Lamb Soup

Offering sacrifices of animals has been provided by people all around the world since ancient times and although there are different events and local traditions in line with the different religions, lambs and birds were killed as a symbol of gratitude to God, forgiveness of sins and prayer for health. In Bulgaria if somebody's life has been in danger at any moment of his life, his relatives prepare kourban lamb soup to thank God for the successful outcome. But even if everything is OK,  lamb soup is tasty and worth it. 

Here is one recipe with lots of meat and few vegetables - delicious and easy to prepare.

Spicy shrimp chowder (Chupe de camarones)

Chupe de camarones is a spicy chowder with vegetables and shrimps served widely along South America's Pacific coast from Chile to Peru. But when I decided to prepare a thick soup including shrimps I didn't know these details. Shrimps are on our table at least 2-3 times a month in many variations -  saganaki, fried with Chorizo, on a pizza or with pasta. But I've never tryed  to prepare shrimp soup or chowder before. Before starting my search on the Internet I tried to imagine my expectations from this soup. I want it to be spicy, so hot peppers as an ingredient are a must. Garlic is a good partner of shrimps, so I put it in the list. Cream to thicken the soup and provide a buttery aroma. Cheese which will add saltiness and will enhance the whole taste of the chowder. What else? Had no idea. So I spent more than an hour searching here and there on the Internet for my inspirational source and I saw many recipes. Then I saw this recipe and I immediately knew, this was what I was looking for. 

Nettles pesto with fried eggs

The first nettles is already on the market - fresh and green. I love to prepare nettles and I am not afraid of its stinging properties, so I do not use rubber gloves to handle it. It is said, nettles is good for the health because it cleans blood. I do not know whether this is true, but anyway, one of the first things I prepare every spring is nettles puree with fried or poached eggs above. It is so good to feel spring with all your senses.

Dock and quinoa soup

Diet times again. The forthcoming summer has a lot of requirements, one of them to look good. This is a light and tasty soup which makes you satiated with small amount of calories. Tasty and healthy. You can substitute spinach or Swiss chard for the dock. 

Bouillabaisse a la Marseillaise

I bet, you could not write the name of this dish if you are not french. Well, if you can, congratulations. I could not. I could not even pronounce it. But I can prepare it, I can enjoy it at lunch time, for dinner or even as a breakfast on early Saturday or Sunday mornings.   

Bouillabaisse is a French seafood stew, which home is supposed to be Marseille, but it is widely served in the coastal little ports of Southern France. It was once a cheap fishermen meal, which seafood ingredients depended on the daily catch. So, different kind of fish could be included, the most important thing is to put at least four varieties, every one of which delivers its own taste. Fish should be lean and fresh. The way I prepared the recipe is based  on the one from here. I added orange peel and wine.
There is a little rule conserning the serving of bouillabaisse - seafood in one dish and soup in another. But it all depends on you and your personal preferences. I like the fish to be hot, so I spoon a ladleful of soup onto it.

Zuppa Toscana

I don't have much time to prepare all the winter dishes I like- spring has nearly come, so I have to hurry. Nearly twenty days until the end of March, nearly twenty dishes to savour. 

One of them deffinitely Zuppa Toscana. Zuppa Toscana is a winter soup. Based on rich and nutritious ingredients like bacon, sausage, potatoes and heavy cream it is best enjoyed when the weather outside is cold. 

Head cheese, Pig brawn, Pacha or Sülze

It is a peasant food. Does not have to look pretty, is prepared from humble ingredients, but tastes amazing. The poor man's food has to be cheap, filling and nutritious. Low cost, high taste.

Every country has that sort of simple recipes representing the culinary traditions of the native folk. This local dishes are a nice reflection of the taste of the country and people continue preparing them like their mothers and grandmothers did. 

Have you ever heard about head cheese? No? What about pig brawn, pacha, fromage de tête or Sülze? 
Every country has an own name for this dish, but recipe is nearly the same. Parts of pig head and/or pigs trotters, boiled for hours with vegetables and spices, chopped to small pieces, cooled down and packed in a jelly. Refrigerated and served at room temperature. But also delicious served as a hot steaming soup sprinkled with hot pepper flakes and garlic-vinegar sauce. The very fact that so many countries in our industrial society still have it on their menu speaks for itself. It is good.

You have to overcome some prejudices to enjoy this dish at a full. The gelatin contained in the feet and the area behind the ears of the pig sets the brawn. The steps of preparing the dish are time-consuming and your hands will be, hmm, not very clean while you debone the hot feet and cut the ears in thin slices, but it is totally worth it. 
We enjoy Pacha with some mustard and pickled cornichons. At least once every winter.

