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

Vegan Brunswick Stew

Apparently, this is to be the time of the crappy pictures. What can I say? Generally I'm better at taking photos than I have been proving lately, even on my iPhone, which is what I used on these. To be fair, though, I was trying to balance on the Starbucks eating counter while I was getting jostled by people sadly in need of their caffeine injections, hereto referred to as "coffee zombies".

I'm from Georgia originally. If you know nothing else about the South, we love our food. Brunswick stew was one of the hardest things there was for me to walk away from when I went vegetarian.

Joy of joys, though, I finally found a recipe online for vegan Brunswick stew. (This is, amusingly, what led me to find The Chubby Vegan and, via that site, Meet the Shannons.) Naturally I had to try it out on D and myself. It turns out that it made enough to feed 2 people lunches for 5 full days, with no leftovers.

The verdict? Next time I won't use quite as much liquid smoke. I will also shop around a lot more and see if I can't find butter beans instead of lima beans. (They're the same things, but lima beans are much larger and starchier than butter beans, also called baby lima beans.) I left out the tomatoes and toned down the spice in deference to my GERD. Next time, I will slightly reduce the amount of liquid smoke used, also in deference to my GERD.

Vegan Brunswick Stew
A recipe by Beth Pitchford of SeedStar, found on The Chubby Vegan, adaptations by Kat

Ingredients
Sauce

• 1/4 cup of vegan margarine (I used Earth Balance)
• 1 3/4 cup of ketchup
• 1/4 cup of yellow mustard
• 1/4 cup of white vinegar
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 tsp of black pepper
• Dash of cayenne pepper or crushed red peppers, to taste
• 1/2 oz of liquid smoke
• 1 oz of vegan Worcestershire sauce
• 1 oz of hot sauce
• 1/2 Tbsp of lemon juice
• 1/4 cup of brown sugar

Stew

• 1/4 cup of vegan margarine (still Earth Balance)
• 1 small onion, diced
• 4 cups of vegetable broth or 4 cups of water + 4 vegetable bouillon cubes
• 2 packages of frozen vegan meat (I used Morning Star Crumbles)
• 1 can of English peas (also called sweet peas or early peas)
• 1 can of creamed corn
• 1 can of sweet kernel corn
• 1/4 cup of liquid smoke
• 1 bag of frozen butter beans (baby lima beans) or lima beans

Directions
Sauce

1. Melt margarine in a large sauce pan over medium-low heat. Add ketchup, mustard, and vinegar. Stir until smooth. 
2. Add the garlic, peppers, liquid smoke, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, and lemon juice. Stir until smooth.
3. Add brown sugar. Stir until smooth.
4. Stirring constantly, keep at a low simmer for 10 minutes.

Jimi helped with the cans

Stew

1. In a very large stock pot (I used a 12 quart stockpot to be on the safe side), melt margarine over low heat. Add the potatoes, onions, vegetable broth (or water and bouillon), and the veggie meat. Bring to a rolling boil, stirring occasionally. 
2. Add the can of peas with its liquid, the butter beans, the two cans of corn, the liquid smoke, and the sauce. Cover.
3. Cook at a low simmer for 2 hours, stirring occasionally. Serve hot, and enjoy!

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.

Spicy Rice Bake with Collard Greens, Black-Eyed Peas, and Sweet Potato

I have a couple of confessions to make. I suppose I should get the big one out of the way first. I'm a Southern girl, born and raised in Georgia... but I cannot stand the taste of black-eyed peas. Unfortunately, it's a Southern tradition (and maybe elsewhere too) to eat them on New Years Day. Before I moved out on my own, I would just suck it up and eat them however they were prepared and never touch them again the rest of the year, but now that I'm doing (most of) the cooking, I've taken to dressing them up however I can... and never touching them again the rest of the year. I found this recipe because I wanted my peas and the required greens for the day, also a tradition, to be an (almost) one-dish meal.

