Tag Archives: cold soup

Cold Plum Soup

20 Sep

Cold Plum Soup

This is adapted from a recipe I clipped from the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent many years ago. It’s a great recipe for this time of year, when it’s still hot enough outside to enjoy a cold fruit soup and when plums are plentiful in the markets. You can use any kind of plums, but prune plums (also called Stanley or damson plums) are available now and they’re generally cheaper and easier to pit and quarter. Cutting up the plums is the hardest part of the recipe.

The soup will keep for a week or so in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Ingredients:

2 lb. plums, pitted and quartered
3 Tbs. brown sugar
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
Grated zest of half an orange (about 1 tsp.)
Grated zest of half a lemon (about 1 tsp.)
2 cups orange juice
2 Tbs. lemon juice
1 cup almonds, toasted and coarsely chopped
1-2 cups water
Fresh mint leaves to garnish (optional)

Directions:

In a medium saucepan, combine the plums, brown sugar, cinnamon, orange and lemon zests and just enough water to cover.

Simmer, partly covered, until the plums break down, about 20 minutes. Cool slightly.

In a blender or food processor (or using an immersion blender), puree the plum mixture with the orange juice, lemon juice, half the almonds. If the soup seems too thick, add a cup or two of water.

Chill for at least 2 hours. Before serving, sprinkle with the remaining almonds and garnish with fresh mint leaves if desired.

Serves 4 to 6

Advertisement

Tags: , , , , , ,

Gazpacho

1 Sep

GazpachoIt’s the perfect season for gazpacho! Fresh tomatoes and cucumbers abound, and the heat makes it a good time for a cold soup.

I have a former neighbor, Rob Musial, to thank for this recipe. In the late 1970s, we lived in Detroit’s Palmer Park apartment community, and the citizens’ council published a cookbook, What’s Cooking in Palmer Park. Rob contributed this gazpacho recipe. Because the Ponchartrain Wine Cellar was a classy Detroit restaurant at the time, and because Ponchartrain Drive was a main street in Palmer Park, he called it Ponchartrain Drive Wine Cellars Gazpacho Soup.

I flip to the recipe so often, that page has come loose from the book’s plastic spiral binding.

I usually cut the tomato, cucumber, celery and scallion into large chunks and pulse them a few times in the food processor to chop finely. Don’t puree — you want to keep some crunchy bits.

Ingredients:

1 large onion, finely chopped
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3 fat cloves garlic, minced
2 large tomatoes (or 3 medium ones), peeled and well chopped
1 large regular cucumber or 1 small English cucumber, peeled, seeded and well chopped
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1 dash of Tabasco sauce (or a few more if you like a little more spice)
3 Tbs. vinegar
1 tsp. oregano
1/2 cup chopped scallions
2 celery sticks, finely chopped (optional)
5 cups tomato juice
croutons for garnish (optional)
sour cream for garnish (optional)

Directions:

In a soup pot, saute the onion in the oil until they are tender.
Add the garlic and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Turn heat off.
Cut the cucumber in half lengthwise and scrape out the seeds.
Add the tomatoes, cucumber and all the remaining ingredients except croutons and stir well. If using a food processor, cut the vegetables into large chunks and pulse until the soup has a chunky consistency, then add the spices.
Refrigerate for several hours. Serve chilled, garnished with croutons and/or sour cream if desired.

Tags: , , , , , ,

Strawberry Soup

29 Jul

strawberry soupHere’s another nice fruity summer recipe.

I love it that I can now get recipes from my kids in addition to providing recipes for them! My daughter Miriam made this for dessert for Shabbat lunch one hot summer day when we were visiting. It also works as a first course. It’s super-easy and super-tasty.

I made this for a meal where one of our guests was diabetic, and substituted Splenda for the sugar. I couldn’t tell the difference, so if you need to replace the sugar, you can do so easily.

You can easily double or triple the recipe, but you may have to blend or process in several batches.

Ingredients:

1 pint strawberries (fresh, or one bag frozen)
½ cup apple juice
2 Tbs. sugar
1 Tbs. lemon juice
sour cream or Greek yogurt, optional
Fresh strawberry slices, kiwi slices or mint leaves for garnish

Directions:

Clean and hull the strawberries if using fresh. Partially thaw frozen berries.

Place Strawberries, apple juice, sugar and lemon juice in a food processor or blender and puree until smooth. Chill until ready to serve.

Serve with a dollop of sour cream or Greek yogurt, if desired. Garnish with fresh strawberry slices, kiwi slices or mint leaves.

