yam-kale soup with chorizo garnish

This delicious soup was inspired by the potato-kale soup in Terry Hope Romero's Viva Vegan! Romero provides a recipe for homemade vegan chorizo in her fantastic cookbook, but I just used the store-bought stuff. If you don't want to buy or make vegan chorizo, you could eat this soup without it, but seriously ... it's the chorizo that really knocks it out of the park.

Also, when I made this soup I completely forgot to put the onions in at the beginning, and ended up sauteeing them separately later. Since it came out so great, I'm going to pretend that's what made all the difference, and that mistake has been preserved in the directions below. But I'm sure you could just throw the onions in with the rest of the veggies and pour in a couple of Tablespoons of olive oil ...



Peel a
large yam (about 19 ounces)
and cut it into small bite-size pieces along with a
small Yukon gold potato (about 8 ounces)

Throw the yam and potato chunks into a large pot, along with
6 cloves of coarsely chopped garlic
1 tsp. dried thyme
1 tsp. dried oregano
4 cups vegetable broth
2 cups water
and bring to a boil over high heat, covered. Once boiling, reduce the heat to low and simmer for about 30 minutes, until the yams and potatoes are very soft.



Remove
2 cups of the cooked vegetables in cooking liquid
from the pot and puree in a blender or food processor along with
5 ounces okara

Once pureed, return to the soup pot. If desired, you can mash the remaining yams and potatoes with a potato masher or other mashing implement.

Saute
a medium-sized white onion, finely chopped
in
2 Tablespoons olive oil
for 5 to 10 minutes, until onions are translucent but not browned. Add them to the soup pot along with
5 ounces kale (stems removed and chopped into small pieces)
1 Tablespoon white wine
and increase the heat to medium. Stir until the kale is wilted.

NB: This should have only taken maybe 5 minutes, but because I used prepackaged kale from Trader Joe's, I had to cook this for about 15 minutes. Why? Because the TJ's kale didn't have the thick stems removed, so it had to be cooked for a lot longer! In the end this wasn't a problem, so if you don't want to remove the stems I guess you don't have to -- just be prepared to cook it longer, until the stems are nice and soft.

When the kale is wilted, add
1 1/2 tsp. salt
ground pepper, to taste
1 tsp. white vinegar
and stir seasonings into the soup. Turn off heat and let the soup rest while you lightly saute the chorizo.

There really aren't instructions for the chorizo -- I just sauteed some store-bought vegan chorizo in some olive oil for a few minutes, being careful not to burn it. How much chorizo you garnish your soup with depends on your tolerance for heat and your own personal tastes. I probably used about a Tablespoon of chorizo per cup of soup.

Ladle soup into a bowl, garnish with desired amount of chorizo, stir chorizo into the soup, enjoy!

Verdict: This is one of my new favorite soups. I love the combination of yams, potatoes, and chorizo, and love finding ways to sneak kale into my food (not to mention okara).

potato lima-bean soup

Place
3 1/2 cups cooked white lima beans
1/2 cup okara
2 cups vegetable broth
in a blender and puree completely. You might need to do this in two batches, depending on how powerful your blender is. Set the bean puree aside.

Heat
2 Tablespoons olive oil
in a pot over medium heat. Add
1 small onion, diced
2 carrots, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 potato (about 10 oz.), finely cubed (about centimeter cubed)
to the oil and saute until vegetables are covered with oil. Cover the pot and allow to cook over medium-low heat, stirring often to ensure the vegetables don't burn.

After 15 minutes, add
1/2 cup soymilk
and stir. Cover pot and cook for an additional 10 minutes, continuing to stir often to avert burning. Then add
2 Tablespoons white whole wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons dried thyme
black pepper, to taste
to the vegetables and stir until they are coated with the mixture. Add another
1/2 cup soymilk
and stir until the mixture thickens a bit. Then add
the pureed lima beans
to the pot and stir until ingredients are well incorporated. Heat through, stirring occasionally, until it is hot enough to serve.

