Carrot and Cashew Soup

I was intrigued by this soup recipe in which the cashews are blended into a carrot soup. It reminds me of things my vegan friends do. Cashews seem to do everything creamy in the vegan world. For example, my friend Michael blends it up to make cheese as the basis for cheesecake. Also, he blends up cashews with water and vanilla extract to make a cream for breakfast parfaits. Cashews can be made to make ranch dressing. So why not use cashews in soup? You don't have to be a vegan to enjoy new uses for an ingredient!

Spicy Quinoa and Sweet Potato Soup

I've got a bad cold and so I'm craving spicy food. When I can't smell much, the heat of chilli seems to cut through the fog a little. Plus spicy food makes my nose run and cleans it out! (Too much information?) Thankfully I made some of this soup a few weeks ago and had several portions in the freezer.

Before freezing (as pictured above) this was a thick, chunky soup. After thawing and reheating, it was more like a warm salad - all the liquid had been soaked up or evaporated. It was delicious both ways.

French Onion Soup

Onions are a thing of beauty, aren't they? No? You think they are too mundane to be beautiful? They have such a humble exterior, hiding away those lovely, thin layers.

In a passage I found so memorable in the book The Supper of the Lamb, Robert Farrar Capon writes about how to meditate on an onion. "Take one of the onion (preferably the best looking),... and sit down at the kitchen table.... To do it justice, you should arrange to have sixty minutes or so free for this part of the exercise. Admittedly, spending an hour in the society of an onion may be something you have never done before.... Onions are excellent company."

Sweet Potato Laksa

Singaporeans are food crazy. I would say that the two national pastimes here are shopping and eating. Locally born Singaporeans are called Peranakan; they are descendants of Chinese or Indian male immigrants who married Malay women in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries. Laksa is a traditional Peranakan curried soup, served over rice noodles.

Chinese Peranakan cooking blends Chinese ingredients with Malay sauces and spices. Peranakan food features shallots, chillies, preserved soybeans, prawn paste, and thick coconut milk. My favourite Paranakan dish is laksa. I like the tangy spice of the curry that is calmed (a little) by the coconut milk.

Pea and Mint Soup

File this one under "food that looks ugly but tastes good". It's a blended soup made with green peas (fresh or frozen), two small potatoes, and a big handful of fresh mint. My tongue was amazed at the vibrant flavour considering how dull-looking the soup was. The fresh mint was foremost and made me feel as though I was eating summer in a warm bowl. The peas jumped out at me next, with the smooth cream bringing up the rear.

Part of the reason the soup looked so terrible: I left on the skins of the potatoes. They were brown and made the resulting soup have a brownish tinge. I suppose that shows that I care more about the nutrition of my food than the beauty of the pictures. And I definitely care about taste!

Mexican Tomato and Garlic Soup

Sometimes I feel as though I don't have a particularly innovative food item to share, but I just want to remind myself and others that it is OK to eat simply. This is one of those dishes that is stupendously easy. It feels strange to revel in its simplicity. But this soup is both simple and outstanding.

There were four of us eating on a plain, calm Saturday. We were just enjoying being together and having a good old chat. This soup and a salad were the lunch we sat down to together. And it fit perfectly into our ordinary day, while amazing all four of us with its richness of flavour. This soup's motto is "store cupboard staples turned to sunshine." It is made with ingredients you probably already have in the pantry and it will bring a warming dose of Mexican sun to the table.

Ask Sarah: Soups Based on Cauliflower

Johnny asked: "Any ideas on what I could use to make an interesting soup based on cauliflower?"

Cauliflower is an excellent choice for soups because, like other cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli and cabbage, the more you cut them, the more pungent they become. In a pureed soup, cauliflower's flavour really comes out. To balance it, you can use potatoes, cream, or milk.

Weekend Links #33

Weekend Links is a way of sharing all the engrossing things I see around the internet. I publish Weekend Links approximately every two weeks. As usual, I welcome your ideas and feedback.

food reading links:
--Looking back on Elizabeth David's legacy (from the Observer Food Monthly). She has been described as the UK's "first lady of food" thanks to her 1950s cookbooks lauding fresh, mediterranean ingredients.
--Eating healthfully is easier when you have a bigger reason to do it than for yourself. Enter a Christian reason to serve God with your diet (from The Atlantic). The article also compares the church to Weight Watchers.
--The comments in this short article from The Kitchn elaborate on what "clean as you go" really means for a messy cook.

image source: My New Roots

Sweet Potato Soup with Whipped Goat's Cheese Topping

Simple sweet potato soup: just four ingredients. This is my kind of meal. When my husband is away (and hence I'm allowed to eat vegetarian), I whip up a soup or salad or both for my dinner.

I made this soup just a tad more special by whipping a goat's cheese topping. I used 1/3 c (100 g) soft cheese, 1/4 c (60 ml) of sour cream, and 1 T of milk, with lots of pepper. A quick whizz and it's a little bit fluffy. The goat's cheese complements the soup by adding a bit of complexity. Also, the topping is cool while the soup is steaming so it's a great contrast. I like to incorporate a tiny bit of topping with each spoon of soup to enjoy the colours and flavours together.

Bacon, Leek, and Potato Soup

This is not your usual pale, creamy, and smooth leek and potato soup. This is a chunky, flavourful, heartwarming dish with big bits of bacon, diced potatoes, and sweet leeks. It needs about 20 minutes to simmer, which is the perfect amount of time to make some rolls or a salad to go alongside. (Recipe for cloverleaf rolls coming this weekend.)

