Showing posts with label soup. Show all posts
Showing posts with label soup. Show all posts

Tuesday, 22 May 2012

Easy vegan recipe - soups!

By Asa, Vegan Pledge Buddy 2012!

One of my favourite easy vegan meals is the general ‘soup’. Unfortunately it is a bit tricky to offer soup at the two Pledge days – even more dishes! – so we don’t. For that reason it seems appropriate to say something about this magically quick meal.

Soups are easy to make and are perfect for old tired vegetables. My most basic recipe would be ‘fry some onion (in pieces or rings) in oil, perhaps with some garlic, and/or ginger, and/or cumin, caraway/cinnamon/cardamom/curry powder/paprika – basically any spices you like on low heat. If you leave it for a while it will caramelise – nice! If you want herbs, I normally add them later on.

Rinse/peel/cut other vegetables in pieces – you could use any root vegetables, courgettes, peppers, spring onions (they can also be added from the start), cauliflower, leek, broccoli, spinach, potatoes, red lentils, split peas, green or yellow, beans from cans...

Add stock (boil water in your kettle and add to the stock before adding to the pot – even quicker), then add vegetables in or
der of how long they need to simmer; so root vegetables first, wait for a while and then the other ones. Spinach only needs a few minutes, same goes for beans from cans. It also depends on how big pieces you’ve cut them in. If you add lentils or split peas they will need to simmer for quite a while (20-45 minutes depending on, check the packaging!); if you don’t, it’ll be quicker. But you can just leave it on the stove and get on with other stuff, it’ll take care of itself!

The beauty of this is that you can finish off by blending it all, in which case it does not matter if the vegetables are overcooked :-) Normally I really don’t like overcooked broccoli e.g., but when blended it all comes together... Blend as long as you like or just for a minute and leave chunks. Then season with salt and pepper and perhaps more spices. Enjoy with a piece of bread!

This web site has many other recipes for vegan soups, all with pictures: