Carrot Soup with Garlic, Ginger & Curry

Cup of carrot soup

I love carrot soup! Laura hates it. But, I love carrot soup! I make it a lot because she grows a lot of carrots, and even though we use them in everything from other soups, stews, vegan cheese sauce, side dishes and salads, we still have a surplus, which we will probably sell in future harvests. I usually have to eat it all myself, so I make small batches. If I happen to make too much I can usually find someone to take a jar of it.

Jarred carrot soup

I always make it different; sometimes a ginger-carrot, sometimes a garlic-carrot with cumin, or carrot-parsnip or whatever I happen to be in the mood for or have on hand. I happened to really love this one so I am blogging it for posterity. Never know, Alyssa or her children might be looking for a good carrot soup family recipe some far away day.

Recipe:

12 - 15 medium-sized carrots
1 or 1 1/2 boxes of vegetable broth
1/2 cup soy or cashew cream
1 onion or several small onions and/or shallots
1 bulb of garlic (or 2 small bulbs)
1" square piece of peeled fresh ginger
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp curry powder
Salt and pepper to taste
Pumpkin seeds for garnish

Carrots

After I peel the carrots I use the food processor to slice them up. Save tons of time. 

Garlic

Ginger

Onions and shallots

After everything is sliced, minced and chopped and starting with the onions and shallots, I start to sauté on medium-low heat in the oil (you can do a healthy sauté in veg broth if you're avoiding processed oil - which we should be) then add the carrots and ginger after a couple minutes. Stir around while they are cooking so they don't stick or start to brown. 

After about 6 minutes create a space on the bottom of the pan and scrape the garlic in the created area and sauté it in what's left of the oil. Let cook for about a minute or two on medium heat until aromatic, then add a box of veggie broth and the curry. Continue cooking until veggies are all soft.

Carrots, onions, shallots, garlic and ginger simmering

Add more veggie broth, if needed, to keep veggies covered until cooked and then transfer in batches to a blender or food processor and puree. Add veggie broth while pureeing if it seems too thick.

Carrot soup

Add back to stock pot and bring back to a simmer. Slowly add the cream while stirring then turn off the heat and serve with a sprinkle of pumpkin seeds. I always have a bowl right away and pour the rest into jars for lunches or to give to some lucky soup lover :)

Vegan Split Pea Soup

When I gave up eating ham it occurred to me I would never again have one of my all-time favorite meals: split pea soup. What a happy day the first time I made the vegan version and discovered that it is just as amazing, and much easier on the conscience.

Vegan Split Pea Soup

Spice It How You Like It

I'm sure I've made this from a few different recipes now but I've made it enough that I no longer need a recipe and I often make variations depending on how I want to spice it. Sometimes cumin, sometimes not. It's great with a bay leaf or two as well. If you really like an Indian flavor, you can also skip the thyme and marjoram and add ground coriander, turmeric and cinnamon to your cumin. Becomes more like a curry, but it's all good.

*A lot of recipes call for basil which sounds weird to me so I've never tried it. Thought I should mention it though, in case it's an integral or common split pea flavor. I can't imagine but go for it and let me know if it's worth trying.

Split pea soup ingredients

Ingredients

1 cup yellow split peas
1 box vegetable broth
1 small onion
2 carrots
1 potato
2 stalks celery
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp marjoram
1 tsp cumin or 2 bay leaves (depending on your version)
1/2 tsp salt
cracked black pepper

Directions

Chop all your veggies into soup-sized pieces (about 1/2" square) and mince the garlic. 90% of your work is now complete. Add the onion and a bit of veggie broth to the Instant Pot and set to "Sauté". Cook about a minute, stirring once or twice then add the potatoes, carrots, celery and garlic.

Veggies sautéing

Sauté another minute while stirring around then add the rest of the ingredients. Give it a final stir and put the lid on the Instant Pot.

Soup ingredients ready to cook

Close the steam valve and use Manual setting and cook 15 minutes. Let the pressure release naturally (takes about 20 - 25 minutes).

I Love Our Instant Pot!

I've made this on stove top many times, but now that we have the Instant Pot, I probably won't again.  Turns out the same either way, but in the Instant Pot it's so easy - set the time and leave it. No stirring, no watching. I love that!

PS: Laura hates split pea soup. More for me! :)

Potato and Leek Soup

Potato and Leek Soup

This recipe was too amazing not to share. We've made it twice now, the first time without carrots and the second time with. It's good both ways but I'll probably continue adding carrots whenever I make it, which will be often, because this soup is so good.

