📸 2 bowls of Sopa de Verduras Curry - Vegetable Curry Soup

It began, as many good soups do, with too many vegetables. Not in the overwhelmed-by-produce sense, but in the quieter, midweek way: a zucchini here, a stub of daikon, a cluster of broccoli heads that would begin to grow dim soon.

This soup has become Hannah’s favorite, something she now requests on the regular, often before I’ve even had my first sip of matcha. It’s the kind of meal that requires no justification. Just a bowl, a spoon, and a small stretch of time. Warm without heaviness. Comforting without fuss.

Last week, we carried a jar of it to our British neighbors, who had just sent over a homemade apple pie, warm and earnest, in return for the French lentil soup we’d offered them earlier. “Well,” they shrugged with a grin, “You’re American, aren’t you? You must like apple pie.” We laughed. Of course we do.

Another jar made its way to the woman who runs the Correos (post office). She makes sure our deliveries and mail are ready for us. I tucked in a loaf of rustic pan from Pastelería Delicias de la Alpujarra, the little bakery on Calle Juan Navarro in Canjáyar that makes the kind of bread that almost apologizes for how good it smells and tastes. Perfect texture, crunchy with a doughy yet airy inside.
Find them on Facebook → Delicias de la Alpujarra. She accepted the soup with the same cool efficiency she uses to sort letters and Amazon deliveries, her hair, still defying gravity in a way that would make any 1980s synth-pop band proud. She smiled smiled big, and said gracias twice, which in post office terms felt like a hug.

A few quiet details can make something simple taste transcendent:

• Use your best olive oil. The green, peppery kind. What you cook with should also be something you’d happily finish with.

• Cut with care. No need for uniformity, just attention. How you chop the carrot matters more than you think.

• Let it simmer slowly. Not rushed. A low simmer keeps the vegetables vivid and the flavor intact.

• Add lime at the end. Always at the end. Citrus doesn’t like prolonged heat.From our garden, from our neighbors, from the valley

  

  📸 From our garden, from our neighbors, from the valley.

• While You Cook:
  🎶 Play: “Fragile” by Sting or “Sol y Luna” by Govi
  🍷 Pair With: Pura Vida “Harvest” Red from Fondón, Almería—slightly chilled. Just enough structure to stand beside curry, with a finish as soft as dusk.

📸 Every color waiting for warmth.

🌱 Curried Vegetable Soup - ‘Sopa de Verduras Curry’

(Serves 4 generous bowls)

📝 Ingredients

• 1 medium zucchini, diced (~1 cup)

• 2 cups broccoli florets (~5 oz)

• 1½ cups cauliflower florets (~4 oz)

• 1 small daikon radish or turnip, diced (~1 cup)

• 1 large carrot, peeled and chopped (~1 cup)

• ½ red bell pepper, finely diced

• ½ cup oyster mushrooms, gently torn

• 2 cloves garlic, minced

• 5 cups good vegetable broth

• 1 tablespoon olive oil

• 1 heaping teaspoon yellow curry paste

• Sea salt + freshly ground black pepper, to taste

• 1 lime, cut into wedges

👩‍🍳 Instructions

1. Wash and chop all vegetables. Each with its own shape and rhythm.

2. In a large soup pot, warm the olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and stir until fragrant, about a minute.

3. Stir in the curry paste and let it bloom—30 seconds should do.

4. Add the broth. Bring to a soft simmer, then add daikon, carrot, and broccoli. Cook for about 5 minutes.

5. Add zucchini, cauliflower, bell pepper, and oyster mushrooms. Simmer another 3–5 minutes until just tender.

6. Season with sea salt and pepper. Serve hot with lime wedges.

Leftover Love
This soup matures well. The next day, it tastes deeper. You can serve it warm again, or let it go room temp, add a swirl of pesto, and call it lunch. Pour it over grains (rice) or roasted sweet potato. Eat it in silence or with conversation, it holds either beautifully.

Closing Note
We don’t cook to impress. We cook to share. To offer. To tend. This soup, as simple as it is, has a way of traveling, through kitchens, across languages, into the hands of neighbors and the woman who weighs our letters.

Let us know if it finds its way to your table, too.

With warmth from The Portal,
Amy + Hannah

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