Soups + Stews
I love making one-pot meals like soups, stews and curries as a streamlined way of getting everything I need into one bowl, without relatively little effort. Similar to a capsule wardrobe, there are numerous ways to mix and match staple ingredients (such as lentils, cabbage, spices, and herbs) and create seemingly limitless one-pot meal variations.
If you've been following along for a while you'll know my stance on cabbage. But just in case, I'll share it again. :) I believe cabbage is the most underrated vegetable, both for its easy flavor in soups and stews and its nutrient density. It's soft which make it's quick to prepare (just be sure to have a large cutting board so you can spread out). But simmer it with other soup-y ingredients, and after just 15 minutes it will provide a uniquely subtle depth and sweetness to the broth that no other vegetable can replicate.
If there's one thing that keeps my weekdays humming along, aside from plenty of sleep, it's having good food prepped and waiting for me in the fridge. Depending on what I choose to prep ahead, it guarantees breakfast is a no-brainer, allows me to quickly pack an office lunch….
I love this soup because not only is it full of vibrant vegetables (fennel, golden beets and dandelion greens) but the beets do all the heavy lifting. As they simmer away, they impart a subtle sweetness and turn the broth that gorgeous golden hue. No turmeric needed!
This dal is the meal that's most often repeated in our house. It's my favorite savory breakfast on cool mornings, it travels well in a thermos for work lunches, and it's a quick last-minute pantry-meal when I have little else in the fridge. Red lentils are simmered with onion, turmeric, chili powder and curry powder. Kale is added towards the end, and the soup is finished with ginger and lime.
These lentils were inspired one weeknight when I wanted dal, a staple I've been making for a better part of the last decade, but needed something quick.
This is a model meal for winter comfort and efficient cooking. It's a smoky, hearty, substantial bowl that offers all the elements of a great taco, but in soup form. With the quinoa, sweet potato, ground protein trio for substance, smoky and earthy spices for depth, lime and cilantro for brightness, and toppings for crunch and creaminess, this meal really delivers.
If you click on the Middle Eastern tag or scroll through the photo summary of similarly-themed recipes at the bottom of this post, the long list reveals my love for the Middle Eastern and North African aesthetic of cooking. I can't get enough of their flirtatious play between sweet and richly savory.
Miso soup meets a broth-y Mexican tortilla soup. This is a warming Mexican-Asian fusion meal to boost immunity and gut health with bright, clean flavors of ginger, lemon, and fresh cilantro and an umami richness from probiotic-rich miso.
This humble soup delivers on the WOW factor. It packs a lot of flavor and goodness into each bite. But the best part is that it's made with pantry staples such as carrots, red lentils, spices and citrus, making it a fabulous weeknight dinner solution.
This Coconut Mushroom Noodle Soup is a reflection of what I've been craving with our moody "summer" weather in Sausalito. Mushrooms float in a simple but rich and fragrant ginger coconut broth with cubed tofu. Ladle this over rice noodles and you’ve got a quick, simple and satisfying meal for your back-to-work/school routine this fall.
What do you do when it still feels like winter in April? You make a soup that tastes like spring but keeps you warm! This Spring Greens & Beans Soup is flavored with thyme, oregano, dill, and lemon and loaded with tons of spring greens, chickpeas, orzo, and mung beans (or green lentils).
It's a new year -- Happy 2018, you guys! There's something about starting a new year - even though, technically, I know nothing has changed between the 31st and the 1st - that makes me feel lighter, refreshed, and inspired. But in all honesty, we don't need to wait for January for a fresh start. I'm sharing a two-minute strategy I use to reset and get clear on my intentions, any day, any month. And in terms of food, this Everyday Dal is the ultimate reset, whatever the need. It's been one of my go-to recipes for years, whether I need a warm and nourishing pantry meal or a hearty breakfast (yep!).
