"hamburger" soup

It's supposed to be summer.

It was supposed to start a few weeks ago.

Here in Vancouver, it's STILL RAINING.

To be clear, it rains close to 8 months a year here. Vancouver doesn't get a ton of snow, only on the mountains. It's not the snow barren, igloo palace one might think.

We've had maybe a few days of sunshine, the rest, rain.

Rain, rain, and more rain. I'm swimming in rain over here.

My strawberries are waterlogged. I'm waterlogged.

I made soup. I should not be making soup in June.

I should be eating salad and watermelon, wearing shorts, and working on my tan.

Not drinking tea, baking cookies, and wearing socks.

Anyways, I made hamburger soup, but without the hamburger. I made it with ground turkey. You can also make it with your favourite fake meat product, I like Yves ground round. If you are going to use fake meat, just add it towards the end of cooking.

"Hamburger" soup
[from Jen's mom]

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 pound ground turkey
1 onion, finely chopped
4 carrots, peeled and chopped
3 celery ribs, chopped
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 bay leaf
1 28oz can whole tomatoes
2 cups water
3 cups vegetable broth
1 can tomato soup
8 tablespoons barley


Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the ground turkey, onion, carrots, and celery, cook until turkey is no longer pink and the onions are translucent, about 10 - 15 minutes. Add the thyme and bay leaf, continue cooking for 1 minute.  Add can whole tomatoes, water, broth, and tomato soup, stir to combine thoroughly. Turn heat to high and bring to a boil. Once boiling, add the barley and turn down to a simmer. Simmer for 45 minutes, or until barley is tender. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

cream of tomato soup

The husband calls me a baking snob. Granted, I know not everyone has the patience for baking that I do, but I don't think I'm a snob.

I think it's because I have a few non-negotiables when it comes to baking and cooking.

- If the recipe involves cake mix, I ain't going near it. I loathe cake mix, with a passion. I know some people like it, they like the simplicity of it, but I'm sorry, everyone should know how to make a cake.

- Don't even get me started with the "skinny" cake recipes. Cake mix + diet pop is not baking.

- I will never use margarine as a butter substitute. Same goes with apple sauce.

- Artificial vanilla is not the same as vanilla extract.

- Always make a recipe once, exactly as written. Subsequent times, it's okay to make changes.

- Cool whip is not real food. Neither is Splenda.

Sure, maybe it sounds unreasonable to some, but to me, these "rules" are what I believe in.

I like whole foods. Like this soup. Who doesn't love cream of tomato soup on a cold day ? I always used the canned stuff, but when I came across this recipe. I needed to make it.

It doesn't use any crazy ingredients, I think the hardest part was blending the soup. Creamy, warm, perfectly spiced with basil, the perfect accompaniment with a grilled cheese.

Cream of tomato soup
[ from the kitchn ]

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 small onion, chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
1 1/2 teaspoons dried basil
pinch of ground cloves
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
One 15 oz can diced tomatoes in puree
pinch of baking soda
2 cups chicken stock, vegetable stock, or water
1 cup milk, or up to 1/2 cup more as needed
tomato paste, if needed


In a large saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the onion and celery, cook for a few minutes, until veggies are soft. Add the dried basil and cloves, cook until fragrant, about 2 minutes, then add the flour. Stir the flour well, cooking for another 2 minutes. Add the tomatoes, baking soda, and stock.

Bring mixture to a boil and then turn down to a simmer. Simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove soup from heat and puree using a stick blender, or in batches in a traditional blender. Once pureed to your liking, return to the heat and stir in the milk. Add more milk if the soup seems too thick, and add tomato paste if it needs more tomato flavour.

Season to taste with salt and pepper.

baked potato soup

Earlier in the week, went for dinner, with some ladies and their babies.  Some of those ladies and I, went to a movie.

Crazy stupid love. You seen it?

There is only one thing that stands out in my mind from that movie.

Ryan Gosling's abs.

Holy mother of freaking jesus, that is amazing. I love the husband dearly with all of my heart, but that ladies (and gents) is, a work of art. God bless Canada.

I needed to share, let's continue with food now.....

Baked potato soup. Easy, quick, delicious, low fat, comforting, husband friendly, loaded with cheese bacon and onions.

I made mine with a handful of ingredients I had at home, nothing weird or out of the ordinary. I used nugget potatoes, but you'd be fine using a red-skinned potato or a russet potato.

Baked potato soup
[ loosely adapted from Cooking Light via Handle the heat]

10 small to medium-sized nugget potatoes, scrubbed clean
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
3 tablespoons flour
2 cups non-fat milk, divided
1 1/4 cups warm water
salt & pepper to taste

Accompaniments:


4 slices bacon, cooked and chopped
shredded cheddar cheese
sliced green onions

 Place potatoes on several layers of paper towel and microwave, on high, for 10 minutes or until the are tender when pierced with a fork. Note: if you use larger potatoes, pierce them with a fork before microwaving and adjust time accordingly.

Once potatoes are cooked, cut into quarters and let cool. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat, add onions and garlic and cook until onion is translucent, about 5 - 7 minutes. Stir together the flour and 1/2 cup of milk, until the flour has dissolved into the milk. Add milk/flour mix to the pan, along with the remaining milk and water. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Once boiling cook for one minute, turn heat down to low. Add the potatoes and mash them with a fork or a potato masher. Pull out any excess skins, I personally like the skins in the soup, but feel free to take them out. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Ladle into bowls and top with bacon, cheese and green onions.

