Corn Soup

We were able to purchase some fresh corn from our store. So I ended up hunting for some fun recipes on the web to make use of the corn. One of the recipes that I really liked was corn soup by Munjulas Kitchen. The part that was great to me was that she did not use any cream in this recipe. Here is how I made it.

Ingredients:
- 3 corn (I used fresh corn)
- 1/2 cabbage shredded
- 2 carrots chopped finely
- 1 small tomato chopped - squeeze out any excess juice
- 1/2 a onion chopped
- 1 tsp corn starch
- 1 tsp black pepper (adjust to taste)
- 1 tsp jeera
- 1 tsp oil
- salt to taste.

Method:
1. Remove the husk and steam the corn till they are soft. Use a knife to remove the kernels. Keep a handful aside. Blend the rest to a smooth paste.
2. In a hot pan add oil and jeera. Once the jeera splutters add onion and cook till it becomes slightly brown. Now add the carrots and cabbage and cook they are soft to touch.
3. Traditionally you will strain the corn and get the juice with none of the pulp. Instead of doing that I just added the blended corn to my carrot and cabbage mixture. This will taste more chunkier then your regular soup.
4. Mix your corn starch with 1/4 cup of water and add it to the soup. Add another 2 -3 cups of water, salt and pepper and bring this mixture to a boil.
5. After the soup has thickened to the consistency you prefer add the chopped tomatoes. Let it boil for a minute or two. Turn off the heat and serve this hot.

It makes a great lunch with just some breads to accompany it. Sending this recipe to Bookmark Tuesday and also to Dish Name that Starts With C hosted by Akila of Learning to cook.

Sweet potato buns and Minestrone soup

This months tried and tested event features vegi inspiration. I had a few recipes I had book marked and I decided this was a good time to try these. I picked two of her recipe to make a light dinner. The first one is Sweet potato buns. This was a simple and a healthy bun to prepare. Made very few changs to the original recipe.

Ingredeints:
- 3/4 cup oat flour
- 1 cup whole wheat flour ( atta)
- 1/4 cup toasted wheat germ
- 1 1/2 tsp bread machine yeast
- 2 tsp brown sugar
- 1 cup mashed cooked, mashed sweet potato
- 1 1/4 tsp salt
- red chili flakes to taste
- 2 tbsp oil
- ground cumin and whole pepper, flax seed

Method:
1. Mix the oat and wheat flour with salt.
2. Add the ground cumin, black pepper and flax powder. Mix in your crushed red chili flakes with salt and brown sugar.
3. Now add the salt, and yeast (as I am using bread machine yeast I typically skip the proofing part). Add the sweet potato and now kneed the dough with required water until you get a soft and a pliable dough. I kneeded mine for 10 minutes.
4. Add 11/2 tbsp of olive oil and kneed it more until the dough absorves all the oil. Coat this soft dough with more oil and keep in a clean bowl that is twice the size of the dough.
5. Keep this in a dry place and let it rise for an hour or so. It should double its original size.
6. Now take the dough and seperate them to small balls. The size depends on how big you want your bread to be. Now line these dough balls in a greasd baking sheet. Let it raise for another hour.
7.Meanwhile preheat your oven to a 375 degree. Bake these buns for 20 minutes. Adjust temp to suit your oven.

Serve them hot with a soup which is exactly what I did. I made a minestrone soup to go with these delicious bread which was another recipe from veg inspiration. Here is a link to the original recipe. I had the day to myself and I was planing this soup for dinner. So I used a cast iron pot and simmered it all day. When I served it at night it was very flavorful and the vegi's had become very tender.



Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup white beans (I used lima beans) cooked
- 1 cup dried pasta ( I used shell pasta)
- 1 medium yellow onions
- 2 medium carrots chopped
- 2 stalks of celery chopped
- 3 very large tomatoes
- 1 tsp each of dried basil and oregeno
- 1 tsp red chili flakes
- 1 tsp of black pepper
- 1 tbsp of sun dried tomatoes (I used the one soaked in oil)
- 3 tbsp of tomato paste (I used this because I did not have vegetable stock)
- 1 tbsp oil
- salt to taste

Method:
1. In a large cast iron pot add oil and saute your onions. Once they become translucent add the carrots and celeray.
2. Cook them for a couple of minutes. Now add the chopped tomatoes, tomato paste and 2 - 3 cups of water, salt and let it simmer. I let this go at a low flame for an hour.
3. Now add your sun dried tomatoes, and all the spices. Add more water if needed. Mix in your boiled beans.
4. If you have time then I suggest you keep the cast iron pot in a low heat and let it cook through out the day. Otherwise try to use a vegetable broth. In spite of not using vegetable stock cooking it in a low flame just made the soup very flavorful.
5. About half an hour befoe serving add the uncooked pasta and cook till the pasta becomes aldente.

Garnish with parsley and serve hot with a som bread or bun. This was a real easy and healthy dinner.

Sending this to Tried and tested hosted by the taste space – steam, bake, boil, shake!