Chilled Cantaloupe Soup

Recently I've been inspired by reading magazines. For example, my local grocery store is called Cold Storage, and they publish a cheap quarterly magazine that is full of clever recipes. This chilled cantaloupe soup is from it.

But I like to read lots of magazines--almost any type are fine by me. I read sports ones about Formula One, running, or working out. I also like house and decorating magazines. I like essay magazines like Time, Monocle, and National Geographic. While in New Zealand on holiday in July I tried out a magazine called North & South ("the magazine for thinking New Zealand") which was very informative. And since arriving here in Singapore I picked up Time Out, of course.

Wild Mushroom Soup

"A proper wild mushroom soup should live up to its name: a wolf in soup's clothing. The trick is to use a mixture of different fungi to layer the flavours." So says Niki Segnit in The Flavour Thesaurus, an intriguing book I received for Christmas from my brother. This mushroom soup uses both fresh and dried mushrooms, and the more varieties the better. Its wildness is highlighted by a smooth backdrop of sherry and cream. I served it as the first course of Canadian Thanksgiving dinner this year.

Mexican Soup

Sonya was my best friend in high school and university. We started off as colleagues when we worked as youth centre leaders. Soon we were inseparable. She was there when I made my first forays into cooking. This cake (pictured below) was one of the first things either of us ever baked; it was a birthday cake for Glenn, our boss. (In his car he had a wooden figure called Calvin which we copied - you can see it at the top the cake.) This cake was a huge hit with our boss - he was so impressed!

Creamy Cauliflower Soup

This soup doesn't have any cream.

This soup does have a creamy, smooth texture and taste.

Furthermore, this soup contains a full head of cauliflower, two leeks, and a potato. The potato is the secret to the creamy texture.

This warm and creamy soup could not be more satisfying in cold weather. It's easy and cheap to make. It dresses up well for company, when you can garnish it with parsley leaves, fresh ground pepper, and some sunflower seeds. It can be made in advance and reheated when needed.

This soup is the reason you need to buy cauliflower this week!

The Daring Cooks - Recipes with Tea

I have been a proud Daring Cook for several years and it is my absolute pleasure to host the group this month! This month I challenged the Daring Cooks to make a savoury recipe with tea.

I have always enjoyed learning new skills and trying new recipes with the Daring Cooks. They are always so inventive, so I gave them free rein to make one of my three recipes (below) or cook any other recipe with tea. They were able to choose to use black, green, or herbal tea. And there were so many great ideas! I am very grateful for the chance to host the Cooks and thrilled to enjoy what they came up with.

cauliflower soup: the secret recipe club

I am taking part in a wonderful new blog event: the Secret Recipe Club. Each participant is assigned another blog: this month I have received Jeanette's Healthy Living, a blog that is new to me, but has quickly become a favourite. As part of the Secret Recipe Club, I have been enjoying reading Jeanette's blog, and trying out her cauliflower soup, made with two ingenious ingredients you will never guess!

Chinese hot and sour soup

Happy year of the rabbit! In honour of the lunar New Year I am trying out some dishes from my Chinese cookbook. I was ecstatic to receive a basic Chinese cookery book for Christmas; I have sticky flagged about a dozen recipes that I think I can recreate. Meanwhile, I readied my "lucky money" packets for giving out later this week. These red envelopes say "blessed" (or "lucky") on the front and we add a monetary gift for those who serve us; our door staff and the dry cleaning ladies are my main conferrees. The Chinese character for "blessed" is made up of three parts: one man, in the garden, with God; and inside the envelope there is a little note about it in English and Chinese.


I feel very blessed to be living in Hong Kong and I'm hopeful about the year ahead. I intend to learn more about Chinese home cooking and Asian ingredients, and to develop this blog, sharing my adventures with you as I go.

broccoli and blue cheese soup: for Forever Nigella

Are you a Nigella lover? I know so many people who are--and now I wonder if I might join the trend. With a new blog event, Forever Nigella, hosted by Sarah at Maison Cupcake, I am bound to learn more about her and her recipes. To start things off, I made this seasonal soup, based on a recipe from Nigella's website. (Please visit the website for the recipe.)

corn and red pepper chowder

The first cookbook I was given as a young university student was The Joy of Cooking. A very grown-up, serious cookbook, The Joy is packed with serious, housewifely recipes that feed a suited husband and smiling children. I was terrified of it. As a result, I didn't cook from it at all. Ever. Now I have a husband who wears a suit (though no smiling munchkins of our own) and I still never use The Joy of Cooking. It's too stuffy. Definitely too serious.

eating healthy at Christmas

Healthy eating... is so difficult at Christmas. I want to eat healthily to respect my body, but I also want to enjoy the feasting at this time of year. There are so many tasty things on offer! Here are some of my thoughts about healthy eating in December.


To begin with, I think "all things in moderation" also applies to feasting and fasting. There are some times when it's good to feast and other times when it's good to fast. I won't deny myself the chance to indulge occasionally, as long as it is only occasional. Christmas dinner, for example, is one of three times in the year when I don't think about calories, fat, ingredients, or nutrition. (The other two are Thanksgiving and Easter dinners.) Feasting is a way of marking a special day and Christmas is a day worth celebrating. Jesus' birth means a lot to me, so I think it's a great time to feast!