Carrot soup with a hint of onions, garlic, coriander served up with a bit of sunshine!

Every family has members who have specific tastes in their food and the chef in the family always ends up with the job of planning a meal that will please everyone or cooking several dishes to try and please everyone.   Some families -like mine- also have members who have certain dietary restrictions so there is an added burden of deciding what to cook!!   We have got round this problem by creating a list of foods that is acceptable to all.   We keep adding to this list and I am pleased to say that this carrot soup is in that list now!!   It's winter time in UK and also holiday time so it's nice to be able to cook something that everyone can enjoy.  This dish is lovely to have on it's own as  a lunchtime snack or can even be tarted up to serve as a starter.  It's a quick and easy to make dish too!!

Ingredients for 4 Servings:

2 tablespoons of melted butter
5-6 medium sized carrots
1 onion
3-4 cloves of Garlic
1 litre of vegetable stock ( I used a Knorr cube)
3 tablespoons of rice ( I used American easy to cook rice)
Fresh coriander
2-3 tablespoons of cream or fresh yogurt (I used Yogurt)

Method

1.     Wash and soak the rice in cold water whilst you prepare the vegetables.

2.    Wash and peel the carrots and grate them.  Chop or grate the onions and garlic. (You can chop the carrots into small cubes if you like!)

3.    Melt butter and add the garlic to it.  ( I love the smell of butter and garlic cooking!!)

4.    Add the  carrots and onions and stir.

5.   Add boiling water to the vegetable stock and add to the carrots.

6.   Drain and add the rice.

7.   Cover and cook for 20 minutes.

8.     The soup should now be cooked.  Add the fresh coriander.

9.    Using a food processor, blend the soup.  As this soup has cooked rice, it makes the soup rich and creamy.

10.  If the soup feels too thick, you can add half a cup boiling water.

11.  Just before serving, you can add cream, yogurt or butter if you like.  I added some fresh yogurt and it tasted great.

12.  The carrots I had were really delicious and sweet and did not need any garnishing.   However, you can add salt and pepper or even chilly flakes to the soup depending on your preference.

13.   If you wish to serve the soup as a starter, you can serve them with hot homemade bread rolls.   I made  garlic, green chillies and coriander bread rolls.  Here's a picture of them, just ready to go in the oven. (recipe to follow)

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Sweet Corn Soup

Now that Christmas holidays are nearer, all of us will be entertaining friends and family. However, non of us want the calories and neither do we wish to spend all our time in the kitchen. It's not fun when your guests arrive and you haven't finished cooking or you have but are so tired that you are in no mood for entertaining. Well here's a simple and easy recipe for  making a healthy soup which can be a good starter. You can make this soup as spicy or as bland as you like. I tend to make my soup fairly simple and keep all the condiments on the table for people to add as required.

Ingredients for 4 servings

3 cups sweet corn (I used frozen sweet corn but you can use frsh or tinned and adjust cooking time accordingly)
1 Onion
3-4 cloves of garlic
4-5 tablespoons of semolina
3 cups hot vegetable stock ( I used vegetarian bouillon granules but you can use vegetable cubes or anything similar)
1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
Small piece of ginger (optional)

Method:

1. Pour some hotwater on the sweetcorn to defrost it.    Drain the sweet corn and put into a food processor with the onions, garlic, ginger, and semolina and blend it to a smooth mixture. If you like hot and spicy soup- you can add 2 green chillies.

2. Transfer this mixture into a saucepan, add the hot vegetable stock and bring to a boil.

3.  Add some pepper to the soup. (You won't need to add any more spices if you have used the Stock granules or cube)

4. Add half a cup of plain yogurt to the soup and stir well. ( You can add cream and butter if you wish - I chose the healthier option)

5. Let it simmer gently for 10 minutes.  If the soup hasn't blended well, you may wish to blend it again. 

6. The soup is ready to serve;  you can serve it with warm home made garlic bread; I didn't use coriander in this soups as I was trying to keep it a golden yellow colour.

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Mixed Vegetable and Pasta chunky soup

Do you have any dish that you enjoy russtling up for a quick snack but not sure what to call it?   Well, I have the same problem with this dish.   Do I call it just pasta with mixed vegetables or Pasta soup with vegetables??   I decided to call it vegetable and pasta chunky soup as  I usually serve it for lunch with toasted french bread.  This is a very tasty, easy, simple and  filling recipe. It's a great dish  and you can have for lunch or dinner in the cold weather. It's also a very healthy dish as it has loads of vegetables and no OIL.

