Hawaiian-Style Lentil Soup with Seared Spam

This week we'll share a laughably cheap recipe with just a touch of Hawaii. And yep, you read the title of this post correctly: it's got Spam in it.

Interestingly, this recipe is laughably cheap to make everywhere BUT in Hawaii. But wherever you are, you'll find this recipe easy, hearty, filling, nutritious and delicious. Enjoy!

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Hawaiian-Style Lentil Soup with Seared Spam

Ingredients:
1 pound lentils
About 12-14 cups water
Olive oil
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
1 14.5 ounce can red beans or kidney beans, drained and rinsed, optional
1 can Spam, cut into smallish 1-2 inch pieces
A generous teaspoon paprika or smoked paprika
A generous teaspoon garlic powder (or 3 cloves garlic, minced)
Hot sauce, to taste
Salt/pepper to taste
3-4 small/medium carrots, peeled and sliced into nickels
1 15-ounce can diced tomatoes
Rice or brown rice

Directions:
1) In a large soup pot combine lentils and water. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Simmer for 60-90 minutes until lentils are done to your liking.

2) Meanwhile, in a separate large non-stick saucepan, heat a few Tablespoons of oil, then add the onions and cut-up Spam. Raise heat to high and saute until onions and Spam begin to brown and start to stick to the bottom of the pan (5-10 minutes, roughly). Reduce heat to medium, then add the garlic (or garlic powder), carrots, canned tomatoes, spices and hot sauce, and saute/simmer for another 7-10 minutes. Turn off heat and let stand until lentils are ready.

3) When lentils are done to your liking, add the veggies/Spam/spice mixture to the lentils, then deglaze the saucepan with an additional half cup of water. Add this deglazing liquid to the soup pot. Return lentils to a boil, remove from heat, and serve in bowls over rice or brown rice.

Serves 8-10.
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Recipe Notes:
1) Creeped out by Spam? We were admittedly flummoxed at first by Hawaii's partly ironic love affair with Spam too (not to mention it's an obvious example of a second order food, a category of food we tend to avoid). If you can't bring yourself to include this very Hawaiian touch to this recipe, feel free to substitute 12-16 ounces of any other kind of meat (sausage, dark meat poultry, chopped ham or bacon, etc. would all work well in this recipe), or simply leave the meat out for an entirely vegan version.

2) Not as laughably cheap as I'd like: Here in Honolulu, where a pound of lentils costs more than double (and a can of black beans costs more than quadruple) what we'd pay back in our home state of New Jersey, this hearty soup isn't quite as laughably cheap as I'd like it to be. However, you can still make this entire pot of soup for about $12-13 (about $1.30-1.50 per serving) even here in Hawaii. It’s not quite the 60-70c per serving a pot of lentil soup might cost us back home but, still, it's miraculously less expensive and a whole lot more healthy than even the least expensive restaurants in Waikiki.

Read Next: The 25 Best Laughably Cheap Recipes at Casual Kitchen

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
Easy. Do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site! You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.

Chicken Stew with Turnips and Mushrooms

Today's recipe is a savory and nuanced soup recipe that Laura adapted and modified from a recipe over at Eating Well. It's healthy, easy, and it's a complete meal in a pot. And like nearly every recipe here at Casual Kitchen, it doesn't cost a lot of time or money to prepare.

If you're not a big fan of turnips, not to worry! We're not either, but we still loved this soup. Somehow--no clue how or why--the mildly bitter turnip taste blends in and meshes flawlessly with all the other flavors. This soup is hearty and profoundly delicious. Enjoy!

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Chicken Stew with Turnips and Mushrooms

Ingredients:
1 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
2 Tablespoons olive oil
2 large turnips (about 1 lb), peeled (see note #1 below) and cut into 1-inch pieces
8 ounces mushrooms, sliced
1 onion, sliced
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 cup dry red wine
4 cups chopped frozen kale
3 cups chicken stock (or 3 cups water and 2 cubes chicken bouillon)
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary

Directions:
1) Cut chicken into 1-inch pieces and season with salt and pepper.

2) Heat 1 Tablespoon oil in a soup pot over medium-high heat. Add the chicken and cook, stirring frequently, until lightly browned, 3 to 4 minutes. Set cooked chicken aside.

3) Add the remaining 1 Tablespoon oil to the pot. Add turnips, mushrooms, onion and garlic and saute on medium heat for about 3-5 minutes, until the onion softens. Add wine and continue to saute for another minute. Add the kale, stock/broth and rosemary.

4) Return the chicken to the pot and bring everything to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until the turnips are tender, about 12-13 minutes. Serve over rice.

