Home Made Tomato Soup

Continuing with the theme of soup, I'll share a recipe that will help you along with one i've already posted. If you have the time, home made soups are totally worth it, and much healthier.

When you make soup you should always use broth instead of water for the liquid to add flavour and substance. Soups with water instead of broth tend to be much thinner and lack in taste and nutrients in comparison. It's also harder to add good flavour to soups with water instead of broth, with out using a ton of salt and other 'seasonings'.  

This soup doesn't require a lot of ingredients, and if you want the full soup benefit but don't have enough time to devote to making the broth yourself, you can always buy broth and stock in cube form. I would recommend a product that has some sort of indication that they use fewer preservatives and flavour enhancers. If you are buying a vegetable or a mushroom broth, the cubes that are 'vegetarian' or 'vegan' tend to have fewer ingredients, all of which you can recognize. Remember, store bought broth and stock has a high quantity of salt which you can't control. Making the broth at home gives you full control over what goes into the pot and what goes into your body.

If you want to make the soup from scratch, you can always use my "Homemade Vegetable Broth" recipe to use as the liquid for this soup.

We'll be making Tomato soup. Tomato soup is hearty and wholesome and delicious. Whether you have a big bowl by itself or you have it with a yummy grilled cheese for dipping, Tomato soup is a comfort food that can't be beat.

Homemade Tomato Soup

6 medium tomatoes chopped

1 large onion diced 

2 stalks celery sliced

1 large carrot sliced thinly

1 tsp salt

1 tsp freshly ground cumin

1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

2 cups vegetable broth

1tsp olive oil

water

To Make The Soup

In a large pot, pour 1 tsp olive oil and bring pot to medium high tempurature. Add diced onions and cook until translucent. Add cellery and carot and brown lightly. Add cumin, salt and pepper, stir to coat. Add tomatoes, cook for 5 minutes sirring frequently. Add 2 cups vegetable broth, bring to a boil. Add a little water as needed if the soup becomes too thick. Boil for 10 minutes and reduce to a simmer. Simmer for one hour. Turn off heat and cover, allow to sit on burner for one more hour. With a hand blender blend the soup until you have a smooth consistency. (Don't have a hand blender? just pour the soup into a regular blender with a heat resistant jug, just allow the soup to cool a little. Don't forget to cover tightly! Blend in batches if you need to.)

The soup is ready to serve and enjoy. You can also use this soup in my "Vegetarian Sort of Goulash" recipe.

 This recipe was revised and published by: Rachel Gonsalves

Homemade Vegetable Broth

Soup is simple. A lot of us are intimidated by it because of the amount of time it takes, and many of us have bad experiences from making a bland and boring soup. Not to fear, making a full flavour soup is easy, and though it takes a long time, it does not require a whole bunch of effort.

The first thing is making the broth. Once you have your broth ready you can make any soup you dream of. The broth is the essential key to flavour when it comes to soup. If you use stock, or broth, instead of water you are guaranteed to have a tasty soup that everyone will enjoy.

Homemade Vegetable Broth


1tsp olive oil
1 large white onion cut in chunks (you can leave the skin on)
1 leek chopped and washed
2 large stalks of celery
1 large carrot chopped (no peeling necessary)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 bay leaf
water

you will also need: 1 large soup pot, 1 large heat resistant bowl, 1 large mesh strainer.

Making the Broth


In a large pot add the olive oil and bring to a medium high heat. Toss in all the veggies in the order of the ingredient list, stirring briefly between each addition. Once all the veggies are in the pot, add the salt and pepper, stir and pour in enough water to cover the veggies completely. Add the bay leaf to the top and bring the soup to a boil. Allow to boil for ten minutes and reduce heat to a simmer and simmer broth for 1 hour. If the water level goes down below the veggies, add more water to keep everything covered. Once the hour is up, turn off the burner and cover pot, leaving pot on the burner, and leave pot on stove for an additional hour.

Place a large mesh strainer on your heat resistant bowl. Pour entire contents of pot into the strainer, lift the strainer and press with a large spoon to squeeze out all the juices. The veggies in the strainer are not for eating, they go in the compost. The liquid in the bowl is your broth. Pour in a mason jar, cover with a tight fitting lid and you can keep soup in the fridge for up to a week. If you wish to freeze the broth, pour into a freezer safe airtight container and you can keep in the freezer for up to two months.

