boil.
11. For serving, take soup plate. Place poached egg at center and fill rest of it with the soup. Serve hot and enjoy.

Cauliflower Soup

I  had to say this is the super easy soup recipe I have made till date. It is so easy, it hardly needs any ingredients and cooks without needing any hawking it all the time. And on top of it, it tastes yum.

So I had a head of cauliflower left with me. First I thought of making you know normal "gobhi aloo" sabzi. But thankfully decided against it because was very bored of eating cauliflower the same way all the time.

And guess what, at this moment, as usual Google comes for the rescue and I started searching for cauliflower recipes. It is while this search, I came across cauliflower soup recipe. Thought to myself, it must be very time consuming and tough to make. But, to my surprise it turned out that it was the easiest and quickest soup recipe I have come across. So, without any delay I made this yum soup and had it for dinner. Yes, a whole bowl of soup for me alone :D.




Ingredients:

1 head of cauliflower (small/medium sized)
Salt
Pepper
Olive oil
2 cups water

Recipe:

1. Preheat oven at 450 F.
2. Separate cauliflower head into florets. Wash them and dry them properly using a kitchen paper towel until all water is dried. This is because if you have water in your florets it will take longer to cook in the oven and might get soggy too.
3. Take large baking tray/pan, which ever you have available. Place your florets individually and not overlapping. Add salt,pepper and olive oil on top and mix well so that each floret gets coated properly.

4. Place the baking tray in the oven for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, take it out and turn all the florets and place it again for 15 minutes.
5. After the end of this, we are looking for golden brown color on each floret.

6.  Take it out, let them cool for about 5 minutes.
7. Take into a mixing jar and grind it with a cup of water until a smooth paste is formed.
8. Now to heat it up again, put it in a pan. Add salt,pepper to taste. Add more water according to the consistency you like. Let it come to a boil after adding water.

9. Server hot with bread/soup sticks or top with clarified butter or plain butter.

Cream of Mushroom Soup

This is kind of soup which I don't make normally, only when I crave for that creamy, luscious texture of mushroom and cream in it. Whenever I had this soup in a restaurant, it tasted so good, I thought to myself, it must be very difficult to make at home.

Then one fine day, I decided to make it however hard may it be. I thought what the worst can happen, it won't taste as good as restaurant soup. So I took leap of faith and searched/read a lot about the different ways people make this recipe. Finally, I decided to try the simplest recipe (as once a wise person said simple the food, better it tastes :D). And voila, I hit the jackpot. Same texture, same smell and finally moment of truth same taste even. I was on cloud 9 seriously :).

So bringing for you, a very basic recipe and quite easy to make. It tastes delicious and can satisfy all your cravings for healthy as well as creamy yum food.

Ingredients:

2 cups white button mushroom - thinly sliced

2 tbsp butter

1 small onion - thinly sliced

11/2 tbsp all purpose flour

1/2 cup heavy cream

3 cups vegetable/chicken broth

salt to taste

black pepper to taste

Recipe:

1. In a deep saucepan, add butter and put it over medium heat.

2. Add onions and cook until translucent.

3. When onions gain that transparent color, add mushrooms. Cover the lid and let mushrooms cook in their own juices.

4. Once mushrooms are cooked, add all purpose flour.

5. Cook the flour for 2-3 minutes or until raw flour flavor is gone.

6. Add vegetable/chicken broth(I prefer chicken as it goes will with mushroom), salt and pepper. Boil the mixture for 8 - 10 minutes.

7. After 10 minutes, turn off the flame and let it come to room temperature. 

8. Take grinder and blend into smoothie like consistency.

9. Add it back again to sauce pan and add cream. Serve hot.

Tomato Carrot Soup

I believe in eating healthy evening snack and what better than a heartwarming tomato soup. It is quite chilling here in bay area since past week, so thought of having a wholesome warm snack, which can help me get through this week. And what better way than a hot spicy tomato soup.
This is an easy to make and tasty recipe which you can have on the go. You can keep this soup up to 2-3 days in the refrigerator and have it as a breakfast/evening snack. Please enjoy!!!!

Ingredients:
7-8 baby carrots
6-7 tomatoes
6-7 thin slices of ginger.
Cooking oil

Recipe:
Add oil in a pan and heat it on medium high. Add carrots and ginger first. When they are half cooked add tomatoes and cover it. Let the tomatoes cook to thick gravy like consistency. Once cooked, let it cool for 5-10 min. Blend the mixture and strain it so that there will be no tomato skin left behind. (It feels bad when you are having soup).
 Add the blended mixture again in the pan, and add chicken/vegetable stock according to the consistency u like. Add salt and black pepper. Let it simmer for 10 min. Add voila you get your tomato soup ready. (If you like coconut you can add coconut milk too in the end)