Cream of Beetroot Soup

It's probably no surprise to regular readers when I say I love beets! Here's a dead simple recipe with just three ingredients: beets, tofu and sage. I had it raw - but you can just as easily heat it up or even replace the tofu with cream.

Cream of Beetroot Soup

Ingredients:

• 1 large beetroot
• 4 sage leaves
• About 50-75 grams of silken tofu

To make:

• Chop up the beets and the sage roughly.
• Blitz the beetroot, sage, along with some water, in a blender till it its a puree. Set aside.
• In a clean blender, add the tofu cubes and blitz till its the consistency of cream or curd. Add some water if needed.
• In a bowl, combine the two. I added the two in layers - a tablespoon of beets and then a tablespoon of tofu cream.
• Serve chilled.

Tangy Carrot and Peppers Soup

The tang comes not from limes (my favorite ingredient), but from tamarind paste. Since I did have some lying around the house, I decided to use tamarind and also finish off my, rather crinkly, carrots.

To make tamarind paste yourself, just let the tamarind soak overnight in some water and then squeeze the pulp out to make a thick paste. Something like this:

And as usual, you can have this soup raw. I've just heated it for a minute over the stove - but you can just as easily skip this step.

Tangy Carrot and Peppers Soup

Ingredients:

• 2 carrots
• 1 red pepper
• 1 teaspoon whole cumin
• 2 teaspoons of tamarind paste
• 1 cup water or as per desired soup consistency

To make:
Slice the carrots and pepper roughly.

Add the chopped veggies to a blender. Add the cumin and tamarind paste.  Add the water and blitz until it is smooth.

Transfer to a pot and gently heat it for a minute or two. Serve immediately.

Minty Broccoli Soup

I had some really fresh and organic mint that I got from the Farmer's Market on Sunday, and my Reliance-bought broccoli was starting to wilt with shades of acid yellow (That store has the worst produce - I'm never shopping there if I have an option to buy elsewhere).

Nice way to get your kids to eat their greens.

You can have this raw as well - I just needed some heat in my body last nite.

Minty Broccoli Soup

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of broccoli
• 3/4 cup of mint
• 1 inch knob of ginger
• 5-10 black pepper corns, crushed

To make:
Chop the broccoli, ginger and mint roughly and blend it to a puree.

Transfer to a pot and gently heat it on a flow flame.

Add the black pepper.

Garnish with mint leaves (and freshly-in-season mulberry, in my case).

Home-Made Sun Dried Tomatoes

I've never been a fan of raw tomatoes and seldom use them in my salads because I dont appreciate the raw tartness of a tomato. So, I was looking for a way to make sun dried tomatoes when, seeing this recipe on PurpleFoodie, I was completely sold over into making these little babies at home.

Mine is a bit different, in that I didn't take the lazy shortcut of putting my tomatoes into an oven to speed up the drying process. Mine are lying in the bare goodness of the sun on my window sill. I'm blessed with over 5 hours of direct sunlight in the morning-afternoon on my window, so might as well use nature's oven than waste electricity or gas. It also used to be my personal tanning bed until a taller building next door sprung up and ruined the fun of having no prying eyes. I used normal tomatoes that we get in India, not the recommended meaty variety, used rock salt, and lastly used basil instead of oregano because basil and tomatoes are best buds, flavorwise.

I do not have pix of the final product yet and I have only just laid out my tomatoes for drying - I'd imagine they'd take about 2 days to dry out in the sun. But am so excited for them - they smell delicious already and I keep using the excuse of stray birds landing on my window to keep checking on my tomatoes, when really, I just want another whiff.

Update on 21st Dec: I now have my gorgeous sun dried tomatoes ready with me - after 2 whole days of the Indian sun to scorch the tomatoes into 1/4th of their original size. But size isn't everything. The flavor is so concentrated!

Sun Dried Tomatoes

Ingredients

• 5 small-medium tomatoes
• Teaspoon of rock/black salt
• 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil
• 4-5 garlic cloves
• 5-10 black pepper corns
• 2 teaspoons of dried basil

To make:
Cut the tomatoes into quarters (If they are really tiny, cut them into halves). You may want to remove the seedy pulpy center of the tomato - I haven't.

Pat each quarter with a tissue to take away any excess moisture.

Pummel your rock salt into smithereens and make about 1 teaspoon of rock salt powder.

Smash up your garlic cloves and pepper corns.

Combine the garlic, basil, pepper, and salt. Add the olive oil and mix well.

Dip each tomato quarter into your oily mixture and lay on a tray.

Cover with a net or fine cloth and lay out in the sun to dry.

After 8 hours in the sun:

After 2 days of sunning:

Next time, I'll make a bigger - much bigger - batch, for sure. My twenty tomato slivers are going to be gone in no time! :)

My Miso Soup

I had this for dinner last nite as I was eager to taste what Korean miso tastes and looks like - definitely a lot darker in color than the Japanese one - almost a brick or burnt red color. I wanted to stay true to the original recipe and make it just with miso paste and tofu, but I made the mistake of putting my tofu in the freezer and it wouldn't thaw fast enough for my post-work hunger. So I improvised with cabbage, baby corn and asparagus. I boiled the asparagus for 2-3 minutes, which did leave some of the stalks a bit chewy and sinewy - So, I'd recommend boiling them for an additional minute or so.

Ingredients:

• 1 large tablespoon of Korean miso
• Two baby corns, chop into bite size morsels
• A big handful of green cabbage, julienned
• A small handful of asparagus (stalks?)
• A small knob of ginger
• Sesame seeds to garnish

To make:

• Boil the cut asparagus for 3-5 minutes.
• Drain and plunge into ice water.
• Retain the water used to boil the asparagus.
• Pour some of it over the miso paste in a seperate bowl.
• Stir till the miso is dissolved and gives off a lovely brown color.
• Add that back to the asparagus water.
• Add the ginger, finely chopped, to the boiling water.
• Put this back on the gas and bring to a boil, then turn off the gas.
• In your serving bowl, add the cabbage, corn and asparagus at the bottom of the bowl.
• Pour over your miso-ginger water over the vegetables in the bowl.
• Garnish with sesame seeds on top.
• Serve immediately.

Note: I did not forget to mention salt. The miso is salty enough on its own. Plus, I dont use salt or sugar.

Time to make: 5-10 minutes, tops.

Tomato Soup for the Soul

Coz chicken is murder!

Here's my version of the ubiquitous tomato soup. No brainer, really. Blitz a few ripe tomatoes in a blender, along with a dab of olive oil and a little garlic (I love garlic with everything!). Chilli powder, if you must. Transfer to a pot and gently heat it (but not to a boil - you should be able to comfortably put your finger in the tomato soup while the gas is on, for it to still count as "raw"), if you wish. Serve immediately with basil (I could only manage dry basil) and croutons (I made them toasted, rather than fried).