Serves 5.
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Recipe Notes:
1) A note on prepping turnips: Turnips have a tough, thick skin, and you'll need to peel it all off before chopping the turnips into pieces and adding them to the soup. Either a knife or an aggressively wielded vegetable peeler works fine for this task. Just keep in mind if you use a vegetable peeler, you may have to make a few passes around the surface of the turnip.

2) What? More frozen kale? Yes! Once again, we've saved ourselves some effort by using frozen kale rather than fresh kale, making this recipe more pantry friendly.

3) For the turnip fans: If, unlike me, you actually are a big fan of turnips, there's another recipe here at Casual Kitchen you ought to check out: Southern Black-Eyed Pea Soup with Collards.

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
Easy. Do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site! You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.

Hearty Kale and Lentil Stew

Today's recipe is so easy, so laughably cheap and makes so much food that I can barely believe it.

Best of all, I didn't even have to prepare it! Laura's been doing a lot more of the cooking over the past few weeks, and she's been working on her recipe selection, an important yet underappreciated skill in the kitchen. And unless lentils are ridiculous to you, today's recipe meets all of CK's requirements for an ideal recipe: it's healthy, delicious, easy, scalable, and doesn't cost a lot.

In other words, it's yet more proof that healthy eating doesn't have to be expensive or time-consuming--or even hard! I hope you enjoy this delicious stew as much as we did.

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Hearty Kale and Lentil Stew

Ingredients:
3-4 Tablespoons oil
4 large carrots, diced
2 onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
14 cups water
3 cups lentils, rinsed
4 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon black pepper
4 cups frozen kale, chopped if necessary
3-4 Tablespoons fresh parsley
1 teaspoon salt
2-3 Tablespoons lemon juice

Directions:
1) In a large stock pot, add oil and saute carrots, onions and garlic for five minutes.

2) Add water, lentils, cumin and black pepper, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 50 minutes or so, until lentils are tender.

3) Add kale, parsley, salt and lemon juice, simmer for 10 minutes more. Serve with rice or brown rice.

Serves 8-10.
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Recipe Notes:
1) Frozen kale?
We found, believe it or not, that frozen kale makes this recipe both easier and (more importantly) much more pantry-friendly. You can keep a couple of bags of frozen kale in your freezer indefinitely, for recipes like this, whereas fresh kale can go bad on you (even if you use CK's secret method for storing fresh greens!). The thing about produce and fresh greens is this: while they usually cost less than frozen or canned produce and greens, they can also impose a sense of time pressure on your recipe planning (CK followers familiar with the concept of first-order and second-order foods will instantly understand why this is). But in this case, frozen kale offers us a win-win solution: it costs roughly the same as fresh kale--a rare violation of the Rule of First-Order Foods. Still more evidence that life is lived by heuristic, not by algorithm.

2) Credit where credit's due:
The original inspiration for this recipe was Jay Salomon's Vegetarian Soup Cuisine, a cookbook we often feature here at CK because of its amazing collection of scalable, delicious and unusual soups and stews. The original source was Moroccan Lentil and Kale Stew on page 84. We simplified Jay's recipe by removing a couple of steps, and then we scaled it up and tweaked the ingredients a little. Finally, for the millionth time, buy this cookbook. It's incredibly useful for any cook seeking interesting, healthy and low-cost recipes.

6 Proven Benefits of Kale

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
Easy. Do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site! You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.

Easy Minestrone Soup

This is a simple and utterly delicious soup that you can make in about 30 minutes. It feeds six generously, and it's perfect for a cold winter day.

And like almost all of the best laughably cheap recipes here at Casual Kitchen, this one comes in at well under a buck a serving. That's right: yet another recipe that's so inexpensive, it literally makes you laugh out loud. Once again, it's pure fiction that healthy, delicious food has to be expensive or difficult to prepare.

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we did. Enjoy!

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Easy Minestrone Soup

Ingredients:
5 slices bacon
1 onion, chopped
3 medium carrots, sliced
3 stalks celery, sliced
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon black pepper (more or less to taste)
3/4 cup frozen peas
1 15-ounce can chickpeas
1 15-ounce can cannellini beans
1 15-ounce can diced tomatoes
2 bouillon cubes
8 cups water

Directions:
1) In a large soup pot, fry the bacon until crispy. Set bacon aside and drain all but about 2-3 Tablespoons of bacon drippings from the pot.*

2) Add the onion, celery and garlic to the remaining bacon drippings and saute for 5 minutes on medium-high heat. Add the black pepper and carrots and saute for another 2-3 minutes.

