The Boyfriendly Cooking hiatus is over! Hurrah!

The boyfriendly household is expecting a long-term dinner (breakfast and lunch) guest arriving in September. That’s right, we’re cooking for three (and a hungry orange tabby). Suffice to say, foodblogging fell a bit to the wayside for several months, but now I’m back and hungry!

To get back into the swing of things and celebrate the start of spring and chilled soups (mmm!) I decided to make Gordon Ramsay’s avocado and cucumber soup that was featured on Canada AM last week. A previous attempt at avocado soup did not have great results, but I was willing to give Gordon’s recipe a shot. It was much more refreshing than the Ace Bakery version I had previously made.

Boyfriendly rating: 5/5

Gordon Ramsay’s avocado and cucumber soup
Ingredients

• 2 large cucumbers, abut 14 oz each, chilled
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 2 ripe avocados
• 2 tbsp strained plain yogurt
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• Sea salt & black pepper
• ½ red onion minced
• 1 plum tomato, seeded & minced
• 1 tbsp olive oil, plus extra to drizzle
• 3-4 basil leaves, finely shredded

Directions

Peel the cucumbers, quarter lengthwise, and remove the seeds. Dice a quarter and set aside for the garnish. Roughly chop the rest, place in a blender with half the lemon juice, and whiz until smooth.

Halve, pit, and peel the avocados. Mince one avocado half to use for the garnish. Squeeze over a little lemon juice and set aside with the diced cucumber. Tip the rest of the avocados into the blender.

Blend the avocados with the pureed cucumber, strained plain yogurt, and Worcestershire sauce until very smooth. Season generously with salt and pepper, and add lemon juice to taste. Chill until ready to serve.

For the garnish, combine the diced cucumber and avocado with the red onion and tomato. Toss with the olive oil and shredded basil.

Taste the chilled soup for seasoning and add a splash of cold water if it is too thick. Pour into four chilled bowls and spoon the garnish into the center. Add a drizzle of olive oil and grind over a little pepper to serve.

With a last name like “Stewart” you’d think I’d make stew a lot more often. Truth is, I never really liked stew. I still scrunch up my nose at the sound of the word. Let’s call this a thick soup and move on.

This week’s veggie basket included parsley root. Except, I really thought I was ordering parsnips! So much for shopping by picture - always read the fine print! Once the parsley root confusion got sorted out, the next question was.. what the heck do I do with parsley root? Until this week, I’d lived almost (ALMOST!) 30 years blissfully ignorant of their existence.

Readers from Europe-land will probably laugh at my ignorance of such a staple vegetable. It seems this quirky little vegetable is a staple in Holland, Germany and Poland… so much so they even call it “Dutch parsley” or “German parsley” depending on which side of the Smart Car you’re standing on. : )

I decided to side with the fraulines and make a Germanic-y stew with caraway dumplings.

The plan? To turn this:

Into this:

It turned out to be a nice hearty soup.  Not STEW.  I put more little pearl onions in because I thought they looked cool.  Because when you make stew… I mean SOUP… it’s important to maintain optimal coolness.

The only thing I didn’t love was the dumplings.  I put in waaaaaay too many caraway seeds.  Each little dumpling had the flavour of a thousand loaves of rye bread.  Maybe that’s how the fraulines dig it, but I found it distracting from the taste of my soup.  And there was no need to distract from the soup - it was delicious.

The parsley root was a nice change too, but I’m not sure how to describe the taste.  Green?  Nutty?  Sort of like parsnip that lost its sweetness.  It blended well with the other vegetables, so it gets an A+ for “playing well with others.”  If parsely root was a person, it would probably be a wallflower at the school dance.  You just need to give it a try to find out that underneath it all, it’s a really nice person.

Chicken Stew with Caraway Dumplings

• 1 1/2 Tbsp. butter
• 500 grams chicken thighs chopped (I used 6)
• 1 onion
• 1/4 cup flour
• 2 leeks (white part only)
• 1 pound bag of parsley root
• 2 parsnips
• 3 carrots
• 12 small white pearl onions
• 10 peppercorns
• 2 bay leafs
• 1 cup frozen peas
• 1 tsp thyme, rosemary
• Salt & pepper
• 4 cups water
• 2 tsp chicken stock
• 1 1/2 Tbsp lemon juice

For the dumplings:

• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup flour
• 2 Tbsp vegetable oil
• Salt
• 2 Tbsp caraway seeds (I’d use less next time .. maybe 1 Tbsp.)

In a dutch oven (German recipe, Dutch oven!), melt the butter over medium high heat. Brown the chicken and chopped onion.

