Other Favorite Soups

As stated before, we are not big time recipe creators, and while most of our cooking is simply focused on building-block preparation, we do make recipe dishes from time to time, especially soups. When making soups we will usually modify the recipes to fit our nutritional needs and taste preferences. Here are some common modifications:

  • Cut out the oil. If we need to sauté vegetables as part of the recipe, we will use broth or water in the process instead of oil. We would rather our calories go to whole ingredients, not calorie-dense oils.
  • Cut out the salt. In order to keep our sodium consumption to reasonable levels, we would rather sprinkle a little salt onto our individual servings of soup rather into the pot of soups.
  • Add pulse. Some soups (like vegetable barley soup or tomato soup) don't call for pulse (beans, lentils, chickpeas, etc.), so in order to increase nutrition and satiety (more protein and fiber), we will often add an appropriate variety and amount of pulse. 
  • Add starch. We like to add whole grain noodles, winter squash, and potatoes to add to the flavor, texture, and satiety of the soup.
  • Add spices. Adding pulse and starch may dilute the potency of the recipe, so we may add spices to enhance the flavor.

Below are some links to the types of soups we will make. 

Moroccan Harira Soup. Moroccan Harira is a hearty, traditional soup featuring lentils, chickpeas, tomatoes, and aromatic spices like ginger, cinnamon, and turmeric.

Lentil-Barley Vegetable Soup. If you're a fan of beef-barley vegetable soup, then it won't be much of a jump to try (and enjoy) some hearty  and healthy lentil-barley vegetable soup. (To be honest, we don't use a recipe when making this soup. We use whatever might be on hand along with standard ingredients like onion, garlic, celery, rosemary, thyme, and sage. And we make sure we have enough lentils, barley, potatoes, and carrots. Throw in some mushrooms and green peas for extra texture. It's hard to mess this up.)

Garlicky Tomato Soup. This is one of our absolute favorites. We will add some extra white beans to increase our satisfaction levels.