One-Pot Wonders

Carrot Potato Soup with Tiny Buffalo Meatballs

February 25, 2011
0
0 Ratings
  • Serves about 4-6
Author Notes

I created this soup when I was trying to be a vegan. It didn't work out so well, but the soup did!

For the last few months I’ve been feeling as if something has been missing from my life. More specifically, my body has started to crave animal products once again. For awhile I resisted the urge because I felt that I needed to be committed to the vegan path I started to follow around 8 months ago. If you have read any of my previous posts, you will notice that I was not an extremely strict vegan though. Occassionally, I would have fish and cheese found its way into many of my recipes as well.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my own family background and doing some anthropological reading of the history of food and humans and seem to always come back to the fact that there are not many traditional vegan societies out there. Even when it seems that there is, bugs and the like must come into contact with the veggies and grain and therefore must end up in the bellies of the vegetarian/vegan groups. Of course, with modern technology and pesticides, I think that not many bugs get into our food supply, but there is really no way of knowing.

Since winter does not seem to want to go away from NY, I give you this soup. I just threw it together with what I had on hand. You could easily substitute leeks for onions and sweet potatoes/butternut squash for the potato. The meatballs were very simply spiced and could be left out as well to make a hearty vegan soup as well. I also don’t seem to be able to let go of my obsession with orange hued soups, I always come back to this sunny color for some reason. —testkitchenette

What You'll Need
Ingredients
  • Creamy Carrot Potato Soup
  • 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 pound carrots, peeled and diced
  • 1 large onion, chopped
  • 1 medium potato, scrubbed and chopped
  • 3 garlic cloves, smashed
  • 1 tablespoon tomato paste
  • 1/2-1 teaspoons salt
  • few grindings of black pepper
  • 5 cups not too salty stock (vegetable, beef, chicken, duck...it's up to you)
  • Tiny Buffalo Meatballs
  • 1 pound ground buffalo meat
  • 2 handfuls breadcrumbs (I use ground up seasoned whole wheat matzoh)
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
  • 3/4 teaspoon salt
  • pinch of red pepper flakes
Directions
  1. Creamy Carrot Potato Soup
  2. In a large stockpot, heat the olive oil over medium high heat. Add the carrots, onions, potato, and garlic. Add the salt and pepper. Saute for a few minutes and add the tomato paste and stir to coat. Add the stock of your choice, bring to a boil, lower heat to low, cover, and simmer for about 35 minutes. In two batches, blitz the soup until smooth and creamy (don’t fill the blender up completely and blend with a towel placed over the hole in the cover to keep from spattering all over your kitchen). Return to stockpot and adjust for salt and pepper.
  1. Tiny Buffalo Meatballs
  2. Preheat oven to 350F. Mix the buffalo mixture together and form into little meatballs. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Put into the soup and serve.
  3. I also chopped up some kalamata olives and stirred them into the soup as I was serving it. They deepened to color of the soup and gave a welcome tang to it.

See what other Food52ers are saying.

  • testkitchenette
    testkitchenette
  • drbabs
    drbabs

2 Reviews

testkitchenette February 25, 2011
You said it drbabs! I mostly found that it is not natural for me to not eat animal protein and I agree with you about TVP...Tempeh, though, I actually enjoy. What bothers me about commercial tofu is not the taste, it is how processed it is. I have had freshly made tofu and it is lovely. Spring better get here quick. I am so happy that the snow is almost all melted!
 
drbabs February 25, 2011
I feel your pain. I go in and out of experimenting with being a vegetarian. Vegan, not so much. I've come to the conclusion that I need more protein than I can get on a vegetarian diet. (I also like meat, chicken, fish. And don't like tofu. And can't figure out who thought TVP and seitan were good.) Great soup, btw. With or without meatballs.

Spring has to come to Long Island at some point, right?