Warming red beet soup with horseradish

This soup looks so amazing, don´t you think?!? It also tastes amazing…so soothing, warming and energizing! Too bad pumpkin season is long over here, I miss the pumpkins dearly 😦

To make the soup, first sautee some sliced onion in a pot with a small amount of sesame oil and a pinch of salt. Add chopped up carrot, hokkaido pumpkin, parsley root, red beet and a small piece of apple – you have to play with the ratios and each time you will end up with a different soup depending on which vegetable you decide to emphasize! 😀 Sautee together for a while, add a bit more salt and cover with hot water so that all the veggies are submerged. At this point you can add bayleaf, allspice and whole cloves (adds great depth of flavour). Boil slowly with a lid on for 15-20 minutes until the vegetables become soft. Season with ume plum vinegar. Blend the soup in a blender or use an immersion blender (I think that´s the easier way to puree soups, because you don´t need to transfer it anywhere!).  Don´t forget to take out the spices before blending…After blending, let the soup simmer for a while longer and then turn off the flame and mix in some finely grated horseradish – the amount depends on how spicy you want your soup to be… You can still season the soup with some lemon juice and add a nice green garnish, such as chopped fresh parsley.

Angela´s Carrot apple ginger soup

Here goes another lovely recipe from Angela of Oh she glows – the Carrot apple ginger soup!

I made about half the amount the recipe calls for, and made some slight changes, so I used:

1/2 tbsp olive oil

1 small onion, diced

half of a green garlic head (approximately 1 standard clove)

1 tbsp grated ginger

1 smaller apple, cut into cubes

300 g carrot, cut into cubes

2 cups water (instead of broth)

a pinch of nutmeg

sea salt and black pepper to taste

 

First I sauteed the diced onion on olive oil until it became golden, then I added grated ginger and minced garlic, sauteeing for a bit more, adding some water as needed. Then I tossed in cubes of apple and carrot, sauteeing on a low flame for a couple more minutes. I poured in two cups of water, covered the pot with a lid and simmered gently for about 20 minutes. I divided the soup in two halves and blended each half separarely in a blender until smooth (be careful, the blender must be just about half full, otherwise it will explode!). I thinned the soup with a bit of water (it was really thick!), added some salt, nutmeg and freshly cracked black pepper. The soup was like nothing I ever tasted, very creamy and carroty, with a subtle apple undertone. Next time I would use less ginger though, for me personally it was a bit overpowering 😀

 

 

 

Simple rice-chestnut-apple pudding

This is a very simple, quick dessert which has no sweetener except for fruit, there´s not even a touch of rice syrup or maple syrup or such. Therefore it´s VERY mildly sweet, but good if you´re in the need of watching your dessert intake and still longing for something a bit sweeter than sweet vegetables 😀

I had some leftover shortgrain brown rice which I pressure cooked for 45 minutes with dried chestnuts (in a roughly 1:1 ratio, because it was a small amount only). It´s good to soak the chestnuts overnight before you cook them. The next day I blended this leftover rice/chestnut mix in a blender with a bit of water (just enough to make the blender work) and half of a bigger unpeeled apple cut into chunks. Then I transferred the puree into a pot, added a pinch of salt and simmered for maybe ten minutes. Towards the end I added a teaspoon of kuzu diluted in a little bit of cold water and brought to boil. You must make sure your kuzu went through boil. You can enjoy your dessert warm or let it cool and set a bit (it will resemble pudding more when the kuzu is allowed to cool). You can sprinkle the top with some cinnamon.

Quinoa pilaf with carrot-apple-sauerkraut salad

Pilaf is something I make when I want a light, easy, quick, one-pot meal. I like to also make it from lighter quick-cooking grains such as quinoa.

Sautee onion with salt on a bit of water until translucent and then add matchsticks of carrot, sautee for a bit more. Add thoroughly washed and drained quinoa and water (for one cup of grain use two cups of water), cook for 15-30 minutes on a low flame under a lid until water is absorbed. At the end mix in chopped fresh parsley, wild garlic, spring onion and a teaspoon (or more) of ume plum vinegar.

The salad is also very simple: mix equal amounts of grated sour apple, grated carrot (both were finely grated) and sauerkraut, mix well.