Category: Soup

Tasty Kitchen’s mushroom soup with garlic cheese bread

Published on by Hanna2 Comments

Via Pioneer Woman (a blog I really like with insight to American cooking) I found this recipe posted on Tasty Kitchen. I really enjoyed this creamy mushroom soup, whereas Christopher’s comment was that it tasted really nice, but he didn’t think tomato, cream and mushrooms was a good combo, not what one expects. I must say I only expected one thing – for it to taste good, and it really did! 🙂 I had the leftovers for lunch the next day and it was really tasty then too.

I served Pioneer Woman’s cheesy garlic bread with it, (with a few changes of course) and we both really liked it!

When it comes to cooking I rarely follow recipes properly, I guess I see them more as inspiration. Even if I have the intention to actually follow it, I always end up adding or substituting something. With this soup I had been a bit silly and printed the measurements in US style and not metric, and couldn’t really be bothered to convert it, so I used all the ingredients (apart from the wine, didn’t have any at hand) and only added some chilli sauce for a punch and sweetness. If you want the original recipe, click on the link above, and below is my modified version. Tasty that one, too!

Creamy mushroom soup, serves 3-4

1 celery stalk, finely chopped

1-2 small carrots, finely chopped

2 tbsp olive oil

250 g closed cup mushrooms, sliced

1 clove of garlic, pressed

200 ml passata

500 ml chicken stock (1,5 stock cube + boiling water)

300 ml cream

some finely grated parmesan (approx 2-3 tbsp)

thickening agent (I used Swedish Maizena, made of corn starch)

2 tbsp chilli sauce

salt and white pepper

Heat up the olive oil in a large sauce pan, when hot throw in the celery and carrots and let them soften a bit. Then add the garlic and next the mushrooms. Let the mushrooms reduce in size for a few minutes, and then add the passata and chicken stock. Bring to a boil and let it boil for five minutes or so, then add the cream. Bring to a boil again, adjust the seasoning and add the chilli sauce, and let it simmer for a few minutes. Then add the thickening agent and let it boil on low heat until the soup has the thickness you desire. Maybe add some chopped parsley and serve.

Cheesy garlic bread

Cut crusty baguette lengthways. Melt a knob of butter and add some pressed garlic ot a frying pan and fry the bread (soft side own) until it is golden. Make sure the garlic doesn’t burn. Then mix mayonnaise and grated cheese (cheddar and parmesan) in a bowl. Add some salt. Spoon the mixture onto the crusty bread and put them high up in the oven on 225C until the cheese mixture is nice and golden too. Dig in!

Parsnip and sweet potato soup

Published on by HannaLeave a comment

I don’t know if you have noticed or not, but the last two months or so I have cut out a lot of fiber. This was my doctor’s orders and to prevent my stomach cramps.

In the beginning I saw it as an excuse to eat everything unhealthy, as I had to cut out fruit, berries, seeds, nuts, vegetables and everything whole grain. But it wasn’t as fun to cut out vegetables as I had imagined. I really suffered, not being able to eat avocado, asparagus, berries… Cutting it out makes the food you eat seem really dense, and sometimes I was really struggling with motivation on what to cook. But it did help my stomach enormously!

I have also learnt that maybe society exaggerate the importance of fiber, my stomach has worked better than before without it, and I haven’t gained weight from eating white bread and pasta. I think variation in your diet as well as normal-sized portions is the key rather than eating a lot of fibers.

Since a week and a half I have started to introduce certain vegetables, berries and fruit into my diet, so we’ll see how that works out. I am thrilled to be able to eat vegetables again, and enjoy the fact that my food seems much lighter now.

In spring and summer I prefer salads, but in the autumn and winter I love my soups and am so happy I can have it for lunch everyday if I want to! This is what I had today, at my desk, as you can see. 😉

Parsnip and sweet potato soup, serves 1

1 parsnip

1 sweet potato

olive oil

vegetable stock

cream/creme fraiche

persillade

chilli flakes (only a few)

salt

Peel the vegetables and cut into pieces. Heat up some olive oil in a pan and add the vegetables, cook for only a few minutes to add flavour. Pour boiling water into the pan, and add a little stock, cook for about 15 minutes until the vegetables are very tender. Drain the cooking water into a bowl and puree the vegetables, gradually adding the cooking water and cream until you get the thickness you want. Bring to a boil again and adjust the salt with stock and salt, add the seasoning and serve with a dollop of creme fraiche.

Jerusalem artichoke soup

Published on by Hanna4 Comments

This is my absolute favourite soup! I have fond memories of it as well. I started working as a waitress part-time at a small hotel in the countryside in the south of Sweden when I was at University in Lund. The hotel was a small manor house, really old and therefore very cold. In the winter it was freezing in the kitchen because it had so many outer walls. The chefs were really nice though, sometimes they made us the yummiest hot chocolate made of chocolate and cream, or Jerusalem artichoke soup with chopped schallots, which we ate gathered by the stove to get our body temperatures up. It wasn’t this cold in the restaurant, so the guests were fine actually.

This recipe is to serve the soup as a starter, but it’s great as a light supper as well, just make a little bit more, serve it with bread and maybe throw in some crispy bacon or some prawns in the soup, and maybe a dollop of creme fraiche. Enjoy!

Jerusalem artichoke soup, 2 portions

5 or so Jerusalem artichokes

100-150 ml cream

vegetable stock

chopped schallots

Peel the artichokes and cut them into equally sized pieces. Cover just, with water in a pan, sprinkle in some salt, bring to a boil and cook until very tender. Pour out some of the remaining water, and puree the rest with a stick blender. If this is too thick you can always add some of the water again, but it is difficult to make the soup thicker once it is liquidized. Pour in the cream, some stock, salt and white pepper and adjust the thickness with some of the remaining water if necessary. Bring to a boil again. Serve in bowls with some chopped schallots.