Sprinkle the flour over the chicken pieces and mix to absorb the flour. Add the parsnips, parsley roots, carrots, whole white onions, peppercorns, thyme, rosemary, chicken stock and bay leafs. Cover with water and bring to just below a boil. Simmer until vegetables are soft - about 30 minutes. Add the peas and cook for 10 more minutes. Season with salt and pepper and add the lemon juice.

While the stew is simmering, prepare the dumplings. Stir together the eggs, flour, vegetable oil, salt and caraway seeds. Drop the dough by the tablespoon on top of the stewing chicken, making sure the balls don’t sink into the gravy. Cover and cook for 20 minutes without looking. Serve immediately.

Makes 6 servings.

Boyfriendly rating: *4/5 *The boy said 5/5, but I think it’s really a 4/5.

With two golden beets remaining from last week’s veggie box and leeks from this week’s delivery, I decided to use them for a beet soup. It had a really interesting flavour - sort of a mix between a carrot and parsnip soup. Very easy and in the end, very delicious.

Boyfriendly rating: 5/5

Roasted Golden Beet Soup

• 2 large golden beets
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 cup thinly sliced leeks (white and light green parts only!)
• 1 clove garlic
• Approximately 4 cups vegetable stock
• Plain yogurt for serving
• Salt and white pepper
• 1 tsp tarragon
• 1 tsp thyme

Method:

Preheat oven to 400F. Peel beets and slice into quarters. Wrap beets tightly in tin foil and bake for 1 hour. Remove and let cool. Slice into bite size pieces.

Add oil to a large saucepan (I used a dutch oven) over medium heat. Add the leeks and saute for 3-4 minutes. Add garlic and cook for one more minute.

Add beets and vegetable stock. Bring to the boil. Cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes.

Using a handblender, blend soup to desired consistency.

Serve in bowls with a large dollop of yogurt.

Serves 4.

Sometimes a recipe is so good, you don’t even have to think twice.  With red kale in our veggie box this week, we relied on our trusty kale and lentil soup.  Sequels can be good!

I should have known it was going to snow today.  How?  When my internal chili alarm went off yesterday afternoon.  This little alarm tells me to start cooking warm meals and stock up on hot chocolate and marshmallows.

After a quick search, I found this easy chili recipe (sorry, not Veggie!) that’s flavoured with cocoa powder.   The overall flavour was pretty good - I decided to drain the liquid from the tomatoes and kidney beans to reduce the cooking time.  (When the chili alarm rings, you can’t wait AN HOUR for it to simmer.)

I topped it off with a heaping of  chedddar cheese.  Delicious!

Boyfriendly rating: 4/5  (The flavours probably would have developed more in an hour, but time was of the essence.)

This week’s vegetable box contained a big bunch of kale (Red Russian kale to be exact). I thought it would be a great addition to a hearty winter soup.

Kale is a real “super food” - according to Wikipedia it’s “considered to be one of the most highly nutritious vegetables, with powerful antioxidant properties and is anti-inflammatory. Kale is very high in beta carotene, vitamin K, vitamin A, vitamin C, lutein and zeaxanthin and reasonably rich in calcium.” So there you go.

Second Wikipdedia fun fact - Canada is the largest export producer of lentils in the world and Saskatchewan is the most important producing region in Canada. Crazy!

Here’s how I made my Sausage, kale and beluga lentil soup. First, the kale got chopped up.

Another new ingredient to us - beluga lentils. I picked these up at the Herb & Spice. They look a little more fancy than the standard green lentils.

Soup simmering for 30 minutes…

And the result!

De.lic.ious. And extemely boy friendly.

Rating: 5/5 - fast, easy, healthy, delicious. What more could you ask for?

Boyfriendly beluga lentils, kale and sausage soup

• 3 links of Italian sausage thinly sliced (Tried to buy turkey, but there was none at the grocery store)
• 2 cloves garlic (minced)
• 1 onion
• 1/2 cup beluga lentils
• 3-4 cups of water (I used close to 4 - the lentils soak up a lot of water)
• 3 tsp chicken stock powder
• 1 1/2 cups (generous) of thinly sliced kale (stems removed)
• 1 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar

Method:

Brown sausage in a heavy bottom pot. (If there’s a lot of grease, you can remove the sausage and pat off the excess - I didn’t find this necessary). Add chopped garlic and onion and cook until softened.

Add lentils, water, stock powder. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Add kale in the last 5 minutes and simmer uncovered. Before serving stir in the Balsamic vinegar and add pepper to taste.

Make two large meal size servings. I’d probably double this recipe next time to have leftovers for the next day.