Quick Vegan Corn Chowder

I'm from New England, the land of chowders, which is fortunate, because I absolutely love chowder. Basically, a chowder is a soup which always contains milk, onions and potatoes, and is usually thickened with flour. Most people add seafood, like clams or crab or fish, or ham, but I like corn chowder best! Yes, corn chowder is my most favorite chowder. With all of the nondairy cream and milk available, its easy to make a vegan chowder, and that is what I did. I usually don't thicken my chowders with flour; instead, I mash up some of the potato until it is the consistency that I want. If you want potato soup, add another potato at the beginning and leave out the corn. Simple as that!

Quick Vegan Corn Chowder
4 large potatoes (about 2 lbs), peeled and diced in 1/2 inch cubes
3 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
olive oil for sauteeing
1 Tbs veggie broth powder
1/8 tsp cayenne
1 heaping Tbs salt (I use Adobo Seasoning Salt which adds a slight yellow color and garlic flavor)
generous pinch each of: rosemary, sage and marjoram
2 generous pinches thyme
4 C water
2 C corn kernals
2 C nondairy creamer
1 Tbs non-dairy margerine like Earth Balance

Saute the onions, carrots, celery and potatoes in olive oil until onions are transparent and veggies are starting to soften. Add cayenne, salt, rosemary, sage, marjoram and thyme and saute for another minute. Add the broth powder, then pour in the water and stir well. Simmer for 15 minutes until all the veggies are very tender. Use a potato masher or a hand-held immersion blender to puree the veggies, giving the soup more body. I prefer to use the potato masher because it leaves a white colored soup with little orange and pale green flecks which is so pretty! Pour in the creamer and the corn, and heat until the corn and soup are piping hot. Adjust seasonings. Serve with a little shaving of margerine on top for added richness.

Yum!

Chowders lend themselves to endless variations in spicing and ingredients, but sometimes its nice to chow down on a plain old New England classic like corn chowder.

Tuscan White Bean Soup

Sometimes you just want a nice soup with some garlic bread for dinner, don't you? I love soup - I could eat it every day. I had a few yellow crookneck squash sitting in my fridge, and I wanted soup, so I decided to make a white bean soup with them. Everything is cooked al dente, so that each spoonful bursts in your mouth with flavor. I just love this soup. Its even better with some vegan parmesan sprinkled over the top.




Tuscan White Bean Soup

2 C cooked or canned white beans (try cannelini beans - they are yummy!)
2 large onions, coarsely chopped
1 Tbs minced garlic
3 Tbs extra virgin olive oil to saute
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 med zucchini or yellow squash, chopped
8 oz fresh mushrooms or 2 oz dried mushrooms, soaked
1 15 oz can of veggie broth
4 C water
2 tsp Herbes de Provence
1 bay leaf
1 15 oz can diced tomatoes in juice
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 1/2 C soup pasta, pre-cooked al dente

In 5 quart dutch oven, saute onions and garlic in the olive oil until translucent. Add the celery and zucchini and saute till toasty. Season with salt and pepper and Herbes de Provence. Add mushrooms and saute till they have released their liquid, or, add dried mushrooms and reserve soaking liquid. Add the beans, tomatoes with their juice, bay leaf, and the veggie broth. Measure the mushroom soaking liquid and add water to make 4 cups. Simmer lightly for 20 minutes for flavors to develop. Taste for salt, pepper and seasoning.

You may cover and refrigerate at this point. To serve, bring to a simmer and drop in about 1 1/2 cups of pre-cooked soup pasta and heat through. Taste for seasonings. Serve with a splash of lemon juice, a sprinkle of vegan parmesan cheese and garlic toast.

Notes: This is a very forgiving soup - you can use pretty much any combination of vegetables that you have, as long as you cook them al dente and you use a white bean, such as cannellini, great northern, or even navy beans. I think small green limas would be nice also, as well as borlotti or cranberry beans.

For dessert, we had broiled pears with amaretto-apple dip. I'll post that shortly.

Time: 40 minutes in total

Serves about 8

Clean Out the Fridge Soup Redux

Once again I looked in the fridge and saw too many leftovers, just little dribs of this and that. Yes, it is time to make soup! Yesterday I put all the vegetable trimmings that I've been saving in the freezer in the crock pot, about a quart's worth, covered them with water, added some garlic, basil, red pepper flakes and salt, and let 'er rip all day on low. The house smelled heavenly and the resulting stock was very tasty. The trimmings included parsley stems, lots of carrot peelings, potato peelings, onion ends and skins, bits of celery, ends of green beans, and some cilantro stems.