Serves 2 to 4

 

Tags: , , , ,

Carrot Soup With Ginger

27 Aug Carrot Soup with Ginger

Carrot Soup with GingerAdapted from a recipe on foodnetwork.com, this is a nice light summer soup. We made it with low-fat milk, and it was fine, but it would probably be better made with cream. We had some left over and served it the next day cold, which was also good. If you don’t like a strong ginger flavor, use a little less ginger.

Ingredients:

1 Tbs. butter
2 onions, chopped
6 cups vegetable broth
2 lb. carrots, peeled and sliced
2 Tbs. grated fresh ginger
1 cup whipping cream
Salt and white pepper
Sour cream and parsley for garnish

Directions:

In a 6-quart pan, over medium high heat, melt butter, add onions and cook, stirring often, until onions are soft.

Add broth, carrots and ginger. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until carrots are tender. Use an immersion blender to puree the soup. Add the cream and stir over medium heat until the soup is hot. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Ladle into bowls and garnish with a dollop of sour cream and chopped fresh parsley.

Serves 6

Tags: , , , ,

Cold Cucumber Soup

30 Jul
Cucumber Soup

Cucumber Soup

If your backyard garden has a surfeit of cucumbers, or if your local farmers market is selling beautiful cukes at a good price, consider making this refreshing, cold summer soup. I got this recipe from my dear friend Mandy Garver.  It’s very easy if you have a food processor.

Ingredients:

3 large cucumbers
1 clove garlic, chopped
3 cups sour cream or plain Greek yogurt
3 cups parve “chicken” broth
3 Tbs. cider or red wine vinegar
1 tsp. salt (optional)
parsley or chives for garnish (optional)

Directions:

Peel the cucumbers, quarter them and remove the seeds. Using the steel knife in a food processor, process the cucumbers and garlic by pulsing; the cucumbers should be chunky, not smooth. Add the broth, sour cream or Greek yogurt and vinegar, and salt if needed. Chill at least an hour before serving.

Serves 4

Tags: , , , , ,

Hungarian Sour Cherry Soup

25 Jun

Hungarian Sour Cherry SoupIn the first house we ever owned, there was a 30-foot-tall sour cherry tree in the back yard. It was magnificent. Every summer we would easily pick enough to make a couple of pies and other desserts, without even having to climb too high.

We moved to our current house 30 years ago, and I missed that cherry tree! A few years after we moved in, my husband bought me a cherry tree for my birthday and planted it in the backyard. It was barely more than a tall twig then. But it has grown, and is now about 12 feet high. For the last several years it’s been producing beautiful jewel-like cherries.

A couple of years ago I picked a big bowl of cherries, planning to make this soup. The cherries are small and fairly soft, so instead of using a cherry pitter, I just squirted the pits out by hand and put the pit-less cherries in a bowl. But after I measured the water into a pot and turned to get the bowl of cherries, I noticed that the contents of the bowl were moving! The cherries were full of tiny white worms – ugh! I had to throw the whole bowlful away.

Last year, I checked the cherries carefully before using them, and had to throw away most of them, even the ones that looked perfect, because of the worms. (The worms are not easy to see, because they’re tiny, there’s only one in each cherry, and they look almost like the  membrane in the inside of the fruit.) I’m not even sure if I had enough to make a soup or pie.

This year we sprayed the tree before it blossomed and before the fruit was set. That must have done the trick. I picked a big bowlful of cherries last Sunday and set out to make the soup. At first I was worried, because three out of the first four cherries I pitted had worms. But I kept plugging away, and in the end, I had to discard only about a quarter of the batch; I had just enough left for this soup.

If you don’t have a cherry tree, you may be able to find sour cherries in a specialty fruit store. Or you can use bing cherries, but you’d probably want to cut the sugar by about half.

Don’t be put off by its Pepto-Bismol color. This soup is light and very refreshing on a hot summer day!

Ingredients:

6 cups water
1 pound fresh sour cherries, pitted
¾ cup sugar
1 cup sour cream
2 Tbs. flour
¼ tsp. salt
1 tsp. confectioners’ sugar

Directions:

In a large saucepan, cook cherries with water and sugar until cherries are soft, about 10 minutes. In a medium bowl, mix sour cream with flour, salt and confectioners’sugar until smooth. Add about a half-cup of the hot cherry liquid to the sour cream mixture and whisk until smooth. Slowly add to the  saucepan with the cherries and stir or whisk until the liquid is smooth. Simmer for 5 minutes but don’t boil.

Cool to room temperature. Place plastic wrap directly on the surface of the soup so that a skin doesn’t form and refrigerate at least one hour. Serve cold as a first course or as a dessert. You may want to add a dollop of sour cream or whipped cream.

Serves 6

Tags: , , , , ,