Veggie soup with spicy meatballs

Once I was talking to my friend and she started mentioning some spicy dishes which made me want to cook something a little more on a hot side.
I found this recipe here but it didn't have any spiciness, so I modified it to my liking.
The soup itself is seasoned with salt and black pepper only and has a warm hearty vegetable flavor. Meatballs are the ones that give this dish a kick. Really yummy.

For the soup you'll need:

1/8 tsp cumin seeds
1/8 tsp coriander seeds
1 big garlic clove
6-7 black pepper corns
1 tbsp oil
1 medium carrot, cut into small cubes or julienned, whatever you like more
1 medium onion, chopped
1 medium tomato, chopped
1 small potato (1/2 a big one), chopped
1/2 cup red lentil, washed (I soaked mine for a couple of hours, it just made it easy and faster for lentil to cook)


For the meatballs you'll need:

1 small onion, cut into quarters
1 garlic clove, cut in halves
2 green chilies (small ones), cut lengthwise and seeds removed. This level of heat of quite enough for soup, but if you want to add even more heat, leave chilies with seeds and membranes
350 g mince meat
1 small egg, lightly beaten
almost full 1/4 cup fine bread crumbs
1 tsp salt

Preparation:
soup:
Take first four ingredients, put in the mortar and make paste.
Heat the oil in a big pot (I think mine is about 4 liter), add the spice paste you've just made and fry for a couple of minutes but make sure to stir so that it doesn't burn. Add tomato and onion, and fry on medium heat until onion softens.
When the onion is soft, add about 1/8 salt and carrot, cook for 3 minutes. If you soak lentil, drain it and put in the pot at this point, covering the whole mixture with 4 cups of water. Bring to boil and leave it to simmer on low heat for about 20 minutes.
In the meantime prepare meatballs.
meatballs:
in the food processor or blender chop onion, garlic and chilies very very finely almost into paste. I prefer grinder as the mixture is closed from you. I tried to chop some chilies before using a handheld blender and while giving a stir a piece of chili flew right into my eye. OUCH! So choose wisely.
Add the chili mixture into the mince meat along with an egg and salt, mix until the egg is absorbed. Put in breadcrumbs and mix very well again.

I use gloves during the process as this way I make sure my hands don't have any chili on them.

Divide the mince meat mixture into 4 equal parts and then each prat into quarters again. This way you make sure that all your meatballs have equal size. I get 16 pieces, they are quite big - about 3cm in diameter.

Put meatballs one by one into soup, bring to boil and simmer for about 15 minutes, then add potatoes and boil till they latter are cooked and soft.

And here you go your veggie soup with spicy meatballs is ready.
Oh and one more thing, the soup will become a bit spicier after some time. But oh it is soo good.
Enjoy!!! And leave me a comment of what you think of this recipe.

TIP:
Don't have bread crumbs? no worries Take a couple of pieces of normal bread, toast it a bit to make crunchy, let it cool and process into crumbs in a blender or grinder.

chicken noodle soup

Sooooo,
while I was making roast chicken roll I got some bones and chicken meat left that I saved and made this easy but tasty soup.
It has only few ingredients but I love it and make it quite often regardless if I have bones left from cooking some other dish or just some chicken pieces.
So while preparing other ingredients I put all my chicken left overs in a big pot covered it with water, added some salt and let it boil to cook.
so other ingredients that you will need:
1 medium potato, peeled and cut, I usually cut it french fries style, just like it this way
1 medium onion, finely sliced
1 big garlic clove, chopped
a couple of bay leaves
5-7 peppercorns
2 tbsp dried mushroom powder
2 handful of vermicelli or ABC pasta

Preparation:
when the chicken it ready I take it out to cool a bit leaving only the broth. Add some boiled water if there is not enough broth left. Bring to boil and add potato, onion, garlic, bay leaves, black pepper and mushroom powder. Stir and leave to cook. Sometimes I add about 1/2 grated carrot but I didn't have any left this time. When the potato is almost ready add pasta. If you use vermicelli it is enough just to bring to boil and cook for 1 minute then turn the heat off and let it stand for some time. With other small pasta I would recommend to cook for a couple of minutes.
Separate chicken meat from bones and add the meat to the soup.
Voila!!! It is ready. Enjoy!

** Someone must be asking where do I get this mushroom powder. Well first it is absolutely optional, second I just dried some mushrooms (button mushrooms, brown mushrooms) and then ground them in a coffee grinder. Simple as it is.

That's all for now...
see ya.