Roast beet and Fennel Soup

I have been talking for a while now about soup and slow cookers and in general, fall and winter foods. I have decided to free-hand a new soup. I was looking for something with lots of flavour and something that would be really warming on a cold day. Searching through my fridge I found beets. I had planned to roast them, but why not use them in a soup.

Beets can go with so many things, so I did a little googling and found a number of recipes that paired beets with fennel. Fennel is something I have never purchased and never used. I figured, this was a perfect opportunity to give it a try. Nice thing about roasting vegetables, it makes recipes a little more forgiving. There is so much flavour unlocked when you roast vegetables, you don't need to add a whole lot more to make a good tasting soup.

Fennel is a root vegetable used in Mediterranean cooking. it is high in vitamin C, Potassium and Folate. All good things. Beets are also a great source of folate and also manganese and fibre. On top of that, they are both loaded in phytonutrients and all sorts of antioxidants. As a someone that eats a vegan diet, I think it is really important to get a wide range of vegetables. I  can't say I am always the best at this, but i love when I can introduce something new.

Prepared for roasting. The foil helps with evening the temperature
good for things like beets when left whole

Both of these vegetables lend themselves to roasting, plus it is so easy to do.. I had to roast these before making my soup. To roast, trim the beets so the greens are removed (If you want, you can save these and use them in salad or saute them). Next toss the whole beets in olive oil and salt and pepper. Now get a large peice of tin foil and wrap the beets in it (This will help to cook evenly and prevent juices from dying the fennel red). Now get the fennel and trim it so the stalks are removed. Cut into quarters, toss in the same olive oil and salt and pepper and place on a baking sheet with the beets. Roast them at 375 F for about an hour.

Exactly one hour later. My kitchen smells so good

Now, if you want, you can just slice and eat these as is, or you can make a soup with them. I chose to make soup:

Roasted Beet and Fennel Soup
*Makes 8-10 servings, about 1 hour if the vegetables are already roasted

• 3-4 beets roasted, skins removed and quartered
• 2 fennel bulbs, roasted and quartered
• 1 white onion, diced
• 2 carrots, diced
• 2 celery stalks, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, sliced
• 1 yellow pepper diced
• 1 leek, sliced
• 1 tsp ground sage
• 1 Tsp ground thyme
• 2 tsp Italian Seasoning
• 5-6 cups vegetable stock
• 2 tsp siracha
• 1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
• 1/4 cup milk or soy cream
• 1 tbsp fresh basil, sliced (optional)
• 2 Tbsp parsley, chopped (optional)

If you haven't done so, roast the fennel and beets as noted above and let cool. While you're waiting, chop up the other ingredients so you are ready to build the soup. Remove the beet skin and chop into quarters or smaller if you want and set aside. Heat a large soup pot over medium heat and add a little olive oil. Add the onion, carrot and celery and cook for about 5 minutes or until tender. Add the garlic and leek and cook for 3-4 more minutes. Now add the sage and thyme and cook again for another minute.

Prep done, makes building a soup a lot easier

Step one - Saute all the base vegetables 

Step two - add herbs

Add in the beets, fennel and vegetable stock. Bring the mixture to a boil and then reduce the heat and simmer for about 30 minutes or so. You can go longer if you want... or do this in a slow cooker and cook on low for 4-6 hours.

Step 3 - add the stock and remaining ingredients and wait...
keep waiting...

Now, get out your immersion blender and put on an apron. Beets stain and splatter could wreck what you're wearing. Keep this in mind! Blend the soup until it is a nice cream texture. If you want some chunks, that is fine too. Do it to taste. Now stir in the siracha to taste and the red wine vinegar. I used what was listed above and it was good. Definite hit of spice though!

Before serving, add fresh basil and parsley to each bowl. You can also garnish with a little fennel leaves if you like. Drizzle in a little of the soy milk/cream

See how pretty it looks with all the garnish

Should last for about 5-7 days. If you can't finish it, freeze it!

So... the results.. this soup was a hit. It is rich and a smooth, but also has a good blend of spicy, sweetness and freshness. Really instead of beets you could use any other root vegetable here, but the colour that comes from this soup is so pretty. Somewhere between a strong magenta and a deep scarlet red. By the time I finished this, I didn't even want anything to eat, but couldn't help myself once I tasted it. I think adding the milk at the end adds a nice layer and looks nice, so try not to skip this. My sister (a non-vegan) tried it with sour cream (Toffuti makes a vegan one). Normally beets are paired with sour cream, but she said that it was a bit overpowering and that it was better alone.

