Broccoli Soup

I like this recipe because it uses a lot of broccoli so that when I buy some, I don't only use half and have this little sad piece looking at me each time I open the fridge. I harvested the last of the broccoli from the garden and used it all up for this thick soup.

Vegan Cream of Broccoli Soup

3/4 cup raw cashews
1 tbsp raw coconut oil (the raw is less processed and has a slight coconut flavour)
1 large onion, diced
3 carrots, chopped
7 cups broccoli, chopped
Salt
Pepper
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp ginger
6 cups water
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp sugar

1. Soak the cashews in enough warm water to cover them while you make the rest of the soup.

2. Heat the coconut oil on medium in a large saucepan.

3. Fry the onions until translucent (about 3 minutes) then add the carrots, ginger and cumin. Fry for 5 minutes.

4. Toss in the broccoli and fry another 5 minutes.

5. Add 5 cups of water, 1 tsp salt and 1 tsp pepper. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 30 minutes.

6. When the broccoli is soft, use a blender or immersion blender to make the soup as smooth as possible. It will be very thick. Blend it in batches if you are using a blender and be careful not to get burned.

7. Drain the cashews and blend until completely smooth with 1 cup of water. I used my Nutribullet.

8. Stir in the cashew cream. If the soup is still too thick, add some 'milk' to thin it to the right thickness. It will depend on your preference.

9. Stir in the lemon juice and sugar. Bring back up to a gentle boil but be careful to heat it slowly as it can stick and burn to the bottom and tends to bubble like a volcano and could burn you when it boils.

10. Taste and add more salt as needed. I find it needs a fair bit of salt.

Enjoy!






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Carrot Pulp Cake

I love my juicer. I have a Cuisenart Compact Juice Extractor and I use it fairly often, especially for carrot juice. But I am always concerned about the pulp that is left. I hate wasting it. I know people say that there is "nothing" left in the pulp of value but it is still food and I am loathe to waste it.

Today, I created about 7 cups of carrot pulp after making juice from "ugly" carrots at the market. I decided to try two ideas with the remaining pulp. One is still drying so I'll wait on sharing that with you but the other is carrot cake. I think it's yummy. Give it a try and let me know what else you do with juicing pulp please. I doubt I'll have any favourable responses from home if I try making cucumber pulp cake or something like that!

Carrot Pulp Cake

2 cups flour (I use Spelt all the time but regular is fine)
3/4 cups sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon

3.5 cups (or so) carrot pulp from juicing
3/4 cup melted coconut oil

1/2 cup carrot juice (you could use orange too)
3/4 cup apple sauce

Raisins and Walnuts as desired

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9x11 cake pan or muffin tins.

In a large bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients with a large metal spoon. Mix in the carrot pulp and coconut oil. Make sure it is really well mixed.

Mix in the carrot juice and apple sauce. Again, make sure it is all really well mixed together. Add in the raisins or walnuts. The batter will feel really heavy, more like cookie batter than cake batter.

Spread in the pan. I used my hands to level it out. Bake for 45 minutes if you are making the cake. If you are making muffins, bake for 25 minutes then check that a knife in the middle comes out clean. Let cool. This cake is really orange. Maybe the orange juice would change the colour?













Now, if you want vegan icing, this is the best recipe ever.

1/4 cup tofutti cream cheese
1/4 cup vegan mayo
2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1-2 tsp lemon juice as desired

Mix the icing sugar, cream cheese, mayo and vanilla together. Add 1 tsp lemon juice then taste. Add more lemon juice as desired. Spread on cooled cake.

I cut the cake in two and layered it. There was enough icing to do this.

Keep the cake refridgerated. Because it is so moist, it will quickly become "wet" and ferment.







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Roasted Veggies

It's not quite officially fall but the fall veggies are coming out so we made our first batch of roasted veggies tonight for dinner. The temperature is supposed to drop below freezing at the airport so the gardens will soon be cleaned out. It did snow in Calgary yesterday... That is a little depressing as it is only September 9th.







