Baked Eggplant And Mushroom Soup – Virtual Vegan Potlock Entry November 2013

This I my 3rd time in the VVP and I’m so pleased that it is getting bigger and bigger. I choose a different category every time and this time it is soup time for me.

I have found a very quick way to make soups – by baking the ingredients! Usually my baked soups is some variation of a tomato soup  (see this blog post for a recipe), but for this VVP I wanted to do something new.

I went to the supermarket and was scounting for ingredients for the soup and ended up going for eggplant, mushroom and onion – a soup combination I had never tried – or heard of before. I told one of my friends about my VVP entry and she was sceptic – that is until she tried it. She loved it!…. And I hope you will too.

For 4 people you will need:

1 eggplant

500 grams of mushrooms

2 big onions

2 cloves of garlic

½ chili

Salt

Pepper

Sesame seeds for the topping

Fresh herbs for serving – mint, parsley, coriander (cilantro)

Turn the oven to 200 degrees (400 Fahrenheit). Cut the eggplant, onion, mushrooms, garlic and chili into smaller pieces, add to a baking dish and season with salt and pepper.  Leave 2 cm eggplant, ½ onion and 1-mushrooms for the crunchy toppings.

Bake the veggie for 25 min. While they get ready, you can do the toppings. Cut the topping “leftovers” into very small pieces and fry in sunflower with sesame seeds until crisp.

When the veggies in the oven is golden, blend them together with about 500 ml. water and add to a saucepan.

Serve hot with the toppings and some green herbs such as mint, parsley or coriander.

ENJOY!

Press the forward button and go to the next vegan blogger in the Virtual Vegan Potlock.

Tom Kha Gai without the Gai – Vegan Thai coconut soup

TOM KHA GAI used to be my favourite thai dish. I used to get it everytime EAT had it in their soup menu. I haven’t had in since becoming a vegetarian though – as the name says – it conterns chicken. TOM means SOUP or COOKED, KHA means galangal root and GAI means chicken. Then last weekend I went to Warsaw and saw it in the menu at SUSHIZUSHI. This restaurant is a cool sushi place in the center the city. I asked if they could make it without chicken – and they could – it was amazing! And I knew I had to make it at home and blog about it, so everyone of you could try it. It is very easy and quick to make.
You might have to go to the local thai shop to get galangal root, but everything else should be stocked in the local supermarket. I also use thai baby eggplants – but they can be left out.

I surfed the internet for recipes on the dish to get the most euthentic dish and get the small tricks from the thai chefs. I then adabted it to my lifestyle, so it would be 100% vegan – here goes:

Ingredients
1 can of coconut milk
4 tbsp of coconut manna/coconut cream
600-700 ml. vegetable stock – preferably yeast free

4 spring onions
2 carrots
1 sweet red pepper or red bell pepper
7-8 mushrooms – I dont recommend eating mushrooms more than once or twice a month because it’s a fungi
3-4 thai eggplants (optional)

1 thumb size galangal root (get it in you local thai/chinese shop)
½-1 chili
2 sticks of lemon grass
Small handful coriander – you can include the stalk
5-6 kefir lime leaves – frozen is okay
Juice of 1 lime or lemon

Noodles if you like.

Prep 1
Galangal: Wash the root and cut into paperthin slices. Bash with a meat mallet to bring out the flavour
Chili: cut in the very thin slices
Lemon grass – cut into 3 pieces and bash once with meat mallet

Coriander: Use the leaves and stalk. coursely chop. Coriander is one of the herbs where you can use the stalk as it is not bitter like other herb stalks.
Kefir lime leaves: Cut in half – you need to be able to see it in the soup to take them out before serving. Bash a few times with the meat mallet.
Spring onions: Finely slices

Cooking
Bring the stock to a boil, turn down the heat to a simmer and add coconut milk and manna/cream if you have that. Make sure the soup is lump free before adding any other ingredients. Add lime/lemon juice, galangal, kefir lime leaves, lemon grass, chili (leave some for garnish) and spring onions.

Let simmer for 10 mins while you preper the rest of the veggies.