The only thing I don't like about this recipe is the mess that the beets make. Roasting on foil is a smart tip I found and saved a huge amount of mess.... but my hands, some of my floor, the cutting board and Tupperware have been dyed red! I love beets, but man are they messy! Keep this on away from kids I think..

Roasted Yams, Leeks and Lotus Root

Roasted vegetables are nothing new. Just about anything can be tossed in oil and roasted. It brings out the natural sweetness in vegetables. Potatoes, onion, carrots, and peppers are the first thing I think of when it comes to roasting vegetables. I often forget about how good roasting is.. I kind of associate it with animal-based meals. Roasted chick, pork, beef.. as a kid these were the things I had roasted vegetables with. So what do pair with roasted vegetables as a vegan? Anything. Tofu, seitan and tempeh are often my choices for having a vegan meat and potato type meal, but also great with soups, stews, mixed with grains like rice or quinoa.

I Wanted to make some roasted vegetables, but I didn't have the traditional veggies on hand. I also was making this for a midnight snack, so I didn't want a full meal. What I found in my kitchen was yams, lotus root and leek. Kind of a weird combination on first glance, but these vegetables are all mild and sweet and take on many different types of flavours. Seemed perfect for a late-night snack.

When I told people about this one, the first question I usually get is, 'what is lotus root'... The day I discovered lotus root, was a good day in the world of food. It is such a versatile vegetable and really good for you. It is pretty big, about 10-20 cm in length and 6-8 cm in diameter. It looks kind of like daikon (Asian radish. If you haven't heard of it... I will do a post on it some day soon), but has holes running through which makes it a really pretty veggie when sliced.

Lotus root is also really healthy. For a root vegetable, it is very low-calorie. Also very high in fibre with about 5 g in a serving. It is high in vitamin C (more than 75% of your daily requirement). Lotus root is high in B-6 which I found out today is a vitamin that helps control mood. Getting enough B-6  helps control nervous irritability, headaches, and tension. I had no idea. Lastly, it is a great source for minerals like copper, zinc and iron. basically, like most (all?) vegetables, lotus root is really good for you. It is super versatile in cooking too. You can add it to soups, stir fries or on its own as a side dish. It can be baked, roasted, boiled, steamed, fried or shredded. It can be tricky to find. It is in season in the fall and usually only available at Asian markets.


My favourie way to prepare lotus root is to roasted it with other vegetables and dress it up a bit with lime and maple syrup. It is a fantastic sweet and savoury snack.


Roasted Yam, Leek and Lotus Root
*Serves two, takes about 25 minutes

• 1 large yam, sliced thin 
• 1 piece of lotus root (about 4-5"), sliced
• 1 leek, sliced in half lengthwise and the sliced into thinly.
• 2 Tbsp oil
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• 1 Tbsp maple syrup
• 1 Tbsp lime juice
• 2 Tbsp Mint leaves

Not a great photo.. I was rushing, but super
easy to get this ready. Just slice things evenly

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Prepare the vegetables and put them into a large bowl. Toss with the oil, salt and pepper and lay everything flat on a cookie sheet. Put in the oven and roast for about 10 min. At this point, take the veggies out of the oven and sprinkle the maple syrup and the lime juice over top and toss again to coat. Put them back in the oven for another 10 minutes until the are golden brown and cooked through. 

Before roasting

And.. after. 

You can slice lime slices and serve with them as a garnish or sprinkle some chopped cilantro or mint leaves (and remember, always spank your mint!) on them if you want to make them look a little prettier for serving. Really these are perfectly fine on their own though. Pretty simple dish.. tastes amazing and is good enough to just have on its own. It will keep a few days in the fridge, but won't be as crisp if you reheat in the microwave. best way to reheat these is in a frying pan or in the oven.

Ginger Molasses Baked Tofu

Saturday night. I have grounded myself in order to get ready for my next trip. Luckily there are plenty of bad movies on TV and I have even more bad movies PVR'd. I didn't have much on hand to cook with, but I knew whatever I made I needed to incorporate a couple things: 1. roasted potatoes. I bought some from the Farmer's Market and I have been waiting all day to roast them up! 2. Tofu. I have had some in my fridge for too long and it is time something is done with it. 3. Sweet and Spicy. I just love that combo and I have a pumpkin spice cupcake for dessert that would go well with a sweet n' spicy dinner.

As usual, the next steps were to forage in the kitchen for a way to pull this together. I decided to make a basic marinade with ginger and molasses.

Molasses, specifically blackstrap molasses is about as healthy has sugar is going to get. It is full of minerals and is a great source for iron... like 15-20% of your daily requirement is in one serving. Not bad. Next time someone asks you how you make sure you get enough iron without tearing into animals for dinner, you can tell them that. Then you can google it when they don't believe you. It is also a  good source of calcium (10% of your daily requirement is in two tsp of molasses).

