8 Soups To Warm Up Your Winter

Thanks to the revolving door of colds and coughs my kids bring home from school, I've been making quite a lot of soup. On the plus side, I love soup.

Some are old favorites while others, like this spicy red lentil soup with meyer lemon, are new favorites. Every one is warming and delicious. My advice to you is:

• Save your vegetable scraps - they make great stock - details here; and
• If you make more than you need, freeze what's left over - you'll be glad you did, especially next time you catch a cold and do not feel like cooking.

Swiss Chard, White Bean & Sausage Soup
This is one of those soups that is a meal in and of itself. Hearty and full of flavor, thanks in part to the vastly underutilized trick of saving your Parmesan cheese rinds to give your stock a huge boost. You can use kale in place of the chard - both are good. Simply skip the sausage if you want to make a vegetarian version.

Quick Coconut Vegetable Stew
This is a wonderful go-to meal that is packed with flavor and also wildly good for you. The vegetables are flexible but kabocha squash is one of my favorite additions because its dense, sweet flesh pairs so nicely with the warm curry powder and the rich coconut milk. Vegan to boot!

Creamy Roasted Garlic & Potato Soup
This is one of the most addictive soups I've ever eaten - it ranks right up there with my favoriteThai soup, tom kha gai. The nutty, mellow flavor of the roasted garlic is the perfect foil for potatoes' sweet starchiness. Add a little heavy cream and you are officially IN BUSINESS.

Curried Lentil & Sweet Potato Stew
A perfect vegetarian meal packed with protein and flavor. The exotic flavors of the curry marry beautifully with both lentils and sweet potatoes. Whatever other veggies (carrots, etc.,) you want to add are just icing on the cake.

Jerusalem Artichoke (Sunchoke) & Sweet Potato Soup
I discovered this recipe as a result of Eatwell Farm, our old CSA back in Berkeley that helpfully included it in a share box that featured a big bag of sunchokes. At the time, I had no idea what they were or what to do with them so I took the easy way out and made the soup even though it sounded a little weird to me. But it was sooooo good - sweet, nutty and with a nice kick from the green garlic! Now I yearn for sunchokes and am thinking about planting a bunch in the spring even though I've been warned that they have thuggish tendencies and like to take over. Considering how tasty they are, that might not be the worst thing in the world...

Red Lentil Soup with Chili Paste & Meyer Lemon
This is my new favorite soup, inspired by a recent New York Times recipe. Like all lentil soups, it's quick, hearty and nutritious and the chili paste and lemon juice pack a nice little punch of flavor.

Winter Squash & Pear Soup with Sage
Pear adds a lovely, floral sweetness to the nutty squash and sage anchors the flavors with its earthy astringency. Add a dollop of sour cream or crème fraîche to make this extra rich and serve with peasant bread or brown rice and a green salad.

Curried Butternut Squash Soup
A super simple, super tasty (accidentally) vegan soup made with roasted butternut squash, creamy coconut milk and warm, exotic curry powder. You can't lose with this soup! If you're not a vegan, top with a little sour cream, crème fraîche or plain, whole milk yogurt.

You might also like:

• 15 Unbeatable Kale Recipes
• Winter Squash Wonderland: 22 Recipes You'll Love
• 23 Delicious & Easy Thanksgiving Recipes

For more delicious recipes, gardening ideas, foraging tips, and food-related inspiration "like" the Garden of Eating on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter and Pinterest.

Red Lentil Soup with Chili Paste and Meyer Lemon

This soup was inspired by Melissa Clark's lovely recipe  in the New York Times  dining section a few weeks ago. The combination of the delicate yet hearty red lentils (so pretty!), bright lemon and spicy chili is addictive. And it's also easy to make, cheap and unquestionably good for you.

Lentils are a particularly good source of dietary fiber, protein, folate and iron and also high in potassium, calcium, zinc, niacin and vitamin K. They are also tasty, versatile and VERY affordable. What's not to love???

You to begin by sautéing onion, garlic, chili, tomato paste and cumin powder to create a wonderfully flavorful base for the soup. I used sambal oelek chili paste rather than chili powder or cayenne because I like the complexity it adds but any chili will do.

Then just add the stock, lentils, carrots and simmer for about half an hour or until the lentils are soft.

Then puree half the soup to create a nice texture that is part smooth and part chunky. I've said it many times but I'll say it again just in case you're a new reader, the immersion blender is one of the five best kitchen tools ever invented! I would probably never puree anything without it because I consider pouring hot soups and sauces into a blender a HUGE pain in the butt with a high potential for burning myself that also requires me to clean said blender afterwards. No, thanks!

A little lemon juice brightens all the flavors in this soup. I still had a few Meyer lemons left from our recent trip to northern California (we grabbed a handful of beauties from the prolific lemon bush at our old place on Josephine Street) and it added a lovely floral note. But regular lemon will work perfectly, too.

Make enough to enjoy for several meals (or to freeze) as the flavors will just improve with time.  If you are a vegetarian or vegan, simply use vegetable stock and skip the sour cream or yogurt. Enjoy!