My second confession is, you know how sometimes you're following a recipe step-by-step, and it gets to one ingredient, and you look at the amount and go 'no way' but do it anyway? Yeah, I did that with this, with the cayenne pepper. Next time, I'm halving it. It's very delicious, but my stomach did not thank me and my eyes watered. Oh, it was good, though.

Spicy Rice Bake with Collard Greens, Black-Eyed Peas, and Sweet Potato
A recipe by Vegetarians of Washington

Ingredients

• 2 Tablespoons of olive oil
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt
• 6-8 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1/2 cubes (I like triangles better, but it makes no difference)
• 6 large collard leaves, rinsed and large ribs removed, torn into 1/2" sections (I guestimated this to be about 2 cups)
• 1 1/2 cups of brown rice
• 1 can of black-eyed peas, rinsed well and drained
• 6 cups of boiling water
• 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper 
• 1/4 cup of tamari or soy sauce
• 1 Tablespoon of balsamic vinegar

Roo helped by napping
while it baked

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F/180°C.
2. Heat oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add onion and salt, and saute for about 2 to 3 minutes, until onions begin to soften. Add garlic and saute until onion is almost translucent, about another 2 to 3 minutes. 
3. Add the sweet potatoes and collards. Continue to saute until collards are bright green and wilted, about another 5 minutes. Do not let the greens become dark green.
4.  Place rice and black-eyed peas in a 9x13 baking pan. Add the sweet potato mixture and cayenne pepper and mix well. Pour 6 cups of boiling water, the tamari (or soy sauce), and the balsamic vinegar into the baking dish and mix carefully. Cover tightly with foil and bake for 1 1/2 hours (90 minutes), until rice and peas are tender. Stir gently and serve hot.

White Pita Pizzas

Definitely not the most gorgeous of photographs, is it? I'm none too certain what actually happened with it, other than it came out way too blurry. The meal itself was very good, though, so I'm including it on here. Please forgive the poor photo quality in the meantime.

I went through a stage not that long ago where all I wanted to eat was pizza with white sauce. My stomach being what my stomach being, I couldn't eat anything else until I had had what I was craving. Thankfully, though, this was a fairly quick and easy dish to make. It just takes a little patience and creativity.

White Pita Pizza
A recipe by Kat

Ingredients

• 6 whole wheat pitas
• 1 medium onion, sliced or diced
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 teaspoon of margarine, divided
• 2 Tablespoons of whipped cream cheese
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup of soy milk
• 3 drops of hot sauce
• 1/4 cup of sharp Cheddar cheese

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Put pitas on baking tray and warm them slightly while oven is warming. Remove from oven and set aside.
2. Heat 1 teaspoon of margarine over medium heat. Add garlic and onion. Cook until onion is tender. Remove from heat and set aside.
3. While onion and garlic are cooking, begin on the sauce. In a small saucepan, melt remaining margarine over medium heat. Add whipped cream cheese and stir constantly until both are melted. Add hot sauce. Add soy milk until the sauce reaches desired consistency. 
4. Smooth sauce over the warmed pitas. Add garlic and onions on top of sauce. Add Cheddar cheese on top of everything. 
5. Cook in 350° oven until Cheddar cheese has melted and browned slightly. Remove from oven, and cut into halves. Serve hot and enjoy!

Grown-up Ramen with Peanut Sauce

I used to have a scale for determining just how broke D and I were. I'm not sure I can recall all of the steps, but I do remember that the bottom rung was (less than) affectionately called "ramen broke". That's below peanut butter sandwiches broke and below macaroni and cheese broke.

Now don't get me wrong: I do love ramen noodles. It's just that they don't love me back. I do eat them when I crave them (usually at breakfast, oddly enough), but sometimes you just want some grown-up ramen noodles.

I designed this to be a quick-and-easy meal. I believe, including prep time, it took less than 20 minutes to make the entire meal. So that is definitely something to keep in mind. It's also a two-pot meal, because it was definitely easier to do the sauce separate from the rest of the dish.