Original recipe here

Potato And Leek Soup

I didn't stray too far from the original recipe, which was already a vegan one. I changed a couple of things but it's basically the same recipe, so I can't take the credit for coming up with it, but I changed some amounts, skipped the lemon juice, and added carrots.

Another thing I did differently than the original recipe was to not puree all the veggies. Instead, I divided the soup in half and pureed half and left the other half as chunky vegetables for our chewing pleasure. I make a lot of pureed soups, like squash and cream of broccoli, but sometimes you want a little bite.

Ingredients
1 tablespoon vegan butter
2 small onions, diced
4 leeks, cleaned well & thinly sliced
7 medium russet potatoes, peeled and chopped
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons salt, more to taste
Fresh ground pepper, to taste
1 1/2 teaspoons dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
4 cups vegetable broth
2 bay leaves
1 cup almond milk
1/2 cup coconut coffee cream

Step 1:
Wash and slice the leeks, chop the potatoes, carrots and onions and toss them all in a soup pot on medium high with the butter.

Sauté the veggies

Step 2:
Mince the garlic and add to the sautéed veggies along with the seasonings about a minute before adding the broth.

Step 3:
Add the broth and simmer until all the veggies are tender, about 10 or 15 minutes.

Add the spices and broth

Step 4:
Take half the soup and blend in the blender or puree in the food processor then add back to the stock pot.

Puree half and add back to pot

Step 5:
Temper the cream by adding it slowly, while stirring, to 1/2 cup of the hot soup, then add the mixture to the pot, continuing to stir it in well.

Step 6:
Serve and eat! We served our with some lovely artisan bread. So yummy!

Leek and potato soup with bread

Enjoy!!

Vegan Pad Thai

Vegan Pad Thai

This recipe is always a hit at family gatherings and potlucks and I've been asked many times to share my recipe, so here it is.

I love it because it's simple and pretty quick and very easy to make. And it's also really versatile, so you can change it to suit your own preferences.

Here's how I made the one for a recent potluck at work:

The Noodles

I guess you could use any noodles you like for this dish, like a linguine or fettuccine wheat noodle or especially any rice noodle but for best results, I stick with this type of rice noodle from a brand called A Taste of Thai. They're amazing and hold their texture so well.

A Taste of Thai Rice Noodles

How to Prepare
You don't need to boil water for these noodles. You actually just soak them in very hot tap water for 3 minutes, drain well and then add to a medium-hot skillet with sesame oil.

Vegan Pad Thai Recipe

• 1/2 cup veggie broth
• 3 onions, cut in half and slice each half
• 4 carrots, cut in half or quarters lengthwise, then chopped in 1" lengths
• 1 red pepper, cut into large chunks
• 1 lb asparagus, chopped in 1" lengths
• 1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
• 1 tbsp black sesame seeds

Sauté the veggies and stir frequently until you can just begin to pierce the carrots with a fork (like when you know they will be done in 2 minutes) then add:

• 1 package of bean sprouts

Remove veggies from skillet once they're somewhat tender but not too soft. Then add:

• 2 tbsp sesame oil
• 1 package of A Taste of Thai rice noodles (prepared as described above). Let cook for a minute then stir, turning noodles and let cook another minute or so, then repeat one or two more times.

Add:

• 1/2 cup tamari (or soy sauce; I use tamari because it's gluten-free)
• 1/4 cup rice vinegar
• 1/4 cup sugar
• pinch of red pepper flakes

Add the veggies back to skillet and stir everything together. Ready to eat! Serve with roasted peanuts and cilantro.

Pad Thai in Skillet

Versatility

You can use pretty much any vegetable in this dish. I nearly always make it with the above plus peas, green beans and spinach or kale, but you can use mushrooms, green peppers, broccoli or cauliflower too.

You can experiment with the sauce too; change the amounts to suit your taste and amount of sauce you like. Sometimes I use Sriracha sauce instead of hot pepper flakes. I have to be careful of the amount of heat I use because it causes rosacea flare-ups. Booo.

Sometimes I add 1 or 2 tbsp of peanut butter to the sauce.

You can serve it with roasted almonds or cashews instead of the peanuts.

If you want to make a healthier version, try using tahini instead of the sesame oil (and dry-fry your noodles) and use a low-sodium tamari or soy sauce. You can also skip the honey if you're avoiding adding sugars to you diet; I'm sure it would still be fantastic, and I'm sure I will find out soon enough. Or, if you just want to make it vegan, use coconut sugar or date sugar instead of the honey.

Erin's Squash Soup

Soup and bread

2014 Squash Harvest

Vegan Squash Soup Recipe

Cut in half, de-seed and roast in roast pan in 1/2 inch to 1 inch of water about 40 minutes:

• 1 Buttercup Squash – you can substitute Butternut, but it won't be as good. Trust me on this.

