M and I have been basically honing our soup recipes to gleaming shines over the last several years and this is the best of our recipes combined into one, super-powerful Voltronesque power soup. Our contributions are as follows:

HIS: Mushrooms including porcini, saffron
HERS: Flat-leaf parsley, leeks, russet potatoes, and the hella nostalgic egg noodles.

You can't really see the saffron in this picture; trust me, though

This recipe would make up great with proper “chicken” seitan [I suppose it would make up well with actual chicken if that's how you roll] but we used the Yves faux-chicken tenders and they’re just fine.

3 tbsp olive oil
sea salt and pepper…plenty
1 cooking onion, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1 carrot, diced
1 lb white mushrooms, cut into 1/3 inch cubes
1 bunch flat-leaf parsley; finely chop about 5 sprigs, set aside the rest for finishing and garnish
½ tsp dried dill
½ tsp dried oregano
3 cloves garlic, minced finely
1 leek, topped tailed chopped and rinsed [for Leek ProTips click here]
2 russet potatoes, cut into 1/3 inch cubes
3 or 4 dried porcini mushrooms, soaked in ¼ cup water just off the boil for about 10 minutes; finely dice the soaked mushrooms and set aside the soaking liquid to let the grit settle
Couple saffron “sprigs”, bloomed in about a tbsp of water just off the boil
5 vegetarian “chicken” bouillon cubes
4 or 5 squirts of Bragg’s
1 pack “chicken” tenders, chopped coarsely
1 bag broad egg noodles [it will make up fine with any kind of noodle, if vegan or needing to substitute]
1 packet frozen chopped spinach

In a simply enormous soup pot, heat olive oil over medium heat; add a couple shakes of salt and pepper, and when oil is hot add onion, carrot, celery, mushroom, parsley and dried herbs. Saute, stirring often, until onion is translucent and the mushrooms have released their juices. Add the leek, garlic, and a little more salt. Continue to heat, stirring often until leek is cooked through and wilted. Add potatoes and stir to cover. Saute another couple of minutes or until pan bottom is relatively dry when scraped with a spoon. Add porcini and the soaking liquid [leave the bottom centimetre or so to dodge the grit], the saffron and its soaking liquid; add water to about 1” short of the pot rim, boullion cubes and Bragg’s. Bring to boil. Add “chicken” and noodles†. Bring heat back up to boiling and cook for about 5 minutes or until noodles are tender. Add spinach, stirring well. This is a good time to taste it before it settles in for its final rendering, which can last for about 15 or 20 minutes, although it is edible once the spinach is all stirred in.

†I used a whole bag of egg noodles cause I’m a bit of a noodleholic; if you prefer a brothier soup, just put in half or 2/3.

Heh, I always say that and then end up idling around the Net Loft looking at boutique paper products and imported textiles, then in a mad dash to try and wend my way through the other 4,000,000 people who all said the same thing.  This one was a bit easier though.  The city is definitely not as busy this year.  The meal itself was simple and tasty.  To veganize, use dried pasta and omit Reggiano.

400 grams fresh spaghettini

Hits the spot

About 2 cups of the best fresh tomatoes you can find† cut into bite-sized pieces

A bag of fresh basil that the Italian vendors always seem to have, even in December, chiffonaded [sp.?  Sliced thinly.]

1 shallot, diced

2 cloves garlic, finely diced

the juice of half a lemon

extra-virgin olive oil

dried parsley

sea salt and ground black pepper

Freshly grated Reggiano for garnishing and general goodness

Put a large pot of salted water on high for the noodles.  Just before it comes to a boil, heat 3 tbsp of olive oil on medium in a heavy-bottomed saucepan.  Add shallot and garlic, and a couple shakes of salt and pepper.  Saute until shallot is translucent.  You can probably put the noodles in at some point in here…Add 3/4 of the basil and stir, and then the tomatoes and dried parsley.  REDUCE heat. The fresh noodles will not take too long [5 minutes if that].  Heat the tomatoes through, but don’t let them burst or turn into sauce.  Turn off the heat and add the lemon juice.  Stir to combine and let rest while the noodles cook.