Grown-up Ramen with Peanut Sauce
A recipe by Kat

Ingredients

• 2 packets of ramen noodles (discard the sauce packets)
• 1 carrot, peeled and sliced thin
• 2 medium stalks of celery, sliced
• 6 green onions, chopped and divided
• 2 teaspoons of sesame oil, divided
• 3 Tablespoons of peanut butter (I used creamy but crunchy would also work)
• 2 packets of takeout soy sauce (this is about 3 teaspoons)
• 1 teaspoon of honey
• 1 teaspoon of ground ginger
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 to 3 teaspoons of hot sauce
• 1 to 3 teaspoons of chili powder
• 1 Tablespoon of Red Star Nutritional Yeast
• 1 to 1 1/2 cups of vegetable broth

Directions

1. In a medium pot, add one teaspoon of sesame oil. Set heat to medium-low. As it grows warm, it will pop and sizzle. Add the carrot, celery, and white parts of the green onions. Allow to cook until carrot and celery are tender, about five minutes. Set aside.
2. Briefly rinse out pot and add enough water to cover ramen noodles, at least 3 cups. Turn heat to high. Bring water to boil and add noodles. Cook according to package directions, about 3 to 4 minutes.
3. While ramen is cooking, heat peanut butter and soy sauce over medium-low heat. Add other ingredients from honey to nutritional yeast, stirring constantly. Add remaining sesame oil. Add vegetable broth in stages, continuing to stir, until sauce has reached desired consistency. Remove from heat.
4. Drain ramen noodles and divide them between 2 bowls. Add vegetables to bowls, dividing them in half as well. Pour sauce over noodles and vegetables. Top with remaining green onions. Serve hot and enjoy!

Very Cheesy Risotto

I wasn't completely sure that this recipe was ready to go live. I've been messing around with it for weeks now. Though I'm happy with the taste of it, I can never quite get a photo of it that pleases me.

The major downside of trying to do a cooking blog is that photos of the recipes are necessary. However, I also have four cats, three of which are constantly curious about what's going on in the kitchen. It also means that my kitchen and eating area remain in a constant state of disarray, making photos less than easy -- and potentially less than appealing. (Seconds after I snapped this photo, Roo decided the cheese in this smelled delicious and he needed some Right Now. See? You could have had a giant orange feline head in the picture.)

I can't say for certain that I got my risotto recipe anywhere in particularly. I took many various recipes and edited them and messed about with them, until I had something that was delicious to both D and me. This is the result of that. At this point, I'm willing to say that this is now an original Kat creation, yeah?

See? We do eat things beside soup!

Very Cheese Risotto
A recipe from Kat

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cup of arborio rice
• 4 to 5 cups of vegetable broth or water and vegetable bouillon cubes (1 cube per cup of water)
• 1/4 cup of dry white wine (I used Moscato because I like the dry-sweet taste of it)
• 1 medium onion, chopped (I used Vidalia)
• 1-2 medium carrots, skinned and chopped
• 1 Tablespoon of margarine (I used Earth Balance)
• 1 Tablespoon of olive oil
• 1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese
• 2 Tablespoons of reduced fat Cheddar cheese
• 2 Tablespoons of reduced fat Mozzarella cheese

Directions

1. In a large saucepan or pot, melt the margarine over medium-high heat. Add the olive oil. Add chopped carrots and onion, and cook until carrots are tender and onion is translucent, about 5 to 7 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, heat the vegetable broth in a large pot. It should be just below boiling or at a rolling boil when added to the rice.
3. Add arborio rice to the pot.
4. Add the white wine to the rice, carrots, and onion. Stir until it has been absorbed by the rice.
5. Add the vegetable broth a half-cup at a time to the rice. You will need to stir the rice until each half-cup of broth is absorbed before you add the next half-cup. 
6. Keep adding the liquid until rice is tender. This will take about 20 minutes. I can usually set a timer on this.
7. Remove from heat and stir in cheeses. Serve hot and enjoy!

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.