Vegetable Healthy Soups

These tempting and delicious recipes are also nutritional and are perfect to be part of a balanced diet. First of all, I need to clarify that I am not a good cook! All these recipes are part of my mother's daily dishes. Cooking is an avenue for her to express her creativity and resourcefulness, It is an art for her, and also a way to give love to her family and friends. She spends easily 4 hours to make lunch every day!

She recommends starting the day with breakfast. A healthy vegetable or red fruits juice, first of all, to be followed by some whole fruit such as papaya or orange. She gives us some integral bread and cheese or eggs five minutes later. We share a cup of coffee to go over general topics before my mother goes to the kitchen to start her magic.

She usually cooks vegetables such as Broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, artichokes, spinach, carrots, tomatoes, onions among many others to prepare delicious soups. This is how lunch starts. She also makes colorful salads to compliment the carbs and protein which follow. It is a feast not just for the taste, but for all the senses. My mother developed her own style and is able to create beautiful things out of ordinary, everyday ingredients.

I will publish first her carrot (or pumpkin) soup which is sweet and tasty. Please note that she follows very similar procedures to prepare all the vegetable soups, with minor but important variations that I will explain in the following paragraphs. She thickens the soup only with the vegetables mentioned in the ingredients, all the soups are creamy and thick.

- 1/2 litre of water

- 6 medium to big carrots

- 1 Scallion

- 1 chopped onion

- 4 garlic cloves

- 1 celery stalk

- Parsley

- 12 leaves of peppermint

The first step consists in chopping all the ingredients, except the peppermint leaves. After this, the chopped vegetables are put to boil in a liter of water, except the parsley, which is added only after the pot is retired from the heat. The pot is retired from the heat as soon as the mix is boiling. The pot's lid must be used all the time.

Wait fifteen minutes before adding all the hot mix in the blender. My mother recommends covering the blender with a small kitchen towel to avoid any accident in case the blender's lid opens. Blend until all the ingredients are finely mixed and a creamy texture is observed, after this, use a strainer and a spoon to refine the soup, making sure that all the liquid is poured back into the pot, leaving only the remaining "rags" from the vegetables. The soup is ready to serve. The peppermint leaves can be used to decorate the plates.

For the rest of the soups, we only need to change the main ingredient. Let's start with the spinach (or Swiss chard) soups. 2 lbs of these vegetables are needed to thicken the soup. The difference cooking this soup is found in that the spinach (or swiss chard) is only added to the water that boiled with the other ingredients after the heat is turned off. In other words, the spinach and the Swiss chard only need to be bleached.

For the broccoli soup (cauliflower, asparagus, artichokes, celery), the process is different in that the vegetable is added to the water that is boiling with the rest of ingredients three minutes before turning off the plate.

By the way, when my mother finished telling me her way of making these soups, I asked her if perhaps we could cook these soups with an herbal tea as the base, instead of simply water. She never tried this but encouraged me to try it! She just mentioned that perhaps it would be a good idea just to make the herbal tea before adding it to, in this instance, the 3/4 liters of boiling water. Peppermint tea will go nicely with the carrot and pumpkin soups while the basil tea will go nicely with the green soups.

Now to two of my favorite recipes. They are a bit different in the preparation method. My mother learned them from a friend a long time ago, so I am not sure where they come from, however, they do have my mother's touch.

1/2 Liter of Water

2 lbs red tomato ripped

1 stalk of celery

1 stalk of parsley

2 garlic cloves

1 stalk of spring onion

1 tbs sugar

Salt to taste

Boil the tomatoes with a tsp of sugar to be able to remove the acidity from the tomatoes. The other ingredients are cooked in just 150 ml of water (a cup) for 3-4 minutes.

The water where the tomatoes are cooked is discarded. The next step consists in blending all ingredients in a mixer. It is expected to blend twice as most of the mixers can take only half of the cooked tomatoes.

Once the mix is blended, the next step consists in strain and pour back to the pot and heat for 1 minute if you are going to consume it immediately. If you are going to consume later and want it warm, just be careful not to boil it. You can also consume it cold if desired. Decorate using the basil or peppermint leaves.

2 lb of white onion

0.5 lb beef or chicken

1 stalk of celery

1 stalk of parsley

1 stalk of spring onion

2 garlic cloves

2 baby potatoes

150 ml Milk

Olive oil

Cream (optional)

1 liter of water

Peel the onions making circular cuts and fry them using a tablespoon of olive oil until gold. In the mean time put to boil the rest of the ingredients with the beef or chicken chopped in small blocks. After 10 minutes mix the onion with the stock and boil for two more minutes. Retire the pot from the heat and wait 15 minutes before blending in the mixer. Add low-fat milk and low-fat cream (optional) while blending. Strain and serve.

I prefer to measure the water with the bowls I am going to use to serve the soups. I put 2 bowls of water if I prepare the recipe for four. You can modify the amount of water to make the soup thicker or thinner.

Enjoy!