When the noodles have been drained, toss w/tomato+basil mixture and stir thoroughly, then ladle into bowls and garnish with the remaining basil, Reggiano, black pepper and a lemon wedge.  Serves 2, unlike my usual recipes which serve the offensive line of the Dallas Cowboys.

†At this point you may be wondering:  “Sjanz, this is obviously a summer recipe; what in the world were you thinking?”  We have these lovely little hydroponically grown tomatoes here and the basil, although pepperier in the wintertime, is not bad at all.  Caveat, uh, madidor.

A duo of curries for your making and eating pleasure. Please feel free to use the curry powder or masala that warms your hearts and your bellies; I’m going to tell you what I used, and you can go from there.

I don't think you're ready.

Cumin-Cardamom Rice

In a high-sided soup pot with an available cover, heat

1 tbsp canola oil

over medium-high heat. Add

1 tsp cumin seeds
¼ tsp tumeric
¼ tsp powdered ginger

and stir. Add

2 cups basmati rice
About 4 or 5 cardamom pods

and stir to cover; heat to toast rice [a couple of minutes], and then add

4 cups fresh filtered water.

Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and cook until almost all liquid is absorbed. Remove from heat and let rest. Fluff with a fork after about 10 minutes. Fluff again before serving.

For both curries:

1 yellow cooking onion, peeled and quartered
2 fresh tomatoes, quaratered

Preheat oven to 375. In a small roasting pan, add the vegetables, drizzle with olive oil and add a couple shakes each of sea salt and pepper. Roast until the natural juices are starting to be released, about half an hour.

In a blender, add the roasted vegetables to:

a thumb’s worth of fresh ginger
3 cloves garlic
several sprigs of fresh coriander
½ cup of water
several splashes of Bragg’s

Puree thoroughly and set aside.

Spicy Potatoes and Kale, inspired by Vij’s

About 2 lbs fresh new potatoes, chopped in 1” chunks
1 bunch green kale
1 bunch spinach, or 1 box frozen chopped spinach [the latter avoids the “pasty” taste that spinach can leave on the roof of your mouth; I'm not saying, I'm just saying]
1 small can chopped tomatoes

In a heavy-bottomed pan, heat 2 tbsp olive oil over medium high heat. Add:
1 tsp garam masala
2 tsp curry powder
tiny pinch asaofoetida
sea salt and pepper

Add potatoes and stir to cover and saute. After potatoes have been heated through, add the kale, spinach, canned tomatoes, and HALF of the blender sauce. Season to taste [a couple of splashes of Bragg's sets it up quite well]. Cover and heat through. Stir regularly. Lower heat once it is boiling vigorously, continue to stir, and cook until potatoes are tender [about 20 minutes]. Take off heat and let rest for a couple of minutes before serving.
Curried World Peas

Doesn’t everybody want world peas? Before you start in with the cooking, take the last half of your blender sauce and put a can of coconut milk in there, as well as a tbsp of your fave curry powder. They sell a great one in prohibitively expensive packet form that’s designed for gobi [cauliflower] but that tasted great with this recipe [note: NOT the pastes, this is a powdered spice blend]

In a soup pot with a matching cover, heat

1 tbsp olive oil

Add:

1 tsp red mustard seeds.

Cover until the mustard seeds pop. Add

Add:

1 can chickpeas or about 1 ½ cups cooked chickpeas, whatever you have on hand
1 package frozen peas or 2 cups fresh green peas
sea salt and pepper

Stir to cover and heat through, and then pour the blended sauce/coconut milk/curry combo over top. Heat until bubbling, lower and let simmer [about 15 minutes, it won't take long to bring everything together]. Season to taste.

Doowutchyalike.