Use this broth instead of water when you make any kind of soup for a delicious tasting soup.

Recipe created and published by: Rachel Gonsalves

Ooey Gooey Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Have a craving for something sweet and simple and there's no cookies in your cupboard!? Oh No! Have no fear, this is one of the easiest cookie recipes you could learn, and once you learn it, you'll be glad you did! just a few simple ingredients that most of us already have on hand and in less than an hour you've got chewy and decadent cookies that you just can't stop eating.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

preheat the oven to 350°

Dry:

2 cups whole wheat flour

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 pinch salt

Wet:

2 tbsp unsalted butter or margarine

1 cup choice peanut butter (i use the reduced fat peanut butter)

1 cup white sugar

1 egg

2 tbsp choice milk (i prefer almond milk)

To Mix The Batter

• Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl and set aside
• In an electric mixer, combine butter or margarine, peanut butter and sugar and cream together on low speed
• Beat in egg and milk
• In two additions add the dry ingredients while mixer is on low speed. Once ingredients are just combined, turn off mixer. Mixing a cake batter for too long once flour is added will strengthen the gluten and make a stiff batter.
• Gently incorporate 1 cup of chocolate chips into batter with a rubber or silicone spatula. Once combined set aside in a cooler part of the kitchen. 
• Lightly grease two cookie trays(preferably two that can fit side by side on the same rack in the oven), unless you have a silicone mat which needs no greasing
• Scoop batter with one teaspoon and push onto trays with another teaspoon. Cookies need to be at least one inch appart.
• Bake in middle of oven at 350° for 11 minutes, or until bottoms are a light golden brown and tops are puffy to the touch. Be careful not to bake them until they are hard in the oven or you will not have moist cookies, unless you prefer crisp cookies. 
• Allow baked cookies to cool on a cooling tray if you have one, or a plate, for about 3-5 minutes before devouring. 
• Store in a sealed tin or air tight container at room temperature for up to two weeks. If you're the crispy cookie type, a piece of paper towel or parchment paper at the bottom of the container will keep the cookies from being moist. If you want to keep your cookies moist no paper is required.

Recipe Created, Written and Published by: Rachel Gonsalves

vegetarian sort-of goulash

This is a healthy spin on a recipe a good friend showed me in high school, she called it goulash, but i later learned that it isn't actually a traditional goulash, although today there are countless variations on this dish.

Goulash is traditionally a hungarian soup or stew that includes beef, vegetables, onions, spices and paprika. This recipe has a few extra goodies inside and on top to make it extra delicious.
Since we're trying to be healthy here, we're going to use Veggie Ground Round, which is a vegetarians ground beef. If you like, you can use the real stuff, but that will add a whole ton more fat and calories to the dish and it won't be so healthy anymore.

Vegetarian sort-of Goulash Ingredients:


1 pkg Veggie Ground Round (equivalent to 1 pound of ground beef)
1 large yellow onion, diced
1/2 large green pepper (or a whole small green pepper), diced
3 large cloves of garlic, minced
2 cups homemade tomato soup 
        or 1 can condensed tomato soup (reduced salt is better) and 1 can water if using condensed
1 tbsp caraway
1 tbsp spicy paprika
3/4 cup elbow macaroni
2 cups grated marble cheddar cheese

Making the sort-of Goulash:


In a very large hot pan or pot (nonstick is better) brown the diced onion, omce onion is translucent add green pepper, garlic, caraway and paprika and stir. Add the Ground Round and stir until combined and heated through. Add the can of tomato soup and one can of water, add elbow macaroni and cook on medium-high heat until noodles are just al-dente. Reduce heat to low-medium and allow mixture to simmer for about 5-10 minutes. Turn off heat and remove pot or pan from the hot element and add half of your cheese and stir gently until combined. To serve, spoon desired amount into bowls and top with a handful of extra cheese.

Wasn't that the easiest recipe you've ever made? I think so. This stew is even better the next day, so don't worry if you've made 'too much' it won't last long.





