Miso and Vegetable Curry with Jasmine Rice

Last night, I was feeling rather tired and rushed with an editing project that needed to be finished sooner rather than later. Normally when that happens, it's my cue to break out the delivery websites or start making instant mashed potatoes. Last night, though, neither of those options sounded particularly good, so instead I took to the web to try to find something... and sadly, still, nothing sounded good.

Susan Voison's Thai Green Curry with Vegetables and Tofu sounded the best of everything, though I lacked a few most of the ingredients to make it. So I did what I do and improvised. In this case, I improvised a lot, enough that I feel comfortable calling this one of my own.

It was an overwhelming success in my house, as well as a surprise hit on Facebook. It will be a repeater.

Miso and Vegetable Curry with Jasmine Rice

A recipe from Kat

Ingredients

• 1 tsp of sesame oil
• 1 small onion, diced
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 cup of vegetable stock
• 6 spears of fresh asparagus, woody ends removed and chopped small
• 1 cup of fresh broccoli, florets only, chopped small
• 8 oz of tofu, chopped small
• 2 cups of soy milk or almond milk or coconut milk (I used light unflavored soy milk)
• 1-2 Tbsp of reduced sodium soy sauce or tamari
• 2 Tbsp of white miso paste
• 1 cup of uncooked white jasmine rice
• 1.25 cups of water (for rice)
• Gomashio to taste (see note below)
• Black pepper to taste

Directions

1. Heat sesame oil in a large soup pot over medium heat. Add onions. Cook until tender. Add garlic. Cook approximately a minute. 
2. Add vegetable broth to pot. Allow to come to boil and add asparagus, broccoli, and tofu.
3. Add soy milk and soy sauce. Reduce heat. Cover and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring frequently.
4. In another pot, bring water to a soft boil. Add jasmine rice, cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 10 minutes. (My rice was finished by this point, but some may need to cook further or set for 5 minutes to absorb any remaining liquid.)
5. Add some liquid from vegetable mixture to miso paste. Stir until it reaches a creamy consistency. Remove the vegetable mixture from the heat and add miso into the pot.
6. Serve miso curry over rice with gomashio on top to taste.

Gomashio

Gomashio is a Japanese condiment sometimes served with various rice dishes. It can be difficult to find in grocery stores, so if you cannot find it, it's very easy to make.

Take toasted sesame seeds and salt (or your salt substitute of choice--I used a mixture of salt and kelp). A good ratio is 5:1 (5 parts sesame seeds to 1 part salt), though it can go as high as 15:1. Grind them together with a mortar and pestle. Serve over the rice and curry.

Vegan Hot and Sour Soup

So it seems that I disappeared for a few months. I actually didn't mean to do that. My GERD decided to flare up a bit, putting me back on a more bland diet, at the time as I start sticking closer to the cookbook on a lot of recipes. It seemed a little silly to just repeat the cookbook verbatim, not to mention potentially problematic in the legal arena.

This is a recipe I first made several months ago, probably in January. I took a look at two different recipes (Live Hot and Sour Soup from The 30 Minute Vegan by Mark Reinfeld and Jennifer Murray and Hot and Sour Soup from The Vegan Slow Cooker by Kathy Hester), mixed, matched, and generally messed about with until I had a Hot and Sour soup that I could both enjoy the taste of and still eat with the GERD... and that D might also enjoy.

This is the result of that experiment. This is the first time I've written it down, so bear with me.

Vegan Hot and Sour Soup

A recipe hodgepodge by Kat

Ingredients

Soup

• 4 cups of water
• 2 tsp of Vogue Cuisine Low Sodium Vegebase bouillon
• 2 tsp of minced garlic (4 cloves) 
• 2 Tbsp of minced ginger, divided
• 2 Tbsp of rice wine vinegar
• 2 Tbsp of reduced sodium soy sauce
• 1 tsp of sesame oil
• 1/2 tsp of Sriracha hot chili sauce (Rooster Sauce)
• 1 8-oz can of bamboo shoots, drained, sliced thin and cut in half
• 1 15-oz can of sweet peas, drained and rinsed
• 1 tsp of lime juice
• 8 oz of firm tofu, diced small
• 5 dried apricots, diced small
• 4 green onions, chopped

For Serving Extras

• Sriracha
• Sesame oil

Directions

1. Bring water and bouillon to boil over medium heat in a 3 quart saucepan. Add garlic, 1 tablespoon of ginger, vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, Sriracha, bamboo, lime juice, apricots, and tofu. 
2. Cook 12 minutes over medium heat.
3. Reduce heat to medium-low. Add peas and the other tablespoon of ginger. 
4. Cook 5 more minutes over medium-low heat.
5. Add green onions. Serve and enjoy.

