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.

Potato wedges with seasoned salt

In this household we like potatoes. A lot. I go through periods of experimenting, especially with baked potatoes because we like the skin (it gives you fibre). My almost ten-year old reminded me of these potato wedges, which I season with home-made seasoning salt, when he asked for them, and chicken, on his birthday next Saturday. He also wants apple cake with whipped cream. Mais bien sûr, monsieur!

Did you know that the Incas were the original growers of potatoes? I had no idea until I read about the history of the potato in the Larousse Culinary Encyclopedia. It was Francisco Pizarro, the Spanish conqueror of the Inca empire (and founder of the city of Lima), who brought it to Europe in 1534. The English explorer Sir Walter Raleigh made the same discovery in Virginia fifty years later and brought the potato to England. Well, that didn't stop King James I from having him imprisoned for treason in the Tower of London and later executed. But that's another story and I'm sure it has nothing to do with potatoes.

The above images are also unrelated to potatoes. I snapped them in our garden in the end of May and wanted to post them on the blog to remind me of that pretty plant in bloom. Its roots are in the neighbours' garden and right before blooming it sneaks over the fence and allows us to enjoy its beautiful white flowers. I call it 'the shawl' because of its shape.

Let us start with the spicy seasoned salt, which couldn't be simpler. For my mix I use whole pink Himalayan crystal salt, but using fine sea salt is fine. The ratio of the smoked paprika depends on my mood; its flavour can be a bit dominant so perhaps it's best to start with ¼ teaspoon. The ratio of the chilli powder depends on which type of chilli powder I use, milder or hotter version. This seasoned salt doesn't burn any tongues, at least not ours, but it has a bit of an edge.

SPICY SEASONED SALT

1½ tablespoons Himalayan salt
1 teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon ground coriander
½ teaspoon dried oregano
¼-½ teaspoon smoked paprika
¼ teaspoon red chilli flakes
a pinch of or ¼ teaspoon chilli powder

Put everything in a glass jar with a lid and shake well. Remember to label the jar, and perhaps add the ratios in case you want to make changes later.

You can use the seasoned salt to roast vegetables or to coat chicken. It's ideal when preparing grilled sandwhiches. You can also use it to add a bit of salty flavour to the meal you're cooking, as long as the spices go well with other ingredients of the dish.

Baked potatoes with thyme and rosemary are a classic that one cannot go wrong with, but when enjoying potatoes with, for example, burgers or chicken drumsticks my taste buds call for something different, preferably something spicy. If I can only get very large baking potatoes I usually parboil them for 7-10 minutes and let them steam dry in a colander before cutting them into wedges. Please note that I'm cooking this side dish for 5 persons so you may want to adjust the recipe.

POTATO WEDGES WITH SPICY SEASONED SALT

1 kg baking potatoes (2.2 lb)
1 tablespoon light olive oil or other vegetable oil
1 teaspoon spicy seasoned salt (see recipe above)

Scrub the potatoes clean. To make wedges, cut each potato in half lengthwise, and each half into three parts lengthwise (each potato should give you 6 wedges, but if the potatoes are very large you may want to cut the wedges in half crosswise as well). Make sure the wedges are not too thin, as you bake them in the oven with the skin facing down.

There are two ways to coat the wedges: 1) Put the ingredients in a large freezer bag, seal it and rotate it thoroughly to make sure all the wedges are coated. Then spread the wedges over a large baking tray lined with baking parchment with the skin facing down. 2) If you like coating them with your hands you can put everything in a large roasting tray and then spread the wedges with the skin facing down.

Cook in the oven at 220˚C/425˚F (200˚C fan oven) for about 25-30 minutes, or until the wedges are cooked through, golden and crisp. We like our potatoes well done so usually I lower the heat after 25 minutes and cook for another 5-10 minutes, or even longer.

Serve the potato wedges with quality mayonnaise or sour cream. You can also make a dip by adding some ground cumin to a small bowl of Greek yoghurt.

Uppskrift á íslensku.