A 'thank-you' to Morgan W. For teaching me the original recipe.

This recipe was revised and published by: Rachel Gonsalves

Sour Cream Coffee Cakes

What kind of cake isn't great? I personally love all cakes; big cakes, little cakes, puffy cakes, dense cakes. Any cake is welcome on my plate, but they all have something uniquely special about them. Some cakes have a bit of a crunchy crust coating them all over which is accomplished by adding baking soda to the mix. Other cakes are soft as a cloud with no baking soda, but lots of whipped egg whites (or meringue) folded into the batter ever so delicately. The different kinds of cakes are endless, and if i go on i'll never get to the kind of cake i'm sharing with you today: Sour Cream Coffee Cakes. Moist little hand cakes that make you bargain with your self control to get just one more cake in your hands.

These little cakes have a wonderful swirl of cinammony goodness baked into each one. Read the instructions carefully, lest you miss the most important part.

For the flour I prefer whole wheat, but you can also use white, neverbleached or all purpose for a very fluffy cake.


For the Sour Cream I prefer using a reduced fat sour cream to help control the total fat of the end result, but if you are a stickler for the 'real' stuff, by all means. Either way, the sour cream adds a moist texture to the cake and a tangy flavour as well.


Sour Cream Coffee Cakes Recipe:

preheat the oven to 350°

Dry:

2 cups of choice flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

Wet:

4 large eggs

1/4 cup Olive oil

2 cups sugar

1 cup choice sour cream

Swirl:

2 tbsp unsalted butter or margarine

2 tbsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg
2 tbsp sugar (brown or white)

1/2 cup raisins (or any kind of small dried fruit)

To Mix The Batter:

• Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl and set aside.
• In an electric stand mixer, beat eggs on medium speed add sugar and mix on medium unil blended. Add oil  and sour cream and mix on low until blended.  Scrape down sides if you need to while mixer is turned off and mix again if necessary.
• Add dry ingredients in two additions. While mixer is off add half the flour mixture and mix on low until just combined and turn off mixer. Add second half of flour mixture and mix on low until just combined. Turn off mixer, mixing a cake batter for too long once flour is added will strengthen the gluten and make a stiff batter.
• Allow your batter to sit for a minute or so while you get to greasing your cake pans. You may use butter or margarine for this. For added reinforcement you may also dust the greased pan(s) with a little flour just to lightly coat the buttered areas. I like to use two standard size cupcake pans which each yield 12 cakes. If you have a mini loaf pan or mini bundt pans, feel free to use them, just be aware that using a different type of pan changes the necessary bake time and you will need to keep an eye on them. No matter what, once a toothpick or cake tester inserted in the middle comes out clean, your cakes are done. Just be careful not to over bake and dry out your cakes.

To Make the Swirl:

• Combine 2 tbsp unsalted butter or margarine, cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar and raisins (if you like raisins, you can leave them out if you don't, or use nuts instead.) in a microwave safe bowl. Heat in the microwave for about 20 seconds or until butter or margarine is soft.
• Stir ingredients together and set aside. Keep the spoon.

Making the Cakes:

• Add enough batter to fill each of the cupcake wells half way and set the remainder of the batter aside. 
• Evenly distribute the swirl ingredients between every cupcake well, allowing it to sit on top of the batter.
• Add the remainder of the batter to the cupcake wells distributing evenly so everybody is the same size.
• Using a toothpick or a cake tester, make a swirl in each cupcake while the batter is still raw by inserting the utensil in the centre and swirling outward. One rotation should be enough. 
• Place the cupcake trays in the oven on the centre rack and bake at 350 for 18-25 minutes or until the cakes are golden brown and a toothpick or cake tester comes out clean when inserted in the centre. (always test the largest cake.)
• Once baking is complete, allow cakes to cool in their pan for 5-10 minutes before removing them from the pan. Use a dull knife or rubber spatula to run around the edges of each cake to make removal easier.

However you make them, these little cakes are a sure delight with any crowd. For extra excitement, add a teaspoon of your favourite icing to each cake just before serving.

Recipe Created, Written and Published by: Rachel Gonsalves