Mouth on Fire Minestrone [The Veggie-Lover's Sriracha Cookbook]

I'm easing into the vegan Sriracha cookbook with their minestrone recipe. Minestrone is pretty flexible, though this one is interesting as they omit pasta completely, it's just beans and veggies. They offer the liberty of switching up for whatever veggies are in season, but that's not the name of the game here.

Cookbook Recipe:

Ingredients:

• 4 cups vegetable stock
• 1/4 cup Sriracha
• 6 Roma tomatoes, diced (due to some cosmic joke, my grocery store only had 5 Roma tomatoes, so I made the necessary substitution of adding one small non-Roma tomato)
• 3 carrots, chopped
• 3 stalks of celery, chopped
• 1 red onion, diced
• 1 large zucchini, halved lengthwise and diced (zucchini options were limited at the grocery store, I think this one's been in a fight)
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tbsp minced fresh oregano or 1 1/2 tsp dried. I went with dried.
• 1 3/4 cups cooked canned cannellini beans or 1 undrained 443 ml / 15 oz can (I could only find a larger can, so I've saved extra beans some for a salad or pasta later)
• 1 bunch kale, stemmed and chopped
• juice of 1 lemon
• salt and fresh ground pepper

Following the cookbook recipe exactly:

1. Basically, into a big pot on high heat, chuck most of the ingredients: the stock, Sriracha, tomatoes, carrots, celery, onion, zucchini, garlic, bay leaves, and oregano. Bring it to a boil, lower heat, cover, and let simmer for 15 minutes.

Thank god kale boils down.

2. Remove the bay leaves and add the kale and beans. Simmer for about 5 to 7 minutes more.

3. Stir in the lemon juice, season, and serve.

The Outcome:

This is a pretty tasty soup - it's at a right juncture of hearty and healthy where you feel full without feeling gross. The Sriracha gives it a bit of zing but doesn't overwhelm (my mouth definitely isn't on fire, though). It's a pretty straightforward recipe, and really easy - plus it helps you get your veggies in! The only problem I would have with it is adding the lemon juice at the very end - it comes off a bit too strong and distinct. I would give the lemon time to really combine in, maybe add it a minute before you stop cooking. The lemon does meld in nicely when you let the soup sit and then reheat it. I would definitely use this as a good base recipe, it makes a lot of soup and the author is right - it's minestrone, you can add pretty much whatever veggies you want.

Kale and Potato Soup with Turkey Sausage [Quick from Scratch Chicken, Turkey & Cornish Hens]

The final recipe from Quick from Scratch's poultry cookbook! I finally got a turkey recipe in - this kale, potato, and turkey sausage soup - it's really hard to find turkey outside of Thanksgiving, but I found what I was looking for. I was originally going to do a different turkey sausage recipe, but it included grits, which are almost impossible to find in Canada - they're just not eaten here. But out here is kale country - between the frost-free winters and the general hippiness of Victoria - there's always huge amounts of locally grown kale. This recipe is basically caldo verde, a traditional Portuguese soup, just with turkey sausage instead of Portuguese sausage.

Cookbook Recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp cooking oil
• 1 lb turkey or chicken sausage (I took the liberty of getting spicy sausage)
• 1 onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, in thin slices
• 1 quart water (I had to look up the conversion, it's about 950mL)
• 2 cups canned low-sodium chicken broth or homemade stock
• 1 1/2 tsp salt (...for the low-sodium broth.)
• 1 1/2 lb "boiling potatoes" (I picked up some nice yellow ones), peeled and cut into 1/4 inch pieces
• Pinch dried red pepper flakes (I made it a generous pinch)
• 1 lb kale, stems removed, leaves shredded (do you know how much one pound of kale is? Just put as much kale as you can into your arms, and then add more on top)
• 1/4 tsp fresh-ground black pepper

I am the Kale Queen.

Following the cookbook recipe exactly:

1. In a large pot, heat the oil over a moderately low heat. Add the sausage and cook, turning, until browned - about 10 minutes. This turned out to be not enough time to cook the sausages completely - they were still raw in the centre. However, they do get boiled later.

Definitely still squidgy on the inside

2. Remove the sausages and let cool. Once you can handle them, cut them into slices. The recipe says to pour off all but 1 tbsp of fat, but these sausages didn't really release any - there was still the original tbsp of oil and that was about it.
 
3. Add the onion to the pot and cook, stirring occasionally, until it's translucent - 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute more. Add the water, broth, and salt and bring the soup to a boil.

A "pinch" of chili flakes

4. Add the sausage, potatoes, pepper flakes, and bring back to a simmer. Cook, partially covered for 2 minutes.

It better boil down, I'm just saying.

5. Add the kale (it DOES boil down!) and bring back to a boil. Simmer, partially covered, until potatoes are cooked, about 6 minutes. Add the black pepper.

The Outcome:

This is probably the first one that looks close to the cookbook picture. It's pretty tasty! The sausages cooked up just fine in the soup, and the flavours are basic but work well. I'm glad I did the not-quite-substitute of using spicy turkey sausage and being generous on my pinch of chili pepper - if I made it again I would probably put 2 tbsp at least of the chilies into the soup - not enough to make it "spicy", but enough to give it a slight zip. It's a pretty hearty and straightforward recipe and makes a ton of soup.