Beefless Stew

I remember being a kid and eating canned Beef Stew at my parent's house during the winter. It had little hamburger pieces in it with grill lines as if it were fresh meat. I always loved that soup. It wasn't until I was searching vegan recipes on Ellen Degeneres' website that I came across this little ditty. Basically, wow, it tastes like that childhood favorite! For the wine I used 'Our Daily Red' - I'm not sure how that compares because I'm not a wine drinker and this was one option that said vegan on it. Turned out great as far as I'm concerned!

French Onion Soup

Vegan boyfriend beat me to the punch on dinner last week. He did a vegan variation on a French Onion Soup he found online. As for his spin on the cheezy topping he melted a slice of tofutti mozzarella on a piece of bread and dropped it in...genius!!


The soup was a bit sweet but otherwise good. Growing up, I never had too much FO soup so I had no expectations going into this. But I will say I love love LOVED the cheezy toast. MMMmm

Pizza Soup

For Christmas I was gifted the "Vegan Italiano" cookbook by Donna Klein. One recipe that stood out as an immediate MUST TRY was the Pizza Soup. Obviously I'm a soup gal.

Basically this soup is traditional veggie pizza toppings (chopped onion, green pepper, mushrooms, and garlic) mixed with pizza sauce and broth. As suggested, we served it with garlic bread.



Unfortunately, for me, this recipe fell flat. :*(

We ended up adding all the pepper and onion versus the 1 cup recommendation so I'm pretty sure it was a little chunkier as suggested. I think I prefer my soups to be a little creamier and softer - like beans and stewed tomatoes - whereas this maintained some crunch.

In all fairness, I was a little queasy the night we made it so perhaps this is a totally biased post. Plus it might be worth mentioning the day after it was a bit tastier perhaps after the flavors melded overnight. While the soup turned out good, it wasn't exactly my style so I don't think I'll be rushing to the kitchen to make this again.

Product Review: Leahey Broccoli & Cheese Soup

Yum!! Broccoli and Cheese Soup!! Back when I lived in Wisconsin this was a wickedly popular soup and it was frequently on the menu at local lunch spots. I've had a few "cream of broccoli"s since my days gone vegan but nothing remotely close to the original.

Enter Leahey powdered soup.

This soup was ridiculously similar to the ole classic and so SO *SO* easy to make (uh hello, add water and heat?). For $2 a packet this is totally worth your time.

And yes, that's my Hello Kitty Toaster. That's what's up.

Greek Bean Soup

Sunday's dinner was comprised of one of my FAVORITE recipes...Greek Bean Soup!! This particular recipe comes from the Dining with Friends cookbook. We made the mistake of buying a 28oz can of crushed tomatoes when we were looking for diced so this was more of a modified tomato soup...but still tasty.

At the moment I'm in the early stages of the common cold so here's to feeling better! (and sorry for the crappy pic...)

Cheeze Soup & Scalloped Potatoes

Saturday's dinner was pulled from one simple question. "What meal comes from yukon potatoes?" We hadn't gone shopping yet for the week and it was slim pickings around the fridge. I was flipping through my Imus Ranch cookbook searching for that twice baked potato recipe I've been meaning to try when I came across a page for Scalloped Potatoes. Yum!

The recipe is fairly simple: potatoes, soymilk, nutritional yeast plus salt and pepper. Basically you layer up the potatoes in a casserole dish and bake for 45 minutes.

I decided to pair up my potatoes with a soup since I came across a Broccoli and Cheeze recipe in the Imus Ranch book. I had some Daiya to spend but no broccoli so I made some modifications. My version is essentially...

1/4C olive oil
1/2C chopped onion
1 clove garlic
2 cups broth
1/2C soymilk
1/2C cheese
1/4C flour

I put a little pepper on top to garnish. The soup was OK but to be honest I haven't really cared for Daiya so there weren't any high expectations. Just a simple out-of-groceries dinner!

Vegan Chicken & Rice Soup

The coziest time of year showed up last week and I welcomed it the only way I knew how...tasty soup. Sure, I'm probably ahead of myself with the flannel slippers and hot chocolate but you really can't argue with some homemade Chikn Soup!

I came up with this little gem on the spot. Actually, I'm incredibly proud of this soup because it's the first recipe I entirely made up!



Ingredients:
-1 package Gardein brand Seasoned Bites
-3/4 cup long grain white rice
-1 bouillon cube
-1.5 cups water
-6 cups broth (no-chikn or veggie)
-2 roma tomatoes
-1 white onion, chopped
-2 cloves garlic, chopped
-a few tablespoons olive oil
-salt, pepper and parsley

Set up on your stove one large soup, a medium pan, and a medium pot. Rinse then pour the rice into a medium pot and add the 1.5 cups water with a bouillon cube. Bring the rice to a boil then reduce heat to a simmer. Occasionally stir the rice until cooked and fluffy then remove from heat.

After you've started the rice, start the chikn. Add a tablespoon oil to a medium pan and heat at medium-low until the oil becomes glossy and hot. Then add the package of Gardein chikn pieces including all of the delicious sauce. Cover and continue to cook on medium-low until the most of the sauce cooks off and absorbs. Use your spoon to cut the chikn into smaller, mouth size pieces.

Once the rice and chikn are close to finished, add 1-2 tablespoons of oil into the large soup pot. Heat on medium-low until the oil is glossy and hot. Then add the chopped onion and garlic. Cook until the onions become clear, about 5 minutes. Add the 6 cups of broth as well as the rice, chikn, and tomato. Add salt, pepper and parsley according to taste (I believe I used about 1 teaspoon each). Reduce heat to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes.

Remove from heat, spoon into bowls and enjoy!!