Meatless Monday - Vegetable and Mushroom Soup

Well, it's well and truly Winter now, so I thought I would make a nice creamy vegetable soup. The soup I made is completely vegan and the wonderful creamy texture comes from the vegetables themselves.

To me, the best part of vegetable soup is, you can put literally any vegetables in it. Even if you don't like some of them, when you blend it up, it will probably taste just fine. Generic soup taste!

To start, I like to get some onion and celery frying off in the bottom of the saucepan with a little vegetable oil. This time I used one brown onion, one red onion, and about four stems of celery. I put most of the leaves in as well, since my stems were a little thin, being home grown. Sometimes I'll pop about a teaspoon of minced garlic in at this stage as well, but honestly, I forgot...

You can leave the onion and celery (and garlic and carrot if you want to add those) to do their thing for a few minutes, and just come poke it with a wooden spoon every so often to make sure it's not sticking to the pot. When you're home, clothing, hopes and dreams start smelling of onion and it looks sort of like this:

It's time to move on to the next step. You can add either one litre of vegetable stock, or one litre of boiling water and a stock powder or vegetable soup base of your choice. I really like to add a sachet of spring vegetable simmer soup mix.

Give it a little stir through, then add literally any vegetables in the whole world. If you're going to blend it up and make it creamy, you'll need to use some pumpkin, sweet potato or potato. I used pumpkin and sweet potato in mine. When it comes back to the boil, turn the burner down to a simmer.

Gentle stirring should be enough to push all the pieces of vegetable under the water:

Now if you want to, you can add some flavour enhancements, such as herbs and spices. Since the base of my soup is pumpkin, I added some herbs from my garden that go well with pumpkin. I chose rosemary and curry plant leaf. I was going to add a little parsley as well, except I forgot.

Basically now, it's just waiting and occasionally stirring. I let mine simmer at this stage for about twenty minutes. It's ready for the next stage when the vegetables are soft.

I have a stick blender, so I stuck it in and got pulping while it was on the stove. If you have a jug blender, you may need to wait for the soup mix to cool down before you blend it.

Now, if you just want a smooth, creamy soup you can drink, you could put mushrooms in with the other vegetables. I wanted little chewy chunks, so I sliced my mushrooms up and dropped them into my warm pot of soup. 

Stick blender away, I brought the soup back to the boil then down to a simmer as I stirred the mushrooms through. I let it infuse together for another fifteen minutes before I got some for myself!

I never claimed to be a food blogger. I can't do the pictures. But here's some in a soup cup, on my lap, when I was wearing a onesie that looks like a fox.

I hope you have a wonderful, soupy adventure!

Happy Cooking!

Cassandra Louise.

I am linking up this week with Meatless Monday at Confessions of a Mother Runner and A Whisk and Two Wands.

Meatless Monday: Spaghetti and Meatless Balls

This Meatless Monday I'm sharing a recipe I only made for the first time last week, so rather than tell you exactly what to do I'll tell you what I did. This recipe uses Quorn Meat-Style Balls which are vegetarian but not vegan.

You will need:

One tin of diced tomato (mine had basil and oregano so I didn't have to add those as they're not in my garden at the moment)

Two medium - large tomatoes

One carrot (grated, even though this one clearly isn't)

One small - medium zucchini

Roughly 200g of sliced mushrooms

Minced or crushed garlic

Half an onion. This one is red, but I think a brown one would be more suitable

Spaghetti

One bag of Quorn Meat-Style Balls

One large-ish bunch of chopped parsley and cooking oil. which there are no pictures of because I'm slack

In a large pot, add the onion and 1 teaspoonful of garlic, along with a good splash of cooking oil

When everything starts to smell delicious and dinner-y, add the mushrooms and enough water to just cover them, and pop the lid on the pot.

Let that simmer (low heat) for about fifteen (15) minutes. You should have something like this, probably:

Add the grated carrot and chopped tomato and zucchini, along with the parsley and a little more water.

Stir, and cover for another ten - fifteen (10 - 15) minutes on low to medium heat. You now have the sauce:

Add the balls and turn the heat up slightly. Leave it uncovered for this bit. Check back and stir periodically.

This was taken at about twenty (20) minutes after adding the balls. I decided it was time to put the spaghetti on.

I took the rather controversial step of cooking the spaghetti in the sauce, because that's what my Nana always did when she made "Skeddi and rissoles" and that turned out fine.

I ended up with this very delicious meal. 

I was actually having an off day and I was surprised it turned out so well. By "well", I mean it was nice enough to make my whole day better. Yay! :-)

Happy Nibbling!

Cassandra Louise

Meatless Monday - Breakfast Spread

This is an avocado-based recipe, and I'm going to spill the truth tea: I don't like avocado. I don't like the texture, it feels like oily flour. I don't like the taste, it tastes like green oily flour. So why am I blogging an avocado-based recipe? Because I really like this spread, I like it a lot.
I try to eat avocados, I hide them from myself in pasta sauces and mix them with cheese because they have a lot of good stuff in them and I should eat them. This recipe was my latest attempt to disguise the texture and taste and I believe it went well. The first batch of this spread I made did five slices of toast, but I think I could have made it go further.
You will need:

One avocado

Coconut oil

Ground cinnamon

Cut the avocado into little pieces and put them in a small bowl. Add to that one big heaped teaspoon of coconut oil, or two level teaspoons if it's hot and your coconut oil is runny.

Sprinkle with cinnamon. This is the yummy part and also very good for you, which you can read about here.