The beauty of roasted veggies is that almost any veggie can be used. Our mix today had baby potato, patipan squash, zucchini, carrot, celery, baby eggplant, garlic, and broccoli. Normally we would have added cubes of onion but we suddenly realized that we had none! We also often add cubes of tofu.

I roasted an acorn squash and beets at the same time to eat with the roasted veggie mix. Corey doesn't like beets so I keep them separate and the acorn squash tends to get too mushy.







Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.

Get the root vegetables you want. No need to peel unless you are adding beets directly to the mix in which case I would peel those. Cut them into cubes about 1 inch square.

Mix all the veggies together in a large bowl. Drizzle olive oil over the veggies and several pinches of salt, cracks of black pepper, and shakes of italian herb mix. You could use any spices you like.

Mix, mix, mix then spread the veggies out over one or two cookie sheets. You don't want the veggies crammed together or else they won't cook properly. Put them in the oven and wait. After 15 minutes, stir the veggies, switch the trays if you have two on separate levels, then leave them to bake some more.

Total cooking time is about an hour depending on the type of veggies and the thickness of your trays. Darker cookie trays take less time to cook.

As for the squash, I cut it in half lengthwise, then half widthwise, then into two pieces each to end up with eight pieces. Cut out the seeds, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and place skin side down on the tray. Leave in the oven with the veggies, about an hour or so, depending on the size of the squash.

My beets I just top and tail, rinse, and put directly on the bbq. Once they are black all around and I can stick a fork in them, I take them off the bbq, let them cool and peel them. You can do the same in the oven but they won't turn black. You'll have to test them for when they are soft enough to peel. I've heard that when they are soft you can take them out and put them into a paper bag to sweat for a few minutes and the peel comes off very easily. I've never tried.




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Roasted Asparagus Corn Chowder

This rain is depressing. It's June 7th and I have the fireplace on to warm up because the outside temperature drops to about 6 degrees at night. It shouldn't be time to be making soup but who wants salads and sandwiches when we are wearing scarves and gloves in the morning and at night? Ridiculous!!

I made this chowder in the slow cooker and left it for about 4 hours on low. You could do it in a regular pot and cook it faster. It depends on your time. You could also toss in raw asparagus if you don't want to roast it but I can't guarantee that the flavour will be as good. Play around!

Roasted Asparagus Corn Chowder

2 tbsp canola oil
1 medium leek, sliced thin (see note below)
3 medium carrots, sliced
1/4 tsp cayenne
1 lrg can garbanzo beans or 1 cup cooked garbanzo beans that you have waiting in your freezer
1 red pepper, sliced
1 yellow pepper, sliced
1 tbsp coarse sea salt
2 cups corn kernels, frozen or fresh
1 package powdered coconut milk
5 cups water
1 vegan stock cube
chopped roasted asparagus - however much you have left

If you are making this in a slow cooker, omit the oil and throw all the rest of the ingredients, minus the roasted asparagus, in the slow cooker, mix really well to get the coconut powder to dissolve as much as possible, and leave on low for 4 hours or so. Add the asparagus in the last 30 minutes of cooking. If you are using raw asparagus, add it at the beginning.

If you are doing this in a pot, heat the oil and fry the leek until the pieces start to brown. Add all the other ingredients , minus the roasted asparagus. Bring to a boil, turn down the heat and leave to simmer, covered, for about 15 minutes. Toss in the roasted asparagus and leave to simmer another 5 minutes. If the asparagus is raw, toss in with the rest of the ingredients so that it cooks.

Leek Note: Leeks can be full of dirt. To clean them properly, cut off the root end and slice down the length of the leek so that you cut the rings in all the way down. Don't cut all the way through, the knife should go half way through to the core and then slice down. Put the leek under running cold water and use your thumb to separate the layers to wash the grit caught in-between the layers. You can even pull the leek layers apart, wash them, and then put them back together.