Zanzibar-inspired Carrot and Coconut Soup

This Zanzibar-inspired carrot and coconut soup is delicious, creamy and tasty. My body literally screams for it in autumn when the new crop of carrots appears in supermarkets. The recipe is from a friend's cookbook, Sigrun of CafeSigrun (remember the fun I had when helping her with the manuscript?). Sigrun has travelled frequently to East-Africa and this soup was inspired by days spent on the island of Zanzibar: She was sitting with a bowl of carrot soup admiring the view of the Indian Ocean, the air filled with the aroma from the Forodhani Food Market, in the historical city of Stone Town. The soup is vegan, easy to make (you need a hand-held blender or a food processor), and it will provide you with essential vitamins and dietary fibre.

ZANZIBAR CARROT AND COCONUT SOUP

2 tablespoons coconut oil
1 large onion
4 cloves garlic
a small piece fresh ginger
300 g organic carrots (2 cups)
150 g sweet potatoes (¾ cup)
1 teaspoon curry powder
2 organic vegetable stock cubes
750 ml water (3 cups)
150 ml coconut milk (5 oz)
½-1 teaspoon sea/Himalayan salt
optional: pepper to taste
optional: 7-10 saffron strands

Rinse the carrots (brush if needed) and peel the other vegetables. Chop everything coarsely. (Peel or scrape the carrots if they are not organic.)

In a saucepan, heat the coconut oil over medium heat. Add onion and fry until tender. Add garlic and ginger and fry for a few more minutes before stirring in the curry powder (I prefer hot but mild is fine).

Stir in the carrots and sweet potatoes. Add the water and vegetable stock cubes, increase the heat and stir. Bring to the boil and stir in ½ teaspoon of salt. Reduce the heat, cover and let it simmer on low heat for 25-30 minutes.

Remove the saucepan from the heat. Add the coconut milk and saffron strands. Use a hand-held blender to purée the soup until you have a smooth texture. Be careful, the soup is very hot: Hold the blender straight up and down and press the button when the bottom part of the blender is in the soup (if using a food processor/liquidizer, allow the soup to cool slightly before puréeing it in batches).

Finally, reheat gently to simmering point and season with salt and pepper, if needed. Serve the soup with freshly baked bread or bread buns.

Uppskrift á íslensku

Curried bean stew with coconut milk

The best moments in the kitchen happen when I have all the time in the world and no one is waiting for dinner. I let a film or a TV show run in the player while chopping vegetables for, let's say, a bean stew that I allow to simmer even longer than needed. On Sunday I had such a moment when preparing my curried bean stew with coconut milk, a favourite in this house. While preparing it I listened to conversations with the author Zadie Smith on YouTube (from 2010, part of the series Live from the New York Public Library). I forgot myself completely and cooked it for an hour, which was fine. Now that autumn has arrived there will be plenty of these moments. The list of ingredients seems long but the stew is easy to make. All you need is time.

CURRIED BEAN STEW WITH COCONUT MILK

1 tablespoon coconut oil
1 onion
3 cloves garlic
2 peppers, red and green
2 celery sticks
75 g trimmed green beans
150 g frozen, diced sweet potatoes (about 1½ cup)
100 g frozen, diced butternut squash (about ¾ cup)
1 can (400 g) kidney beans (14 oz)
1 can (400 g) cannellini beans (14 oz)
4 teaspoons (vegan) vegetable bouillon powder
1 teaspoon tandoori curry powder

(or 1 teaspoon mild curry powder and ¼ teaspoon chilli powder)

½ teaspoon ground turmeric
½ teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon red chilli flakes
¼ teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon Italian herb mix
1 can (400 g) tomatoes (14 oz)
1 can (400 ml) coconut milk (14 oz)
optional: a handful of spinach
Maldon sea salt flakes to taste

Start with preparing the vegetables and beans: Peel the onion and garlic, chop and finely chop. Remove seeds and dice the peppers. Finely slice the celery sticks. Slice the trimmed beans coarsely. In the stew I use frozen, diced sweet potatoes and butternut squash. If you cannot buy them frozen use fresh ingredients. Rinse and drain the kidney and cannellini beans in a colander.