3) Add 1 cup of water and deglaze the bottom of the soup pot. Then add the remaining water and the rest of the ingredients. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 15 minutes, or until veggies are cooked to your liking. Serve into bowls, and crumble the reserved bacon over the top of each bowl. Serve immediately.

Serves 6-7.
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Recipe Notes:
1) * A confession regarding bacon drippings: Readers, when I make this recipe, I don't drain away any of the bacon drippings--and I saute those veggies in all of that glorious, artery-clogging fat. Partly it's due to the influence of books like Why We Get Fat and Wheat Belly: I'm simply not as aggressive as I used to be about reducing our fat intake. Your mileage (and your conclusions on dietary fat) may vary, so feel free to use the amount of fat in this recipe you wish to.

I'm quite curious to hear what other readers have to say about this issue: Do you drain away excess fat in your recipes, or do you keep it all in there? Why? If you have thoughts, share them in the comments!

2) Cost rundown:

5 slices bacon: $1.20
Onion: 20c
Carrots: 50c
Celery: 50c
Garlic: 10c
Chick peas: 67c
Cannellini beans: 67c
Frozen peas: 30c
Diced Tomatoes: 67c

Total cost: about $4.81, or about 80c a serving.

Related Posts:
The 25 Best Laughably Cheap Recipes at Casual Kitchen
Black Beans and Rice: Laughably Cheap Comfort Food
Eight Tips to Make Cooking At Home Laughably Cheap
Laughably Cheap Carrot and Fresh Cabbage Curry
Yellow Split Pea Soup: Hearty, Healthy and Laughably Cheap


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
For those readers interested in supporting Casual Kitchen, the easiest way is to do so is to do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site. You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.

Tomato Lentil Soup with Orzo

Here's another absolutely awesome soup that's easy to put together, makes a ginormous pot of leftovers, and at a per-serving cost of only 60-70c, it might just be one of the most laughably cheap recipes in all of Casual Kitchen's history.

Oh, and it's one more nail in the coffin of the ridiculous notion that healthy food has to be expensive.

This is yet another triumphant recipe that I've adapted from Jay Solomon's Vegetarian Soup Cuisine, a book that we use so heavily here that, sadly, it's practically falling apart. I guess that's the definition of a truly good cookbook, isn't it? I hope you enjoy this healthy and hearty recipe as much as we do.

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Tomato Lentil Soup with Orzo
(modified from Jay Solomon's Vegetarian Soup Cuisine)

Ingredients:
1 cup lentils
10-12 cups water

3 Tablespoons olive oil
2 onions, chopped coarsely
4-6 celery stalks, chopped coarsely
6 cloves garlic, pressed or chopped
2 Tablespoons oregano
4 teaspoons dried basil
2 teaspoons black pepper
1 teaspoon salt (optional)

4 cups potatoes, unpeeled and cubed coarsely
2 15-ounce cans stewed tomatoes
2 6-ounce cans tomato paste
1/2 cup orzo pasta
1/2 pound green beans, fresh or frozen

Directions:
1) In a medium-sized pot, combine lentils and water, bring to a boil, then simmer for 40 minutes until cooked. Drain, but reserve 8 cups of the water (if there's less than 8 cups, don't worry about it, you can just add some additional plain water to the soup)

2) While the lentils are cooking, in a separate pot (you'll most likely need to use the largest pot in your kitchen), saute the onions, celery, garlic in the oil, over high heat, for about 3-4 minutes. Then reduce heat, add the spices, and saute for another 5 minutes, until the vegetables are beginning to soften, brown and stick to the bottom of the pan.

3) Then add 2 cups of the reserved lentil water. Deglaze the bottom of the pot. Then add the drained lentils, reserved lentil water/added water, and also add the stewed tomatoes, tomato paste and potatoes. Bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes.

4) Add the orzo and green beans and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring frequently, until the pasta is al dente.

Serves 12-14. Feel free to cut this recipe in half if you don't want to be buried in soup.
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A few recipe notes:
1) A minor caution with this soup: there's a bit of "stick to the bottom" risk you should be aware of--specifically, the orzo has a knack for sinking straight to the bottom of the pot and gluing itself there. Just be forewarned, and when you get to step #4 of this recipe, be sure to give everything a good stir every minute or two until the orzo is done. Don't say I didn't warn you.

2) This soup makes a lot. Let me repeat: this soup makes a lot. Seriously, you will need your very largest pot to make this recipe. And if you happen to be one of those odd readers who, bizarrely, doesn't enjoy the sweet rewards of days and days of laughably easy-to-reheat leftovers, feel free to cut this recipe in half.