Prep 2
Carrots: finely sliced
Red pepper: Cut in 1-2 cm thin slices
Mushrooms: Cut each into 8 pieces
Thai eggplants: cut into 8 pieces

Now add all the veggies to the soup and simmer for another 5 mins.

Take out the lime leaves and lemon grass before serving – use a large spoon with holes.

Garnish with coriander and chili

Serve! Add noodles if you like.

Start the new year with a cleanse – Lose weight and get a lot of energy!

Have you eaten a bit too much over christmas and new years? Start the year with a soup cleanse! A 7-day cleanse will get you off to a great start to 2013.

1) Start your day with a glass of water with lemon right when you open your eyes. This will wake up your entire body.

2) Have a smoothie or juice for breakfast (Try to have as little fruit as possible) – try a juice with cucumber, celery, lemon and ginger – blend with avocado. Or just blend everything if you don’t have a juicer.

3) Have soups for lunch and dinner – Here’s your first recipe – Spicy Winter soup with Pumpkin and Tomato. You can also try my creamy cauliflower and courgette soup or roasted tomato and red pepper soup. TIP: Make a thick soup to bring to school or work – then add boiling water and enjoy (I don’t advise to use the microwave oven)

4) Take a long walk, do yoga or even a short run every day the next 7 days

5) If your feel like giving up, you can eat some vegetables with high water content – thats better than giving up.

6) You can feel a bit bad after a few days – but don’t worry – it’s only for a day or 2 and its the toxins coming out of your body. Believe me – it’s worth it. You will feel so good after the 7 days.

7)If you have the option to use a sauna your cleanse will be even more effective

8) Put some good vegetable oils in your smoothie and on your soup – remember that only sunflower oil, coconut oil and grapeseed oil will stand high temperatures.

Let me know how you are doing! And feel free to ask questions by commenting or sending me an email on juicydishes@gmail.com.

HAPPY CLEANSE!

SPICY WINTER SOUP WITH PUMPKIN AND TOMATO

2 onions –

5 tomatoes

half chili

1/4-½ Hokkaido pumpkin

2 red peppers

2 cloves of garlic

Salt – himalaya or sea salt

Pepper

Chop up all the ingredients. Place in baking pan on a baking sheet. Dizzle with sunflower oil. Season with salt and pepper. Bake for 20 mins at 200 degrees (400 F). Blend. Put in a pot and add water to desired consistensy – heat up and serve.

My Juicy Vegan Potluck Entry: Sprouted chickpea and sprouted sunflower seed burgers with sweet potato fries

Thank you very much for finding your way to my blog – I hope you will like my recipe for sprouted burgers. It is a vegan alkaline dish, that is very versatile and you can change it to your liking and to match what you have in your pantry. Furthermore you will get a quick introduction to sprouting and also learn how to make tahini and linseed egg substitute.

The recipe is for 2-3 people – with enough burgers to use for lunch the next couple of days. Ideas for lunches could be wraps with cucumber, lettuce, tomatoes and some sweet chili dressing. You can also use them sliced in a sandwich with pesto and lettuce.

Excluding the sprouting time the burgers take about an hour to make. You can make the sweet potato fries and some salad while the burger mix rests in the fridge.

If you don’t have time to spouted the chickpeas and seeds – dont worry – you can use canned chickpeas and unsprouted sunflower seeds, but you will raise the nutritional value a great deal by using sprouts.

HOW TO SPROUT:

Fresh organic sprouts are the perfect food. It is highly alkaline and will energize you body. And then its cheap and very easy to do. You can use almost all kinds of seeds, beans and legumes. I will only give you a short introduction here, but until I do a more detailed blog about sprouting use the internet – it’s has a lot of info about this, so google away 🙂 You are of course also very welcome to write to me for sprouting advice 🙂

You can sprout in a glass with a mesh or cheese cloth over or you can buy sprouter box, sprouting bag, an automatic sprouter etc.

Most beans and peas need an overnight soaking before you put them in your glass or sprouter and rising and drain twice a day until the sprouts have grown. The glass should be place upside down so the water will run out. Depending on the seed or bean this takes 3-5 days. I only sprouted the sunflower seeds for 1½ day before putting the sprouts in the fridge to slow down sprouting. For the chickpeas I used a little different method – I actually soaked them for the whole 2½ days – changing the water and giving them a rinse 2 times a day.