Thanks to Dusty Groove America

This makes a MASSIVE, simply massive amount of borscht†, ‡. The good news is that it will keep very well as it is vegan [if you omit sour cream] and that it will nourish you and everybody you bring a jar to [at the office or similar]. The other option is, of course, to fire up your calculator and create a partial batch. You might ask, Sjanz, why have you created such a huge amount of borscht for this recipe? The answer is that it’s all gauged around one head of cabbage, because I find that if I use a partial head it goes all sad and limp and stinky in the fridge. YMMV!!

†A note on this borscht: Ideally, you’ll want the food processor for this. Roots are hard to cut, and you need relatively small bits to render down properly. I have made borscht in the past by hand, and it always comes out a bit like Klingon food, probably because I get a little hasty. So if you have a food processor, get the grating attachment out, and a big side bowl to put your grated goods in, since most civilian food processors will need to grate this much in 3 batches.

‡And yet another note on this borscht: You can easily make it up with loose beets, freed of their greens. However, if be-greened beets are available, local and organic if possible, that’s how I roll; at the bottom of this recipe is what I like to do with the greens.

All right, no more notes. Here we go.

You will need:

2 bunches red beets

1 bunch golden beets

2 stalks celery

M made this look all old-timey with his Gimp-Fu; I like it

1 large carrot

1 russet potato

1 cooking onion

2 cloves garlic

1 “thumb’s” worth of ginger root

1 head white cabbage

Half a bunch of fresh dill

4 boullion cubes [onion or beef]

4 or 5 squirts of Bragg’s, to taste

4 tbsp olive oil

Sea salt

Freshly ground black pepper

The juice of one lemon OR 1 tbsp lemon juice [I like the Santa Cruz organic]

2 tsp dried dill

½ tsp dried thyme

Top and tail the beets, and peel them. Cut the cabbage into quarters, core each quarter and cut the cored quarters into “food processor” sized chunks. Ditto the potatoes. Top and tail the carrots and celery. Cut the bottoms of the dill. Cut the onions into “food processor” sized chunks and peel the garlic and ginger. Got it? Good.

You can now proceed to julienne and finely dice almost everything, which should take you until 2012 or so. Or feed the onion, garlic, ginger, celery and carrot into the fp, in that order. Put in a bowl, set aside. Then feed the dill and beets. Set aside. THEN the potato and cabbage.

In a big ole soup pot, heat the olive oil on medium high heat. Add the onion &c., as a sort of gingery mirepoix. Add the dried herbs and salt and pepper. Stir until excess water has evaporated and the onion is translucent. Add beets and dill, and potatoes and cabbage. Keep stirring well. Salt and pepper as you go. The whole crazy mess will start to stick to itself and turn all pink/purple, just keep stirring until it sticks so much that you can’t standz no more.

THEN cover with water, add boullion, Bragg’s and a little more pepper. Bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 45 minutes. Test broth and make sure veggies are tender. Add lemon juice and reseason with salt, pepper, Bragg’s if necessary. Simmer on low heat for another half an hour or as long as you can stand it.

Serve with a sprig of your remaining fresh dill, sour cream or tofu sour cream [Bryanna Clark Grogan has a good one] and some farmer’s rye or pumpernickel toasts.

With the beet greens, slice ‘em in 1” slices and rinse very thoroughly. Feel free to add any sturdy green you have on hand e.g. kale, chard, mustard greens, even collards. Put all the greens in a sink full of water. In a very hot shallow pan, add 2 tbsp canola oil. When it gets stupidly hot, put the range fan on, and an apron. Stand back and get ready for fun. Put the wet greens in the pan and OH MY GOD they will crackle and hiss and steam horrifyingly, but that’s the good part. Get some tongs [silicon, ideally] and turn them whenever you can. Add 2 tbsp gomashio [that's sea salt and sesame seeds], and OPTIONALLY: 1 tsp chili-garlic sauce. Stir thoroughly. Ideally, the liquid will evaporate completely but as long as the greens are thoroughly wilted you’re good to go.

As soon as the greens are dark and limp, turn the heat off and OPTIONAL add: a splash of dark sesame oil and a bit of Bragg’s or soy sauce. Stir to toss thoroughly and let rest on the element for a little while. Serve on their own, or as another side for the borscht [some kind of weird Slavic/Asian crossover....Mongolian?]