3) Also, you may find this soup thickens quite a bit after it cools off in your fridge. Feel free to add extra water before reheating to bring it to the consistency you like.

4) Did anybody notice that this soup is vegetarian? And yet it's so hearty and filling that even the most militant carnivores probably won't even notice. To me that's the definition of good vegetarian cuisine. It's so good, you don't miss the meat.




How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Roasted Zucchini and Chickpea Soup

This elegant and strikingly delicious soup is like nothing I've ever tasted before. It's laughably easy to make, and at a cost of just 99c a serving, it's literally hilariously cheap.

We knew as soon as we tasted this soup that it was going to be a heavy rotation recipe in our kitchen. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

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Roasted Zucchini and Chickpea Soup
(Inspired by and modified from Bittersweet Blog)

Ingredients:
2 medium zucchini, sliced thickly and quartered
2 medium onions, coarsely chopped
1 28 ounce can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
4-5 cloves garlic, unpeeled
2-3 Tablespoons olive oil
Salt and black pepper
5 cups stock or broth

Directions:
1) Spread the coarsely chopped onions, sliced/quartered zucchini, unpeeled garlic cloves and drained chickpeas onto two baking sheets (Note: for easier cleanup, you can cover the baking sheets with foil beforehand). Lightly drizzle everything with the olive oil, and then season with several dashes of salt and black pepper.

2) Place in a 400F oven for 35-40 minutes, until the vegetables are well-softened, browned in places, and beginning to blacken at the edges.


3) Let the veggies cool slightly, and then peel and mince the garlic cloves. While doing this, bring the 5 cups of stock or broth to a boil in a large stock pot. Add the minced garlic and the rest of the roasted vegetables to the pot, simmer for 5-10 minutes. Serve immediately, with optional bread or crackers.

Serves 4-5.
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Recipe Notes:
1) The total time needed to make this soup is roughly one hour, but don't let that seemingly long time commitment scare you away. After all, 35-40 minutes of that hour is unoccupied "oven-time" that you can spend doing something else. The actual active time needed to make this delicious soup is more on the order of 20-30 minutes.

2) Modification ideas: This soup is eminently modifiable, and you could make use of almost any roastable vegetable. Some ideas: carrots, mushrooms, green bell peppers, tomatoes, cauliflower--and I'm sure there are many more possibilities that you can come up with yourself. Further, if you stick to in-season veggies, you'll save even more money on the cost of this recipe.

3) Meatify! While this soup is a vegan recipe as written (assuming you use veggie stock and not meat stock as your broth of course), there's no law that prevents you from adding meat. Roast turkey or perhaps pieces of skillet-browned sausage would definitely complement this soup. Another idea: add frozen (meat or cheese) tortellini to the soup.

4) Regarding the use of homemade broth or stock: I always encourage my readers to make their own vegetable stock or meat stock, but there will on occasion be instances when you just don't have a supply handy. In a pinch, then, a simple light broth made of 5 cups of water with 2 or maybe 3 bouillon cubes will function perfectly. I recommend avoiding store-bought stock or broth, especially if it contains excess salt or other loud or superfluous flavorings. This is supposed to be a mild, subtle soup, and it should not be overwhelmed by the taste of the broth.

5) It wouldn't be a Casual Kitchen recipe if I didn't spend a moment quantifying the laughable cheapness of this dish, would it?

Chickpeas $1.48
Onions 50c
Garlic 10c
Zucchini $1.75
Spices/Oil 5c
Bouillon cubes 8c (if used)

Total: $3.96, or a laughable 99c per serving.

Related Posts:
The 25 Best Laughably Cheap Recipes at Casual Kitchen
Savory Moroccan Chickpeas
The Hummus Blogroll: 17 Easy to Make Hummus Recipes
Smoky Brazilian Black Bean Soup

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Southern Black-Eyed Pea Soup with Collards

Today's recipe is easy to make, filled with hearty vegetables, and it contains a fully balanced meal in just one pot.

It's a mild soup; it won't overwhelm you with taste sensations. Instead, think of this soup as a calm, sunny reminder of the simple goodness of healthy fresh veggies.

If that isn't enough to convince you to make it, how about the preposterously cheap price? We made a double batch of this soup for the staggering cost of $7.81. Since a double batch made at least 12 servings (perhaps as many as 15 servings, I'll let you know once we get closer to the bottom of the pot), that works out to the laughable cost of 65c per serving. And if you break out your rice cooker and serve this dish gumbo-style over rice, the cost gets even lower, perhaps as low as 45c per serving. Yes, all you dollar-a-day menu doubters, it can be done.

