Soup of the Week – Double Veggie Combos

It is fall, friends! If it weren’t for the calendar, I’d still be sure of the change in season. My Mom made stew this weekend and very likely threw open the windows all over the house to let the fall breezes blow through. And that is as sure a sign of fall as anything.

Aside from stew, nothing quite says fall to me like a great batch of soup. This week I bring you not one, but two Soups of the Week. Neither recipe made a very huge batch and I can’t bear to watch good CSA veggies go to waste, so we went with a little variety.

Get ready to hit the Pinterest boards because you’re going to love these two veggie combo soups.

The first is Edamame Leek Soup found at P.S. It’s Healthy. I’m pretty sure this isn’t the first thing I’ve pinned or made from this website. I may even be following it with my Bloglovin’ feed. It’s a nice little blog with tons of fresh and healthy recipes.

I picked this soup because I had so many leeks piled up I had to find a solution fast or waste them. Ninety five thousand people I asked said to make potato leek soup. But no. That just didn’t do it for me. This, however, was lovely…

Mine turned out much less green than the photo on the original post, but it tastes pretty darn good and that is what matters. The P.S. It’s Healthy post showed their soup garnished with herbed goat cheese and dried mint leaves. Yum. I used herbed feta and dried parsley. I have never used dried mint leaves in my life, but I can tell you I’ll be looking for some this week. How interesting. I could have pulled some fresh mint leaves off my mint plant on the deck…buuuut it’s dead. That’s another story.

The Fab Hub tried the edamame leek soup this evening with his dinner as part of I’m-Not-Making-New-Food-Until-People-Eat-The-Leftovers-That-Are-In-The-Fridge Night. This is also fondly known as Forage for Dinner in the Fridge Night. When I offered it to him with dinner, he said yes without flinching. I ran with it because when I met the Fab Hub, he was a soup hating man. Any soup he eats is a victory, especially if it packs in the vegetables and phytonutrients.

He sat and looked at it for a very long time. Very long. I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to eat it, but he said he was waiting for it to cool off. (I do tend to be a little over-zealous with a microwave.) The next thing I knew, the bowl was empty. He said he liked it – more than once. He even did that thing where he tries to analyze the food in front of him and guess at the flavors.  I did not offer any to Kidzilla – not sure why. Probably because she was too busy eating beets and waiting for me to finish making halushki. (We’ll talk about that one later this week.)

As for me? I liked the edamame leek soup quite a bit. It does taste fine hot, cold, or somewhere in between. It has lemon in it, which is a very nice, bright addition and the Hub said he liked the nutmeg. The consistency was a bit thick for my taste and on a second attempt I would definitely add more vegetable broth to thin it out. Overall, a win.

The second is Carrot Beet Soup which I found at MeatlessMonday.com. This may just be my favorite soup recipe find of all time. For today, anyway. I had carrots and beets that needed life and, frankly, I’m tired of eating roasted carrots and beets in salads. Since the two go so nicely together, I searched for carrot and beet soup and found several options.

This one was most intriguing because of two particular ingredients – balsamic vinegar and cayenne pepper sauce. I was sold. The end result? Let’s just call this the red velvet of soups, because honestly, that’s what it looks and feels like…

The color is somewhere between the darkest, hottest pink and ketchup. That is precisely the color. Zilla is going to love this one! I topped this off with plain old sour cream, freshly ground black pepper, and some parsley flakes again. Why I didn’t take advantage of the three or four different fresh herbs in the crisper drawer remains a mystery.

This soup is fantastic. It feels exotic and special and fancy, to use a Zilla word. It is definitely not your Babička’s borscht. Carrot and beet soup would be fine enough, but  the balsamic vinegar and cayenne pepper sauce add exactly the right amount of zing to make this something really special. Did I go a little heavy-handed on both of those items? Yes I did. Would I remember to add a snazzy drizzle of the balsamic on top of the soup before taking a photo next time? Yes, I would. Oh, and that rule of thumb about using your lesser quality balsamic for cooking and the really good aged stuff for salads and garnish? Forget it. Go for the good stuff here – you won’t be sorry. I can guarantee that the cheaper balsamic is going to be too acidic for this velvety smooth soup. Splurge a little.

Will the Fab Hub try this one? Very likely not. I have yet to convince him that beets are worth eating in any form. Zilla, on the other hand, loves beets and will eat them any way you present them – roasted, pickled, or pulverized in a smoothie. She will probably love this soup. We’ll give it a try tomorrow night.

Almost forgot – a couple of final points. First, the edamame leek recipe turned out one large mason jar of soup and the carrot beet ended up filling two because I doubled it. The jars say they hold four cups. Second, both of these soups were wicked easy so they’re perfect for new soup-ies. And finally, I pulled out some of my frozen homemade vegetable broth (or “Garbage Soup” if you ask the Fab Hub) to use in both soups. That was cool.

Happy souping, everyone! If you try these, let me know how you like them.

In the meantime, what do you cook when the autumn leaves start to fly? Leave some love in the comments.