We have soups (most of them broths) and sour soups here in Romania. Sour soups are made with borscht or simply lemon juice. One of the common sour soups around here is the one with mountain spinach (Artriplex hortensis, known as lobodă here in Romania; the soup is called ciorbă, the latter being the word of choice for sour soups).
I’m learning from Wikipedia that mountain spinach is also known as garden orache, red orach, or French spinach (some dictionaries also give it the name of pigweed – I’m not sure if that’s accurate). Its leaves come in red (purple), green, and yellow-green.
Note that the present recipe is a very simplified one. When we make soups, we usually start with a base that consists of various vegetables, most often onion, celeriac, parsley or parsnip root, and carrots. I didn’t have that luxury tonight. I made the soup with the only things I had in the fridge: onions and carrots. The carrots were rather old and beginning to sprout, so I peeled them for the Ingredients photo. Some say that you shouldn’t eat garlic and onions and carrots that are beginning to sprout, but I always have some in my fridge that do and I just remove the green parts or, in this case, peel the carrots knowing they’ll still look OK. Of course, it’s always best to eat fresh veggies, but at the same time I don’t want to get stuck with no veggies in the house, hence the old carrots (two weeks) I used for this dish. (My mother, who keeps telling me to buy only the food I plan to cook, wouldn’t be exactly proud.)
This soup is wonderfully refreshing -- and such an easy, quick recipe. It takes less than 30 minutes to make. In terms of spices, I used only salt, white pepper, and garlic.
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Comments
Hi Derdriu, unfortunately not enough people compost food in this country.
I appreciate your taking the time to read my articles and to comment on them. I sometimes need to reread them myself in order to remind myself of certain healthy habits. I hope my articles can benefit other people the same way, reminding them to live healthier and happier.
Mira, Do those who "say that you shouldn’t eat garlic and onions and carrots that are beginning to sprout" say that you should re-purpose them into compost or just plain toss them? (It's interesting about the carrots since even fresh my beautiful little Gusty was hilarious to watch eating "people food": she always politely flicked carrots to the side.) I've read -- and regularly reread -- all of your articles so I look forward to the 122nd.
That truly sounds like an amazing meal! :)
I am having some for my lunch in about half an hour's time, accompanied by home made bread made in my bread making machine and stewed apples from the allotment for dessert [with a bit of cream, but I had to purchase that.]
Thanks, Frank. It sounds like something I would like. I'll have to make the tikka masala sauce from scratch, but that's easy to do. :)
I have just made a really delicious soup in my soup making machine. The ingredients were some spare chicken tika masala sauce [200 grams] a parsnip[200 grams] two tomatoes [100 grams] , a carrot, [100 grams] along with salt, two stock cubes,a few splashes of Worcester sauce and a sprinkling of chili peppers. The parsnip and carrot were freshly picked from the allotment, and I was applying my strategy of mixing allotment produce with leftovers and occasional purchased vegetables. The vegetables and water were about 450 millilitres together. This is one recipe that I would recommend.
Yes, that's probably it. I looked in the menu and they all seemed safe, but of course they don't list all their spices.
I love indian food but it depends on the restaurant as to how hot the food is. Some restaurants use different spices and each part of India of course has its own beautiful cuisine. One restaurant near us though, the chef uses a lot of Asafoetida and I can't take that particularly spice. Maybe your place uses a particular spice that you are intolerant of.
The same happens to me when I eat Indian food here in Romania. I've only been to one restaurant, and only a few times. The food is delicious but then I get bloated. I've eaten Indian food elsewhere and I've been fine. I haven't yet figured out what exactly causes the problem here. And I continue to go because the food is delicious and I like the place.
I don't know. Peter,my second son, loves spices more than they love him. He will devour spicy food then sometimes have a bad stomach. The others are pretty ordinary in this respect.