Week 2025-30: Wild Rice Soup

The Recipe
1/2 cup cashews (~60g)
1 medium onion, diced
3 medium carrots, sliced thinly
2 celery stalks, sliced thinly
250g mushrooms, sliced thinly
6 cloves garlic, chopped
2tbsp olive oil
1tbsp thyme
1tbsp oregano
2l vegetable broth
200g wild rice
1.5 tsp salt
2 cans white beans, drained and rinsed
1/2tsp black pepper
1tbsp soy sauce

Soak the cashews in hot water while making the recipe.

Warm up oil in a soup pot. Add onion, celery and carrots and cook for about 5 minutes. Add mushrooms and cook for another 2 minutes. Add garlic, thyme and oregano and cook for another 2 minutes.

Add broth, wild rice, salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer and leave to simmer uncovered for 20 minutes. Add beans and leave to simmer for another 30-35 minutes or until the rice is done.

Transfer 2 cups of the soup (veggies and rice included) to a blender. Add 1 cup of water and the drained cashews. Blend until creamy and pour the mixture back into the soup.

Add soy sauce and more salt to taste.

The Verdict
Two mistakes out of the bat - I didn't rinse the beans well enough, so some of the tomato sauce remained. Don't think that really mattered taste-wise, but it looked a LOT different than expected.

Second mistake was worse - I definitely didn't blend the cashews finely enough, so it ended up being more crunchy than creamy.

I really loved the taste, but the rice soaked up a LOT of the liquid, so it really ended up being more risotto-like than a soup. Not entirely sure what I did wrong there. Besides, wild rice are expensive in Denmark, so I don't see myself making this again very often.

Week 2025-29: Asian Peanut Butter Pork

The Recipe
750g pork tenderloin
1 onion, sliced in rings
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup brown sugar
3 tbsp white wine vinegar
3 tbsp water
2 garlic cloves, chopped
3 tbsp peanut butter
2 tablespoons chopped peanuts (garnish; optional)
1 lime, cut in wedges (garnish; optional)
1 pak choi, chopped

Put onion slices into the bottom of your crockpot. Put the pork on top. Add brown sugar, soy sauce, vinegar, water, garlic, and peanut butter. No need to stir - the peanut butter needs to melt before you can do so. Cover and cook on LOW for 6-8 hours, or on HIGH for 4-6.

1 hour before serving, stir the sauce and flip the meat over to allow the other side to soak it up. Add the pak choi on top - don't stir it in, you want to leave it resting on the meat.

Serve over rice, garnish with chopped peanuts, and serve with lime wedges.

The Verdict
Really good! Personally I felt like it lacked some chili, but my less chili-crazy friends disagreed, so I just added some chili flakes at the time of serving. The original recipe called for twice as much peanut butter than stated - personally, I think that would have made it FAR too overpowering, but if you love peanut butter, then go for it!

Super easy, and definitely something I could see myself making again!

Week 2025-28: Crockpot Pasta ala Vodka

The Recipe
2 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, diced
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 cup vodka (just use the cheap kind)
2 (400g) cans tomatoes
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes
Salt and pepper
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
Penne pasta
Bacon (optional)
Fresh basil

Heat the olive oil, onion, garlic, crushed red pepper, and dried oregano in a large skillet over medium low heat. Cook, stirring often until the onion is soft and the garlic fragrant, about 10 minutes. Add the vodka, raise the heat, and bring the mixture to a boil, boil 5 minutes. Add to the crockpot along with the tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes and large pinch of salt + pepper. Cover and cook on LOW for 6-8 hours or on HIGH for 4-5 hours.

Use a stick blender to puree until smooth. Add cream and parmesan. Cook uncovered on HIGH for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile cook pasta according to instructions. Use the skillet from before to cook bacon. Add bacon and chopped fresh basil to the pasta. Serve with sauce and extra parmesan cheese.

The Verdict
This recipe makes a LOT of tomato sauce! It'll easily stretch to 6 people - I ended up freezing more than half of it. It tasted amazing though, so I hope it will freeze well. It needed a tad more salt (note to self - don't be so skimpy next time) and I added more chili to my portion, but I don't think DH would appreciate if I added more to the sauce itself ;-)

It's a bit more work than I'm used to for a crockpot recipe, since I had to saute the onions ahead of time. I considered not doing that, but don't know what it'll do to the recipe, if the vodka doesn't have time to simmer. Although I couldn't really taste the vodka at all, so wonder what it would be like if I just left it out!

Anyways, it made for a delicious tomato sauce, and if it freezes well, I could definitely see myself making this again.