Curry Ginger and Carrot Soup

January 08, 2018 in Recipes

Hey! Hiiii. How's it going? Happy new year!!

For some of you the first day back to work/school/life is today and if so, lucky you! I started back up last Tuesday and because of that, it has taken me awhile to muster the energy to blog right away. It was also extremely cold last week and when it's like that I never want to do much. But! Now I'm back and working on ideas for the new year. I'm so excited for 2018 - I have a feeling it's going to be even better than last year! :)

Over the break I spent a lot of time cooking and was able to try a bunch of recipes from the new cookbooks I received for Christmas. A few of my favorites include: Dining In, Food52 A New Way to Dinner, and the Vanilla Bean Baking Book. It was so nice to cook and try new recipes without photographing them!

Because sometimes...I just want to be a normal person and eat food while it's still hot. Haha.

While I don't follow any diets or strict detoxes, I do like to eat healthier at the start of the year and the best way I have learned how to do so (for me at least) is to eat all the soups. Soup season is my FAV. I wanted to share this recipe with you because I make a version of it all the time. Sometimes I add a cooked potato, cauliflower, butternut squash, spinach, or any other leftover vegetables I have lying around. Other times I omit the curry powder and coconut milk and just add regular milk or almond milk and season it with fresh herbs.

However you make this soup, it is totally adaptable to whatever you have at home in your kitchen. It is so healthy and has the most beautiful golden color, too!

Creamy Curry Ginger and Carrot Soup

makes 5 cups

Ingredients

1 tbl coconut oil or butter
1/2 onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, chopped
1 inch piece of ginger root, peeled and chopped
2 cups roughly chopped and peeled carrots
1 1/2 tsp curry powder
1 cup vegetable or chicken broth
1 can (13.5 oz) coconut milk
lime wedges, for serving
cilantro, sour cream, and sliced radishes, for garnish (optional)

Directions

In a deep skillet over medium heat, melt the coconut oil. Add the onions, season with salt, and cook until soft, about 8-10 minutes. Add the garlic and ginger, and cook for an additional 1-2 minutes. Add the carrots and the curry powder. Stir in the broth. Bring to a simmer, and reduce heat to low. Cook for 10 minutes to slightly soften carrots and combine all of the flavors.

Carefully transfer the soup to a high speed blender or food processor. Add the coconut milk (this will cool the soup down). Blend on high speed for a few minutes or until soup is completely smooth and creamy. Add more broth as necessary to thin out soup if desired.

Serve with fresh lime wedges, cilantro and a dollop of sour cream.

Creamy Broccoli and Spinach Miso Soup

March 16, 2017 in Recipes

Hello I'm back from SXSW! The past couple of weeks have been crazy busy, but I am back and in a somewhat normal routine once again. March always tends to be a busy month after the slowness of January and February, and this time has been especially busy because over the past week I have been at SXSW with the feedfeed! It was a lot of work but a lot of fun too. I was able to meet so many creative and food-loving individuals from all over Austin and beyond. I also got to finally meet my coworkers for the first time since working with them, which was really nice to finally put faces to names.

Each day we had a very full schedule which kept us busy! We ran food styling demos in our lounge at The Driskill Hotel, and had events in the evenings that we either hosted or attended. I even tried Franklin BBQ for the first time (without having to wait four hours in line) and while I can't say I thought it was as good as all the hype, it definitely was delicious.

What else is new? Last weekend Kyle and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary (!!) and we went to Fredericksburg for a night and stayed in a wagon. I was a little hesitant that it would be a disaster of an experience for celebrating an anniversary and all, but was pleasantly surprised to find how big the wagon was inside and how clean and brand new everything was. We talked with the sweet owners and they said they had just finished building it only a few months before. We even built a cozy fire in the fire pit right outside and it was almost like camping except way better because it was not actual camping. Of course, we had to have German food while in Fredericksburg so we had dinner at Otto's and it was amazing. If your are ever there you should definitely try their schnitzel!

