Soup/Stew

Spain just might be the genius of the food world. While Spanish cuisine certainly isn’t my all-time favorite, Spain sure does churn out a lot of my favorite dishes. Among them is gazpacho, a delightful chilled soup that cries for a hot summer day and a cold, crisp cerveza. If you are unable to find Persian cucumbers, feel free to substitute the English or hothouse variety.

A lot of people have only had a close-up encounter with broccoli as raw crudités or boiled until it’s gray and limp, which is unappetizing and often difficult to digest. Here, sautéing the broccoli in olive oil, infusing it with broth, and then blending releases all of its sweetness and cancer-fighting properties and helps everything go down nice and easy.

A staple of Latin cuisine, this black bean soup rocks because it’s a nutritional powerhouse. Black beans are rich in protein and dietary fiber, and recent studies link black bean consumption to reduced rates of pancreatic, breast, and prostate cancers. Cooking the beans with kombu, an easy to find dried Japanese seaweed that breaks down the bean’s sugars, eases gas and bloating while softening the bean’s exterior. As for taste, I guarantee your taste buds will say “more, please!”

I like the way nature balances her books. In summertime, everyone gets hot and loses water. So what does Mother Nature do? She produces an abundance of summer squash, which happens to be full of water, making it an ideal vegetable to combat dehydration. I think of zucchini as the perfect party guest. It’s mild and mixes well with a crowd. The key with zucchini is good prep, so that the flesh stays somewhat firm and tasty.

Thank heavens that sweet potatoes are no longer relegated just to Thanksgiving. For years bodybuilders, who follow strict eating regimens to repair their muscles after workouts, have feasted on sweet potatoes because of their outstanding nutritional content, ease of digestion, and pleasant flavor. Chock-full of beta-carotene, vitamin A, and other body boosters, sweet potatoes are also extremely anti-inflammatory, which may protect against cancer growth. As a cook, I like sweet potatoes because they make a wonderful creamy canvas for warming spices such as cinnamon and ginger. This soup is an especially great meal for people with a lingering metallic taste in their mouth due to chemotherapy. It’s delicious served with a dollop of Apricot Pear Chutney (page 175).

Avocado lovers will go ga-ga over the taste and those with swallowing difficulties or mouth sores will delight in the texture. Those of you into cool or room-temperature soups will embrace the clean, fresh feel of this blend. Avocados are one of those great superfoods, full of good fats and vitamins. They’re fun to work with, and all of the great shades of green in this soup are like preparing a beautiful watercolor that you can eat.

The Italians are beautiful because they’ve turned what is essentially peasant fare into an internationally renowned cuisine. Take pappa al pomodoro. Fancy, huh? Can you say, “Day-old knot of stale bread in tomatoes and water?” A staple there, a delicacy here. The same goes for minestrone, which I’ve always claimed is Italian for “Whatever is in the pantry goes in the pot!” Actually, minestrone comes from the array of dishes known as cucina povera or “poor kitchen.” It’s a bit of a misnomer, though, as minestrone is rich in vital nutrients, most notably lycopene, a phytochemical in tomatoes that has anticancer properties, especially with prostate cancer.

Here’s a recipe where a little culinary ad-libbing met the needs of a caregiver. My husband, Gregg, was feeling a little sick but wanted to eat, but there really wasn’t anything in the house. I saw some fennel and thought, “That’s good for the belly.” Then I found some carrots. But what to do with these limited ingredients? For years I’d made a carrot ginger soup recipe for many of my patients. Would carrot fennel soup work? I went to the fruit compartment for my trusty lemons, but only found an orange. It all went into the pot, and a little while later I put it in front of Gregg. He took one taste and started raving. A few weeks and tweaks later, I found that adding cumin, cinnamon, and allspice really brought this soup home. I named this recipe after Bella because she’s quite possibly the only dog on the planet who prefers carrots to bacon; for every four carrots that go into making this soup, one goes into Bella’s mouth. Otherwise she howls. (Sigh.)

