i have a serious brain disease. please bring me a cat.
Oh, what’s this? Soup? I can’t stop! Things are really busy around here lately and I have no imagination when it comes to food. A bowl of soup and some toast is awesome when you’re in a hurry. I still had an asston of white beans left, so I tried out this Classic Tuscan White Bean Soup from Vegan Italiano. It was simple and hearty. Made a really satisfying meal. To get my veggies covered off, I tossed in some kale. You can almost never go wrong by tossing mild greens into a soup.
Apparently I’m really excited about Fall and Fall foods. My last photo upload into wordpress was pretty much all bowls of food. Soup, stew, chili. Maybe I’ll get them posted before Vegan Mofo starts so I don’t have to rename the blog “Look at this bowl of crap I’m eating!”
Dried beans have been on sale at Kroger so I stocked up. They’re not that useful unless you cook them. So I soaked and slow cooked a pound of white beans. Now it’s time for a white bean party. The internets told me about this recipe for French White Bean and Cabbage Soup. I just realized when I looked up the recipe for the link that I totally forgot the parsley and liquid smoke. It was good anyway, but I have one more serving left so I’ll add those goodies and see if it becomes Next Level. This is the kind of soup that might make a good stand in for the traditional sick day chicken soup. Nice and brothy with just enough potato and bean for it to be reasonably filling. That grilled cheese with Daiya on the side helped with that also.
Oh yeah, I’m working on getting my blogroll back up. I lost it when I switched hosts and am trying to recreate from my Google Reader feeds. I’ll probably go up in pieces so consider it a work in progress.
The weather finally broke here. I think we had a record number of 90+ degree days in Atlanta this year, or close to it. Now that we’re done with that and can even occasionally open the windows, it’s officially the beginning of soup season. Digging around in my MacGourmet recipe box, this recipe for Golden Curried Pea Soup looked appealing. It’s from Nava Atlas’ Vegan Soups and Hearty Stews for All Seasons. The barley makes it extra filling. It matures nicely in the fridge. I finished a whole recipe of it on my own by taking it for lunch and never got bored of it. You’ll see some green in there. I had some kale all cleaned and chopped up so I threw it in. It worked nicely. I also occasionally stirred in some garam masala when I felt the need for a little extra spice kick.
Saturday afternoon I’d planned on going grocery shopping. But I had a headache and decided to wait until Sunday. Oh, what’s for dinner then? After rooting around in the cabinets a bit, I came up with this concoction. Start with some ready to eat rice and an instasoup.
Let’s see, a vegetable would be good. How about some frozen green beans? Sure! So, a little rice in the bottom of the bowl, some vegan broccoli cheese soup, next and green beans. I did add some nutritional yeast to the soup because I could. Oh, and sprinkled parm on top.
It was actually really good. And made enough that I had some for lunch as well.
A lovely bean soup from dried beans doesn’t necessarily mean long hours on the stove top. A pressure cooker will deliver it in about 20 minutes. Lentils are even faster. And it makes risotto super easy. No stirring!
When I’m going to cook beans, whether in the slow cooker or the pressure cooker, I plan ahead and put them in to soak in some water at least 8 hours. If I’m not going to use right after soaking, I just stick them in the fridge until I need them.
If you’re looking for a guide to ease you into pressure cookery, Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure is a great choice. And I think most recipes are either vegan or easily vegan. It comes with handy cook time charts for various beans, grains and vegetables so you can speed up your favorite dish once you get comfortable with pressure cooking.
This is the Tarragon Scented White Bean Soup from this book. In this case, navy beans. It made a great weeknight Fall meal.