Now 100% Clam Free! Seriously, though, this is a soup that my friend Lindsay would describe as “a la Trogdor“, meaning: using big carefree chops of big easy cheap veggies that practically makes itself. In the interests of full disclosure I must tell you that this soup was made using all the shortcuts below. In the past I have been the person making my own bread and growing my own spinach and creating my own herb blends and I’ve provided options for those of you who wish to go the DIY route; God bless you.

A bunch of filtered water [10 cups or so, depending on the size of your soup pot]

5 russet potatoes, chopped into 1/2″ dice

1 carrot, as above

1 stalk celery, as above

1 shallot, in 1/4″ dice

1 medium leek, rinsed thoroughly, in 1/4″ dice {NOTE: The best way to prepare leeks, which will keep them un-gritty and also give them some of their own steaming liquid to make them tender, is as follows: Take a separate large bowl or deep measuring cup, and chop or prepare the leek as the recipe demands. The deep green ends of the leek are probably a bit leathery, so you can discard them. The best bits are the light green bits and the white bits. But I digress. Put the bits you’ve cut up into the bowl or cup and fill with water, and swish around, and break up the embedded hunks of leek until the grit starts sinking to the bottom of the water-filled bowl…and then walk away. Give them a swish and break-up when you walk by every couple of minutes but for the most part leave them alone. The reason this works is partly because of how leeks are grown [shored up with dirt as they become larger], and it will also create a “deglazing” effect when you put them in your soup. See below.}

3 cloves garlic, chopped

1 package fresh spinach, sliced thinly OR a package of frozen chopped spinach

3 cobs’ worth of sweet corn kernels OR one small bag of frozen corn

3 cups of vegetable stock OR one tetrapack of vegetable stock

3 cubes of bouillon or your choice of equivalent [e.g. more stock]

4 or 5 squirts of Braggs’ [OR some soy sauce; not an ideal substitute so just try a tsp and then add to taste]

Herbs of various types: I used 1/2 tsp each of: dried dill, oregano, tarragon, basil and parsley, and a bit of chopped fresh cilantro because that’s what was sitting in the fridge

4 tbsp olive oil

OPTIONAL: 1/4 cup organic milk OR milk substitute [soy or cashew cream best, almond or rice will probably work but not optimal]

4 tbsp all-purpose flour

4 tbsp filtered water

1 tbsp butter or butter substitute [I used Earth Balance]

Sea salt

Freshly ground black pepper

In a large, heavy-bottomed soup pot, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the carrots, celery, garlic and shallot. Add dried herbs and salt and pepper to taste [e.g. a couple of shakes]. Stir to cover and saute for 5 minutes or until shallot is translucent. Add leeks [don't worry about the water that comes along with them]. Increase heat to medium high and stir to wilt leeks, approx. 3 minutes. When it takes a couple of seconds for the liquid to cover the bottom of the pot when you scrape the veggies away with a wooden spoon, add the potatoes and corn. Salt and pepper the potatoes and stir. Saute all vegetables for a couple of minutes or until the potatoes JUST start to adhere to the pot bottom, then add: stock, water to fill the pot, the bouillon cubes, and the fresh herbs. Increase heat to high. Cover and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to simmer until potatoes are tender.

When the potatoes are soft and almost falling apart [15-20 minutes at least] add spinach. Vegans, “low-fat” cats, and those who prefer a thinner soup take note: It will taste great right this second. Let it simmer for a little while, let it rest, and then mangia. Those of you who are looking for a little more *ahem* back end, here we go:

The key to this step is to make sure that the flour is 100% lumpless. In a medium bowl, add water to flour and stir so thoroughly there are no lumps. Add milk. Stir thoroughly. Add slowly to soup, stirring constantly. “Mount” the soup with butter or butter substitute. Keep on low heat and simmer. Let it rest before serving. Serve with multigrain or rye toasts.

