Cool Cucumber Soup

 I'm sure somewhere in Russia people are cursing California for having all the sun and year round heat. But you know what, I would gladly trade them some rain and cold for sunshine! If only you could trade light! We're in the thick of a hot summer here in Southern California (that's SoCal to us locals), and short of taking your skin off there's not much you can do if you don't have an air conditioner in your house that's working. Stupid air conditioning! So I have this soup instead. Its yummy  (a vegetable no less!), light, and COLD. Cold is the important word in there folks. Say it with me. Cooooooold. I feel cool already!

 The soup is ridiculously easy to make! So easy your 5 year old could probably make it without your help! That's right, if you can get free labor to save you from having to become even hotter than you already are, then do it! Just remind them how many hours it took to birth them and they should stop complaining. Or you know, bribe them with Popsicles. I made this soup late at night, and even WITH taking pictures I finished in 30 minutes. That's with taking photos! Imagine how fast it'll be without needing to do that! So here you go, Cucumber soup! 

Meet the entire cast! No really, this is it you guys! 

See that greek yogurt I snuck in there? See how secretly healthy this is!?

 So like I said, this is super easy!You know, so you don't have to sweat any more than you have to. First, chop the three cucumbers in half. Then peel them. You could peel it all first then chop it, but I found that it's kinda slippery, so it's better to chop them in half to begin with. This is where you'll run into the only hard part! Pesky seeds! 

Pretty but not so tasty if you get them in your soup! 

Now  I suppose you could just use a spoon to scrape out all the seeds. BUT I LIKE BEING FANCY! So I dug around my fancy drawer and found my melon baller! You guys, no joke, that thing is AWESOME. Use it to de-seed cucumbers. It's amazing! I bet you could use it for all sorts of things besides for melons! 

I cleaned this out in less than thirty seconds! 

After than you're going to cut it in half length wise then chop them in half cross wise. Not TOO small. Maybe an inch in width? You'll be putting it in a blender, so don't get out your rulers or anything! 

Chop, chop, chop!

Next you chop up the mint! I used mint from my garden, which is lemon mint, but you can add any kind you want! I feel like pineapple mint might make for a really interesting flavor! I didn't show how I minced the mint last time, so here's a picture by picture of how! 

Pile  them up on top of each other!

Roll 'em up!

slice em width wise!

Slice 'em length wise! You're done!

 That's the most complicated thing you're going to do! Next is the EASY part! I did this in two batches because I have a small blender. If you have a food processor, seriously use it! You're going to throw in your cucumbers, coconut milk (I used  cream because I wanted it thicker. LEARN FROM ME. Use the cream!), greek yogurt, cumin, a dash of salt, pepper, and mint! You can add your dill too, I forgot to add it in, and had to throw it in at the last minute! 

 


Blend it all up! Mine came out a bit...choppy? Fine granules of cucumber! Not bad at all, but I bet it could be made smoother with a nice blender or food processor. I think my blender is from the 90's. How it's still alive and kicking (mostly) I have NO idea. I think it sold its soul to run forever or something. 

Once your done, pour it into a bowl and adjust seasoning. Just so you know, salt actually becomes saltier when soaking in food over time, so go easy on the salt (again, LEARN FROM MISTAKES!). 

See the granules? It added a fun texture, but I think smoother would be better!

Added dill at the last minute as an afterthought! Oops!

This soup has to chill for at LEAST 3 hours  (makes it thick!), I made mine to rest overnight to have for lunch! It was so cooling and delicious! You can have the option to then cut up an extra cucumber (peeled of course!) and sprinkle it into your bowl. Or just enjoy it without them! I ate it both ways and loved it! The I wish you guys had smell-o-vision. This stuff smelled so good and tasted so light and refreshing! ENJOY! 


Cool Cucumber Soup

 4 Cucumbers peeled, seeded (Only 3. The fourth is for garnish) 

 1 cup greek yogurt

 1 14oz can coconut cream (coconut milk is fine if you can't find the cream, but I can't be blamed if it turns out more watery!) 

2 Tablespoons (or however much you want. I had more than 2) Mint

1/4 Teaspoon cumin 

Salt/Pepper to taste 

Dill to taste 

Directions: 

Peel, de-seed, and chop up 3 cucumbers. Mince the mint. Put everything in a blender (or use an immersion blender) and blend it up! Readjust seasoning if you wish--remember that salt gets saltier in dishes over time! if it's under salted by the time you take it out, just add more salt then! Pour soup in bowl and cover, putting in fridge to sit for at LEAST 3 hours. Overnight is better! 

Magical Tomato Soup

Hello Soup lovers! It's been a while, I know! There's this thing called life (and three other blogs) that tends to get in the way of not only making soups, but posting about them! So here is a magical soup to tide you all over! The magical part is the lack of 8 million ingredients! Normally this soup takes like...45 minutes TOPS to make. But if you're taking photos along the way (and by yourself, mind you!) then it takes more like...an hour and a half....oops? This soup is thick, delicious, and easy to make! I hope you like tomatoes, because this is nothing but! And if you grow your own Pomodoro (or Amish Paste) this recipe is perfect for them!

   Alright lets get this party started! First, grab yourself a glass of wine like I did--because cooking starts with a good glass! Tonight I had this!

Now to introduce to you the cast of characters! I forgot to add the Chicken Broth into the picture! Oops!

 Now the easy part! Take a sip of wine and get to work! Chop up the onions--you don't have to chop 'em up small, you'll be putting it in a blender--and mince the garlic! That's about the only actual work you have to do! 

See how easy that was?! I know chopping and mincing is strenuous, so go ahead and take another drink or two of wine! Next you're going to do the even easier part! Heat up the 2 T of olive oil. As you can tell I added 1 T of butter. This is because butter makes everything better (but it IS optional)!

Then throw in the garlic and onions for a minute or two, then add in the Herbs, Bay Leaf, and Cayenne pepper! let it cook until the onions are soft--about 3 minutes.

Now add in your can of Whole Tomatoes, chicken broth, sugar, salt, and pepper! Stir it, bring it to a simmer, then lower the heat and cover it for 30 minutes! 

 

Whew, you did it! Pour yourself another glass in conradualtions! Now you only have three more things to do! Make the lemon mint yogurt (if you want it. This soup is good without it as well, but the lemony yogurt just tastes sooooo good!). First you need your ingredients!

 Now don't fear this part, I promise it isn't scary! But take some liquid courage if you're the kind that faints easily. Open your yogurt and pour it into a small bowl and mix it around. Then cut your lemon and remove the seeds and put the juice into the yogurt (don't worry if it seems watery, when you put it in the fridge it thickens up again!). Then chop up your mint! 

To mince the mint you get your leaves in a pile then roll them up. Slice them thinly in one direction (aka julien them) and they'll look like this. You CAN just leave them like this. But I like to mince mine. To do so is super easy! Just cut them the opposite direction and you get this!: 

Then add them into the yogurt, give it a stir, cover, and put in the fridge! Once this back braking manual labor is over you just wait for your soup to finish!

 

Once the 30 minutes are up, blend your soup with either a immersion blender or a normal blender! At this point you can (if you want) put in the can of diced tomatoes and let it heat up for a few minutes. I made this before and I personally felt it needed a bit more 'chunk'. 

Pour in bowls, add in the lemon mint yogurt, and you're done! Enjoy with your glass of wine and some crusty bread! This soup is super easy to make and makes 4 bowls! Unless people want seconds. Then you might have to double the recipe--which is what happened to me! Enjoy!

Magical Tomato Soup: 

2 cups chicken or vegetable broth (personally I use chicken, because it gives more depth of flavor)

1 can of  28 oz. whole peeled tomatoes

1 12 oz. can of diced tomatoes (optional)

1 yellow onion

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 Tsp of sugar

a TINY dash of Cayenne pepper (less than 1/8 tsp. just trust me on this.)

Salt & Pepper

1 Tablespoon Herbs de Provence or Italian Mix (or to taste)

2 large bay leaves

2 Tablespoons olive oil

Lemon-mint Yogurt: 

1/2 cup plain greek yogurt

2 Tablespoons fresh mint  (or to taste)

Juice of 1 lemon

Directions: 

Chop up onions roughly, mince garlic. In large soup pot heat up 2 tablespoons olive oil (extra 1 T of butter optional but yummy!). Throw in garlic and onions and let soften, 1 minute. Add in Italian herbs, bay leaves, and tiny dash of Cayenne better. Let soften 2 to 3 minutes. Add in can of whole tomatoes, salt, pepper, then chicken broth. Turn up heat to bring to a hard simmer, then put on low and cover for 30 minutes. When finished use immersion blender or blender to puree it. Add in additional can of diced tomatoes if you want them.

For the yogurt, use 1 cup (I just use one cup of Trader Joes) greek yogurt and put in small bowl. Cut lemon in half and add the juice to yougurt and stir. Mince fresh mint and add into yogurt. Cover and put in fridge until ready to use. 

Abondigas Soup

Abondigas soup is one of my favorite soups to order at my favorite Mexican restaurant. This was the first time that I have ever made this soup in my entire life!!! I combined a couple of recipes to get the desired resemblance I wanted! It is a two step process: making meatballs and making soup. You are supposed to boil the meatballs in the soup while its cooking, but my family loves them too much to fit it all in one pot. So, I switched up the game by cooking them in the oven. Hope you enjoy this soup as much as we did!!!! Happy Souping!

 

These are the ingredients needed for this soup (minus the rice, I forgot). This time, the soup only cost me $6.68 because we already had the broth and tomato sauce. The celery, carrots and potato* (I would not have had enough room in the pot for so I did not add it, its sad for I love potatoes) were left over from the Super Loaded Baked Potato soup. My goal is to not waste anything, so I was super happy that I was able to reuse these ingredients! (Also, it saves some money). The total cost per serving (at around 10 servings) was only $0.67!

 

The first step I did, was to wash the cilantro. After, I pulled the little leaves off the stem and chopped them all up. I divided it in half: one half for the meatballs and the other half for the soup.

 

I cooked the rice and let it cool. I placed it in a bowl along with the ground beef, garlic, cilantro, cumin, salt & pepper, and egg. I mixed it up and rolled them into balls. I placed them in a baking dish that was sprayed with Pam and placed them in the oven at 350* for 35 -40 minutes.

 

After the meatballs were thoroughly cooked, I placed them off to the side.

 

Next, I used 7 cups of beef broth and placed it in the stock pot.

 

I then added all of the veggies in the broth as well as the tomato sauce, cumin, oregano, and salt&pepper.

 

I brought the soup up to a boil, then reduced the heat to let it simmer for 30 minutes.

 

A few minutes before the soup was finished, I added some of the meatballs into the soup to warm them up and to let them absorb the broth.

 

 

This is the final result!!! With this recipe, I was able to get about 10 servings out of it. There were five of us eating and we all had seconds. It was pretty close to the soup that I order from my favorite restaurant and I LOVED IT!!

 

The printable version

Abondigas Soup

 

 



Abondigas Soup

MeatBalls:  (Makes around 20 good sized meatballs)

§  2 lbs ground beef
§  1 egg
§  4 garlic cloves
§  1 cup of uncooked rice
§  Cilantro leaves, chopped
§  2 teaspoons ground cumin
§  Salt and pepper

 Abondigas Soup:

§  7 cups beef broth
§  ¾ cup onion, chopped
§  3 stalks of celery, chopped
§  3 carrots, peeled and chopped
§  1 large zucchini, chopped
§  ½ a small head of cabbage, chopped
§  1  8oz can of tomato sauce
§  Cilantro leaves, chopped
§  ¾ teaspoon ground cumin
§  1 ½ teaspoons oregano
§  Salt and pepper to taste

 1.        Make the meatballs first. Turn oven on to 350*. Next, need to cook the 1 cup of rice until fully cooked, let it cool. In a bowl mix the hamburger meat, cooled riced (do not need to refrigerate, only needs to be cool enough to handle), one egg, garlic, cilantro, cumin, salt and pepper. Mix together thoroughly. Form medium size meatballs in hand and place in a pam sprayed baking dish. When finished making all the balls, place the baking dish in the oven for 35-40 minutes (can be more or less depending on the size of the meatballs) until it is fully cooked. Set aside.

2.      Combine Beef Broth, onion, celery, carrot, zucchini, cabbage, tomato sauce, cilantro leaves, cumin, oregano, and salt & pepper.

3.      Bring to a boil, and reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

4.     A few minutes before the soup is ready, place some (or all) of the meatballs in the soup.

5.      Enjoy.

A Little Background Info....

I've been friends with Keely for about Four years now, and although we have conflicting schedules, we still make time to see each other even if it is once in a while. We first met back in our early college years, and have continued our friendship since then. The TWO main reasons why we started this blog is because we both have a love for cooking and a love for soup. Although we live miles apart, these two things always bring us back together again. The meaning of "Two Soups Apart" is that we are two young women, living apart (miles away), using two kitchens to create 2 soups. Our goal is to create a weekly blog about a soup recipe that one of us has tried. We hope that you will enjoy this blog, try the recipes, and share the wealth!!! Having the pride of knowing that YOU created a delicious dish is not the only thing that matters, it's also the people you share your meal with. Whether it is family, friends, loved ones, or all of the above- the memories and time spent with them are among the best things in life. We hope that you can take these recipes and share them with the people that mean the most to you; also sharing it with the rest of the world so other people can create these memories too.

Another reason why I am excited about this blog is that food is something that I enjoy very much, whether it's cooking or eating, I love it regardless. One of my goals is to try and experience new soups; to expand my palate and enhance my culinary skills, as well as finding soups that are budget friendly. When I have a tight budget I want to be able to find recipes that are easy and inexpensive to make, and share this information to the rest of the world! One of the interesting things I love about soup is that it has been around for centuries and is a part of our human history! (I am a huge history buff). I find it fascinating to see that virtually every place on this planet has a soup, and I want to try them all. Not only will I be using recipes for well known soups, I will also try to find soups that have been used in the past, whether 50 years ago or centuries ago.

 If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please feel free to contact us. If you have a soup recipe that you would like to share with us, feel free to email us!  Join us on our journey to discovering soup! Thank you and Bon Appetit!

Cheesy Broccoli Soup

 
      Kids are picky. So are adults. Especially when it comes to veggies. And really, there's only one true way to get anyone to eat it. Douse it in cheese. Cheese and butter fix EVERYTHING. So lucky you, here's my Broccoli Cheese Soup, guaranteed to get even the stubbornest of children to devour their veggies and then say “can I have more?” 

      First, the culprits:

 See these yummy veggies? See how healthy looking they are? These are the dastardly villians that you need to hide from your picky kids/friend/sibling/significant other. Don't worry, I have your back!

Meet your heroes! Cheese, milk, and butter! I got cheddar and havarti. Really any soft, white cheese with a high fat content will do. Fat. That's the stuff that kids love. It's also the stuff that will make people forget they're even eating carrots and broccoli. You'll see!

And of course you need your sidekicks! These little guys pack a big punch (And hide any veggie flavors you might have thrown in!). As a note, the original recipe calls for Cayenne Pepper. I'm not sure if there are other colors, but having made this soup before and using the 1/8 tsp, it was WAY too spicy. I used only 1/4 tsp. But maybe you like your sidekick to be extra kicky!