Vichyssoise (Leek and potato soup)

Vichyssoise is a thick soup, prepared from the white parts of leek, potatoes and heavy cream. If you call it a French soup, it will be a mistake, although you have to twist your tongue in a really French manner to pronounce its name. The soup was created in the kitchen of Ritz-Carlton in New York in the beginning of the 20-th century. By a french cook. But still american creation.
Originally is was intended to be served cold in the hot summer days in order to provide some relief from the heat, but it is very tasty and warming served hot. 
The most refined member of the onion family provides the soup with delicate sweetness.
Creamy and velvety in texture, vichyssoise has a tender and delicate taste, so you can enjoy it even for lunch in a busy day without worrying about your breath. You can play with the amounts of heavy cream you add and you can substitute apples for potatoes if you want to make it lighter and fruitier.

The flavour of the soup is even better the next day, so you can prepare it a day or two in advance and store it in the fridge. 

Nettles soup

Stinging nettles. 

The name suggests why many people do not prepare nettles at home - who will dare to clean nettles with bare hands? Many otherwise brave men and women won't. I remeber the wild swans fairy tale Granny read me when I was little. I still remeber how I sympathised with the little girl who had to spin and weave eleven coats with long sleeves to break the spell made to her brothers. The pain caused by the stinging nettles was described as a burning fire. Pure little girl, I thought, only a great love and the desire to safe somebody's life can make me handle nettles. But time changed, I grew up and my unsatiable appetite makes me brave enough to prepare stinging nettles soup many times a year. 

For me nettles is a symbol of spring, I really wonder who and where has found nettles in this cold February - everything around is covered with snow, but anyway, I saw some packages of fresh nettles in the greengrocer's store and I took them. 

Nettle is rich in minerals and very, very rich in Vitamin K, it also boosts the immune functions of the body and is accepted as a remedy for rheumatism. I really like foods, which are tasty and healthy, they do not make me guilty when I pour myself a second serving. 

Chicken soup for my body and soul

It is not enough to say I don't like winter, I really hate it. 

And I have my good reasons for that. There is a lot of snow outside, streets are slippery, people wear at least 5 kg of clothes, which makes them look heavy and clumsy. 
There are so many restrictions in winter. For instance - it is not a good idea to talk in the street (the cold wind will cause you a soar throat), to walk fast or run (you will fall onto the ice), to wear your new boots, produced again in a country where people haven't seen snow for years (of course, the boots are elegant, but they let in water, have no lining and their smooth soles makes you more unsure than while figure skating). 

But these are only the weather/fashion limits of winter. For me the main problem with it is the drop in my immune system. I don't know why I am so hospitable to all the viruses and bacilli all around, but every winter I have my bad days, when I take lots of pills and there are piles of used handkerchiefs around me. The last ten days were that kind. I took a sick-leave, but instead of using this opportunity to cook or shoot I could only keep the bed grumbling everything was unfair. 

What helps me to recover when I feel so low? A cup of chicken soup. Hot, comforting, restoring health. 
One of the simple things of life, which create miracles with the way I feel. Here is my recipe.

Pumpkin soup

Everything I've cooked since the 1st of January was checked by Violet for calories. If suspiciously high in calories, dish is rejected. So she is our family weight-watcher and I know, that if something passes through her sieve, it is healthy without being dangerous for us both. When I suggested we try a roasted pumpkin soup, she made some investigation and said OK. I am not quite sure whether it is a proper part of a diet menu, but it is deffinitely worth to be tested. According to Internet, pumpkin is very healthy. It is packed with fiber and  contains lots of pro-vitamin A (five time more than in carrots), vitamin K and E and lots of minerals, including Magnesium and Iron. 

This is one of the most creamy and buttery soups I've ever tasted. It has velvety texture and sweet taste without any sugar added. It is nutritious and satisfies your sweet tooth, without making you guilty. The roasted flavour of the pumpkin gives the soup its unique taste. The strong flavours of onion, leek and garlic match well with the creamyness and the cayenne pepper burst your digestion.

Of course, if you are on a diet, it will be better to skip the croutons and heavy cream, but it will be tasty anyway.

Leek and Tomato soup

This is something between a soup and stew. It is a simple and rustic soup and my mother-in-law prepares it when she wants to recall memories from her childhood. Her mother made it before and the mother of her mother. There is nothing sophisticated in the ingredients or preparation, but it is rich and flavourful and we love it home. The key and surprising ingredient is milk which makes the dish lighter and supports butter into the melting-in-the mouth feeling.