Cauliflower is a wonderful vegetable that’s full of excellent cancer-fighting enzymes, yet it’s sorely in need of a PR campaign. That’s because most people steam cauliflower, which makes the kitchen smell like a stink bomb detonated. Either that or, like my dad, they eat cauliflower raw and tasteless as crudités (in his case, dipped in Russian dressing). The secret is to roast cauliflower. Not only does this avoid the sulfur smell, it also produces an unbelievably sweet flavor.

What’s the first thing you think of when somebody says, “Let’s get Thai food”? Most of my friends have an involuntary response: they start to sweat. Many people think that Thai food is hot, hot, hot. Well, maybe not, not, not. True, some Thai food can set off smoke detectors. But real Thai cooking emphasizes distinctive flavor combinations regardless of the heat. This soup, a takeoff on traditional Thai tom kha gai (a chicken soup), uses coconut milk, which is very soothing to the nerves. The ginger aids digestion, while the lime brightens up the overall flavor. The result is a soup guaranteed to jump-start even the most jaded taste buds.

This soup is for mushroom maniacs, although if you’re on the fence about them, I guarantee this soup will sway you! There’s simply no taste in the culinary world that mimics mushrooms, and that flavor is backed up by a host of health-supportive properties. Between the shiitakes, the barley, and the rich broth, this is a warming meal in a bowl. Since the barley must soak overnight, you’ll need to plan ahead.

A little cultural pride is a good thing, and I have to tell you I always thought my people had the market cornered when it came to making chicken soup. I mean, there’s a reason they call it Jewish penicillin, right? Well, in the interest of complete fairness, let me say that the Greeks know a thing or three about chicken soup, as well. Their Mediterranean take is to fold a little lemon and egg into the mixture. And unlike the yiddishe version, which I love but which can be a little fatty, this version is light and bright. Because of the egg, which provides protein, and the Chicken Magic Mineral Broth, this a nutrient-dense bowl of yum. You’ll need to cook the farro in advance, so plan ahead.

When it comes to cooking, Italians believe in region first, country second. That’s why this recipe is my version of culinary heresy. By taking white beans—a notoriously Tuscan legume—and mixing them with saffron, which is more common to northern Italy’s Lombardi region, I’ve committed what might be considered a food felony. My defense for breaking with tradition is justified in this case: saffron is a powerful cancer-fighting spice. It’s best to soak the beans overnight before cooking them, so plan ahead.

If ever there was a dish that proved I wasn’t Italian, it’s meatballs. And that’s kind of embarrassing, because not only do I love to make Italian food, I even studied (okay, suffered, but it amounted to the same thing) under an Italian signora on the Isle of Elba. But no matter how hard I tried, I could never figure out how to keep my meatballs from falling apart, until I tried basmati rice. Now my meatballs not only taste great, they also don’t disintegrate on the fork. These are actually mini meatballs, closer to the Latin-American version known as albondiguitas, with the ginger providing a little zing. If timing is an issue, the meatballs can be prepared ahead of time and refrigerated until you’re ready to cook them. Also, this recipe makes twice as many meatballs as you’ll need for the soup. To save the remainder for later, place them in the freezer for 1 hour to firm up, then transfer to an airtight container and refrigerate for up to 5 days or freeze for up to 3 months.

For success with this soup, don’t settle for less than luscious, tree-ripened peaches. Avoid peaches that are bought rock-hard, only to ripen to flavorless mush after several days of waiting.

Requiring no cooking and no blending, this soup takes full advantage of the lush fruits of midsummer.

It takes minutes to make this sweet soup. Try serving it after a meal rather than before—it’s a wonderful palate cooler after a spicy meal. Or it can be the main event at lunch on a hot summer day, served with blueberry muffins.

A perfect dessert soup to make in July, when melons are at their sweetest. This makes a refreshing finish to a grilled meal.

This super-quick no-cook soup is delicious enough to serve as a dessert.

Enjoy the convergence of strawberries and midsummer berries in a sweetly spiced broth.