Saute until soft about 10 minutes:

• 1 Onion, Chopped
• 1 Granny Smith Apple, peeled, cored and chopped
• 2 Tbsp Butter – the good kind
• ¼ Tsp Nutmeg
• ¼ Tsp Cinnamon
• ¼ Tsp Salt
• ¼ Tsp Pepper

Add to onion mixture:

• Cooked Squash
• 1 Box Vegetable Broth

Cook about 10 minutes until flavors meld. Cool and puree in food processor or blender. Add back to pot and add 1 cup of water; simmer 15 minutes. Remove from heat.

Slowly stir in:

• 2 cups cashew milk

Squash soup from homegrown buttercup squash

Minestrone Soup

Good any time of year, minestrone soup is especially good on a cold winter's day. I love it because it's hearty and filling and most of all, delicious. So good I always go for a second bowl.

Minestrone Soup

There is always so much soup in the batch that it feeds us a good two or three days, and that's having it for lunch and dinner both. When we make minestrone soup we cook the pasta separately and add it just before heating it so it doesn't get mushy.

Minestrone Soup Recipe

Minestrone is a pretty versatile soup in that you can pretty much use whatever kind of bean and whatever kind of pasta you want. You can use whatever type of vegetables you fancy too, for that matter: carrots, onions, potatoes, green or yellow beans, peas, celery, corn or cauliflower.

Here's the recipe I used for this one:

Ingredients:
1 cup dried lima beans
2 cups cooked pasta (gluten-free if preferred)
1 large onion, chopped
4 carrots, diced
3 medium potatoes, diced
1 cup frozen green beans, chopped
1 cup frozen peas
1 can diced tomatoes
1.5 or 2 boxes vegetable broth
2 tbsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried rosemary
1 tsp black pepper
2 tsp salt (or 2 tbsp tamari)

Cook the beans separately:
Rinse the lima beans under cold water, then bring to a boil in 3 or 4 cups of water in a medium saucepan. Turn down the heat, cover the beans and simmer them for about 45 minutes or until soft.

Healthy sauté onion and carrots in veggie broth until carrots begin to soften. Add potatoes and cook another 5 minutes. Add herbs, can of tomatoes and the rest of the vegetable broth and simmer until all the vegetables are cooked. Add cooked beans and pasta.

Bowl of minestrone soup

Lentil Curry on Rice

This is the most amazing thing I've eaten in awhile. I've had curries before but this one is the keeper, so I need to blog it before I forget it. lol

Lentil Curry on White Rice

Ingredients

3 small or 1 large onion, chopped
2 carrots (I wanted to put one in but I didn't have one, but next time I will and it will be even better, if that's even possible.
2 tbsp olive oil
4 cloves minced garlic
1 can diced tomatoes
1 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp turmeric
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground coriander
1/4 tsp dry ginger
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 tsp salt
3 cups veggie broth
1 1/2 cups water
1 cup brown lentils
1/2 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup green beans, 1/2" lengths
1 large package of fresh spinach

Directions

1. Cook onions and carrots in oil until soft, not brown. 
2. Add garlic and cook one minute. 
3. Drain the tomatoes then add to veggies and bring to a simmer then add all the spices. 
4. Take 2 cups of this mixture and puree it in a food processor or blender then add it back to the pan. 
5. Add the veggie broth, coconut milk, water and the cup of lentils. 
6. Cover and simmer on a low boil for 35 minutes until lentils are tender but still hold their form. 
7. Add the green beans and spinach and stir until it wilts. 

Serve over your favorite rice.

If you don't love this I don't even know what to tell you. I am looking forward to work tomorrow because I am having it for lunch. THAT'S how good it is. Seriously, make this.

How healthy is this?

First of all look at how healthy one cup of brown lentils is:
 molybdenum 330%
 folate 90%
 fiber 63%
 copper 56%
 phosphorus 51%
 manganese 49%
 iron 37%
 protein 36%
 vitamin B1 28%
 pantothenic acid 25%
 zinc 23%
 vitamin B6 21%
 potassium 21%

Secondly, look at the nutrition in one cup of cooked spinach:
 vitamin K 987%
 vitamin A 105%
 manganese 84%
 folate 66%
 magnesium 39%
 iron 36%
 copper 34%
 vitamin B2 32%
 vitamin B6 26%
 vitamin E 25%
 calcium 24%
 vitamin C 24%
 potassium 24%
 fiber 17%
 vitamin B1 14%
 phosphorus 14%
 zinc 12%
 protein 11%
 choline 8%
 omega-3 fats 7%
 vitamin B3 6%
pantothenic acid 5%

In fact, besides the oil and salt, everything in this recipe is beneficial in some way. I love that I am getting stuff my body needs in such a delicious meal. Not only that, but it came together quickly and was simple to make. You should try making it! :)

Bean & Lentil Salad

I made this bean salad to take with me to Sheephouse Falls tomorrow and it's very good so I wanted to document the recipe so we can make it again. It was inspired by our homegrown green beans along with the fact that we already had the other ingredients on hand.

