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..

Potato mushroom leek soup

I know when fall is ending and winter is around the corner when I start thinking about soup. I like soup, but only in the winter do I think about it. All week, I keep thinking of recipes I could put together for a good soup. I was planning to do this one yesterday, but realized I had not broth when I got home, so here it is today.

Shrooms and soup... perfect for a cold night

Soup is something that a lot of people grab from the can or tetra-pack. Once you have home made soup I don't know how you can go back to the canned stuff. It's just not that good. plus it is full of sodium and in a lot instances, animal products. Before I went vegan, I don't think I ever made a soup from scratch. It seemed like a lot of work and a lot of time. This just simply is not true. You can make an amazing soup in 30 minutes... and if you can stand it, 60 minutes will really get those flavours blending. 


Soup is a perfect one pot meal. When you make it yourself, you control the ingredients and the salt and fat levels. So load up your soup pot with whatever you are feeling. Tonight, I am feeling a craving for potato mushrooms and leeks. 


Potato, Mushroom and Leek Soup
Takes about 45-60 minutes, serves 4

• 1 Tbsp oil
• 2 large leeks, greens removed, halved and then sliced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tsp thyme
• 1 tsp rosemary
• 1 tsp sage
• 2 cups of mushrooms, any type (I am using oyster and cremini)
• 1 small pear, diced
• 1/2 cooking wine if you have it (I didn't..)
• 4 small red potatoes, diced
• 2 cups vegetable broth
• 2 cups water
• 1/2 cup milk (soy, almond, etc)

First get a large soup pot and heat oil on medium heat. Add the onions and garlic and cook for 5 minutes. Add the herbs and saute for another 5 minutes for until the onions are soft. Add the mushrooms and cook a little longer and a splash of water if things are starting to stick. Now add in all remaining ingredients, except for the milk. Bring it to a boil and then reduce to low. Simmer for 30-40 minutes.

Start with sauteing your onions and base vegetables. It will add depth to the soup

Next add the other vegetables..

Now add your liquid. You can always adjust later, so add just enough to cover everything

Lastly add in the milk and simmer another 10 minutes. And soup is ready! If you want you can take an immersion blender and blend out the soup a bit, or leave it chunky, that one is completely up to you. I tend to do a half and half. i think it makes a perfect consistency.

And last, garnish is you want. Or better yet, just eat out of the pot and save a dish

Next time you pick up a can of soup... think twice. For 10 minutes of work, and an hour of sitting around, you can make the perfect, personalized soup. Want to make it fancy? Add some sauteed mushrooms on top, or fresh thyme, cilantro, or toasted nuts (walnut, pine nuts I think would work well). 

This made a lot of soup, but I am planning to freeze it. Easily half this recipe if you don't want this much soup.

Got Pumpkin?

Everywhere I go, there are pumpkins. At the grocery store, in store fronts, on TV and certainly all over the Vegan MoFo blog roll! I am not just following suit. I love pumpkins, they are an under used food in my opinion. I love to make/eat pumpkin pie, soup, stews, squares, cookies. So what I am trying to get across is that this is probably the first of many pumpkin posts.

Since it is Thanksgiving this weekend, I thought I would devote this week to things you could put on the Thanksgiving table. I likely will not be taking part in the holiday with a big meal and it is really difficult to make a full Thanksgiving dinner for one without having to eat it for weeks. So, I am making one piece at a time and eating them as full meals. I don't see anything wrong with this plan!

So, back to pumpkins. First, how healthy is a pumpkin? Well looking just at the vegetable, it is very healthy. Low in calories and fat free, pumpkin is a great way to get something a little sweet in a dish with out adding sugar. It's high in vitamin A and a source of vitamins C, E and K. Pumpkins are also very high in potassium which is known to reduce heart disease and an excellent source of beta carotene. The only bad thing about pumpkins is that they are rarely served on their own. You most commonly see them in pies and squares. Well that is not the only way to use pumpkins. 

Normally when I cook with pumpkin, it is from a can. This year, I thought it was time to try to make a few things using as much of the pumpkin as possible. Tonight I made whole pumpkin soup. This recipe is a veganized Alton Brown Recipe (Click here for the original). I thought it was a such a cool way to serve the soup it had to be blogged about. 

