Vegetable Soup Formula

Vegetable soups are quickly becoming my savior as I enter my first, cold New York winter. I used to bring salads to work in Los Angeles year-round and they proved sufficient for a quick meal at my desk. I tried that here in New York during the first few weeks of November and it turned out to be less than satisfying. So much so that when faced with the green leaves staring back at me from the office refrigerator, I quickly turned and walked out the door in search of something warm and a bit more comforting.

The main problem with my new lunchtime ritual is the detrimental effect it has had on the snugness of my wardrobe. Add that to the battle already underway with the culinary school bulge and it is a recipe for disaster. One more trip to Guy & Gallard for lobster bisque and no amount of Saturday morning boot camp in Central Park is going to bring me back.

Enter the humble vegetable soup. This is the perfect comfort food compromise. It is warm, thick and packed with the flavors of fall, but if you keep the ingredients to vegetables, stock and a few key flavorings, it is supremely healthy and nourishing.

This recipe, as with most, is just a guideline. Be sure to experiment with your favorite flavors. Keep this simple formula in mind and you will produce a successful soup every time:

1. Sauté diced onions in a bit of oil. After the onions soften add any garlic, ginger or other such flavorings (not herbs) and sauté a bit more. Season with salt and pepper.
2. For a roasted vegetable soup, dice the vegetables and roast at 375˚ until tender. Alternately, you can add the vegetables to the pot with the onions and sauté a bit to achieve some color. If roasting, add the vegetables to the pot with the softened onions after roasting.
3. Add enough vegetable stock to cover everything, toss in any herbs you want to use and simmer for at least 30 minutes. If you did not roast the vegetables, make sure they are tender before proceeding.
4. Remove the herbs and use an immersion blender or a standard blender to purée the soup.
5. Return the puréed soup to the pan and season to taste with salt and pepper.

There. You just made delicious and healthy vegetable soup. The only thing I must insist on is that you, if at all possible, make your own vegetable stock. It is so simple, yet it adds so much to the final product. Not to mention that it is a great way to use up vegetable scraps. For a refresher on vegetable stock, go here. If you are not quite ready to experiment on your own, here is the recipe for my latest concoction, carrot ginger pear soup.

Carrot Ginger Pear Soup
Makes about 2 quarts

1 small onion, diced
2 T vegetable oil
1 pound carrots
2 ripe pears
2 slices fresh ginger
1 1/2 quarts vegetable stock
Salt and pepper

Heat a medium pot over medium high heat. Add the oil and diced onion and sauté until soft. Add the ginger slices and continue to sauté. While the onions are sautéing, peel and roughly chop the carrots and pears. Add the carrots and pears to the pot and sauté until beginning to soften, five to 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add enough stock to cover the vegetables and simmer for 30 minutes until the carrots are tender.

To temper the spice of the ginger, remove the slices before pureeing. If you want more zip, leave the ginger in. Purée the mixture using an immersion or standard blender. Return the purée to the pot and season with salt and pepper to taste. If the soup is too thick, add a bit more vegetable stock to thin it out. Serve or cool and divide into containers for storage.

Nori Rolls or How To Use Up All Those Julienned Vegetables

I was pretty sure that when I moved to New York, at least 10 pounds were going to melt off of me with very little effort on my part. I knew I would be walking everywhere instead of driving and I guessed that the heat and humidity would be enough to serve as my own personal sweat lodge.

This may be true for some new inhabitants of New York, but not for me. If, like me, you happen to be attending culinary school, The French Culinary Institute in particular, then the increase of butter and cream in your diet is enough to offset any good that pounding the pavement of New York might have done.



Needless to say, when I am not in school, I am doing my best to keep my meals on the lighter side. These nori rolls have become one of my go-to snacks. I eat them like hand rolls, but I have also been known, in my lazier moments, to thrown some brown rice in a bowl, top it with veggies and use a sheet of nori to scoop everything up with my hands. These are delicious and good for you either way. Also, if you happen to be in culinary school, they have the added benefit of using up all those julienned vegetables you have laying around if you have been practicing your knife skills. If you haven’t been practicing, these rolls will give you a great excuse to start.