-- print recipe --
Red Lentil Soup with Chili Paste & Meyer Lemon
(Adapted from Melissa Clarke's recipe in the New York Times)
Serves 4-6

Ingredients

* 3 Tbsps organic olive oil
* 2 garlic cloves, pressed or minced
* 1 large onion, diced
* 1 Tbsp tomato paste
* 1 tsp ground cumin
* 1/2 tsp sea salt salt
* 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
* 1/2 tsp sambal oelek chili paste or 1/4 tsp ground chili powder (if you like things hot, use more!)
* 1 1/2 quarts stock (vegetable or chicken - it's good both ways)
* 1 cup red lentils
* 2 large carrots, peeled and diced
* Juice of 1/2 lemon (Meyer or regular)
* 3 Tbsps chopped fresh parsley or cilantro

Directions

1. Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium-high heat and then add the onion and garlic and sauté, stirring often for about 4 minutes.Then stir in tomato paste, cumin, salt, black pepper and chili paste or powder and sauté for another few minutes, stirring once or twice.

2. Add the broth, lentils and carrots and bring to a simmer, then cover and turn the heat down to low and simmer until the lentils are soft, about 30 minutes.

3. Taste and adjust the seasonings if needed. Using an immersion blender (or a regular blender of food processor if you don't have an immersion blender), purée half the soup and return to the pot.

4. Stir in the lemon juice and the fresh herbs and serve with a drizzle of olive oil or a dollop of yogurt or sour cream on top.

You might also like:

• Curried Lentil & Sweet Potato Stew
• Spiced Lentil Salad with Currants & Capers
• Mujadara - Syria's Traditional Lentil, Onion & Rice Stew

For more delicious recipes, gardening ideas, foraging tips, and food-related inspiration "like" the Garden of Eating on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter and Pinterest.

Curried Lentil & Sweet Potato Stew

This delectable stew is a little bit sweet, a little bit spicy, very hearty, and has a lovely, subtle creaminess from the coconut milk. Served over rice with whole milk yogurt and lots of fresh cilantro, it makes a perfect meal.

Lentils are one of the unsung heroes of the food world. They're delicious, cheap, filling and remarkably nutritious -- packed with calcium, potassium, zinc, niacin and vitamin K and even more protein, iron, folate and dietary fiber. But perhaps most importantly, THEY DO NOT REQUIRE SOAKING!!! This makes them a boon to lazy people like myself, as well as those who do not excel at planning ahead.

Thanks to the overwhelming success of this summer's Great Sweet Potato Experiment, we have quite a lot of delicious, yellow-fleshed sweet potatoes. We do not have a root cellar (yet) so we've been storing them in paper grocery bags in our downstairs shower which we clearly never use. They're holding up nicely so far - no signs of softening or rot. But I feel some pressure to use them while they're still good. So I was intrigued when I saw this recipe on Food52 last week. It inspired me to create a similar soup with some modifications to suit my tastes and to make use of what I had in the larder.

As we were about to leave for a week-long vacation, I was practically gleeful about the chance to use up the two red onions and three cloves of garlic sitting out on the counter and finally put the tiny, wizened knob of ginger in the fridge to use before it dried up completely. I also liked the idea of freeing up a little room in the freezer which has gotten so full that the drawers are practically groaning. I could use up two quarts of my homemade vegetable stock (this is so easy to make, by the way) and one of the bags of kale I froze from our garden this summer. Aaaand, it would make good airplane food, too!

I began by defrosting the vegetable stock and the frozen kale since I knew that would take a little time.

Meanwhile, I chopped up the onions, garlic and ginger and sauteed them in some oil in the soup pot.

Once they'd softened, I added the carrots and sweet potatoes and cooked them for a few minutes before tossing in a can of organic coconut milk, the rinsed and drained lentils, half the cilantro and the spices.

Then I added the defrosted vegetable stock and let it simmer for about 45 minutes until the vegetables and lentils were just cooked through but still had good texture. I stirred in a few spoonfuls of lemon juice then served it over basmati rice (short grain brown would also be good), topped with whole milk organic yogurt and lots of fresh cilantro. Bliss!

-- print recipe --Curried Lentil & Sweet Potato Stew
Serves 6-8

Ingredients

* 2 medium or 1 large red onion, chopped
* 4 cloves of garlic, minced or pressed
* 4 cups of cubed sweet potatoes or yams
* 3 carrots, sliced or chopped
* 2 cups of lentils, rinsed and drained
* 2 pints vegetable stock
* 2-3 tsps chopped or minced fresh ginger
* 1 bunch of fresh cilantro, leaves rinsed and chopped
* 1 bunch of kale or chard, ribs removed, leaves coarsely chopped
* Juice of 1 lime
* 1 can coconut milk
* Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
* 2 Tbsps curry powder or garam masala
* 2 Tsps cumin
* a pinch of red pepper flakes
* 2 Tbsps olive or coconut oil

Directions

1. Heat the oil over medium heat in a large soup pot or Dutch oven and saute the onions, garlic and ginger for 10 or so minutes until translucent.

2. Add the cubed sweet potatoes, carrots, curry powder, cumin and red pepper flakes and saute for another 5 minutes or so before adding the lentils, coconut milk, kale or chard, vegetable stock and most of the cilantro (reserve a little to use as a garnish for the stew.)

3. Bring to a simmer then turn the heat down a bit and cook, covered, over medium-low heat for 40-45 minutes until the lentils and vegetables are just tender. Add the lime juice and stir well before seasoning to taste with the salt and pepper. You can also add a little sugar if you like. Serve hot over rice topped with whole milk yogurt and fresh cilantro.

You might also like:

• Spiced Lentil Salad with Carrots, Currants & Capers
• Quick Coconut Vegetable Curry
• Mujadara - Lentil, Rice & Caramelized Onion Stew

For more delicious recipes, gardening ideas, foraging tips, and food-related inspiration "like" the Garden of Eating on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter and Pinterest.