You can make adjustments to the ingredients to suit your taste.

INGREDIENTS

200 grams or one Cereal bowl of pasta. I used linguine but you can use spagetti or any pasta.
200 grams or a cereal bowl of any vegetables. I used a mixture of carrots,peppers, peas, sweetcorn, brocolli and a small onion.
2 cups of tinned tomatoes (You can use fresh tomatoes or passata as well)
salt and pepper to taste.
1 teaspoon grated ginger,
2-3 cloves of grated garlic
finely chopped fresh green chillies (optional to your taste)
2 tablespoons of tomato puri
1 tablespoon of lemon (optional)
1 tablespoon of jaggery (only use if you use lemon)

METHOD

1.   Put some water to boil in a large saucepan for the Linguini.

2.  Whilst you are waiting for that,  mash and  transfer the tomatoes to  another saucepan to heat.

3.  Add the mixed vegetables and all the spices and herbs to the tomatoes.

4.  Add one cup of water to the vegetables and allow the mixture to simmer.

5.  Cut the linguini into very small pieces and add to the boiling water.

6.  Cook for 8 minutes or until the linguini is cooked.

7.  Drain the linguini.

8. Add the pasta to the vegetables which should now be cooked.

9. Allow this mixture to cook for 2 or 3 minutes.

10.  Serve it hot with toasted French bread.

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TOMATO AND VEGETABLE SOUP AND A SURPRISE AWARD

Now that the weather is getting colder, it’s nice to have freshly made hot soup for a quick lunchtime snack or as a starter when inviting friends to dinner. Here’s my quick and easy recipe. You can use the same recipe for nearly any vegetables you may have in your cupboard. If you do not have fresh tomatoes, you can always use tinned tomatoes.

Ingredients for 4-6 servings

5 medium ripe tomatoes
1 medium potato
1 medium carrot
1 medium pepper
1 medium onion
2-3 tablespoons tomato puree
Single cream (use at least 3 tablespoons – more if you like)
Half a teaspoon of turmeric
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
2 teaspoons grated or ground ginger
2-3 cloves of freshly grated or crushed garlic


Method:

1. Grate the potato, onion,carrot and pepper.

2. Gently slice the tomatoes and dip them in boiling water to remove as much of  their outer skin as you can.  Dice the tomatoes into small cubes and pour the tomato puree on the tomatoes

3. Mix all the vegetables in a saucepan and cook them on a medium heat.

4. Add the herbs like ginger, garlic and the spices like turmeric, salt and pepper.

5. Once the tomatoes start to soften, add two cups of water to the mixture.

6. Cook until all the vegetables soften.  If you have the time, add another cup of water and allow this to simmer on a low flame for half an hour.

7. Either transfer the thick soup into a blender or using a hand blender, blend the soup.  At this stage if you find that the soup is too thick - you can add some boiling water to the soup.

8. Add the cream, taste the soup and make adjustments as required. If you find the tomatoes to be quite sharp - you can add a bit of honey or jaggery to the soup.

9. Serve with croutons and warm French bread.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Biren of  Roti N Rice for sharing this lovely award with me. It is such an honor to be included in her 15 personal favorite blogs.  The Award came at just the right moment as  I was feeling a bit demotivated about blogging!!

Here are the rules of the award:

1. Accept the award. Post it on your blog with the name of the person who has granted the award and his or her blog link.

2. Pay it forward to 15 other bloggers.  Please don't leave it general and just invite all your blogger friends to collect the Award.  It's always nice to be nominated so please do the favour and nominate 15 bloggers to share the Award with. 

3. Contact those blog owners and let them know they’ve been chosen.

It was hard picking 15 bloggers to share this Award with.  I  would like to share this honor with the following 15 (please visit their blogs as they are all fantastic) :

1. Biren from Roti N Rice
2. Jagruti from Joy of Cooking
3. Nayna from Simply food
4. Prerna from Indian simmer
5. Jay from Jayz Kitchen
6.  Nivedita from Nivedita's kitchen
7.Ayesha from Taste of Pearl City
8. Jay from Tasty Appetite
9 Torview from Torview Toronto
10. Akila from Akila's kitchen
11. Tanvi from Sinfully Spicy
12. Satya from Super Yummy Recipes
13.  Priya from Priya's Easy N Tasty Recipes
14.  Rachana from Veggi Fare
15. PJ from Seduce Your Taste Buds

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