It has been raining on and off here and the temperature is falling. This prompted me to make my favorite fall soup of the simplest kind. This is definitely not your traditional tomato soup with cream, coconut milk. soy milk or almond milk. It is fresh, untainted, delicious, and uses lentil for a luxurious base.
Soups, Sides & Salads
Grilled Eggplant Caprese Salad
Fresh, easy, and pretty enough for a party! Caprese Salad is a perfect salad to add to any dinner, especially in summer when you get plentiful tomatoes and fresh basil. I have taken the liberty of adding grilled eggplant, balsamic glaze, and pesto to the classic Caprese for extra flavor and flair.
Tomato curry in a Hurry
If you’re a tomato fan, you’ll love this and if you’re not, well…maybe this will inspire you to try because it serves as a base to get imaginative. The beauty of this recipe is that it is really quick, easy and delicious curry to serve with leftover rice and veggies on busy days. To bulk it up you can add in boiled eggs, chickpeas, seared paneer, tofu, soya chunks, potatoes, whatever you fancy. The additions are endless. You can even puree it and have it as a soup.
Enjoy!
Wild Mushroom Soup with Rosemary Breadcrumbs
While some of you are seeing signs of new life and beauty around you, here in Vancouver we are still stuck in the winter. The other day I went for a walk I had to wear mittens even though it was a bright sunny day. Honestly, it doesn’t really feel like spring is going to come soon. We even had heavy snowfall just before valentine’s day followed by glorious sunny days – not many of them but they did exist in between periods of snow and rain. All this variation in temperature put me in the mood for soup. So, when I found wild mushrooms at the Choices market, I decided to make and share my amazing recipe for wild mushroom soup.
Khatta Meetha Teekha Kaddu/ Sweet, Sour & Spicy Squash
Every time I go back to India in the winters I load up on vegetables as much as I can. Breakfast, Lunch, dinner and snack will all have some amount of vegetable. The reason is because a wide variety of vegetables are available in the winter and they are the freshest and tastiest. After coming from India my body was still going through intense vegetable cravings. So, I cooked the best known winter squash, butternut in Indian style. It is one of my favorite and very simple to prepare. In India it is made with a different squash which is not available here but any sweet and firm flesh squash works for this recipe. This dish has a nice balance of tart, sweet and spicy that will engage all of your senses. It goes really well with roti (Indian flatbread), poories (fried puffed bread) and as a side with lentil and rice alike.
Fragrant Hot and Sour Soup
The season now is such that we are having a lot of soups. Hot and sour soup is one that I learned to love and make after living in Asian influenced city of Richmond. There are many versions of this soup, but my recipe is a combination of Chinese and Thai and it turned into the best I have ever had!
Methi Paneer
Fenugreek leaves, also called Kasuri Methi, is an herb/ vegetable with a bitter but an addictive taste. I find myself adding it to everything from rice, to chicken and also rotis. People often like to mix methi with spinach to mellow out the bitterness. I am sharing a recipe where methi is used as a vegetable and to which paneer is added, and so the sweetness and richness of paneer also mellows out the bitterness of methi. This is a highly fragrant winter dish that goes beautifully with almost any indian bread-chapatis, naans, rotis or parathas or with some daal and rice.
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