If you would like to add addition Sriracha and/or sesame oil to individual bowls, these tend to be good additions.

Red Curry Soup with Rice and Spinach

While I have had a copy of Isa Chandra Moskowitz's Veganomicon that I am madly in love with and am a huge supporter of her Teal Cat Project, I never went to her website until very recently. I've been nominally vegetarian since 1998, but it's only been since the beginning of 2012 that I have been 90-95% vegan. (D and I eat vegan when we're at home, mostly because I'm doing the cooking, but if we eat out, it's vegetarian.)

I finally got around to visiting The Post Punk Kitchen, and I've found some many recipes I'm mad for and can't wait to try. If this site isn't the site for vegans to start at, I'm not sure I would be able to believe it.

Oddly enough, though, the first PPK recipe that I tried was Red Curry Soup with Rice and Red Kale. This one actually is quite odd, because I generally try to steer clear of both spicy foods and kale; like the song says, "we just disagree". I decided to give it a go, though, due to my overwhelming love of both jasmine rice and sweet potatoes.

I let spinach tag in for the kale. I also cut the amount of red curry paste down to 1.5 tablespoons, in deference to my GERD.

Overall, I think it was one of the most flavorful soups I have had in a long while. It's definitely one that I'm going to repeat -- and maybe even show off to certain folks that this is what vegan can be and taste like (and not just be salads).

So, for your consideration...

Red Curry Soup with Rice and Red Kale

Coconut Curry Lentil Soup

Original version of the soup

 So I've made this soup a couple of times now, and this is the first time I could get around to writing down the recipe. Each time I made it, it turned out looking a little different. The first time was definitely more visually appealing (see below), so I'm going to offer some tweaks to the recipe I used for the second go around to try to duplicate the original recipe.

I had the soup this one is based on a few months ago at Bella Bella in Tallahassee, FL. Like most things at Bella Bella, I fell madly in love with it and had to try to make it myself. Each time I've made the soup, though, I think I've moved further and further away from Bella Bella's version and more into creating something that is a bit more mine.

I included white nuts -- also known as gingko nuts -- in the recipe because I used them the first time and felt they added something to the soup. I've only been able to find them at the oriental grocery store, though. If there isn't one of them near your home, I wouldn't worry about adding them.

This soup become something of a standard in our house, because it's very easy to make (yes, I'm shameless that way) and it reheats very well, both of which make it ideal for making in bulk for lunches at work (hence the picture of it in my handy lunch container). The recipe as it stands right now feeds two people a decent sized lunch for two days; depending on how it's put in containers, you might get one more meal for one person out of it.

Coconut Curry Lentil Soup
A recipe by Kat

Most recent version of Coconut Curry Lentil Soup, in my
handy lunch container

Ingredients

• 6 cups of water
• 4 cubes or teaspoons of vegetable bouillon
• 1 1/2 cups of lentils (I used green lentils)
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 1 carrot, peeled and chopped
• 2 tsp of ground ginger (or to taste)
• Dash of cayenne pepper (or to taste)
• 1 Tbsp of curry (or to taste)
• 1 can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 1 can of Great Northern or cannellini beans (I used Great Northern), drained and rinsed
• 1 can of white nuts (gingo nuts), drained and rinsed (optional)
• 2 14-oz cans of lite coconut milk
• 1/2 cup of soy milk

Directions

1. In a large soup pot, add the water, bouillon, and lentils. Bring to a boil over medium heat.
2. Add garlic, onion, carrot, ginger, cayenne, and curry to the pot. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer for about 30 minutes or until the lentils are beginning to become tender.
3. Add the drained and rinsed cans of legumes while stirring. Add the two cans of coconut milk and the soy milk. Stir thoroughly to mix. 
4. Cover again and allow to cook another 20 minutes. Stir carefully before serving.