Heat the coconut oil in a large saucepan on low-medium heat. Cook the onion and garlic for a few minutes until the onion has softened. Add the other vegetables and cook for a few more minutes, gently stirring with a spoon. Add the beans, bouillon powder (or 2 stock cubes), spices and herbs, and combine before adding the tomatoes and coconut milk. Increase the heat and bring to the boil while stirring gently. Cover with a lid and let it simmer on low heat for 20 minutes. Stir in the spinach, if using, then tilt the lid to allow the steam to escape and allow to simmer for another 15-20 minutes. Taste with Maldon sea salt flakes if needed.

Serve the bean stew with perhaps sourdough bread or stone baked baguette.

Uppskrift á íslensku.

Tomato soup with vegetables and curry powder

I wrote this yesterday when we were in the living room with hot chocolate and enjoying the warmth from the fireplace. Not only has it been cold outside but on Sunday our boiler broke down and the repairman isn't expected until today. Feeling thankful for that fireplace! Yesterday we really needed something warming and comforting for lunch and all we could think of was a bowl of it's-cold-outside soup. It's the name we gave my variation of Hadda's tomato soup, a hearty soup we found on the CafeSigrun website many years ago, when we still lived in Iceland. It's the ideal soup on cold winter days.

We all liked the original tomato soup recipe but it contains light cream cheese, which is something I don't normally buy (the rest of the ingredients can usually be found in my cupboards/fridge), and too much rosemary for my taste. Therefore, I decided to adjust the recipe slightly, and I added beans to make it even more filling. I serve the soup with bread, either fresh from the oven or the bread maker. For a certain texture you will need either a hand blender or a food processor/blender to prepare the soup. There is no need to despair if you don't have any of these appliances in your kitchen, just chop the vegetables finely instead of coarsely; it will only change the texture of the soup, not its taste. This is a big batch of soup that I'm making for five people. Adjust accordingly if making for only 1-2 persons, or refrigerate the rest and warm up the day after.

TOMATO SOUP WITH VEGETABLES AND CURRY POWDER

1 tablespoon coconut oil
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
2 carrots
2 celery sticks
4 potatoes
2 x 400 g cans tomatoes (2 x 14 oz)
500-700 ml water (2-3 cups)
2 organic vegetable stock cubes (or 1 and 1 chicken stock cube)
2-3 tablespoons organic ketchup
- or 1 tablespoon blackstrap molasses or unrefined cane sugar
½ tablespoon curry powder (hot or mild)
½ tablespoon ground coriander
½ tablespoon paprika
1 teaspoon dried basil
¼ teaspoon rosemary
optional: a pinch of saffron strands
1 can (400 g) kidney beans or black beans (14 oz)
100-125 ml coconut milk (½ cup or a little less)
fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Peel the onion and chop coarsely. Heat the coconut oil in a large saucepan and fry the onion on low heat until it softens, occasionally stirring gently. Peel and press the garlic and add it to the saucepan.

Peel the potatoes. Chop the carrots, celery sticks and potatoes coarsely, add to the saucepan and cook for a few minutes on low heat, just to soften the vegetables.

Add the canned tomatoes, water, vegetable stock cubes and ketchup. Turn up the heat and bring to the boil. Then add the spices and herbs, put the lid on and leave to simmer for 15 minutes on low-medium heat.

Remove the saucepan from heat. Use a hand blender to purée the soup, not too smoothly (unless you prefer it), but be careful: The soup is very hot and you could get burned if you spray the soup up and out of the saucepan! To be on the safe side you can allow it to cool before using the hand blender, but hold it straight up and down and only press the button when the bottom part of the blender is in the soup. I like it when the soup contains a few coarse bits so I mainly purée the potatoes and largest bits. You can also purée the soup in batches in a food processor/blender but then you must allow it to cool first.

Rinse and drain the beans and add to the saucepan with the coconut milk. Gently heat the soup (don't bring to the boil) for a few minutes and taste with salt and black pepper before serving.

Uppskrift á íslensku.