Give the whole thing a good mashing with a fork until it's smooth, creamy and spread-like.

Put the spread in an airtight container in the fridge overnight or at least for half an hour or so, which will cause the coconut oil to solidify and make the whole thing more... spready.

I've had this spread on toast with a fried egg on top and that was excellent, but obviously the spread itself is completely vegan. I think it would go quite nicely with some chopped hot tomato on top, too!

Happy Mashing!

Cassandra Louise.

Green Pasta - Meatless Monday

Last week for Meatless Monday, I shared this lasagne recipe which feeds six people, four very hungry people or eight people who are having a lot of salad with it.  This week I'm linking up with Little Wolff again, and sharing something that feeds just one person, and only takes one small saucepan to make.

To make my green pasta, You will need:

 Any kind of dry pasta.  I happen to have penne, so that's what I'll use.

 Frozen spinach that comes in little segments like this:

Half an avocado, chopped into bits.

Vegetable stock powder (or any stock of any kind.  You're clever, you can adapt it).

You'll also need olive oil.

Add water, 1 teaspoon of stock powder and a drizzle of olive oil in a small saucepan.

When the water boils (oh yeah, you'll have to turn the stove on), add about a handful of pasta, the avocado and the spinach all at once.  Yay!

Break up the spinach cube by poking it periodically with a wooden spoon.  Let the whole thing cook according to the directions on your pasta packet, which is usually about 10 minutes, then give it a good stir.

Drain off excess liquid if you prefer, or have it as a nice light broth.  A sprinkling of pine nuts would be nice in it, too.  This recipe makes about this much:

Which is excellent for a quick lunch for one person, and of course could be easily adapted to feed more.

Happy cooking!

Cassandra Louise.

Lentil Lasagne - Meatless Monday

This lasagne recipe comes entirely out my own head and it's the first lasagne dish I  ever made from scratch.  I have perfected the recipe to fill this baking dish:

 What?  That's not how you measure things in the kitchen?

(22cm square)

This recipe is vegetarian but not vegan.  If you can veganise it I would love to hear from you!  It's not low fat, and I'm not sure what counts as low salt but it probably isn't that, either.  Lots of fibre and nutrients*, though.  Probably.

*Not a real nutritionist, I just did year 12 home ec.

I set aside two hours to make this, but most of that I'm just sitting around waiting.  It's certainly not a one-pot meal, but it is very simple.

You will need:

 One big tomato cut into bits or 10-12 small tomatoes.  I got these nice-looking grape tomatoes because:

 Lasagne sheets.  Two of these is slightly smaller than my dish, so I use these.

 This much tomato paste (one tub)

 Whole green (brown) lentils

 Red split lentils

 This pretend parmesan stuff

 Any kind of sweet chilli sauce

 Grated cheese.  OR you can grate cheese yourself if you're some kind of fitness nut, I suppose.

 Any vegetable stock powder, but has to be a powder

 Diced tomatoes in a tin.  I use one with herbs in so I don't have to remember to add herbs.

Parsley for garnish if you're feeling fancy.  This is from my garden.  Posh!

You'll also need plain flour, cooking oil, butter, milk and ground cinnamon.

Method:

 Bring three cups of water to the boil in a saucepan and add half a cup of green lentils.  Turn the heat down to medium.  Go sit down and rest for 10 minutes.  You've earned it.

 Add half a cup of red lentils to the pot.  All the lentils will need another 20 minutes together.

While the lentils are getting nice and soft, get a medium frying pan out and start the rest of the filling.

 Cut the little tomatoes in half, lengthwise if they have a length, and place them skin-side down in the lightly oiled pan.  Drizzle them with a little more oil and sprinkle them with vegetable stock powder.

 When everything smells like hot tomato (or after 5 minutes) add the tin of crushed tomatoes and the tomato paste.  Stir well to combine.  Leave the pan on low heat.

 When the lentils are ready, add them to the tomato mixture, along with a sprinkle of cinnamon and a tablespoon of sweet chilli sauce.

 Stir it until it looks like this.

 Prepare your baking pan to receive the first delicious layer.

 (Unfortunately I have no pictures of the cheese sauce-making process as I was alone and needed both hands, so I'll try to tell you carefully.  If you need something clarified, please leave a comment.)

Add 2 tablespoons of butter to a small saucepan.  When the butter has completely melted, remove from heat and add 1/4 cup of plain flour.  Stir until you have buttery flour.  Add 1/2 cup of milk and return to heat, stirring constantly.  When you feel it starting to thicken, remove from heat and add about a tablespoon of ground parmesan and a sprinkle of cinnamon.  Stir to combine.

 It should look kind of like this.

 Each layer of your lasagne will look like this.  Or nicer if you have a lot of spare time.  Using a soup ladle for the lentil filling, pour 1 & 1/2 -2 ladlesful into the pan, then sprinkle with grated cheese and a few blobbity-blobs of cheese sauce.

 Try to make each layer of pasta face the opposite way to the last, which will make the dish slightly more stable according to my Nana.

 When you reach the top of the dish, add a final pasta layer.  Cover the top pasta layer with the remaining cheese sauce, a sprinkle of grated cheese, a little sprinkle of cinnamon and some fresh parsley if you're fancy.

Bake for about 20 minutes to make it look like this.  Or again, nicer if you have lots of free time.

Happy Lasagne-ing!

Cassandra Louise.

This post was added to the Traffic Jam Weekend Linky Party at "Being a Wordsmith" on the 4th of May 2018.