Now about this soup! Tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day (also, my birthday!!!) and I'm glad that I was able to bring something green to the blog in celebration. While a healthy broccoli and spinach soup might not be what you had in mind for celebrating St. Patty's day, after eating a lot of random stuff for SXSW I would gladly welcome some healthy veggies. Although, since it is also my birthday I probably won't be eating super healthy since cake will definitely be involved. : D

Oh, and! I did a live demo of how to style these creamy soup's on the feedfeed's instagram on Monday, and had so much fun doing it. I talked a bit about what equipment I use for photography and briefly how I make GIF's like the one above. So for anyone who tuned in to watch that, here is the super simple recipe. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Creamy Broccoli and Spinach Miso Soup

Ingredients:

1 tbl. Olive oil
1/2 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
16 oz. Broccoli florets, fresh or frozen
4 cups water
2 cups spinach
Salt and pepper
2 tbl. miso paste

Directions:

In a large pot heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add in the onion, and cook until soft. Add in the garlic, and cook for an additional 1-2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Add in the broccoli, water, and miso. Cover and allow to cook until broccoli is soft, 4-5 minutes. Stir in the spinach, cooking for less than a minute until the spinach is soft and wilted.

Transfer soup mixture to a high speed blender and blend in batches until smooth.

Serve with a dollop of yogurt, fresh black pepper, olive oil, and finely diced red onion (optional, but delicious!).

Spaghetti Squash Filipino Pancit

September 30, 2016 in Recipes

You know what I did this week? I kind of went paleo. Yes--the girl who has never stuck to any sort of diet in any shape or form ever in her life. The girl who loves cheese, and rice, and bread, and pasta. I just wanted a little healthy reset, and since both of my parents are on this diet, I have been hearing about it a lot. My dad keeps telling me new recipe ideas that he "can't believe are paleo" so it convinced me to give it a try. And besides a couple of oreos and one slice of white bread at our apartment's Rudy's BBQ get together by the pool, I have been sticking to it! I have felt really good, (I hate to admit) and I'm not sure if it's because I have cut out carbs or because I haven't had any dairy.

My idea with going paleo for the week was simply to just eat healthier Monday through Friday (except for Friday night date night obviously), and then splurge a bit more on the weekends. We'll see how long I can keep this up, but don't worry, you won't only be seeing paleo recipes here on this site from now on.

So, tonight we are going to celebrate with a huge, greasy, cheesy, pepperoni, Detroit style pizza at Via 313. We have been wanting to go to this place for weeks, but every time we want to go we come up with some lame excuse not to. The only thing getting me through this "paleo week" has been the goal of Friday night pizza date night. Will this be completely counterintuitive? Probably. But it's worth it.

While this version of Fililpino pancit isn't exactly paleo (the soy sauce is not), it is still a very healthy option that uses spaghetti squash instead of rice noodles. I've been seeing beautiful varieties of squash at the grocery store recently, and I can't wait to use them more in soups and stews as the weather gets cooler.

Spaghetti Squash Pancit

Ingredients:

1 medium spaghetti squash, sliced in half lengthwise and seeds removed
1/2 onion, diced
3 large carrots, sliced thin
1 cup sliced bok choy or shredded cabbage
1 cup cooked chicken
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup scallions, diced
Salt and pepper
2-3 tbl. oil

Directions: Preheat oven to 375 degrees Farenheit. Drizzle spaghetti squash with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Place on a baking sheet with outsides facing up. Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until squash is tender inside.

Pull out the insides with the tines of a fork, and set aside in a large bowl.

In a large skillet, add cooking oil over medium high heat. Add diced onions, and cook for 2-3 minutes, or until onions begin to become soft. Add sliced carrots, and continue cooking for 2-3 minutes. Add bok choy and garlic, and continue cooking until cook choy becomes soft. Add cooked chicken and pancit "noodles" (spaghetti squash). Season with soy sauce, freshly ground pepper, and add some salt if necessary. (Because the squash is naturally slightly sweet, you will need to probably add more salt than regular noodles to balance it out.)

Toss together until all ingredients are fully mixed together.

Remove from pan, and top with the dicedscallions. Let cool slightly before serving.