For the burgers:

250 grams of dried organic chickpeas – To raise nutritional value sprout for 2-3 days

100 grams of sunflower seeds – sprout for 2-3 days

2 gloves of garlic

2 large onions

a small handful of sundried tomatoes

3 teaspoons of salt (Use only unrefined salt like himalaya salt, sea salt etc.)

2 teaspoons of hot paprika

1 teaspoons of mild paprika

2 teaspoons of dried thyme

2-3 teaspoons of tahini – Storebought or homemade.This is very easy to make: Grind sesame seeds in coffee grinder, then blend with himalaya salt, sesame oil and sunflower oil. Tahini can be use in a lot of different recipes and it is very good as a spread on a piece of bread or a crispbread.

2 teaspoons of linseed (flaxseed) “eggs” – Grind linseed and stir in water to make and egg substitute. You can use this in a lot of recipes instead of eggs.

200-300 ml of water

1 teaspoon of baking soda

200 grams of breadcrumbs, spelt wholewheat flour and oats – I used about equal parts of each

Proces the chickpeas and seeds first in a food processor, then add the rest of the ingredients except the last 2 things on the ingredients list (Baking soda and the flours). Add the water little by little – the food processor should be able to proces, but the mix should not get watery.

Combine the mix in a bowl with the rest of the ingredients and leave to rest in the fridge for about 30 mins – you can leave it longer.

Take a small handful of the burger mix and flatten it. I like my burgers fried in a pan in sunflower oil – fry for about 6-7 minutes on each side at medium heat. You can also bake them in the oven for 20 minutes at 220C/425F.

For the sweet potato fries – Turn the oven to 220 C/425F

4 sweet potatoes – peeled and cut into fries – about ½cm thick

Sunflower oil

Salt (himalaya or seasalt)

Pepper

In a freezer bag add oil, salt, pepper and half the sweet potatoes and shake and “massage” the fries to cover in oil – repeat with the rest of the potatoes. Place on a tray and bake for about 20 minutes – the turn on the grill in the oven at bake for about 5 minutes more. The fries should be brown and crispy – but not black 🙂

Serve everything with tomato salad and cucumber – ENJOY!

I hope you will try the recipe and make your own version.

Please follow my blog and feel free to share if you like it – that would be much appreciated – THANKS

Hit “Go Forward” to read about another great vegan dish from Márcia at “Compassionate and passionate cuisine”

Simple roasted tomato and red pepper soup

I have been doing a lot of soups lately as I have been trying to eat more cleansing and alkalizing foods. Today I made a very tasty creamy roasted tomato and red pepper soup. It’s very simple to make. I use almond milk to make it creamy. Total prep time is about 15-20 mins – and total time from start to finish is about 45 mins.

Ingredients for 3-4 people:

7 tomatoes – whole

3 red peppers – in smaller pieces

1 large onion (or 2 medium) – in smaller pieces

½ chili pepper – in smaller pieces

Dried or fresh basil

Heat the oven to 220 degrees, drizzle with sunflower oil, season with salt, pepper and basil and bake for 30 min.

Now it’s time to make the “cream” – I use almond milk. Soak a handful of almonds for a minimum of 15 mins. Blend with 150 ml of water. Strain using some fine mesh or a milk bag. The pictures are from when I made hazelnut milk. Hazelnut milk is sweeter than almond milk and is very good for chai latte and on müsli.

Blend the roasted vegetables with about 300 ml water. Add to a saucepan, heat up and add the almond milk. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

You can choose to serve with sour cream, but if you are vegan leave that out – or use soya yoghurt, vegan sour cream or another substitute.

ENJOY!

Creamy alkaline cauliflower and courgette soup

Here’s a quick blog post with a recipe for creamy vegan cauliflower and courgette soup

For 4 people you need:

1/2 cauliflower – cut in smaller pieces

1/2 Courgette, diced

500-700 ml water

2 tablespoons of vegan stock powder

A handful of Fresh parsley and thyme

Bring cauliflower, courgette, stock and water to a boil and let simmer for 10 mins. Cool for a bit and blend with thyme and parsley to a smooth soup.

Serve with olive oil and course sea salt