Nov. 15 Link Round-Up (and Recipe!): Soups-n-Stews

I was thinking that Thursday there would just be one post that would be a link round-up of many different things, but this week I have too many links for just one post. Today there will be a series of Link Round-ups.

So first, my friend Heather Stimmler-Hall, who is a travel writer and tour guide living in Paris (and who is not only friends with David Leibovitz, but is actually featured in his ice cream book The Perfect Scoop as the Guinness Ice Cream tester!), mentioned she could use some good soup or stew recipes...

Although Seattle has been rainy the past few weeks, either global warming, proximity to/over-usage of a space heater or reduced post-summer, icy-beverage-drinking (or some combination of all three) has resulted in my not being utterly teeth-chattering cold all the time as I have been the past two Novembers in this place. So I wasn't thinking much about soups or stews (I'm pretty much always thinking about ice cream, which is why I'm so excited that Heather knows David Leibovitz), but I should be!

Soups and stews are brilliant because a) they are satisfying, b) they are usually economical, c) they are generally super-make-ahead-and-freeze-friendly and d) it's very easy to find healthy recipes that don't taste like you are being punished for something...like eating too much ice cream.

So here are a series of links, some recipes I have tried, some I have not.

Recipes I Have Not Tried

Epicurious Soup Recipes - My boss at the cooking shop says she has not had good success with Epicurious recipes. I mainly use them for baking and vegetarian dishes and I haven't really ever had a failure, so it might be hit or miss based on what kind of cuisine you are looking for.  Below are links to some vegetarian and vegaquarian soups and stews that look mighty tasty and most are actually not too complicated. I will report back after I have tried them.

• Caramelized Onion And Portobello Mushroom Soup With Goat Cheese Croutons
• Curried Red Lentil And Swiss Chard Stew With Garbanzo Beans
• Spicy Shrimp And Coconut Noodle Soup With Shiitake Mushrooms
• Black Bean Soup With Chipotle Chiles
• Spicy Cajun Crab And Greens Soup
• Spicy Roasted Vegetable Soup With Toasted Tortillas
  

(One note - I don't know how freezable most of these are - the Former Fat Guy freezing overview link from last week talks mainly about individual ingredients, so if you are interested in making bulk amounts and freezing, some additional research might be needed if you are not sure yourself. I'm going to make notes on the gray areas for myself and try to figure it out for the future. A couple things I do know - ingredients like chipotle peppers will increase in intensity over time, so if you want your dish to not be overpowered, I have seen recommendations that those flavorings are added when the dish is reheated to serve. Ditto that process for finishing touches like lime juice.)

Ha - as I was writing this, Eating Well magazine sent out its newsletter with the title Healthy Fall Soups.  I'm so topical!  Their note on storage?  "Most soups store well in the refrigerator for 2 to 3 days or the freezer for up to 3 months."

Cooking Light also has several different soup-related sections, most with both recipes and preparation tips.  Unfortunately for me, there's not a lot of vegetarian and vegaquarian options at the ready, but they might be good starting points for ideas.

• How to Make Super Soups - quick outline of basic soup making process, in case you want to experiment with the flavors and ingredients you like or have on hand
  
• Falling for Soup - fall flavors matched with some baked goods, like Curried Butternut Soup paired with Dried Pear & Cardamom Scones and Potato-Kale Soup with Gruyère paired with Walnut & Rosemary Loaves
  
• 17 Super Easy Soups and Stews - ready in 45 minutes or less
• Fast Soups for Fast Times - another quick soup recipe listing, this one with more details on prep and freezer techniques

Recipes I Have Tried

The below are a few tried-and-true standards for me.  They're not flashy, and all involve a little bit of investment of time up front, but they freeze and reheat well, and are all super-satisfying.  I try to make one batch of one every couple of months, and I normally get 8-10 portions out of it, all-in-all, a pretty great return on that investment of time.

Joy of Cooking Vegetarian Chili

Dr. Andrew Weil's Smoky Red Bean Stew (second recipe down in link)

A note on this recipe.  The recipe from Dr. Weil recommends using dried beans, which is fine.  However, I have noticed in areas with hard water, the end result is not as satisfying because the beans never quite get soft enough, even with soaking and long cooking time.

Aliza Green, author of Beans, recommends the following if you have hard water:

• In hard water areas, use 1/8 teaspoon of baking soda per pound of beans.  The beans will actually absorb more liquid if cooked in a smaller, rather than larger amount of water.  Give the beans enough water to soak up and swell, but don't drown them.
• Baking soda works because it neutralizing the hardening effects of acidity. Therefore, you might also want to watch when you add any ingredient that has acid.  The recipe calls for adding the tomatoes right after the soup comes to a boil.  If you have hard water, you might actually want to let the beans cook for a little while first until they begin to soften. 
  

Brown Lentil Stew

This is much more enjoyable than the dullsville name would imply. I am fairly certain this came originally from the Rose Elliot Complete Vegetarian Cuisine.  I had my own copy of the recipe, which was lost, found the below recipe on the internets a couple years ago, and now I can't find it either. So I might be in some kind of flagrant copyright violation here.  

When I make it, I usually use reconstitued dried mushrooms, and replace some of the vegetable broth called for with the reconstituting liquid (strained so there is no grit) from the mushrooms.

1 large onion, thinly sliced
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 lbs potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
1 lb carrots, peeled and diced
4 celery stalks, sliced
1/2 lb mushrooms, washed and sliced
1/2 cup dried brown or green lentils
2 tbsp unbleached white flour
2 tsp dried herbes de Provence
5 cups vegetable stock
1/4 cup soy sauce
salt and pepper

Sauté the onion in oil until soft but not brown. Add the potatoes, carrots, celery, mushrooms and lentils. Sprinkle in the flour and herbs and stir. Add the stock, soy sauce, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for about an hour, stirring occasionally.