Vegetable Soup with Navy Beans

Wow, was my last blog December 18?  Holy cow.  Let me give you a quick recap of the past few weeks - our niece arrived December 19, then it was Hanukkah, husband's birthday, making a few meals (nothing I haven't blogged before) for my brother & sister-in-law, volunteering on Christmas Day at Washington Hebrew Home, a road trip with the in-laws and grandmother-in-law to visit the new baby, home yoga practice and lots and lots of naps to recover from it all.

With all this busyness and craziness, we decided we could use some serious comfort food.  And what's better comfort food in the winter than homemade soup?  Better yet, a hearty, vegan friendly vegetable and bean soup?

I've been wanting to play with dried beans for awhile.  Sure, they're a heck of a lot less convenient than canned, but the trade-offs are worth it, especially when it comes to texture and flavor.  Also, the variety of dried beans at our local Whole Foods is amazing.  They have a number of heirloom beans that I'm really looking forward to trying.  So, if you are able to plan your meals ahead, I really encourage you to give dried beans a try!



For this soup, we decided to go with a simple navy bean.  Fun fact - these beans got their name not because of their color (they're off-white), but "because they were a staple food of the  U.S. Navy in the early 20th Century."  Like other legumes, navy beans are an excellent source of fiber and protein, and are also a "good source of folate, manganese and vitamin B1 as well as the minerals phosphorus, copper, magnesium and iron."

Beans soaking

Beans cooked

I used VeggieTable.com as a guide to preparing the beans .  After picking through the three cups of dried beans, I soaked them for eight hours in nine cups of water.  I then boiled them in the soaking liquid for ten minutes, skimming foam off the top.  After ten minutes, I reduced the heat to a simmer, added a generous teaspoon of salt, and simmered the beans covered for one hour.  My husband and I tasted the plain beans when they were done and agreed that we vastly preferred them to canned!  We then put them in the fridge to use in today's soup.

One of my favorite soups is minestrone, which traditionally includes vegetables, beans and pasta.  According to Wikipedia, minestrone translates to "the big soup" and is usually made from whatever ingredients you have in the fridge.  What I ended up making was minestrone inspired, as we used up a lot of what we had in the fridge.  But, I elected to leave out the pasta at the last minute, so I'm hesitant to call it a true minestrone.

Behold the aftermath of the chopping!

To start the soup, I diced one large white onion, half a bunch of celery, three yukon gold potatoes and two zucchini.  I also sliced up several handfuls of baby carrots and minced four cloves of garlic.  I sauteed all the veg in olive oil until it was translucent, about ten minutes.  When the good brown bits started to stick to the bottom of the pot, I poured in a little bit of vegetable broth to deglaze the mix.

I then added in a large can of whole tomatoes and their liquid, breaking up the tomatoes with a spoon.  Then, I added three cups of the cooked beans.  Using the neat little herb mill my sister-in-law gave me recently, I ground up some sage and rosemary and mixed that in, along with fresh thyme, dried oregano, sea salt and black pepper.  Finally, I added a carton and a half of veggie broth.  Once the soup came to a boil, I let it simmer for an hour, which made our entire apartment, and probably the hallway, smell like yummy vegetable soup.

We had the soup for lunch today with some crusty bread.  It was warm, hearty and had a nice kick from the garlic and pepper!  Better yet, we have tons of leftovers, and I think it will taste even better reheated, as the flavors will continue to combine.

Seder Cooking Part 2: Matzo Ball Soup and Apple Kugel

After Friday's epic day of cooking, we only had to make a few things on Saturday: matzo ball soup, apple kugel and the second edition of the layer cake.

My family has always  made our Matzo Balls from scratch.  My grandmother and great grandmother both had recipes.  My grandmother's recipe called for Nyafat, which, to my mother's and my great consternation, was discontinued a few years ago. When we tried to sub oil, we got more matzo chunks than matzo balls.  So, we switched to my great grandmother's recipe, which calls for oil.

Making matzo balls can be a time consuming process, but I love it.  I have fond memories of my grandmother walking up to our front door in a little black hat, while my grandfather followed behind with jars of home made chicken soup.   My grandmother, mother and I would always make the matzo balls together, so I've had about 20+ years of practice at this point.

The "rules" ok making the matzo balls are as follows:

•   When doubling the batch, make each batch in a separate bowl.  No one knows why this is.
•   The mixture must chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour
•   When forming the mazto balls, you must barely touch them lest they become the dreaded "hockey pucks."
•   Any recipe of my great-grandmother's that says parsley is "optional" really means that parsley is mandatory.  We added in some chopped fresh stuff, since we had it handy for the seder anyway.

  So, here is the step by step process of the making of the family Matzo Balls:

You can see here the two bowls for the two batches.  I can get about 13 matzo balls from each batch, which was perfect for our 11 seder guests, plus leftovers.  While some people do put seltzer in their Matzo balls, it's a McGuffin here.  It just happened to be on our counter.  You don't want to make your Matzo balls too big, as they will swell mightily when cooking.  Mine are a heaping dinner spoon full.

Fill a LARGE (I'm serious here - it should be huge) stockpot with water.  We use my grandmother's stockpot for this purpose.  Once your water is at a rolling boil, lower in your Matzo balls.   The best tool to have on hand for this is a flat skimmer with a sturdy handle.  It doesn't have to be expensive.  My skimmer was $2 at Ikea.

When you first lower your Matzo balls into the water, they'll sink to the bottom.  When they rise to the top, lower the heat and cover.  Cook for thirty minutes.  The water should be barely bubbling - if the boil is too heavy, your Matzo balls will break.  After 30 minutes, remove the Matzo balls with the skimmer.  When your soup is ready, reheat them in the soup.  I used a combination of low salt Pacific Organic vegetable broth and the leftover broth from when we made the veg mixture for the vegetable kugel.

One note - have lots of salt on hand.  I like my Matzo balls to be very salty, and even with the salt in the recipe, there wasn't enough salt for my taste, especially since we used low sodium veg broth.

The other thing we knocked out was the apple kugel.  You can see the recipe on the Maneschewitz website.  We did not include walnuts, and we soaked the raisins prior to cooking, per my mother's suggestion, so that they would not sink to the bottom of the kugel.  I'd make this even for non-passover meals - it's a pretty tasty side dish.