Italian Wedding Soup

It was a soup weekend.
I felt slightly under the weather on Saturday and the best medicine for the flu is a bowl of hot, steaming soup. Its smell is really appealing (imagine the little meatballs with the melting parmesan browning slowly in the oven, who can continue sleeping with such a tasty alarm). Children came to the kitchen still wearing their pijamas, asking: Mmmm, what are you cooking today, Mum? So I knew, I would have to share it with them. D. also didn't need an invitation to take his spoon, so the below mentioned amounts of ingredients were enough only for one meal for four hungry "Italians". We all liked it very much and I do not know whether the Italians really eat it on their weddings, but it is tasty and nourishing, herby from the spices and fresh from the spinach. 
Why exactly this soup? While watching Desperate housewives some weeks ago I heard for a first time about it (of course, Bree Van De Kamp prepared it and did I tell you, that I deeply admire her cooking success?). The net is full of recipes for this dish and the main ingredients according to them are meatballs (most often from ground chicken or turkey or from chicken sausage), small pasta and spinach. We prefer pork meat, so I used minced pork. 
I suppose, you can use whatever meat you like most of all.
This will not make somebody run from the wedding, you must be sure. 

Carrot and Ginger Soup

Well, soup again. But autumn and winter are definitely soup-seasons in my family. So there will be voices again: "Isn't there at least one clean spoon in this kitchen? When will the washing mashine be ready?" That is all because we enjoy the cream soups several times a day in small amounts and there is always a pile of used cups and spoons around the sink.

This soup with silky texture is rich and creamy. It has an intense orange color and a natural sweetness due to the carrots. The ginger and garlic give their delightful tastes to the soup and also serve as immune boosters. They bring "heat", but if this heat is not enough for you, you can chop and add one hot pepper and sprinkle it over the servings. 

French Onion Soup (Soupe à l’Oignon)

The weather is cold and what I need for tonight's dinner is a French onion soup - perfectly simple and not pretencious, but delicious and warming the heart and the body. Moreover, it is a calming recipe to prepare. That is because the classic French onion soup calls for good caramelized onion: the chemical reactions which occur during the process of caramelization bring up the flavor. Caramelization should take at least 30 minutes and the end result is a nutty and sweet taste and brown color of the onion. So if you want to achieve the required perfection, you should stay behind the stove and stir the onion regularly and observe the whole process. This will blow away the bad thoughts and will restore the soul. And the taste of the soup after that and the blissful faces of your table companions will do the rest to make you really happy.

Fabada Asturiana - Giant Beans with blood sausage and Chorizo

Fall is in the air, so it is time for warming and comforting dishes. I mean something hot, really hot and nourishing. I tasted this dish about ten years ago in Spain where we spent some days at the end of December. According to the Internet, there is such typical Spanish dish, called Fabada Asturiana. It is a warming stew of large white beans and sausages (blood sausage and Chorizo should present according to most of the recipes). There is a roasted garlic included and its creamy and nutty and caramel touches play an important part of the whole symphony of tastes in the dish. The following recipe is written from memory and it included the ingredients I suppose were included years ago in that Spanish restaurant. The smell of the different ingredients is really intoxicating.

Broccoli cream soup with blue cheese

This soup is nutritious, rich in fiber and easy to prepare. But before putting the broccoli heads in the pot, I decided to give them a five minutes of glory. Aren't they beautiful? 

Salmon soup with vegetables

Ok, how is it possible to eat something and to lose weight?

Salmon is supposed to be the fish which makes this miracle happen. But even if you don't think about calories all the time, salmon should be mentioned. It is a healthy food. Salmon contains a lot of omega-3 fatty acids, which are good for the health and help prevent against heart disease, circulatory diseases and many other types of illnesses.

So, enough good reasons to serve it at least once weekly. 

Violeta and I are salmonholics (I know there is no such word, but how can you describe the constant craving for salmon in every possible variation?).

This soup is a very simple dish, easy to prepare and not sophisticated. But we love to eat it on Saturday or Sunday mornings, it gives us a comforting and flavorful beginning of the day. 

Tomato soup

Violet is on a diet.

Teen-age girls often go on absolutely inpredictable diets, which make you wonder what (the hell) to cook for them. Some of the requirements: it should be low in calories and it should be enough nourishing. Well, it's good to be hot and satisfying. Tomato soup is always welcome. It is a spoon-licking pleasure which makes you forget about the heaviness of being on a diet and does not make you guilty when taking a second cup. I always make tomato soup with canned tomatoes, even in summer. Canned tomatoes are very ripe and sweet and they do not need any additional sugar. Instead of sugar there are lots of carrots in my tomato soup. Celery and garlic make what they can, and they can a lot - they lend the homey taste of the dish and let you crave for more.
So Violeta is grateful, slim and satiated. Which makes me happy.