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Southern Black-Eyed Pea Soup with Collards
Modified from Jay Solomon's Vegetarian Soup Cuisine: 125 Soups and Stews from Around the World

Ingredients:
1 cup black-eyed peas, soaked overnight and drained
8 cups water

2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2-3 celery stalks, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper

4 cups chopped collard greens, chiffonade-style (see below)
2-3 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 medium turnips, peeled and cubed
2 potatoes, cubed (can leave unpeeled)

1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped

Directions:
1) In a large pot, combine your already soaked black-eyed peas and 8 cups water. Bring to a boil and simmer for 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Drain, but save back about six cups of cooking liquid (can add water if you don't have enough). Meanwhile, do the vegetable prep work.

2) Heat the oil in a separate large pot. Add the onion, celery, garlic and seasonings. Saute over medium heat for 5 minutes.

3) Add all other ingredients, bring to a boil, and simmer for 35-45 minutes, or until vegetables are tender. Stir occasionally.

4) Add the parsley and serve (over rice if desired).

Serves at least 6.
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Recipe notes:
1) Like many soups and stews, this dish is a good candidate for doubling, but make sure you have a pot big enough to hold it all. The prep work is manageable.

2) The black-eyed peas are what complete this meal, adding body to the soup and plenty of protein to each serving. They are hardy beans and hard to screw up: I goofed and inadvertantly soaked my dried BEPs for more than 24 hours rather than "overnight" as instructed by the recipe. It didn't matter; I just tested the beans for doneness during their boiling session, and they were done in about 50 minutes, rather than in the specified hour/hour and a half. Also, if the BEPs get a bit foamy when you first bring them to a boil, you can scoop some of the foam away and discard it.


3) A few words (and pictures) on what it means to chop greens chiffonade-style. It simply means to roll the greens into a tight roll and then slice them into thin strips. It's an extremely efficient way to process large leafy greens, and collards lend themselves particularly well to this prep technique: just cut off the stem ends, lay the leaves on top of each other in a big pile, and then roll them up (side-to-side, not end-to-end). Then slice crosswise down the roll. In seconds you'll reduce a huge pile of collards into manageable and attractive-looking strips.



4) You'll need to like--or at least tolerate--turnips in order to like this soup. I used to HATE turnips, so I made this recipe with some admitted trepidation. But like many foods with slightly bitter flavors (olives, Brussels sprouts, black coffee, beer), I've found that I've grown to like them as I get older. I must be growing bitter with age, and thus bitter foods taste better and better to me.

But here's the thing: if you leave the turnips out, you'll miss one of the key unexpected treats of eating this soup: the occasional mini-surprise of thinking you're about to bite into a potato, and, whoop--a spicy turnip bites back at you! The fun never stops here at Casual Kitchen.

5) Finally, an under-appreciated reason why simple soups and stews are ideal for home cooking: they tolerate mistakes. Today's recipe is a particularly good example. I'm not sure what my problem was, but I was in severe flake mode the day I made this soup. I did things in the wrong order. I did the prep work inefficiently. I soaked the beans longer than I meant to and even forgot to drain them after they soaked. I tried to make a double batch of a big pot of soup without knowing if it would all fit into my biggest soup pot (naturally, it didn't--which forced me to cook it in two pots side by side). And yet the soup still came out just fine.

That's what I call a truly robust recipe.

Related Posts:
Seven Rules To Ensure Mistake-Free Cooking
Groundnut Stew: A Classic and Exotic Vegetarian Recipe
Quite Possibly the Easiest Lentil Soup Recipe You’ll Find Anywhere
Why I'm a Part-Time Vegetarian

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Smoky Brazilian Black Bean Soup

Today, we're going to delve yet again into vegetarian cuisine for a healthy, inexpensive and deliciously ethnic soup.

Admittedly this recipe has an ingredient list a bit longer than the typical recipes we feature here at Casual Kitchen. But don't let that discourage you: this soup is really easy to make. It should only take you about 20-25 minutes get everything into the pot, then another 25 minutes to simmer, and then voila!, dinner is on the table.

And when your family samples the amazing spicy and smoky taste of this spectacular soup, nobody will believe you threw it together that quickly!
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Smoky Brazilian Black Bean Soup
(modified from Jay Solomon's Vegetarian Soup Cuisine)

Ingredients:
3 Tablespoons olive oil
1-2 onions, coarsely chopped
1 green bell pepper, coarsely chopped
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons oregano
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon salt
3-4 garlic cloves, minced or pressed

1 large tomato, chopped
1-2 canned chipotle peppers, finely chopped
1 28 ounce can black beans, undrained
2 carrots, chopped
4 cups water
1/4 cup tomato paste
1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped

Directions:
1) Saute the onions, green bell pepper, garlic and spices (cumin, oregano, thyme and salt) on medium-high heat for 5-7 minutes, or until the onions and green pepper wilt and soften.