Whole Pumpkin Soup

Adapted from Alton Brown

Serves 2-4, Takes about 2 - 2 1/2 hours

• One whole baking pumpkin (about 4-5 lbs)
• 1/2 tbsp canola oil
• 1 Tbsp vegan butter
• 1/2 onion diced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 green apple, peeled, cored and diced
• 1 cup vegetable broth
• 1/2 vegan creamer
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• salt and pepper
• 2 Tbsp vegan cream cheese (I use toffutti)
• 1 tsp fresh thyme

Before, remember to cut the top at and angle to prevent the lid from falling in.

And After!

Pre heat the over to 375 F and begin prepping your pumpkin. Cut a hole in the top of the pumpkin that you can fit your hand inside. Cut at an angle so the top won't fall through. Next scoop out the seeds. I find using your hands is easiest, but that is up to you. Save the seeds and you can roast them for later (tomorrow I will have some good recipes for roasting).

Like most soups, just dump the ingredient in together and let them cook.

Now, oil a casserole and then brush remaining oil on the pumpkin. Dump all the ingredients except for the cheese and thyme and stir. Put the top on the pumpkin and put it in the over for 90 minutes. Once the 90 minutes are up remove the pumpkin and add the thyme and cheese. Stir again and put it back in the over (no top this time) for another 30 minutes.

Last, blend the crap out of it to blend all the flavours

Once it's done, remove the pumpkin and once cool enough to handle, carefully scrape the sides of the pumpkin to get some of the flesh in the soup. Lastly, take an immersion blender and gently blend the soup (be careful not to touch the sides or the bottom of the pumpkin). Serve and watch everyone's amazement at how much you rock. Or serve into bowls or pass around some straws.

Update - Be very careful taking the soup out of the pumpkin! The bottom of mine fell through when I was trying to get the left overs into a tupperware. Either leave it in the casserole or maybe try using a spatula to remove it! :)

Creamy Coconut Carrot Soup

OK, so this post is... two weeks late? I don't know why it is difficult to stay on an easy blogging schedule. I haven't been cooking much this past week so I guess I figured I could take some time off from he blog too. Shame, shame :)

So, here we are in the dead of winter and I was really wanting a rich, warm soup. I didn't want to go to the grocery store (It was -20 C out!!). I went through my fridge and thought I could maybe come up with a carrot soup recipe.

First, I was just going to find a recipe and do things the easy way, but nothing that I could find felt right. In the end, I made my own recipe and it was amazing! I based it off of a Carrot Ginger soup from the Everything Vegan Cookbook, but I changed so much, you'd barely know that I used it as a guide.

Here it is:

Creamy Coconut Carrot Soup 

Ingredients:

• 1 Tbsp olive Oil
• 4 carrots, peeled and chopped
• 1 Sweet Potato, peeled and chopped
• 1 inch piece of ginger, minced
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1/2 red lentils
• 1 small green apple, peeled and chopped
• 4-5 cups of vegetable broth (Four for a thick soup, five if you like it a bit thinner)
• 1 can of coconut milk
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 sprigs of fresh thyme
• 3/4 tsp Cinnamon
• 1 tsp salt

 

 

First step is to prep all the ingredients. Get everything peels and chopped and ready to go in the pot. Heat a large soup pot over medium heat and add the olive oil. Next add the onion, garlic and ginger and heat until the onions become soft and translucent. 

 

Next add in the carrots,potato and apple and stir and heat for another minute or so. Add in the Cinnamon, Thyme and bay leaf then the lentils and broth.

 

Bring the soup to a boil and then lower to the heat and let the soup simmer for about 15 - 20 minutes, until the lentils are cooked and the vegetables are soft.

 

 

 Once cooked either transfer the soup in batches to a blend, or use an immersion blender (that's what I used) to combine all the vegetables. Once smooth stir in the coconut milk and salt. Put the soup back on the stove and heat through.

 



Although my finished pic is not great, I swear this soup is amazing. It is best served hot, but I also tried it cold and it was pretty good that way too. I think you could even add a bit more carrot and a bit less sweet potato (the one I had was really big) if you want a super carrot-y taste. However, I think the ingredients really complimented each other well.

If you want to find something that will warm up a sub zero day, give this one a try.

I am now searching and trying to figure out what I should make next... Cookies, maybe? If anyone is reading, please send me some suggestions!