Roasted Eggplant Soup (V)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYBODY!!!


Cooking skills focus: Knife skills, roasting, balancing flavors

Ingredients:
1 onion, cut into large rough chunks
1/2 head garlic, cloves peeled
1 T cooking oil
salt and pepper TT

3 eggplants, cut into large dice (3/4" on a side)
1 onion, cut into large dice
1/2 head garlic, cloves peeled
3 T olive oil
salt and pepper TT

5 C water
(available vegetable trimmings)
1/2# tomatoes, cut into large rough chunks

1 Fuji apple, diced roughly
1 1/2# roma tomatoes, diced roughly
3 T olive oil

3/4# baby red potatoes, cut in quarters
2 T Harissa powder
salt and pepper TT

1/3 bu parsley, chopped finely
1 grapefruit, juiced

Instructions:
1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
2. Toss together the first onion, the first 1/2 head of garlic cloves, the 1 T cooking oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast in the oven for 20 minutes, then set aside.
3. Meanwhile, toss together the eggplants, second onion and 1/2 head garlic with the 3 T olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast in the oven for 30 minutes, then set aside.
4. While that's roasting, start simmering the water in a large pot over medium heat. Add the tomatoes, vegetable trimmings, and roasted onion and garlic and bring to a low boil over medium-high heat for 30 minutes. Strain when done.
5. In a food processor, puree the eggplant with the onion and garlic, and the Fuji apple, tomatoes and last 3 T olive oil. Thin out with stock if necessary. Add to the strained stock, then add the potatoes. Season the soup to taste with harissa powder, salt and pepper at this point. Bring to a low boil over medium-high heat and cook until the potatoes are done. Add the grapefruit juice and parsley and taste for seasoning again. Serve.

Delicious Soup

this is a condensed-format recipe, designed for a pocket recipe book called "Learn to Cook" I made and gave out to random people at the Pike Market for a few months in 2009. some of the ingredients may be difficult to find outside of the market, and can be substituted or disregarded.

4 cloves garlic [peel & slice thinly]
2 yellow potatoes, small [dice 1/2"]
1/4 lb crimini mushrooms [quarter]
1 bu green kale [wash & chop 1/4" on a side]
1/2 C crushed tomatoes
1/2 C water
5 C Delicious Stock
[combine these in a large saucepan; simmer until potatoes are just tender, about 35 minutes on low heat]

1/2 lemon [juice]
1 1/2 t kosher salt
1/2 t black pepper
[add, taste & serve]

(that's it.)

(soup is really easy when you have already made good stock.)

Delicious Stock

this is a condensed-format recipe, designed for a pocket recipe book called "Learn to Cook" I made and gave out to random people at the Pike Market for a few months in 2009. some of the ingredients may be difficult to find outside of the market, and can be substituted or disregarded.

to be honest, this is a kind of involved stock. you can make simple soup stocks or complex ones and they'll all be good for what they are. this one will have nice nuance and a great depth and balance of flavors. but you can always just save vegetable scraps in your freezer for a week and throw that in simmering water, and that's a good stock too, with a more straightforward flavor.

makes over 20 servings for under $20
(scale the recipe down if you don't have a large stockpot at home)

7 lbs chicken backs (butcher)
4 shallots, med [peel]
1 yellow onion, med [peel & quarter]
[roast all these together w/ a little olive oil, salt & pepper at 425 for 30 min and then add to 2.5 gal water. simmer 4-5 hours]

3 black lemons (spice shop)
1 tsp tellicherry peppercorns (spice shop)
2 long pepper peppercorns (spice shop)
1 1/2 dried aji mirasol peppers (spice shop)
1 1/2 dried pasilla negro peppers (spice shop)
2 bay leaves
1 bu celery [wash & rough chop]
5 carrots [wash & rough chop]
[add all these and simmer 2 more hours]
[strain]

(this stock makes soup best finished with lemon juice. the black lemon spice is actually just dried lemon, which has a smoky flavor that's both bright and deep. that rich, dark lemon presence balanced with fresh lemon juice creates a delicious effect.)

Chicken Soup

Ingredients:
1 chicken, meat cut off the bone and diced; skin and fat trim reserved
2 yellow onions, peeled & quartered
1 head garlic, peeled; ½ of it sliced
¾ lb crimini mushrooms, sliced ¼ inch thick
1 full bag vegetable scraps (or about ¾ lb vegetables if you haven't been saving your scraps in the freezer)
4 carrots, peeled & diced about ¼” thick
¾ C rice
1 lemon, juiced
salt & pepper TT

Instructions:
1.Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2.Roast the chicken carcass (with leg bones) with the onions and the whole peeled garlic cloves for 30-40 minutes or until well browned.
3.Meanwhile, start a large pot with 2 ½ quarts water simmering over medium-low heat. Add the bag of vegetable scraps and the trim from the carrots. When the chicken, onions and garlic are done roasting, add them, too.
4.Simmer the stock over low heat for 3 ½-4 hours.
5.At some point while the stock is cooking, heat a large saute pan over medium-high heat. Add the chicken skin and fat trimmed off the chicken and render the fat off for about 5 minutes. Remove the chicken and add the mushrooms. Brown well for about 8-10 minutes and reserve.
6.Strain the stock into a new or cleaned pot and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Add the chicken, mushrooms and rice and cook for 15 minutes. Add the carrots and sliced garlic, and cook until the rice is cooked through, about 20-30 minutes more. Add the lemon juice, season to taste and serve.

