Matzoh ball soup (recipe 9)

I did in fact cook yesterday, I just didn't manage to post about it.  Oops.  And I've got links from 2 weeks!  I'll do the recipe now and the links later today, I think.  I should've just done them mid-week, when I didn't cook, but there we are.

Matzoh Ball Soup (adapted from The Jew and the Carrot)
Ingredients

For matzoh balls (I doubled this recipe, but I'm listing original quantities)
1/2 cup matzoh meal 
2 tablespoons butter
2 eggs
2 tablespoons veggie stock (I used my homemade mushroom stock both here and later for the soup)
1 tablespoon fresh dill (or 1/2 teaspoon dried)
1 tablespoon parsley
1/2 teaspoon salt

For soup
1 onion
2 carrots
celery (I didn't use)
6 cups veggie stock
2 green onions
1/4 cup parsley
salt and pepper
olive oil

Try to make the matzoh balls ahead of time if you can -- they have to sit in the fridge for at least 15 minutes, but 3-4 hours is better.  Lightly beat the eggs, then combine with butter and stock and stir until relatively smooth.  Stir in matzoh meal, salt, parsley, and dill until mixture is evenly combined.  It's OK if the mixture tastes pretty salty at this point -- it'll lose much of that when you're cooking it. Refrigerate.

Once you're ready to make the whole dish, put on a large pot of water to boil.  In the meantime, chop up the carrots and onion and saute them in olive oil in your soup pot for about 5 minutes, until the onions start getting tender.  This is also a good place to use a pre-made and frozen carrot/onion mixture, if you do that.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Add stock and bring to a boil, then turn down and simmer for about 20 minutes.

Your pot of water should be boiling vigorously at this point.  Salt the water.  With wet hands, form the matzoh dough into balls about 1 inch in diameter.  They should stick together pretty well, but avoid over-handling them. Drop them into the water one at a time.  You should end up with 12-15 balls.  Turn down the heat so the water is simmering, cover, and cook for about 25 minutes.  The matzoh balls will become big and plump and fluffy.

When the soup has been simmering for about 20 minutes, add the green onions and parsley and cook for another 5-10.  At this point, the matzoh balls should be ready.  Add them one by one (don't add too much extra liquid) and cook all together for another 5-10 minutes.  Adjust salt and pepper as needed -- taste a matzoh ball first, as they will likely be relatively un-salty. Serve a few balls and some broth per bowl.

It's not actually this green in real life

Recipe summary
Time: About an hour of prep/cooking, a few hours in the fridge to chill the dough.  Of the cooking hour, probably about 30 minutes are hands-off.
Serves: 6-8
Highlights/thoughts: This is the second time I made this soup in as many weeks, and it definitely worked better the second time around.  One big change was that I used homemade stock.  Now, I don't mind using store-bought for most things, but I think the difference is that in this soup, the flavor of the stock really matters, since there aren't a ton of other veggies and seasonings to add to it.  However, of the people who ate the original, I was the only one bothered by the stock flavor, so maybe I'm just too picky. Also, my matzoh balls were bigger and less flimsy this time around.  I think the difference was that I added slightly more meal than the recipe calls for.
Would I make this again?  Definitely!  Not sure how often I'd make this throughout the year, but it's a great Passover recipe.

Taking advantage of the last days of cold with a soup recipe

I know I said I'd have a soup recipe yesterday, but then there was the Tuesday Tip thing...and here we are. :)  But a day late is better than never, right?

So, to use up the aforementioned beet greens, as well as lots of other veggies, I decided to make a minestrone-style soup, adapted from a recipe in my Cooking Everything Vegetarian book.  I've made it several times now, and the thing I really love about this recipe is that it's designed to be flexible.  You use a few constant things (carrot, onion, tomatoes, veggie stock), some hard vegetables of your choosing, and some soft vegetables of your choosing.  The process is the same every time, but the flavors vary based on what you use, so it's never quite the same.  Hard vegetables are things like potatoes or turnips, and soft vegetables are things like zucchini or greens.  Minestrone typically includes beans, as well, but this recipe doesn't, and I don't like them enough to go out of my way to get them.  Also, the recipe calls for celery along with carrot and onion, but since I'm really not a fan of celery, I just leave it out. 

Minestrone-style soup
Ingredients
6-8 cups veggie stock
1 biggish onion
2-3 carrots
celery if you like it (I don't know how much)
1 can stewed tomatoes, with juice
1-2 cups hard vegetables, chopped
1-2 cups soft vegetables, chopped (or more if you'd like, I prefer this soup a little thick, for some reason)
small bunch of parsley (optional, I've also used dill)
parmesan (optional)
olive oil
salt and pepper

Directions
Coarsely chop the onion and carrot and saute over medium-high heat in the olive oil until soft, about 5 minutes.  One way to save time on this step is to saute a large batch of chopped onions and carrots all at once, then freeze them in recipe-sized portions.  Salt and pepper, then toss in the hard vegetables.  I used turnips this time, since that's what I had on hand.  Cook, stirring, for about 2 minutes.  Add stock and tomatoes, bring to a boil.  If you have some old parmesan around, chop up the rinds and add them at this point - they turn soft and chewy and delicious in the soup!  Turn the heat down and allow the whole thing to simmer for about 15 minutes, until the tomatoes have broken down and the hard vegetables are pretty soft.  Add the soft vegetables and the parsley if you're using it.  This time, I used the now-infamous beet greens, some turnip greens, and some mustard greens.  I also used dill instead of the parsley.  Adjust seasonings to taste and bring the whole thing back up to a simmer.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until everything is soft -- probably another 20 minutes.  If you're cooking other things at the same time, this can simmer for a while and it only gets better.  Serve with more parm, if you'd like. 

This ends up being a lot of soup -- we got about 8 servings.  It tastes even better after it's sat overnight, though!

Tip for the recipe:  Using pre-made onion-carrot mixture is a big time saver, and is a nice way to use up some CSA carrots!  When I make big batches of the stuff, I usually just the food processor to chop up the carrots and onions to save time. Generally, I use a ration of 2-3 medium carrots to 1 large onion.