2) Add the tomato and chipotle pepper(s) and saute for another 2-3 minutes or so.

3) Add the beans (be sure to include the liquid from the black bean can too!), carrots, water and tomato paste. Stir well, bring to a boil and simmer on low heat for 25 minutes. Remove from heat, add parsley, and let stand for 5 minutes before serving.

4) Ladle into bowls and garnish with any extra chopped fresh parsley.

Serves 6.
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A few recipe notes:
1) The liquid from the canned black beans and the tomato paste combine to make this soup thick. Be sure to simmer it on fairly low heat, and definitely be sure to stir the soup every few minutes or so to prevent it from sticking to the bottom of the pan.

2) Do not leave out the chipotle peppers. That's the secret ingredient of this soup and it's what infuses it with its signature smoky and savory taste. It is by far the most important ingredient. Also, resist the temptation to use ground chipotle chili powder. You can find canned chipotles in the Spanish/Mexican section of most major grocery stores. We used two chipotle peppers canned in an adobo sauce, and we were really happy with the result.

3) A few words on the laughable cheapness of this dish: Our grocery bill this week exploded far beyond typical (for a variety of ice cream- and junk food-related reasons that I can't really get into right now), so I was too depressed to study the receipt and itemize the exact cost of this recipe. But I'd estimate that this entire dish can be made for well under $10. And since you can serve at least six with a pot of this soup, we're talking about a close-to-preposterously cheap cost per serving in the neighborhood of $1.50 to $1.75.

4) Serve with a side of rice, or better still, Spicy Brown Rice.

Related Posts:
Groundnut Stew: A Classic and Exotic Vegetarian Recipe
The Greatest Chocolate Mousse in the World
Cajun Meatloaf: A Meatloaf Recipe that would Burn June Cleaver's Tongue Off

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by linking to me, subscribing to my RSS feed, or submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon.

Easy Sopa de Lima

Whenever I get discouraged in the middle of the dark, cold winter, I like to cook a dish that reminds me of summer. This one fits the bill perfectly.

There are many different types of sopa de lima recipes out there, but this one is one of the easiest ones I've seen. It's also healthy and, if not laughably cheap, at least relatively inexpensive to make. I hope it reminds you that summer is just a few months away!

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Sopa de Lima
(adapted from Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant)

Ingredients:
3-4 Tablespoons olive oil
1-2 medium onions, chopped coarsely
4-6 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon oregano
black pepper to taste
1-2 fresh jalapeno peppers, chopped finely

3-4 medium tomatoes, chopped (roughly 4 cups)
3 cups vegetable stock (see here for a stock recipe)
1-2 limes
Grated Monterey Jack cheese and cilantro, both optional.

Directions:
1) In a large pot, saute the onions, garlic and spices in the olive oil for 4-5 minutes on medium heat. Add the jalapenos and saute for another 5 minutes or so.

2) Add the chopped tomatoes, cover the pot and cook on medium, stirring frequently, until the tomatoes begin to release their juices, perhaps 10 minutes or so (depending on the tomatoes).

3) Add the stock, bring everything to a boil, and simmer for 15 minutes. Add the lime juice and serve immediately. Garnish with optional Monterey Jack cheese and cilantro.

Serves 6.
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A few recipe notes:
1) This is a highly scalable recipe--a great recipe to cook for a dinner party or any large group. A double or triple batch of this soup could be made in under an hour.

2) A word on potential recipe modifications: If you want to add even more heat to your soup, you have a few options: You can add the jalapenos to the pot when you first start sauteing (sauteing them longer in oil will release more of their heat). You can also use a hotter chili instead of the jalapenos (say Serrano peppers, or if you're completely insane, bhut jolokia peppers). Of course the easiest option is to leave a bottle of Tabasco on the table and let people choose their own heat.

3) One more modification idea: You can also certainly add meat to this soup. Chorizo or other sausages, chicken or leftover roast turkey--any of these would complement this soup.

4) I highly recommend making homemade corn tortilla chips an accompanying side dish. You can even use crumbled tortilla chips as a garnish for this soup, by crumbling a few chips right over the top of each bowl. The two foods go together perfectly.


