Ginger Sesame Watercress Soup

The first legit snow day. Kids are home today and tomorrow has been declared a holiday already. Outside 10 inches of snow waits to be shoveled and my Canadian man has geared up to shovel, since the man who blows snow for us has just undergone a knee replacement surgery. And, it had to be the heaviest snow!  So my older daughter gears up too, to help. She is excited to be out as is the little one heavy snow makes good snow people . So booted and jacketed from top to toe, the three head out each on their personal pursuits. I am at home trying to get my valentine's project for my kiddos, esp the little one finished - this is a big deal in our house and for some reason the kids have always been into it, the girls especially. And I try to draw energy from their enthusiasm and end up making Nutella cookies with my daughter's help yesterday.

Three hours and some later, I poke my head through the garage door to enquire about lunch and in unison they demand something warm and yummy.  I rifle through the fridge to see what I can rustle up at short notice. Like a scanner that beeps when it spots things, so to my eyes zoned in on the half used tofu, spring onions begging to be eaten before they go rotten, baby carrots and a big whopping piece of ginger. Pulling these out from the fridge I sprint downstairs to my other fridge to see what else catches my fancy and voila watercress.
I sprint back up, go to the pantry and get down some TJ vegetable stock. At this point I feel like I was on one of those cooking shows where they assign you one ingredient and you had to race to come up with some ideas around it.

I place my big pot on the stove, threw in some olive oil to sauté the veggies and then just like the last few clicks of a rubric's cube, things fell in place so naturally and believe you me, I have never heard my hubby rave so much about anything quite as much as he did about the soup. He also insisted I blog it right away so that I would archive the recipe for keeps.

RECIPE
For 6 hearty portions
Can be made in 10-15 minutes

Ingredients

• 1medium bunch of watercress (as sold in whole foods)
• 6-8 baby carrots slit in 4 
• Half pack of extra firm tofu  cubed (Trader Joe brand)
• 1carton of vegetable broth (Trader Joe brand)
• 4 stalks of spring onions finely chopped
• 2 inches long and as thick of a ginger piece chopped roughly
• 1tbsp of sesame seeds (white or brown)
• 1tsp of olive oil

For the flavoring

• 1 heaped tbs of peanut butter
• 1tbs stir fry Szechuan sauce
• 1 tbs Sriracha sauce
• 1 cup of water

Method

1. In a pot, add olive oil and the sesame seeds. 
2. When they start turning golden, add the veggies and stir in high heat for a minute before lowering to a simmer
3. In a blender, add the chopped ginger to half the carton of veggie stock and blend smooth
4. Add to the pot and allow the veggies to cook in the ginger broth. Add also the rest of the broth. 
5. In the same blender, add the water, and all the flavoring ingredients and blend until smooth.
6. Now add this to the boiling soup
7. Allow the whole soup to boil for 2-4 minutes before taking off the flame.
8. Serve hot

I guarantee you that this will be a super hit plus it is such a quick recipe.

I have another wonderful preparation to share with you next time - until then stay warm or cool as the case may be.