Soup Ideas

Arctic January in Boston means lots of soups. Here are the soups I've tried this year:

Healthy Tomato soup: I added spicy Hungarian paprika to basic tomato soup and finished it with nonfat Greek yogurt (rather than cream) for a protein-packed yet creamy consistency.

Kale, White bean, Sausage soup: iron-rich kale and lean chicken or turkey sausage create great flavor for this winter soup.

Ribollita: Following the traditional Tuscan recipe in the Italian cookbook La Cucina Fiorentina, this hearty vegetable soup uses both collard greens and kale or chard, and both whole and blended white beans for varying textures. Ribollita means "reboiled" in Italian, so this soup should be made the night before serving, then bring to a boil again the next day, hence boiling twice, for a thick, rustic result.

Roasted Cauliflower soup: I roasted both white and golden cauliflower in the oven and then created a three-cheese sauce using blue cheese, gruyere and extra-sharp white cheddar. This is snow day comfort food, best served bubbling hot.

Lentil soup: stewed lentils with sweet potato, carrots and spinach for a fiber-filled winter meal. When it's bitter cold below freezing, spiced lentil stew does the trick.

Pumpkin Kale Black Bean Stew

Now that autumn's here, it's time for fall produce! At the farmer's market this week I got pumpkins, spaghetti squash, acorn squash, greens, some purple tomatoes that looked like chestnuts ...

For these chillier nights, I decided to make Pumpkin, Kale, Black Bean Stew - here's how I made it:

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 large yellow onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 small to medium sugar pumpkin, peeled, seeded, cut into large dice
• 1 large sweet potato, peeled and cut into large pieces
• 4 cups beef broth
• 1 tsp. turmeric
• 1 tbsp. paprika (or to taste)
• 1 (16 ounce) can diced fire-roasted tomatoes, undrained
• 1 tbsp. pumpkin butter (I use Trader Joe's)
• 1 bunch lacinato/dino kale, stems removed, chopped 
• Pinch of nutmeg
• 1 tsp. white pepper
• 1 fresh roma tomato (I just had one around and decided to use it)
• 1 (15 ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
• 1 bay leaf
• salt to taste
• ground black pepper to taste
• Red pepper flakes to taste
• Dash hot sauce (optional)

Directions

1. Roast pumpkin in the oven at 325 for 45 min. or until tender when prodded with a fork. (I don't season the pumpkin or anything, just simply put the whole thing in the oven and let it roast away.) Remove pumpkin and let it cool enough to touch and then slice and scoop out the seeds and dice flesh into large chunks. *I save the seeds to bake later for snacking.
2. Heat olive oil over medium heat in a soup pot. Cook onion until it begins to soften. Add garlic and diced sweet potato. Season with salt, pepper, red pepper flakes and turmeric, stirring around to distribute golden color throughout the onion pieces. Add a splash of water to the pot if the spices start to stick to the bottom, to bring up all the little bits.
3. Add the pumpkin and cook for another few minutes. Stir in the pumpkin butter, allowing the sweet pumpkin to coast the savory roasted pumpkin, and cook out. Season with salt and pepper. Then stir in the beef broth, tomatoes, and paprika. Bring heat up, then turn down to low and simmer until vegetables are tender, about 15 minutes.
4. Add the rinsed/drained/chopped kale and wilt into the broth. Season the kale with nutmeg and more pepper. Add the diced fresh tomato if you have it - adds a nice contrast to the smoky fire-roasted tomatoes and peppery broth.
5. After soup has simmered for 15 minutes, add black beans and bay leaf; simmer for another 5 minutes. Stir in the sherry vinegar and hot sauce; turn down the heat. Let the stew sit so the flavors combine.
6. Serve up the stew with some crusty bread to mop up the spicy broth - enjoy!