Related Posts:
Braised Pork in Guajillo Chile Sauce
Black Beans and Rice: Laughably Cheap Comfort Food
Pernil: Puerto Rican-Style Roast Pork Shoulder
How to Make a Mole Sauce: Intense, Exotic and Surprisingly Easy to Make



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If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by linking to me, subscribing to my RSS feed, or submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon.

Mushroom, Barley and Swiss Chard Soup

We always want to eat healthy food here at Casual Kitchen, but we don't want to have to suffer too much to do it. So whenever we find a healthy and hearty recipe that's both inexpensive, easy to make and really good, I'll be sure to bring it to my readers.

Today's Mushroom, Barley and Swiss Chard Soup is all of these things, and it has the added advantage of being preposterously healthy for you. It's yet another delicious classic from Jay Solomon's Vegetarian Soup Cuisine.

Recipes like this are excellent examples of the advantages of practicing partial vegetarianism: not only is vegetarian cuisine typically healthier and lower in fat than meat-centered meals, it's often much less expensive too. And in just one brief cooking session and one big soup pot, you can make a fully balanced meal and have plenty of easy leftovers for later in the week.
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Mushroom, Barley and Leafy Greens Soup
(slightly modified from Jay Solomon's Vegetarian Soup Cuisine)

Ingredients:
2-3 Tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon ground thyme
1/2 teaspoon salt

12 ounces mushrooms, sliced

1/2 cup dry white wine (optional, but strongly suggested)
6 cups water
2 teaspoons dijon-style mustard
2 large carrots, peeled and chopped
1/2 cup barley (see below)
3 Tablespoons fresh parsley

4-5 cups swiss chard (can substitute kale), chopped coarsely
1 lemon, cut into wedges (optional)

Directions:
1) Heat oil in a large pot. Saute onions and garlic with spices for 3-4 minutes on medium heat. Add mushrooms, saute for another 4-5 minutes.
2) Add white wine, let simmer for 2 minutes or so. Then add all other ingredients except swiss chard and lemon. Simmer on low heat for 50 minutes.
3) Add swiss chard and simmer for another 10 minutes.
4) Let stand for 5 minutes before serving. Ladle into bowls and (optional) squeeze a wedge of lemon over your soup just before eating.

Serves 8.
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A few quick recipe notes:
1) Barley. Here's a grain you don't see all that often in everyday recipes; in fact, unless your grocery store has a whole grains or health food section, you might have to make a side trip to your local health food store to find it. Our local health food store carried two pound bags of barley at a fairly reasonable $2.99.

2) Kale or swiss chard (either red or green varieties) are pretty much interchangeable for this dish. These are some of the healthiest greens in the entire produce section, with a wide range of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants--and of course lutein for good eye health.

3) We had a bit of a dispute here as to whether to bother with the lemon wedge. My bias is to skip it--you can save yourself an extra step and 66 cents. Laura, however, preferred the subtle tang that the lemon juice added to the soup.

4) Finally a word on costs: This soup should cost roughly $8.00, which works out to a laughably cheap price of $1.00 per serving. Another of the often unsung advantages of vegetarian food!



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If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by linking to me, subscribing to my RSS feed, or submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon.

Catalan Mushroom Soup (Sopa de Bolets)

For today's recipe, we turn to a brand new type of cuisine for Casual Kitchen: Catalan food.

We were the lucky recipients recently of Colman Andrews' exceptional book Catalan Cuisine: Europe's Last Great Culinary Secret. I've selected a recipe from it that is highly typical of this cuisine, yet still passes our five easy questions test.

We're always partial to any recipe that takes easy-to-find ingredients and combines them to make unusual flavors and tastes. And we were so happy with this dish that we can't wait to return to this cuisine for more of the same.

Finally, your guests will never guess that such a rich, hearty and amazingly delicious soup can be made from start to finish in under an hour.

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Catalan Mushroom Soup (Sopa de Bolets)
(modified from Catalan Cuisine by Colman Andrews)

Ingredients:
2-3 onions, chopped
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped or pressed
2-3 tomatoes (preferably fresh high-quality tomatoes), chopped
1/4 cup olive oil

Approx. 2 pounds assorted mushrooms, washed
4-5 cups vegetable stock or beef stock
salt and black pepper, to taste

French- or Italian-style bread, toasted or lightly fried in oil.

Directions:
1) In a large pot, heat the oil to medium. Add the onions and saute for several minutes until they are beginning to turn brown and caramelize. Add the garlic and saute for 1-2 more minutes. Then add the tomatoes. Saute uncovered, stirring regularly, until most of the liquid has evaporated away and the tomatoes have completely broken down and have more or less melted into the onions (at least 15 minutes).