Heck yes.

A shockingly easy immune-boosting soup, inspired by the Bo Kong Vegetarian Restaurant. Feel free to replace some types of mushrooms with others if some aren’t available or you have special in-season faves.

In a stock pot, heat:

14 cups water [or as much as it takes to fill your stock pot about 4/5 full]

Add:

1/2 cup ginger, incredibly finely chopped [I did it in the food processor]

1 clove garlic, as above

1 bunch scallions, sliced finely

6 tbsp Bragg’s

3 “beef” bouillon cubes

3 tbsp traditional dark soy sauce

1 tsp sea salt

Mushrooms, lots: about 6 cups total of the following: white button, thinly sliced; oyster, chopped; shiitake, thinly sliced; enoki, separated into “noodlish” strands

4 leaves Thai basil, chiffonaded [sp.?]

2 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro

2 tbsp vegetable or canola oil

Bring to a boil. Lower heat to simmer. This is a good time to taste the broth and add more herbs or Bragg’s or whatever is required. Also add:

Half a package of rice vermicelli, broken up into reasonably soup-length bits of 2″ or so

Simmer for about 10 minutes, so that the mushrooms release their contribution to the broth and the vermicelli is fully cooked. Add:

1 package [about 1/2 cup] pea shoots, cut into 1″ pieces

4 cups baby bok choy or sui choy, sliced

IF AVAILABLE: 1 package watercress, chopped into 1″ pieces.

Add, simmer very briefly, then take off heat and let the greens just wilt.

I met a photographer selling calendars in the Yaletown Choices yesterday, and we had a great chat. I am now the proud owner of one of his calendars promoting Farm Folk/City Folk, with beautiful lush shots of local produce, and [the best part for a glutton like myself] recipes for local, seasonal items for each month. That’s RAD.

Eat to live, live to eat.

I’m so pleased, for primarily selfish reasons, that there are so many local and organic food producers out there raising awareness of these magnificent foodstuffs. Selfish because I like to eat them; selfish because they are beautiful. I know there have been [what were intended to be] scathing indictments of the whole organic food trend but I don’t see how you can get down on local organic food; it’s like every radish and white cucumber is a little prayer of thanks. “Wow, we really ARE meant to live as humans and enjoy ourselves and drum our fingers on our swollen arugula-pesto filled tummies! Thanks Comox Valley! Thanks Okanagan! Thanks Fraser Valley and UBC Endowment Gardens!”

One Wednesday this summer Christine and I had an excellent brunch at Seb’s and then ended up wandering around East Van [do NOT try this at home, unless, uh, you live in East Van in which case this is home]. We dawdled through the Broadway/Fraser region until we were inexorably drawn to the community garden there [since when you're dawdling you tend to go downhill]. We were so clearly enamoured with the place that a plot-owner had mercy on us and saddled us with some infant-sized zucchini, some kale [my favourite!], and various herbs. I used my bounty to make a simple summer linguine that night by wilting the kale and tossing it with garlic and some heirloom yellow cherry tomatoes that we grow on our deck. The romance of eating foods grown so close to our own door was indescribable, and massive amounts were consumed by both M and I, who were stoked [albeit sluggish] thereafter.

C went home to drop off her ginormous zucchini on her counter, and I took her class that afternoon; later I found out her husband had sent her the following text message:

do we have any zucchini?

I was prepared to believe in the synchronicity of the universe, that he had wanted zucchini and was therefore given it, but he was just being funny due to the MASSIVE vegetable he’d found on his counter. It’s hard not to laugh about giant zucchini. They’re just absurd and great.

Brian, the photographer, spoke of Tibet and India as being his “soul home” which I thought was very beautiful and also made me kind of sad. It’s hard to not live in your soul home although I know it happens all the time. His vision of his soul home and of these gorgeous gardens are his offering, and they are as abundant as the kale and the fennel pictured in the calendar. I can almost taste the many great dinners that will come from this…hm, I’m kind of hungry all of a sudden…