So yeah, healthy sugar! I still is a sweetener, so a little goes a long way, but it is so much better than white granulated sugar. Also a great choice to thicken and sweeten up a marinade.

Ginger Molasses Baked Tofu
*Serves two

• 1 block of tofu, cut into quarters or whatever shape you want.
• 1/4 cup of blackstrap molasses
• 1/4 soy sauce
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 Tbsp red pepper flakes
• 2 tsp sesame seeds
• 2 tsp chia seeds
• salt and pepper

First press your tofu and place it in a shallow dish. Mix the marinade ingredients together and then pour on top. Let it sit covered for at least and hour. Longer is better. Once the marinade is ready, preheat your over to 350 F. Get a cookie sheet and cover it with Foil. Add the tofu slices and if you are doing potatoes as a side, you can put those beside the tofu. Bake for about 30-40 minutes turning half way.

Save a little space for your veggies

I served this with kale which I added to the same cookie sheet about 12 minutes before everything was ready. This way I had nothing on the stove and with the foil, minimal dishes to clean up afterwards. It is a very practical way to cook!

The aftermath of an edible arrangement I got became the side dish of my dinner
Was told only a vegan would take garnish and eat it.. I'm ok with that. 

One dinner, one pan, no scrubbing. Love it.

The result - fast and easy dinner.

For dessert, I had my last cupcake that I got at the farmers market from vegout bakery. I bought a lemon and pumpkin spice cupcake. They were both amazing. They taste so homemade yet so perfect. It is really hard to describe it in words. I will be back for a birthday cupcake next week! If you are in Edmonton, go check them out sometime at the downtown farmers market.

Dessert from Vegout Bakery. So good, Edmontonians, Veggie or not, I recommend!

Now, the following day I decided to try this same recipe except for fried. It was even better than baked! Simply heat some oil in a pan and then bread the tofu in cornmeal. Cook about 7-8 minutes a side.

Same recipe, but fried. Seriously good.

Roasted vegetables from the garden

Last weekend, my friend James and I decided to go check out a u-pick. I have been in Edmonton a long, long time and I have never actually been to a u-pick here! Anyways, we found a pretty nice one west of the city. Unfortunately the berries were kind of picked over, but there were lots and lots of vegetables there! We got corn, potatoes, beets, lettuce, cabbage, beans and there was much more there. I hope to go back sometime soon with more of a plan (I had no plan, so I was hesitant to pick lots of vegetables).

Later in the week, I realized I still had some veggies kicking around that needed to be eaten, so I decided to whip up some corn on the cob and BBQ tofu and with only two burners (my other two have not worked in years), I had no room to get vegetables done for my dinner. So I got ready to do a little roasting.

Roasting vegetables is one the easiest ways to cook vegetables. It is not the quickest, but comparing to steaming, roasting brings out more flavour and leaves my stove top free for other things. It is definitely one of my favourite ways to cook vegetables. All I usually do is toss the veggies of choice with some oil (usually olive oil, but you could use grape seed, sesame, or pretty much what ever is on hand) and some salt and pepper. Sometimes I will go so far as to toss some dried herbs in with it too if I have some around.

Some roasting tips:
* Heat your oven to 350 - 400 F (lower for veggies that cook fast and higher for those that take longer)
* use some tin foil on your baking sheet so things don't stick and things are quick to clean up after too.
* if you have some dried herbs on hand, use them. You don't need much and it will change up the flavour a bit
* Add a little vinegar or citrus before roasting.
* Toss them at least once or twice while they are cooking so they come out even

for my dinner, I made roasted zucchini, tomato and basil with fresh corn on the cob and BBQ Tofu:

The vegetables
Pre-heat the over to about 375 F. While you are waiting, chop up your vegetables into bite size pieces (about 1 1/2" thick). Put the veggies in a bowl and toss with about 1 Tbsp of olive oil (just enough to coat them). add in some salt and pepper, dried herbs and a splash of lemon juice. Next, get a cookie sheet and cover it with tin foil. Spread the veggies on the sheet and put it in the over for about 20 minutes. Once or twice through cooking, toss the veggies around so they cook evenly.

Corn on the Cobb
This is so easy, you don't need a recipe. Bowl a big pot of water and if you like, salt the water. While you are waiting, shuck the corn removing the husk and silks and if you are like me, feed some to your guinea pigs :)

Add the corn to the water and cook for 8-10 minutes. 10 will make the corn quite soft, so adjust accordingly if you want it more firm.

And that is about it. I added some BBQ tofu to my dinner. Something I make a lot because I don't have to prep and it's fast.