2) While the tomato/onion mixture is cooking, wash the mushrooms and slice or quarter the larger ones as you see fit.

3) Turn heat to medium-low, add the mushrooms to the pot, and saute for 10-15 minutes or until the mushrooms have begun to shrink a bit.

4) Add the stock, bring to a boil, and then simmer on low heat for about 15-20 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste.

5) A few minutes before the soup is done, toast or pan-fry (use a thin coating of oil and brown the bread on each side in a non-stick pan) thick slices of the French or Italian bread. Place a piece of the toasted bread on the bottom of each soup bowl, then ladle the soup over it.


Serves 5-6.
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Let me close with one brief recipe note on mushrooms types: There are many kinds of mushrooms that will add character to this soup, including particularly flavorful varieties such porcini, chantarelle (available year round in dried form), portobello and shiitake mushrooms. Feel free to be flexible here and use any type of mushrooms (except poisionous ones) you can find that fit within your budget. We used basic button mushrooms in our recipe, but we cut them up in a variety of ways to keep the soup from looking to uniform and boring. Despite the simple choice of mushrooms, we were thrilled with the finished product:





Related Posts:
Braised Pork in Guajillo Chile Sauce
Paul Prudhomme's Barbecued Shrimp: The Most Glorious Meal So Far This Year
Cooking With Love: Farfalle with Mushrooms and Gorgonzola Cheese
How to Make Risotto
Shrimp in Garlic Sauce (Camarones Ajillo)

If you're interested in looking at the full collection of photos from the making of this recipe, I've posted them on my flickr page. Warning: there are lots of photos of mushrooms.


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! Another way you can support me is by submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon.

Navy Bean and Kielbasa Soup

I fell into acute cookbook exploitation mode two weekends ago, and I spent some careful time thumbing through my Better Homes cookbook.

I had two goals. One was to make it up to my old warhorse cookbook after recently making some condescending remarks about it in my Mexicali Pork Chops post. Sure, Better Homes may reach a bit when it comes to ethnic recipes, but this cookbook really tries hard. And it just sits there on the shelf--it doesn't ever hurt anybody. Why did I insult it? I'm sorry.

After I finished this heartfelt conversation with an inanimate cookbook, I settled on my other goal: to find a really simple and quick recipe that would feed us a for few days. What I found, right in the middle of the most humble cookbook in my kitchen, were the seeds of the most humble, simple and delicious soup ever.

"Better than chicken soup if you ask me," was Laura's verdict. Swish!
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Navy Bean and Kielbasa Soup
(modified from "Ham and Bean Soup" from Better Homes)

3 Tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped
4-5 stalks celery, chopped
1 1/2 teaspoons dried thyme
A dash of salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper, or more to taste
1 bay leaf

1/2 lb kielbasa or other sausage, chopped into pieces

3 cups water
One 15-ounce can navy beans or white beans, drained and rinsed

Heat oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add onions, celery, thyme, salt, pepper and bay leaf and saute on medium for 5-7 minutes. Add the kielbasa, water and beans and bring to a boil. Simmer for 45 minutes. Serve immediately.

Serves 4 easily. Can be easily doubled (or tripled!).
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A few brief recipe notes:
1) This soup was so preposterously easy and so laughably cheap that it literally burst off the page (don't you just love when that happens?). And the recipe is so scalable that it can be doubled or tripled with minimal extra effort. A textbook 80/20 recipe.

2) Keep in mind, if you make this soup with kielbasa, you will not be making a diet soup. It will be more on the energy-dense side. If you want a lower-fat soup, you can add less meat, or replace the kielbasa with relatively lean cuts of ham to the soup.

3) Finally, let me quantify the laughable cheapness of this recipe, because it just doesn't seem believable that a soup this good can be this inexpensive to make.

1/2 lb kielbasa, on sale for 2.50/lb: $1.25
1 medium onion, 5 celery stalks: ~75c
1 15 ounce can navy beans: 69c
olive oil, salt, pepper, thyme, bay leaf: ~40c
Total cost: $3.09

A delicious and easy-to-make soup, all for the staggering cost of 77c per serving!

Related Posts:
Two Useful Cooking Lessons From Another Cheap and Easy Side Dish
How to Tell if a Recipe is Worth Cooking With Five Easy Questions
Paul Prudhomme's Barbecued Shrimp: The Most Glorious Meal So Far This Year
Cookbook Exploitation: How to Get More Mileage Out of Your Cookbooks

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! Another way you can support me is by submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon.