Innovative Leftovers Part 4–Summer Vegetable Stew

I absolutely love split pea soup, but you know how canned soups are, for the most part, disgusting?

Unfortunately, the same holds true for canned split pea soup. So I decided to jazz mine up a little when I was making dinner for myself. (My brothers weren't gonna feed me, that's for sure.)


Summer Vegetable Stew
Serves 1-2


Ingredients:

1 can split pea soup
1/2 zucchini, cut into quarter-rounds
1/2 carrot, cut into half-rounds
1/2 can black beans

1/4 onion, chopped
1/2 teaspoon cornstarch mixed with 1 tablespoon water (if soup is watery)
Salt and pepper
Spices (garlic powder, oregano, cayanne)
Olive oil


Instructions:

Drain black beans into a bowl, reserving some of the liquid. Rinse. Place zucchini, onion, carrot, and beans into a small pan over medium heat with some olive oil and stir.

Add spices, salt, and pepper to taste. Place pot lid over pan and allow to cook until zucchini is soft.

Pour split pea soup into a medium saucepan over medium heat.

If soup is watery, mix cornstarch in 1 tablespoon water to form a smooth slurry and add to soup.

Add vegetables and stir.

Stir in reserved bean liquid.

Allow to come to a gentle boil and thicken if needed, then remove from heat. Adjust seasonings if necessary.

Serve.

Well, it's not perfect, but it's definitely better than the soup alone. It's also better than whatever my brothers would have made. Just kidding. Maybe. The vegetables give it a nice fresh feeling and the spices make it taste a lot better than the soup normally does. I recommend serving with naan or flatbread. (Trader Joe's makes a great tandoori naan.) Or you can make toast. That works too.
So even though this improved the soup quite a bit, homemade soup trumps canned any day.

Bell Pepper Yogurt Harissa Soup

So a couple of days ago, I was looking through Martha Stewart Living and I found this soup recipe. Mom said I could make it for dinner this week, and last night was the night! It's soup-er easy (sorry, couldn't resist) and takes less than 15 minutes to prepare. Since it has to chill for at least an hour, it's perfect to prepare earlier in the day if you're super busy (See? I can abstain from making bad puns.)

Bell Pepper Yogurt Harissa Soup


Ingredients:
3 yellow bell peppers
2 teaspoons harissa
2 cups low-fat plain yogurt (I used Whole Foods Organic Nonfat Plain Yogurt)
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt

Preparation:

Chop peppers into quarters and slice out seeds. Cut quarters into large chunks.

This was very hard to photograph and involved me precariously balancing a knife embedded in the peppers on the edge of the counter and praying it wouldn't fall.

Dump everything in a blender and pureé until smooth.

Not all the peppers fit in the blender. The ones on the cutting board were very relieved until I made them the second batch.

Chill for at least an hour in the fridge or for 15 minutes in the freezer if you're pressed for time.

This soup is really good! For me, it was a tad spicy, but I still enjoyed it. My family all liked it (although I wasn't present when they tried it, so they might have just been saying that...)

Actually, never mind. My dad was raving about it; he definitely liked it. The texture never got completely smooth because the blender couldn't get the little tiny bits of pepper and stuff in the harissa (which is a North African chili sauce, by the way. I didn't know what it was either.)

I apologize for the terrible quality of this picture. I shrunk it so you wouldn't have to look at its dreadfulness as much.

If you're not a big fan of spice, I would recommend reducing the harissa to 1-1/2 teaspoons. If you want a slightly creamier soup, use low-fat yogurt like the recipe calls for. I was racing through Whole Foods trying to get these ingredients and everything else on the shopping list based on a glance at the Martha Stewart Living on the newsstand. I'm just lucky I didn't grab chili peppers instead of bell.

These aren't bell peppers.

These definitely aren't bell peppers.