Roasted butternut squash, fennel, garlic, lime, smoked paprika and apple are the main players in this soup. A playful sweet and tart offering that feels like a warm Autumn hug.
The weather has turned here in Madrid. And this Chipotle Tortilla Soup is a bit spicy and a lot warming, the perfect hearty, cozy meal to welcome in the cold weather.
Happy Summer! I'm celebrating with soup -- a very satisfying garden veggie minestrone. My version is traditional in that it contains pasta. But it's also loaded with other good things such as green lentils, chickpeas, summer veggies, dried herbs and spices. I actually think it's the combination of all these ingredients that make this soup so darn good.
Years ago, we lived in Swaziland for four months on a volunteer stint. This was pre-food blog days, but even then I kept loose notes on what we were eating and loving, fascinated with the exotic-to-me combination of flavors and ingredients that were staples of the Swazi cuisine. One such staple we often ate for lunch was a vegetable stew with a mild, creamy tomato-based curry sauce. I'm recreating this humble Swazi stew today.
There's nothing more comforting in winter to me than a steaming bowl of chunky beans and vegetables in a rich broth. This is a loose vegetarian interpretation of Fabada Asturiana - a bean and sausage stew from the mountains of Asturias in northern Spain. It's a hearty meal that's sure to get us through the final days of winter.
Whether you're feeling run down or wanting to take proactive steps to boost immunity and ward off colds, this is a must-have soup for your winter kitchen toolkit. It's bright from lime and cilantro, sweet from coconut milk, sweet potato, and curry powder, spicy from ginger and chili, and rich in green cleansing power from kale, cauliflower, and cilantro.
I get excited about Whole Nourishment recipes. To make it on the blog they must pass the "gut check". Are they...
In the spirit of Halloween coming up, I made you an especially delicious orange and black soup. It's a smoky Mexican-inspired black bean soup, topped with.....
Are you feeling a bit chilly this week? Maybe fall has moved in for good where you live and evening temperatures are dipping quite low now. If so, you'll definitely want to make this curry soon!
This one is for all my eggplant lovers out there. How are you cooking up the plump purples this summer? Can I interest you in a fun, new way to prepare them? This is a creamy, fragrant, exotic but simple meal that I'm confident will have you hooked once you try it.
Behold a soup to fit all your needs!
Easy, one-pot meal
Light and satiating
Green
Creamy
Utterly delicious
Every time I make this noodle bowl I wonder why I don't make it more often. It's umami-rich, it's warming, slurp-y, crunchy, and noodle-y. What's missing? Nothing. But the truth is,.....
The inspiration for this stew came after making a middle eastern stuffed cabbage dish last year from a magazine article I'd been keeping. The cabbage leaves were blanched and stuffed with rice, currants, and olives, then nestled into a tomato sauce flavored with more currants and olives and spiced with cumin and allspice. Let me tell you,....
Fed for comfort is eating well so we live with comfort in our bodies. And what’s more comforting than finding the foods we love and that love us back?
But what is best for our bodies? There’s an obesity epidemic in the Western world, so some may argue we clearly don’t know what to eat. But I argue we have a “seeking” epidemic just as rampant as obesity that misplaces our energy and focus.
This is the sort of stew that keeps me going in the cold months. We returned from our sunny holiday and were welcomed home with cold and rainy weather! Luckily we had this stew waiting for us in the freezer. I like to make a big batch meal like this before traveling so we have dinner the night before leaving and can freeze the rest to have something warm, comforting, and homemade to come home to.
The origins of this soup date back two years when I made it for friends over for lunch one Autumn Sunday. I'm not a pumpkin fan, but for reasons I cannot explain now, I was uncharacteristically inspired to make a pumpkin-centric soup. I knew - for my sake - that this soup would need bold flavors to offset the pumpkin. So I used a Mexican flavor profile, confident that smokey chili powder and chipotles in adobo and perky lime would lift the pumpkin out of its one-dimensional life.