Red chickpea soup

Ingredients (x 2-3):
1 onion
1-2 cloves of garlic
1 carrot
100-150 g frozen soup vegetables
3/4 tablespoon soy sauce
½ tablespoon red curry paste
½ (vegetarian) bouillon cube
3 tomatoes
1 abundant tablespoon of tomato puree
around 200 g of chickpeas
7 dl water
olive oil
salt
pepper
a pinch of paprika powder and/or chili powder, rosemary, basil and oregano

Preparation:
Chop the garlic and onion. Cut the carrot into small cubes. Put these vegetables along with the soep vegetables into a pan with olive oil. Sauté them for a few minutes on mild heat. Then add salt, paprika and chili powders, as well as the soy sauce and the curry paste. Sauté the vegetables for a couple of more minutes.


Cut the tomatoes into small pieces and remove the green part. Remove the conservation water from the chickpeas. Add into the pan the tomatoes, the tomato puree, ½ bouillon cube, water and the chickpeas. Heat until the soup starts evaporating and then cook the soup on mild heat under cover for 20 minutes, mixing once in a while. Add the remaining spices during the cooking time.
It's a good idea to serve the soup with bread or grated cheese.

Soup of beans, leek and potato

Ingredients (x2):
400g green beans
1 small onion
1 clove garlic
1 leek
1 big potato
500ml chicken bouillon
1,5 tablespoons olive oil
salt
(croutons or bread)

Preparation:
Chop the onion and garlic and cut the washed leek into rings. Cook these ingredients in a pan with olive oil and add the beans. Cook this mix of vegetables on low heat for 10-15 minutes. Peel the potato and cut it into cubes. Prepare the bouillon by letting a bouillon cube dissolve in water. Add the potato cubes to the rest of the vegetables and pour the bouillon on top. Cook the soup covered, on low heat, for one hour. When an hour has passed, take your immersion blender and give the soup a puré-like composition with it. Add salt according to your taste. Serve the soup with croutons or bread.


The recipe of the bread pictured above can be found here.

Summer soup

Today it is Midsummer and yesterday I prepared Summer soup (fi: kesäkeitto), a traditional soup for this season in Finland (even though my boyfriend thought it was pretty Thai). Ideally it is prepared with new, fresh vegetables of the summer. It is sweet and has milk, which makes it a bit controversial to some people. But it isn't good to judge it by that! It is very good with rye bread or crispy rye bread.

Ingredients (x2):
2 carrots
½ small cauliflower
2,5 dl water
½ teaspoon salt
1 dl peas
2 ½ dl milk
65 g soft cheese (in Finland, Koskenlaskija)
a pinch of sugar
parsley

Preparation:
Peel and slice the carrots. Cut the cauliflower into smaller pieces. Cut the well-washed potatoes into cubes.
Put the vegeables to boil in salted water. Cook them for some 10 minutes until they are done. Add the peas and milk. Cut the cheese into small cubes and mix it into the soup. Heat it so that it starts boiling and take it off the cooker. Spice the soup with a bit of sugar and add abundant chopped parsley.

Soup of three onions

This is a nice onion soup that differs from the traditional onion soup by having 3 key ingredients: yellow onion, shallot and leek. Worth a try next time you want to make onion soup! To be served with croutons, a good idea is to make them yourself the way I suggest here (they come out pretty luxurious!)

Ingredients (x2):
2 yellow onions
2 shallots
½ leek
1 tablespoon butter or margarine
½ l water
2/3 bouillon cube
1 small bay leaf
1 teaspoon thyme
1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Garlic-croutons:
(semi-)dried bread
1 tablespoon oil
1-2 cloves garlic
(1 teaspoon dried parsley)

+ grated cheese

Preparation:
Peel the onions, cut them in halves and then cut them into thin slices or pieces. Wash the leek and cut it into pieces.
Melt the butter in a pan and add the onions. Give them 5 minutes to gain some colour, but don't let them become brown.

Add the water, the 2/3 bouillon cube and the spices. Cook under cover on mild heat for half an hour.
Cut the bread into cubes. Grind the garlic and fry it on the pan with oil. Add the bread cubes on the pan let them become slightly brown in colour. Optionally add some parsley on them.

Serve the soup with the croutons and grated cheese.

(Sorry for taking the picture a bit too late!)