Bean & Lentil Salad

Bean Mixture

3 cups cooked lentils
1 1/2 cups cooked black turtle beans
1 1/2 cups cooked chickpeas
1 1/2 cups fresh green beans cut in 1" lengths, and cooked until tender
1/2  cup chopped scallions
1/3 cup white onion, chopped fine

Vinaigrette

10 sprigs of fresh parsley, stemmed and chopped
5 tbsp white vinegar
5 tbsp vegetable or olive oil
5 tsp white sugar
2 tsp lemon juice
1/8 tsp black pepper
1 tsp salt or to taste

Mix the vinaigrette in with the bean mixture until everything is coated. Refrigerate overnight.

Protein

You may notice I use lentils in a lot of our dishes. A lot of people ask us where we get our protein and honestly, I get a lot of mine from lentils. We throw them into everything; gravies, sauces, soups, roasted veggies, salads, burgers...pretty much anything. We also eat beans quite a bit, especially in our Mexican food, which we have quite often.

Here is a breakdown of the protein in this salad. Mind you, this in in the entire salad, but even a 1-cup serving would have a substantial amount of protein.

3 cups lentils 54 g
1 1/2 cups black turtle beans 58.5 g
1 1/2 cups chickpeas 58.5 g
1 1/2 cups green beans 3 g

8 cups of food containing 174 g of protein. That amounts to 21.75 g per cup.

How much protein is enough?
They say you should have 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight daily. That means that most adults would need between 70-100 g of protein per day. Getting 1/5 to 1/4 in just one cup of bean salad is a great start to meeting the requirement.

Stuffed Squash with Brown Butter Sage Sauce

Laura has been harvesting a lot of herbs from the garden so I couldn't resist using some of our yummy sage in a brown butter sage sauce. I particularly love it on squash, although I'm sure it's good on many other things.

Stuffed Squash

Squash Stuffers

I cut a buttercup squash in half and de-seeded and de-pulped it, leaving twin squash bowls, which I placed into the roast pan. I knew I was going to fill those bowls with something but didn't quite know what. I opened the pantry and surveyed our supplies; we keep a lot of grains on hand. I debated between lentils, barley and rice and finally settled on parboiled and wild rice. I cooked about a cup of rice with 2 cups of water uncovered until the water was absorbed, added some dried sage, then spooned it into the squash bowls, filling each about halfway. I then topped them up with water since it was still only half cooked. Finally, I added 4 cups of water to the roast pan and placed it into a 400 degree oven for about an hour. The rice came out perfectly cooked. But! I wasn't done flavoring this dish yet.

Brown Butter Sage Sauce

I added 1/4 cup of vegan butter to a small pot on the stove and cooked on medium until it began to foam. Then I added a couple pinches of dried sage, crumbling it between my fingers. The butter quickly deep-fries the sage until crisp and it only takes a minute. Drizzled over the squash and rice it is sooo amazing.

Rules Be Damned

We served the squash and rice with a couple other veggies, namely potatoes and green beans. I know, I know, so much starch. Who has rice and potatoes? Funny thing is, when you make a diet change as big as going vegan, you tend to throw old conventions out the window. Bye bye old conventions. And good riddance!! Because this was one of the most amazing meals ever.

Squash & Rice, Smashed Potatoes and Green Beans

Best Dinner Ever

Show-Stopping Taters

Oh, and the stuffed squash was probably only the second-most delicious thing on the plate. The green beans were ultra fresh and cooked to perfection, but the potatoes stole the show and deserve their very own blog post. Stay tuned for the Smashed Potatoes blog.

Cabbage Rolls

Since cabbage rolls have always been one of my favorite dishes, I am really happy to discover that I can still enjoy them despite having given up eating meat. My aunt Emeline used to made cabbage rolls; they were kind of her thing. She used to steam the cabbage leaves in the dishwasher! I boiled mine in a big pot of water and they were easy to work with.

