Fish and tomato soup

This recipe is from a Swedish website tasteline.se. The original recipe has saffron in it but I'm not a huge fan of saffron so I skipped that and added some other ingredients as well. I was very happy with the result.

Ingredients
serves 4
2 red onions
3-4 garlic cloves
½ red chili
2 carrots
1 capsicum
4 broccolini stalks
500 ml tomato passata
200 ml stock (I used beef because that's what I had at home)
400 ml water
1 bay leaf
400-500 g fish (I used 200 g salmon and 250 g white fish)
salt and pepper to taste
cayenne pepper to taste

Slice the carrots and cut the capsicum and broccolini into bite-size pieces. Put aside for now.
Chop the onion and finely chop the garlic and chili. Heat up a large pot over medium heat and add some grease (I used ghee). Fry the onion, garlic and chili for a couple of minutes. Add the other veggies together with the passata, stock, water and bay leaf. Bring to a boil and let it simmer for about 15 minutes.
Cut the fish into smaller pieces and add this to the soup. Let it simmer for another 5 minutes or until the fish is cooked through. Season with salt, pepper and cayenne.

Roast vegetable soup with leftover roast chicken

Last night we had roast chicken for dinner. Since it's just the two of us we normally don't eat a whole chicken. So I found this great recipe from Against all grain which uses leftover roasted chicken in a soup. It was also super easy to make

Ingredients
serves 3-4
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 carrots, peeled and cubed
700 ml peeled and cubed butternut pumpkin (about 1/3 of a big one)
1 small onion, quartered
2 tbsp olive oil
1 liter chicken stock
leftover roasted chicken, shredded
½ red chili, finely chopped
1 tsp salt
3/4 tsp dried parsley
½ tsp dried thyme
½ tsp dried rosemary
½ tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp cracked black pepper
240 ml water
480 ml baby spinach

Preheat the oven to 225 degrees Celsius.
Prepare all the vegetables and toss them in the olive oil (include the garlic cloves). Roast in the middle of the oven for 20 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender.
While the veggies are in the oven, bring the chicken stock to a simmer in a large pot. Add the chicken, chili, herbs, salt and pepper. Cover and cook for about 15 minutes.
Add half the roasted veggies to the soup and place the other half in a blender together with 240 ml of water. Make sure to put all the onion pieces in the blender. Blend until you have a smooth puree.
Add the vegetable puree and spinach to the soup and simmer for another 5-10 minutes, until the spinach is wilted and all of the soup is hot.

Spicy meat soup

I really like soups, especially when it is getting a bit colder and darker outside around this time of the year. I however sometimes just feel like vegetable soup of some kind (i.e. pumpkin) whilst my other half wants some more protein in them. So I found this recipe on Under vart tak and decided to give it a try. I think we were both very happy with the result. I added some cauliflower to the recipe for some extra veggies.

Ingredients
serves 4
500 g mince meat
125 g bacon
1 onion
2 carrots
1/4 head of cauliflower
690 g tomato passata (or crushed tomatoes)
400 ml coconut milk
100 ml stock
2-3 garlic cloves
½ red chili
3 tsp paprika powder
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp salt (or herbal salt)
pinch of black pepper
pinch of cayenne pepper (or as much as you think you can handle)
handful of fresh parsley
handful of fresh basil
butter, olive or coconut oil to fry in

Peel and finely chop the onion.
Grate the carrot and the cauliflower with the big grater.
Fry the onion and other veggies in a big pot with your choice of grease.
Chop the bacon to small pieces and add these to the pot. Fry them for a few minutes.
Add the mince meat and let it all fry together until the mince meat is cooked through.
Finely chop the chili and crush the garlic and add this to the pot.
Add the tomato passata and the coconut milk.
Add the spices and mix around. Finally add the fresh herbs and let it all simmer for a few minutes until all the flavours are mixed through and the soup is hot.
Serve it with some nice Paleo focaccia

Creamy carrot soup

My spouse is not a huge fan of soups so I took the opportunity to make one when he wasn't home for dinner. It turned out pretty good even though I didn't follow the recipe fully. I got the recipe from undervarttak.blogspot.se and the original had 600-700 ml coconut milk but I thought that was a bit too much so I modified it a bit.

Ingredients
serves 3-4
7 carrots
1 onion
2 garlic cloves
½ red chili
400 ml coconut milk
100 ml beef stock
400 ml water
parsley
thyme
salt and pepper

Peel and chop the carrots and onion into small pieces. Peel the garlic cloves and crush them with a knife. Split and take the seeds out of the chili.
Pour the stock and water in a pot and add the carrots, onion, garlic and chili. Bring it to a boil and let it boil until the carrots are soft (time for this depends on how big you've cut the carrots).
Take off the heat and mix with a hand blender until it's a smooth puré. Add the coconut milk and mix a little bit more. Put back on the heat and add parsley, thyme, salt and pepper to taste. Bring it to a boil so that it heats up. Serve with some crispy fried bacon on top.

Here served with crispy fried serrano ham and spring onion