Serve with Ryan Gosling's abs crusty bread to your loving husband.

lentil soup

You didn't think I'd give you a recipe for biscuits and not follow it up with a recipe to eat the biscuits with.

That would just be mean.

I'm a nice baker, so I'm sharing my soup recipe.

Lentils are one of my favourite things to eat. I don't like eating meat everyday, so I usually replace it with beans of some sort, lentils are one of the best. I like to eat them with brown rice, a side of chopped tomatoes and onions and a dollop of mashed avocado. The husband thinks this is far too healthy for his liking, but eats it anyways since he knows I'm not making him anything else. So when I came home earlier in the week wanting to make lentil soup, I figured he would be a little reluctant to try it. Shockingly I was wrong. He really liked it. Now it may have been that he also had freshly made biscuits to eat with the soup, he did eat 6 with dinner, but he seemed to genuinely like it.

Now when I first read the recipe, I was wondering what sort of flavour it would have since it really doesn't have any seasoning other than salt and pepper. But it was so flavourful, the lentils melted into they wonderful mushy state, but yet they still seemed to have a slight bite to them which is exactly what I love. They don't mush to the point of unrecognition like pea soup, it makes for a thick soup that full of depth and texture.

Lentil soup

[ adapted from Gourmet ]

3 medium sized yukon gold potatoes, cut into 1/4 dice
2 medium carrots, peeled and chopped into 1/4 inch dice
2 celery ribs, chopped into 1/4 inch dice
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 medium onion, chopped fine
2 tablespoons butter or oil
1 pound dried green lentils, picked out and rinsed (about 2 cups)
8 cups low-salt chicken broth

In a large pot, heat butter or oil over medium heat, add potatoes, carrots, celery, garlic and onion and cook until onion is soft, about 5-7 minutes, stirring frequently. Add lentils, broth and salt and pepper to taste. Bring soup to a simmer and let cook uncovered, stirring occasionally, for 45 minutes or until soup is thickened and vegetables are soft.

Serve to previous lentil hating husbands with lots of biscuits and soda crackers.

miso soup

There are some dishes you don't ever think you can recreate. You eat them at restaurant and think "I'll never be able to make this, it would take forever". I always thought miso soup was one of them.

I was pleasantly surprised when I whipped it up in 15 minutes. With ingredients that weren't that hard to find. Now being in Metro-Vancouver, which is extremely Asian influenced, it was a trip down the road to my favourite Asian grocery store, T & T supermarket, to find all of my supplies.

After a short trip and a quick cooking time, the results were unreal. It tasted exactly like miso soup you would get at a restaurant but fresher. The tofu still had some texture and firmness to it, the green onions still had their crunch and it makes enough not only for dinner but for lunches a few days later as well.

Some may find that having miso soup alone for dinner is not quite enough *cough, the husband, cough* so I served it along side our main dish, but for lunch I've just added some white rice for a little bit more substance.

Miso soup

[adapted from thekitchn]

 dashi:

2 quarts cold water
1 3-inch square kombu (dried sea kelp)
3/4 cup bonito flakes

miso soup:

2 quarts dashi
1/2 cup miso paste *
1 12oz block extra firm tofu, cut into 1/4 inch cubes
1 bunch green scallions, finely chopped

Pour 2 quarts of cold water in a medium saucepan, add kombu to water and turn heat to high and bring mixture to a boil. Once water has started to boil, turn off heat and remove the kombu. Add the bonito flakes and let steep for 5 minutes.

Drain broth through a fine mesh strainer or a colander fitted with a cheesecloth into a large bowl. Pour broth back into pot.

Bring the dashi back up to a boil. Ready the miso paste in a medium bowl. Once the broth has come back to a boil, pour 1 cup of the dashi over the miso paste and whisk until completely dissolved.  Pour miso into broth and turn heat down to low. Whisk until miso is completely Incorporated. Make sure the soup never comes back up to a boil after this point.

If you are serving all of the soup now, add the tofu and onions and just heat thoroughly, then serve immediately with chili sauce and soy sauce.

If you're saving some of the soup for lunches, don't add the tofu and onions directly into the soup. Place tofu and onions in the bottom of the bowls you'll be serving the soup in. Once you pour the soup over top, it'll warm the tofu and onions. When you take the soup for lunch, just keep the soup and the tofu/onions separate until the soup has been warmed and then add the tofu and onions. This will keep the freshness and texture that you're looking for. No one likes soggy tofu.

* miso paste may also be labelled as soybean paste, but it will specify that it is "miso" soybean paste.

pea soup

Today was a much better day. No one hit my car, I made pea soup and I got new slippers.  They look like ugg boots mixed with socks. My feet are burning hot but I don't want to take them off.

my new slippers, upside down

I also wrote out what I want to make for Christmas baking, but I know that list will change at least 4 - 5 times between now and Christmas, so I'll just guess and stock up on the basics. It's all about changing your mind last minute. It makes it more fun. Or stressful. Whichever.

potato leek soup

Today was just one of those days. I woke up mad because it was Monday. I had a giant spot on my face, my hair looked horrible, I mistakenly wrote that book club was on Tuesday night, when really it's on Wednesday causing a stir and it's raining. And it's cold. And the Canucks lost.

It's a soup day.