I used about 3 cups of the vegetable broth, about a half cup of some jarred spaghetti sauce and about a cup of the lentil-broccoli salad from a few days ago. Those all went into the pot, as well as a 15 oz can of diced tomatoes, and about four minced garlic cloves. It didn't seem to have enough "heft" so I looked in that box of canned goods I found last week and pulled out a can of Veg-All and put that in. I didn't even know that they still made that stuff! It tasted ok, but it needed something else, so I added some Soul Seasoning (a brand of seasoned salt), some basil, a few pinches of red pepper flakes and a splash of white wine. Yummy. Then I added in about a cup of small elbows and let them cook.

While the soup was cooking, I split two football shaped multigrain rolls, spread them with vegan margerine, sprinkled garlic powder, basil, and a bit of Soul Seasoning, and then toasted them in the toaster oven. The garlic toast was done at the same time as the soup. I had about a teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil left in the bottle, so I drizzled it on the bread.

What a yummy meal! We have nothing for dessert, unfortunately, but I guess we don't really NEED it..... Maybe I'll make some more chocolate tofu pudding later on tonight.

Please leave a comment - I'd love to know what your results are when you try clean out the fridge soup.

Pasta e Fagioli (Pasta Fazool)

This is real comfort food for me. I went home last Thanksgiving, and my cousin made this one evening since her future daughter-in-law is a vegetarian. It was delicious, because Roseanne is a wonderful cook, but I had such a feeling of "home" as I ate it in that kitchen where I had eaten it so many times as a child. There are many recipes for this; you can make it with canned beans or dried, garbanzos (chick peas) or cannellini beans - they are all delicious.

One quick observation about Italian food here in America. American home cooks seem to LOVE to use something called Italian herbs. Now, just because it has the word "Italian" on the label does not mean that it is Italian in any way, you know. Italian herbs are delicious and have their uses, but they are too heavy on the oregano to be truly Italian. Real Italians use a lot of basil and lot of rosemary, but very little oregano. In fact, I think that Greek cooks use much more oregano than Italians, and so do Mexican cooks. So, refrain from using Italian herbs in this dish because it will be to heavily and sharply spiced with oregano.

Pasta e Fagioli

1 1/2 C dry beans, soaked overnight, or 2 - 15 oz cans, drained
3 Tbs olive oil
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
1 Tbs minced garlic
1 Tbs chopped fresh rosemary, or 1 tsp dried
1 tsp dry basil
1 bay leaf
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1 - 15 oz can of diced tomatoes in juice
3 C vegetable broth
1 1/2 C pasta of your choice: try elbows, ditalini, small penne or rotini
salt and pepper to taste

To pressure cook: In pressure cooker, saute the celery, onion, carrot, and garlic in the olive oil till the onions begin to brown. Stir in the beans, herbs, tomatoes and broth. Place cover on the pressure, bring to high pressure, and cook for 15 minutes at 15 lbs. Let the pressure drop naturally. Check beans for doneness and pressure cook two or three minutes more if necessary. Don't overcook beans - they should retain their shape and still be firm, but cooked all the way through. When beans are cooked, stir in the dry pasta and cook uncovered for 6 or 7 minutes until the pasta is al dente.

To cook in a crock pot: Saute the vegetables as above and place in crock pot, along with the beans. Use only 2 1/2 C broth. Cook on hi heat and cook as follows: cannellini - 3 hours; great northern - 2 1/2 hours; navy - 3 hours, garbanzos - 4 hours. Cook the pasta separately and add to the mixture when beans are done, unless you have a metal crockpot liner that can go onto a burner as I do.

To cook on top of the stove: Proceed as for the pressure cooker, but gently simmer the beans, covered, as follows: cannellini - 60 minutes ; great northern - 45 minutes; navy - 60 minutes; garbanzos - 20 minutes.

To use canned or previously cooked beans: Saute the vegetables and proceed as for the pressure cooker, but leaving the beans out. Simmer for 10 - 15 minutes to let the flavors meld. Add the drained beans and the pasta at the same time, and simmer long enough for the pasta to be cooked al dente.

Serve garnished with a pinch of red pepper flakes and drizzle of your best cold pressed virgin olive oil. Serve a green salad and crusty bread on the side, along with a nice fruity wine. Fruit makes the perfect dessert.

Note: Occasionally when I'm too lazy to measure out three herbs, I use an equal amount of Herbes de Provence which is very yummy in this dish. You can also pressure cook beans without presoaking them, which I've done many, many times. It takes about 45 - 60 minutes for them to cook. Don't be afraid of the pressure cooker - I received one as a wedding present in 1979 and have used them ever since. Since then, I've replaced that old one with a modern Fagor, which is not only perfectly safe, but foolproof! In all these years, I've never, ever had any problems using a pressure cooker. You'll be amazed at quickly you can make dishes that used to take forever to cook, and how you can decide at the last minute to make a dish that tastes like its been simmering all day. Try it!

Serves four hungry Italians. Maybe it will serve 6, but it never has in my house.

Five stars PLUS!