Delicious Vegan Split Pea Soup

You will not believe how good this soup tastes. I can hardly believe there's not meat in it. Even if I go back to meat eating in the future, I'll probably still make this soup because it's ridiculously tasty and still good for you.


The recipe was adapted from two split pea soup recipes from The Moosewood Cookbook, by Mollie Katzen, and Skinny Bitch in the Kitch, by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin. This would have easily made 6-7 pints of soup, but silly me didn't plan ahead and ran out of lids. Instead, I froze some of the soup in 2-cup glass storage containers that are surely going to pop their lids in the freezer. Lesson learned.

Ingredients:


3 T olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 white onion, diced
3 stalks celery, diced
2 cups carrots, diced
1 ½ t sea salt
2 t oregano
¾ t black pepper
1 t dried mustard
10 cups vegetarian broth
1 lb. split peas
1 t Bragg’s liquid aminos
1 bay leaf


Heat olive oil in large sauce pan or dutch oven. Add garlic and sauté for one minute. Add onions, celery, and carrots, cooking over medium heat until onions and celery are soft. Stir often. Mix in salt, oregano, black pepper, and mustard, and remove from heat.

Never have I cried so much from onions as I did today - WOW this one was pungent!

Add vegetable mixture, broth, peas, and liquid aminos to slow cooker and mix ingredients together with a large spoon. Add 1 bay leaf. Cook for 6 hours on low heat.


After 6 hours, carefully fish out the bay leaf and discard. Stir soup well to mix everything that has settled to the bottom. This makes a lot of soup, so I highly recommend canning or freezing some for future use.


**If you would like to can your soup: Sterilize jars and lids in boiling water before cooking is completed. Turn off slow cooker after 6 hours, stir, and immediately ladle soup into jars, filling to brim. Wipe tops of jars clean before tightly sealing the lids. The canning process must go very quickly; if soup is allowed to cool, the jars will not seal and will not be safe to store at room temperature.


After about an hour, you should hear a “pop” as the button on the lid pops down. This indicates the jar is now sealed and safe to store in the cupboard. If the button on the lid remains raised after 1.5 to 2 hours, this jar is not going to seal. Refrigerate any unsealed jars and eat within 24 to 48 hours.

Vegetarian Mushroom Soup

Today is day one of my vegetarian experiment. I had an adventurous day of grocery shopping, tracking down certain rare ingredients across the east side of Cleveland. It turned out that Whole Foods was the only place I could find things like amino acid supplements, vegan cheese, tahini, and a colorful variety of lentils. When I got home, I adapted the following recipe from the Hungarian Mushroom Soup in one of my favorite cookbooks since childhood, The Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen. The soup took about an hour from start to finish and makes 3 pints of soup.

Ingredients:


2 T butter
1 T olive oil
1/2 T minced garlic
1 white onion, diced
1 1/2 to 2 lbs baby portabella mushrooms, sliced thin
1 t salt
3 t dried dill
1 T paprika
2 t lemon juice
1 cup dry white wine
3 T flour
2 cups water
1 cup milk (at room temperature)
black pepper
1 t Bragg's liquid aminos
1/2 cup sour cream
1 T parsley


Melt butter with olive oil in dutch oven over medium heat. Add garlic and sauté for a minute or two. Add onion and sauté on medium-high heat for a few minutes (about the time it takes to wash and slice the mushrooms). Add mushrooms, salt, dill, and paprika, and mix well. Reduce heat to medium, cover, and cook for 15 minutes, stirring often.


Turn heat back to medium-high, and add lemon juice and wine. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring often. Add flour in very small amounts, stirring well to avoid lumps. When all flour is mixed in, add water. Cover, reduce heat to medium, and cook for 10 more minutes, stirring often.


Stir in milk. Add Bragg's liquid aminos, a vegetarian supplement that tastes similar to soy sauce and adds necessary amino acids that may be lacking in a vegetarian diet. Add sour cream, stirring in vigorously with a wire whisk until no lumps of sour cream are visible. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add parsley last, and remove from heat. If desired, you can save the parsley until just before serving and add on top of each bowl of soup for a nicer presentation.



**If you would like to can your soup: Sterilize jars and lids in boiling water. At end of cooking, heat soup until just starting to bubble. Turn off stove and immediately ladle soup into jars, filling to brim. Wipe tops of jars clean before tightly sealing the lids. The canning process must go very quickly; if soup is allowed to cool, the jars will not seal and will not be safe to store at room temperature.


After about an hour, you should hear a “pop” as the button on the lid pops down. This indicates the jar is now sealed and safe to store in the cupboard. If the button on the lid remains raised after 1.5 to 2 hours, this jar is not going to seal. Refrigerate any unsealed jars and eat within 24 to 48 hours.