Nori Rolls
Makes 4 rolls

2 sheets roasted nori
1 cup cooked brown rice (leftovers work great here)
1 T Japanese fish sauce (preferably Ayu for its great, mild taste)
1/2 carrot, julienned
3 green onions, julienned
1/4 avocado, sliced thinly

Toss the brown rice with the fish sauce and set aside. If you just cooked the rice, let it cool before assembling the rolls. Cut one sheet of nori in half lengthwise to make two strips. At one end of each strip of nori, pile 1/4 cup of rice, leaving the bottom corner of the nori sheet exposed so you can use it to start rolling. Place a quarter of the julienned carrots and green onions on the rice on each sheet along with one or two slices of avocado. Fold the bottom corner of the nori sheet over your pile of rice and vegetables and continue rolling the sheet into itself until you form a hand roll. Use a bit of water to moisten the end of the nori sheet to get it to stick to the roll. A bit of brown rice may fall out as you are rolling. Just tuck it back in to the roll when you are finished. I eat these plain, but you may also serve them with soy sauce or extra fish sauce for dipping.

A Chocolate Lover Makes Carrot Cake

I am an admitted chocoholic, especially when it comes to dark chocolate. Whether it’s flourless chocolate cake, dark chocolate pecan clusters, or even chocolate covered, peanut butter filled pretzels, once a piece of chocolate crosses my lips, I want more.

Not surprisingly, I’m known to only order chocolate desserts at restaurants. Though lately I’ve made a concerted effort to expand my horizons and have been rewarded with things like Mozza’s Torta Della Nonna which I am now in the process of feverishly trying to recreate at home (note to Nancy Silverton and Matt Molina – if you could finish up with that Mozza cookbook, I’d really appreciate it. Thanks). Also not surprisingly, when I’m cooking at home I tend to be drawn to dessert recipes that call for chocolate.

So, why isn’t this a post about a recipe for a chocolate dessert? Because I happen to be in a relationship with someone who loves carrot cake the way I love chocolate and in my never ending quest to please both our palates, I have a hard time passing up any carrot cake recipe that comes my way.

This particular version comes from the latest issue of Everyday with Rachael Ray. The addition of crushed pineapple makes for a very moist cake and in a deviation from tradition, the frosting calls for sour cream. It’s a nice change from the usual cream cheese and the tang the sour cream imparts is a great compliment to the carrot cake.

I have yet to hear what the carrot cake fanatic thinks of this recipe since he won’t get the chance to try it until tonight, but I think it’s a definite keeper. If you can’t get over the absence of cream cheese frosting, try the cake recipe and top it with your favorite frosting. I think it would be equally delicious.

One final note - The next time I make this recipe I’m going to double it. My bundt pan is clearly larger than a 6-cup capacity and the more cake I’m left with on this one, the better.



Carrot-Pineapple Bundt Cake with Sour Cream Frosting
Adapted from Everyday with Rachael Ray

1 cup flour
1 t baking powder
½ t baking soda
½ t ground cinnamon, plus more for dusting
¼ t salt plus an extra pinch
1 cup packed light brown sugar
½ cup sour cream, divided
¼ cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1 t vanilla bean paste
1 cup shredded carrot
½ cup crushed pineapple, drained (or chopped fresh pineapple)
½ cup chopped walnuts
1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
3 tablespoons butter, at room temperature

Preheat oven to 350*
Grease a 6-cup capacity bundt pan and set aside. In a medium bowl combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and ¼ t salt. In a larger bowl, combine the brown sugar, ¼ cup of sour cream, the vegetable oil, egg and vanilla and whisk until smooth. Add the carrots, walnuts and pineapple and stir until combined. Add the flour mixture and stir just until combined. Pour the batter into the prepared bundt pan and bake for 55 minutes or until a toothpick test comes out clean. Let the cake cool for 15 minutes in the pan before inverting onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Use a wooden spoon to combine the powdered sugar and butter. Whisk in the remaining ¼ cup sour cream and pinch of salt. Pour the frosting over the cake and dust with cinnamon if desired.