And now for your directions. Don't worry, this soup is one of the easiest ones to make! If you've never made a Rue before its okay--I have pictures!  Step one is the MOST IMPORTANT STEP. Ready? Okay. First, pour yourself a drink, because cooking is hard work! 

This drink is also from Trader Joes (hey, guess where I normally shop!). Its a super fun bubbly Amusant Pink Moscato. The bubbles will make you feel bubbly too! 

Now chop the onions, garlic, and broccoli. Just nip the heads off with as little stem as possible.

Just nip off as much of the stem as you can. Don't chop the heads up, they fall part while cooking.

Grate the carrots by hand if you're a masochist like me and don't like how the thick pre-shredded carrots taste.

 Phew! We did it! All that arm exersize was a lot of work! And you need a breather before moving on to the next part! WINE BREAK!

 

Okay, while you pour yourself another glass for later, lets get these veggies under control!  

Throw in all your chopped up stuff, bay leaves,  and give it a little toss! Pour the entire content of the chicken broth in as well. Cover on medium heat and let it simmer for 15-20 minutes. 

Veggies are steamed! Now make the Rue! First, Melt your butter.

Then add a tablespoon of flower and whisk. Repeat.

This is how a Rue should look. If you leave it alone it'll turn gelatin like.

Pour the broth from your veggies into the Rue mix. It's ok if there's some veggies in it!

Pour the now thickened broth into your veggies. Mmm...smells good already!

Now add your cream and spices. On low heat warm the soup back up. give the sidekicks time to add the kick!

Now that the soup is hot, add the cheeses and let their delicious flavor disguise the carrots and brocoli. Those are some yummy super heros! ;) 

  Aaaaaaaaaaaand you're done! You can serve it to your probably now starving partner and reap the rewards of knowing your giving them veggies in disguise! Also, enjoy that second glass of wine, you deserve it! And if you sneak a few handfuls of cheese during the cheese melting process I won't tell! And neither will the cheese!  

Enjoy! 

BROCOLI CHEESE SOUP

Ingredients:

       onе bunсh of frеsh broссoli [еnough for а fеw сups of сhoppеd tops]

• 2 сups vеgеtаblе [or сhiсkеn!] stoсk
• 1/2 сup of shаrp сhеddаr сhееsе, plus plеnty еxtrа for topping [frеshly grаtеd]
• 1 hеаping сup of rеgulаr goudа сhееsе [frеshly grаtеd, rind rеmovеd]
• 1 сup of shrеddеd саrrots [or а littlе еxtrа!]
• 1 smаll whitе onion [аbout 2/3 сup or 1 сup, сhoppеd]
• 5 lаrgе сlovеs of gаrliс, minсеd
• 1 сup hаlf аnd hаlf [or hеаvy сrеаm]
• 3 TBSP аll purposе flour
• 3 TBSP buttеr
• 2 bаy lеаf
• 1/8 tsp аllspiсе
• 1/8 tsp ground nutmеg
• 1/8 tsp driеd bаsil
• 1/8 tsp саyеnnе pеppеr
• 1/8 tsp sаlt [will vаry bаsеd on sаlt сontеnt of your stoсk/broth]
• а fеw сrаnks of frеshly ground blасk pеppеr, to tаstе
  

Directions:

Chop the brocoli, union and garlic. Shred Carrots. Dump into pot with Bay Leaf cover with 2 cups chicken stock. Simmer on medium heat covered for 15-0 minutes until tender. Make a Rue with butter and flour, then add in the broth. Once mixed put back into the Veggies. Slowly stir in the 1 cup of half and half. Return to burner on very low heat, spoon out bay leaf, add in the spices and herbs. 

Meanwhile shred the cheese while soup warms back up (note: Shred Havarti last, as its soft and clumps together easily after you shred it and its exposed to heat). Add cheese in once the soup is hot and remove from heat right away. Serve with some spongy white bread (like sourdough, or a french baguette), or in a bread bowl and enjoy!