One of our family’s favorites, Orange Soup (mah-RAHK kah-TOME), is a recipe that I have shared in the past. I have found that no matter how large a pot you make, it is always gone within a couple of days. In other words, this recipe makes a lot of soup, but it still won’t last very long. It’s quintessential comfort food. Continue reading
Category Archives: Soups
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Yellow Squash Soup
This soup is perfect for all the cold days and nights ahead, and it cooks up beautifully in a crock pot. If you throw together all the ingredients in the morning, the house will smell heavenly all day, and the soup will be ready to eat come dinnertime. If, on the other hand, evening works better for prepping the ingredients, the house will smell heavenly through the night and when you awaken, and the soup will be ready at lunchtime. For the record, it will also keep ’til dinnertime. Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Sweet New Year Soup
Next week we will celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. Traditionally, Rosh Hashanah foods tend toward the sweet and the circular: sweet for a sweet new year, and circular to represent the seasons that run one into the next, year after year, around and around. At this time of year, we even twist our challahs (egg bread) into rounds instead of the characteristic braided loaf we eat all year long.
We eat lots of fruits, especially apples, prunes, pomegranates, dates and apricots. Chosen vegetables might include sweet potatoes, beets, carrots, and leeks (sliced into rounds of course). Dishes made with black-eyed peas and lentils are a frequent addition to the table. And there is always lots and lots of honey, especially for dipping bread and apple slices. Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Lovage Soup
Many years ago I brought home some lovage from a neighbor’s garden, and I planted it on the eastern side of our house, alongside a screened-in porch. For a long time now it has grown there in abundance every spring, and there is always more than enough to share. This year I’ve been feeding some of it to the chickens, who love greens, especially the lemon balm that grows all over our property. Lovage tastes something like celery, but it grows up to five feet high on thick multi-branched stalks. It’s impossible to use it up. It’s quite beautiful, and would make a great addition to any herb or flower garden. It self-seeds every year, and my patch is easily 20 years old, if not more.
Here’s a lovely soup you can make with lovage. If you don’t happen to have access to any, you can make this soup with celery instead. Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Roasted Tomato Soup
Do you know that feeling when you have a dozen gorgeous tomatoes on the counter and you go grocery shopping, and you forget, and you come home with another eight gorgeous tomatoes? Yes, of course you do.
This week, I decided to make fresh tomato soup, which I had never made before. I have loved tomato soup since I was a kid. I especially loved my friend Mendy’s tomato soup when we were in graduate school, which was half a lifetime ago. I added white beans to this recipe, but no one will know unless you tell them. Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Anya’s Salmon Soup
I published this recipe once many years ago, and haven’t made it in a long time. But Anya’s salmon soup is the perfect choice for this time of year, and I have all the ingredients I need to make some this week! It’s a beautiful color, exactly right for adding some brightness to your life as you start settling into the deepest part of winter. Also, the combination of ingredients is exactly right for bracing yourself for the coming Arctic temperatures. Continue reading
Self Care is Being Kind to Yourself, plus Lentil-Vegetable Soup
I spent my days as a practicing physician teaching people to be kinder to themselves, and that kindness manifested itself in three spheres: 1) eating patterns, 2) activity patterns, and 3) rest & relaxation patterns. The goal is to make small, incremental changes that result in nourishing your heart and soul with better food, more movement, and quality rest and relaxation. Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Garlic Makes the World Go ‘Round
Many years ago I was introduced to two special recipes, both of which owe their magic to garlic. The first is a pureed vegetable soup, pure de verduras, Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Mushroom Potato Stew (gf, vegan)
A dear friend of mine, a great cook, recommended this recipe to me a couple of weeks ago. She made it, her daughter made it, and now I’ve made it. A triple play! It was not originally gluten free, but I made it gluten-free by substituting tamari and oat flour for the soy sauce and wheat flour in the prior version. Easy peasy.
Try serving this with a plate of sliced oranges, maybe sprinkled with a few berries. Nothing specific, just use whatever you can find in the fridge. Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Liquid Sunshine Soup in November
Please enjoy this recipe, an earlier version of which I posted in November 2011:
This past week I found myself the proud possessor of a lovely hubbard squash. Add to that the butternut squash that came in a CSA box last month, and the bags of carrots that continue to come every week, and which are piling up in the refrigerator, and, as my dad used to say: “It’s time to get choppin’!” Continue reading