I usually add a bit of vegan margarine (generally Earth Balance) on top of each bowl when I serve it, just to enhance the flavor a little and brighten it up. You can also add some turmeric for additional color.

Gnocchi Soup

So I've been meaning to make a post here for the last week or so. However, I have been down with a nasty sinus infection and haven't really been cooking... at least unless everyone wanted vegetarian noodle soup, since that has been my breakfast and my dinner most days.

Yesterday I was feeling a bit more human, though, so I decided I was going to try something new. This recipe is based on one from FatFree Vegan Kitchen. However, it turned out that we were short on potatoes. We did have some small gnocchi going spare in the pantry, though, so we subbed it in instead. It turned out very nice and relatively filling. It's definitely going to be a repeater in our house.

Due to some poor planning on my part, this recipe does require two pots. It might work out better that way for most people as well, but it's probably possible to make this using only one pot.

Gnocchi Soup
Based on a recipe by FatFree Vegan Kitchen

Ingredients

• 1 packet of Gia Russa Mini Gocchi with Potatoes
• 1/2 small red onion, chopped
• 1 teaspoon of margarine (I used Earth Balance)
• 1 teaspoon of olive oil 
• 1 cup of vegetable broth 
• 1/4 teaspoon of dried rosemary or 1/2 teaspoon of fresh rosemary
• 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon of (white) pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 1 Tablespoon of Red Star Nutritional Yeast
• 1 1/2 cups of soy milk

Directions

1. In a large stockpot, melt the butter over medium heat with the olive oil. Add the onion and stir until soft, about 3 to 5 minutes.
2. Add the rosemary and vegetable broth. Add the pepper, salt, and nutritional yeast. Reduce heat to medium-low.
3. Meanwhile in another pot, bring the mini gnocchi to boil. Cook according to package directions, 1-3 minutes (or until gnocchi floats to the top). Drain and add to broth.
4. Slowly add the soy milk to the broth and gnocchi. Allow to cook until warm, stirring frequently. Serve hot and enjoy!

Miso Soup

Miso soup was one of the first things I learned to make on my own. It remains one of my favorite things to have for breakfast or part of a dinner. I have even stretched it into a one-pot meal all on its own. I'm going to include both of these in this post. Pictured at left is my one-pot meal version of miso soup.

When I first started making this, miso paste was not easy to find. It pretty much meant a trip to the local Asian import store. Thankfully, though, it is getting easier to find. Generally, it can be find in the cold food section of organic grocery stores. If that isn't an option where you are located, you can always get it through Amazon.com.

This would normally be made with dashi or instant dashi, but this is my vegetarian version. To make with instant dashi, replace the vegetable broth and water with 3 cups of water and 1 1/2 teaspoons of instant dashi.

It's a very simple but very enjoyable dish, and there are plenty of variations to the dish that you can try. Just about anything that is used in Japanese cooking can be added. Shitake mushrooms are one popular addition, though not one I enjoy due to a lifelong detesting of any member of the mushroom family. Pork can be added as well, but then it is tonjiru or pork soup. Adding rice to miso soup makes a kind of nekomeshi, but this is not really done in polite society; it best translates along the line of "cat food" or basically the leftovers you would give your cat from the morning's breakfast.

Basic Miso Soup
A recipe from Kat

Ingredients 

• 2 cups of vegetable broth (or 2 cups of water and 2 cubes of vegetable bouillon)
• 1 cup of water
• 1 long section of wakame seaweed, cut into tiny bites, or spinach, cut into tiny bites
• 1 12-oz block of firm or extra-firm tofu, cut into bite-size cubes
• 1 to 2 Tablespoons of white miso or to taste
• 1 green onion, chopped

Directions

1. Reserve miso in a bowl or large cup. Miso must NOT be boiled.
2. Mix water and vegetable broth in large stock pot. 
3. As it approaches boil, add tofu cubes.
4. Once the soup reaches a boil, scoop some of the hot liquid out into the miso and mix into a fine paste. While mixing, add wakame seaweed.
5. Remove the pot from heat and add miso, stirring well to mix. 
6. Top with green onions and serve hot.

One-Pot Meal Miso Soup
A recipe from Kat 

Ingredients

• All ingredients as above for Basic Miso Soup.
• 1 carrot, washed and skinned, shaved or cut into matchsticks
• 3 oz of somen noodles

Directions

1. Cook as above for Basic Miso soup. 
2. Add the carrots and somen noodles with the wakame. They will not need to cook long. Somen noodles ideally need to be cooked no longer than 3 minutes.