Vegan Cabbage Rolls

Sub the Meat for Lentils

Obviously there is no ground beef in these cabbage rolls. They're made with lentils instead, and they're actually pretty amazing. I've eaten them for supper twice and for lunch twice and I clean my plate every time.

Recipe Tweaking

Original recipe here
I stayed true to the original recipe with the exception of leaving the raisins out of the sauce. I think I would have liked the raisins, but Laura wasn't feeling it, so we decided to skip them. If I made them again, I would use less black pepper and a tiny bit more allspice.

Other things you could do would be to use other types of spices, or your favorite marinara instead of the sauce in the recipe. You could also use any kind of rice or other grain you want for the filling, or even add some veggies, like chopped spinach or kale.

Cabbage Rolls in Roast Pan

Takes Foreffingever

I have two complaints about making cabbage rolls. The first is that they are friggy and time-consuming. I don't think these can be made in an hour. The cabbage has to be cored, boiled and cooled. The rice and lentils both need to be cooked for the filling. There is chopping for both the sauce and the filling. For this first time, everything was measured. Then there is the wrapping, which can be a bit of an exercise in trial and error, especially at first. Then, finally, there is the cooking, which I think was about 45 minutes to an hour. You can't just come home from work and say, "Let's have cabbage rolls for supper!" and expect to eat before 9:00 pm. Not happening. No, these are a Sunday afternoon endeavor. But, worth it.

Makes a Huge Mess

The very worst part (my second and loudest complaint) about making cabbage rolls is that it creates a lot of dirty dishes - definitely not a one-pot meal. I think I dirtied a mixing bowl, a pot for the rice, a pot for the lentils, a pot for the sauce, 2 baking dishes (because I don't have a large one and had to use the small roast pan and a covered casserole dish), the grater, all the measuring cups and spoons, a wine glass and a big pile of utensils. Besides that, there was sauce splattered all over the stove, and bits of filling all over my work space and torn and shredded pieces of cooked cabbage all over the counter. And dishes everywhere. Not my ideal work environment, since I'm a "clean as you go" kind of kitchen bitch, but that doesn't seem to be entirely possible with these since there are too many things on the go at once. Wish I'd gotten a picture of it.

But again, it's worth it. And makes about 18 rolls.

Garden Vegetable Soup

I love soup so much and when the ingredients are this fresh, I love it even more. So good!

Vegetable Soup

Homegrown Veggies

Most of the ingredients in our soup today were harvested from the garden!

Snow Peas

The peas are growing like crazy out there, and needed to be picked so we are trying to incorporate them into every meal we can. 

Snow Peas

Beans

The beans are just getting started, due to late planting, but there were enough today to throw into the soup. We used a few Royal Burgundy bush beans and some green beans.

Chopped Beans & Peas

Potatoes & Carrots

The carrots aren't big yet either and needed to be thinned out in order to bulk up, so we thinned them out and used the teeny carrots in the soup.

The potatoes are still small too, but we've been harvesting a few of them anyway. We harvested a red potato plant called "Chieftain" for the soup.

Carrots & Red Potatoes

Kale

Kale isn't one of our favorite veggies, but it's great in soup so we made sure to chop a few leaves for it today. 

Kale

Fresh Herbs

The herbs have been growing well all summer and we harvest them as often as needed, and dry as many as we can for winter. Last year's herb harvest lasted all winter and we are still using some of them from 2015 this summer. We harvested parsley, thyme and oregano for the soup.

Parsley, Thyme & Oregano

We still have a bag of store-bought onions so we left the ones we planted in the garden to keep growing while we use what we already have. 

Garden Vegetable Soup Recipe

1 box vegetable soup

2 cups garden vegetable cocktail

4 cups water

1/4 cup rice

1/2 cup red lentils

1/2 cup soup mix (contains barley, lentils & various grains)

Several sprigs of parsley, thyme and oregano

3 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

Whatever vegetables in whatever amounts you want. I used:

• 2 small onions, chopped
• Handful of snow peas, trimmed and chopped
• Handful of green beans, trimmed and chopped
• 1 cup chopped carrots
• 3 cups potatoes
• 1 1/2 cups kale

Directions

I started with sautéing the onion in 1/2 cup water, then added the carrots. Next, I poured the box of vegetable broth in and then added the dried ingredients (rice, barley, etc). From there you can start adding the potatoes, beans & peas, kale and herbs, timed according to what takes longer to cook. I added the vegetable cocktail at the end, then began seasoning with the salt and pepper, tasting with every pinch to make sure it's not over-seasoned.

There are no real rules for making soup, but for it to taste good, seasonings are key. Salt is usually desired, but if you need to go low-sodium, go heavy on herbs, pepper, etc.

Pot of Soup