Random Vegetable Soup

I just bought a few dollars worth of vegetables from the slightly blemished section of the produce stand and decided to make soup with it. I don't think this recipe works well as something to actually follow, but instead as an example of how one can make soup with pretty much any assortment of vegetables, if they're all cooked in batches to that they get done at around the same time. And the nice thing about this method is that you always get a soup where all the ingredients really taste just like themselves.

Ingredients:
1 yellow onion, chopped large
1 head garlic, top 1/4th cut off
1 T oil
1 sweet potato, diced medium
6 baby red potatoes, diced medium
1 white potato, diced medium
1/2 bu celery, peeled and sliced 1/4" thick
4 carrots, peeled and sliced 1/4" thick
2 bu thin asparagus, bottom 1/3 cut off
2 tomatillos, diced small
1 zucchini, diced small
1 t oil
salt & pepper to taste
1-2 T white wine vinegar, to taste

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Toss the garlic and onion with the oil and roast in the oven 25 minutes.
3. Start a large pot with 2 qts water simmering over medium-low heat. Add all the vegetable scraps to it and start to simmer.
4. When the garlic and onions are done roasting, squeeze the garlic cloves out of the head and add them to the stock along with the roasted onions. Simmer the stock for around 45 minutes total, then strain.
5. Put the stock in a pot and add the sweet potato, potatoes, carrots and celery. Cook for 20 minutes over medium-low heat. Top the pot off with water if the level is too low.
6. Get a sauté pan very hot and add a teaspoon of oil. Sauté the asparagus, tomatillo and zucchini until slightly browned.
7. Season the soup to taste with salt, pepper and vinegar, and serve garnished with the green vegetable sauté.

Turkey Stock

(conforms to the elimination diet)

makes about ¾ gallon of stock

Ingredients:

3-4 lbs. turkey leg bones (pre-roasted if you want darker stock)

1 gal. cold water

1 leek, washed & sliced

6 cloves garlic, smashed

2 carrots, cut in large chunks

1 bay leaf

any other vegetable or meat scraps you have (within the diet)

Method:

Simmer bones in water for about 45 minutes, skimming off any foam that emerges.

Add vegetables and simmer for an hour.

Strain & store. Freezes very well.

Late Winter Soup

Ingredients:
1/2 onion, rough chopped
1/2 head garlic, peeled
2 carrots, rough chopped
1/2 bu celery, rough chopped
1 t oil

1/2 onion, diced
1/2 bu celery, peeled & diced
8 ea. sm. yukon gold potatoes, diced small
2 carrots, diced
1/2 head garlic, sliced
3 T salt
1 T pepper

4 bell peppers, diced
1 grapefruit, juiced
1 lemon, juiced

Method:
1. Start 1 gal water simmering over med-low heat in a large pot.
2. Preheat oven to 450 deg.
3. Toss 1/2 onion, 1/2 bu celery, rough-chopped carrots and first 1/2
head garlic in 1 t oil, put on a sheet pan and roast in the oven for
15 min.
4. Add these roasted veggies to the water and begin simmering for
about 40 minutes.
5. Strain stock and add everything except the citrus and bell peppers.
6. Add the remaining ingredients and taste for seasoning.

Beet Soup w/ Apple

Ingredients:

1 onion, rough-chopped

1 ½ gal water

1 bunch celery, peeled & rough chopped

5 carrots, peeled and rough-chopped

1 bunch beets, peeled and rough-chopped small, stalks into stock, greens rough-chopped

4-5 loose beets, peeled and rough-chopped small

4 large russet potatoes, peeled and rough-chopped

1 head garlic, peeled

1 onion, rough-chopped

3 apples, peeled and rough-chopped

salt and pepper TT (to taste)

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 450.

2. Bring water to a simmer.

3. Toast onion for 15 minutes in the oven.

4. Add the onion to water and cook over medium heat. Add all accumulated vegetable scraps (from everyone) available and cook for 40 minutes.

5. Strain stock. Add celery, carrots, beets, beet greens, potatoes, garlic, and the second onion.

6. Cook 30 minutes, or until potatoes and beets are tender.

7. Add apples, salt and pepper, puree, in batches if necessary. Taste and adjust seasoning if needed.