Vegetarian French Onion Soup

I'm actually generally better at taking photos than this. The photos you are seeing here are ones I've taken for Facebook or Google+ to brag to my friends see if anyone wanted the recipe. Most of the photos are done on my iPhone with one to four cats in the photo somewhere; they can be such helpful food critics!

This recipe is a favorite of D's -- and one of mine as well. French Onion Soup was not something I thought about loving until going vegetarian meant giving it up.

I've played around with this recipe for months now, trying to come up with one that was absolutely what D and I were looking for: the taste of French Onion Soup, not terrible for calories, and vegetarian. Of all the versions, this one is my favorite. It is also one of the closest to Bella Bella's, a restaurant here in Tallahassee, FL. This will not be the last of their recipes I tried to puzzle out; their Bubble Bread is definitely on that list.

I do sometimes add toasted bread cubes or croutons to this recipe. They tend to be very good additions. Italian bread and French loaves have been particularly great with this dish. Most of the time, though, I do prefer to eat this soup plain, so that is how I have .

French Onion Soup (Vegetarian)
A recipe from Kat


Ingredients

• 1 medium onion, sliced
• 2.5 cups of vegetable broth
• 3-5 cloves of minced garlic (to your taste)
• 3/4 cup water
• 2 tablespoons of butter or margarine
• 1 tablespoon of flour
• 1 tablespoon of soy sauce or vegan Worcestershire sauce (I prefer the latter myself)
• 1/2 teaspoon of dried parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon of dried thyme
• 1/2 cup of shredded Parmesan cheese

Directions

1. In a medium sauce pan, melt the butter over medium heat and add the onions. Stir until tender, about 20 minutes. Add minced garlic cloves at about the 10 minute point.
2. Add flour, stirring constantly so that it does not stick. Slowly add broth and water in stages; this helps to prevent lumps of flour from forming. 
3. Add soy sauce, parsley, and thyme.
4. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low (if your stove burner dials use numbers, around a 1 or a 2) and simmer for 20 minutes.
5. Serve hot with shredded Parmesan cheese.

Barley and Vegetable Soup

Through some impressive mishaps regarding the grocery list, hurried shopping, and general forgetfulness, somehow D and I have ended up with more pearl barley than we really know what to do with. I'm not sure I can accurately guess how much we actually have, but it has to be over 5 pounds. With that much barley in the house, it seemed wisest to try to find uses for it.  Since Autumn is trying very hard to arrive in Florida, soup seemed most appropriate.

Most of the soups I found using barley were variations of Scotch Broth. Since I am mostly vegetarian and D doesn't eat beef very often, I had to discard all of those.

Finally I happened upon one that would be very easy to edit and make vegetarian-friendly: Food.com's Shuzbud's Warming Barley and Vegetable Soup. It turned out to be even better as a breakfast than as a dinner, so that's what we eat it for. It does a pretty magnificent job of keeping us full all morning.

So this is my version of this soup. I usually double the recipe, so that we have enough for breakfast for a few weeks, but this is the basic version.


Barley and Vegetable Soup
Originally found here by Shuzbud on Food.com.

Ingredients

• 1 cup of pearl barley, uncooked
• 8 cups of water
• 6 cubes of vegetarian vegetable bouillon 
• 3 carrots, peeled and chopped
• 2 stalks of celery, chopped
• 1 large sweet onion, peeled and chopped
• 1 can of diced potatoes, drained
• 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 cube of vegetarian vegetable bouillon, crushed, or 1 tsp of Nature's Seasons

 Directions

1. Rinse the pearl barley in water. You may need to soak it if the package directions call for it. I tried to find "no-rinse".
2. Put the barley, water, and 6 bouillon cubes in a large stockpot (I used a 6 gallon stockpot). Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce heat to low/medium-low, and cover. Cook covered for 45 minutes.
3. Stir in all the vegetables, from the carrots to the garlic. Add the two bay leaves. Add additional crushed bouillon cube, Nature's Seasons, or flavoring of your choice. Cover again. Cook for one hour.
4. Remove bay leaves before serving. Serve hot.
5. If soup is too thick, add additional broth.