Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Soup

This dish was born out of laziness… pure laziness. However, when I came around to making it – I ended up making my own bread, roasted red peppers and pesto. How that happened, I will never know!

The soup is served with basil pesto toasts and is perfect for the cold autumn/winter nights. It’s easy to make, packed full of flavor, and will supply you with a boost of vitamin A, C, B6, antioxidants and phytonutrients.

Chicken, Pumpkin and Potato Coconut Curry Soup

One of the best things about the passing of summer is the availability of pumpkins! I use the term pumpkins loosely here, I also mean winter squash. We love winter squash; we love homemade soup; we love coconut milk and we love Thai curry... so, this soup was born! It’s the perfect winter warmer.

Chicken is simmered with delicata squash (or kabocha) and potatoes (or rice) in a coconut curry soup base. It’s creamy, well-flavored and has all the major food groups. If you’re vegetarian, feel free to substitute the chicken for tofu.

Roasted Butternut Squash & Red Pepper Soup

This is a classic favorite of ours. I was first inspired to make this soup when I used to buy tinned soup… yes, I really did use to buy tinned soup. Baxter’s did a nice butternut squash & red pepper and a really delicious Cullen skink.

How hard can making butternut squash and red pepper soup be? To enhance the flavor of the vegetables, I roasted them until they are caramelized in spots. Then you simply liquidize everything together – easy-peasy. I used to make huge batches of this soup, and freeze it into portions for evenings when I’m too lazy to cook.

Chipotle Sweet Potato Soup

Friday is either pizza-night or soup with focaccia-night. When it’s the soup option, it has to pretty hearty – it is after all, the main meal of our day. The recipe easily serves four, but the two of us eat it in one sitting.

Sweet Potato, Carrot & Cumin Soup

Last year, I got hoodwinked into standing in for a friend, for a colleague’s business one evening. The role was to sell soups at the Farmer’s Market in Sammamish through Jerry Baxter’s company, Got Soup?

It was a really, really warm Spring day and I thought it was ludicrous trying to sell soup. It was in fact 950 ml (1 quart) of frozen soup that you take home and use for a quick meal. Each tub cost $10 a shot (at that moment in time). I think we sold close to 50 containers over a period of 2-3 hours!!! It’s a money making business, and all due respect goes to Jerry, who's finally doing what he always wanted to.

Minestrone Soup

Minestrone soup is one of those mish-mash foods, like fried rice - it could include anything. The usual minestrone usually has a bunch of veggies in a tomato-based soup; sometimes it has meat, beans and pasta too!

This version has mild-spiced Italian-style chicken sausage, pasta and loads of veggies. Because this soup contained pasta, there was no need for any bread for this meal.

Chili con Carne Soup

Chili con carne is what we used to make as students, only there was less carne, and more of the frijoles. That was because we had very little money and beans were cheaper than meat!

One of my favorite quotes from J is “the only difference between a stew or a soup, is the amount of water added”. It’s very true! To water down chili con carne would give you chili con carne soup!

Green Lentil Soup

This soup is delicious, although it doesn’t look it. I would rarely make this soup, because it's just protein. When J had his wisdom teeth pulled, I needed to find a way to get some protein into him. However, I’m not sure that eating soup when the temperature is 31°C/88°F is such a good idea.

This soup tastes identical to the ones we’ve tried in the Mediterranean restaurants we’ve visited. It’s mealy/floury from the lentils and is lightly spiced with a cumin seeds.