Verdict: I liked this a lot, except some of the carrots and potatoes were a bit undercooked. I blame myself -- I didn't chop these vegetables into uniformly small pieces as I should have. Chalk that one up to laziness. Maybe I could have shredded them in the food processor -- then they'd be in even smaller pieces! Learn from my mistake, and be sure to chop these veggies up into very small pieces. Or, if you want to add an extra step, you can precook them in boiling water until they have softened.

pasta e fagioli

How do you say "and chard too" in Italian? Because this pasta-and-bean soup also has chard. It was growing in my yard, begging to be eaten, so I threw it in. You could probably omit the chard and be fine. You could probably also substitute spinach or kale and be fine.



Soak
1 cup dry navy beans
overnight. Drain and rinse. Then return it to a pot and add
3 cups water
2 bay leaves
2 cloves garlic (whole)
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 tsp dried sage
and bring to a boil.



Cover the beans, reduce the heat, and simmer for 90 minutes, until beans are soft. (While you are waiting, you'll probably want to clean and cut the chard and other vegetables; instructions below.) Remove from heat and remove the bay leaves. Do not drain. Place the contents of the pot -- beans, water, garlic, and all -- into a blender or food processor, along with
5 oz. okara
1 cup water
and liquefy.



NB: If the bean mixture is too thick for your blender or food processor to handle, you can thin it out with some of the 4 cups of water that are called for in a later step.



Wash
5-6 oz. chard
and remove the stems. Set the stems aside. Chop the chard finely.




In a large pot over medium heat saute
1 small onion, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
in
2 Tablespoons olive oil
and cook for a couple of minutes. Then add
1 carrot, sliced
1 celery rib, sliced
chard stems, sliced
and saute for five minutes, until soft.



Add
4 cups water
bean puree from blender or food processor
2 cups cooked chickpeas, rinsed and drained
the chopped chard
and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 30-35 minutes, uncovered, stirring occasionally. (While you are waiting, you can cook the pasta; instructions below.)

Add
1 tsp. dried rosemary
and
salt and pepper
to taste. Simmer for another 10 minutes.



Cook
1 1/2 cups small pasta (e.g., macaroni, fusilli)
according to the directions given on the package. Drain pasta and set aside.

NB: This is a great opportunity to try whole-wheat pasta, if you're curious but have been afraid.

When the soup is done, stir in the cooked pasta and serve.

Verdict: I absolutely love this. You could probably experiment with adding more okara, if you wanted to. I played it a little safe and only added 5 ounces, which is a little more than half a cup.

okara split-pea soup

Honestly, you can just take your favorite split-pea soup recipe and sneak in some okara. You might have to amp up the seasonings a bit to make up for any dilution in flavor caused by the addition of okara. But for the record, here is the recipe that I came up with.

Also, split-pea soup goes great with corn muffins!



Put the following ingredients into a large pot:
1 pound dried split peas (yellow, green, or a combination)
10 cups vegetable broth
3 carrots, finely chopped
1 small parsnip, peeled and finely chopped
3 celery ribs, sliced
1 small Yukon Gold potato (about 10 oz.), peeled and chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 bay leaf
1 tsp. dried thyme
1/2 cup okara

Bring to a boil, lower the heat, cover the pot, and simmer for at least two hours, or until peas and other ingredients are soft. (It might take more or less time, depending on how old the split peas are.) Once the texture is to your liking, add
salt and pepper, to taste
1/2 Tablespoon curry powder (more or less, according to taste)

When the seasonings are to your liking, the soup is ready to serve (after removing the bay leaf, of course). If desired, garnish with
fresh chopped cilantro

miso-okara soup

Miso soup is an obvious choice for the addition of okara. And as long as you get the water-to-miso ratio right, it's pretty hard to mess up. Feel free to play around with the following recipe. You might like to add additional vegetables, or increase the proportions of the vegetables that are called for. The recipe also makes a lot of soup, so you might want to cut it in half, too.



Bring
12 cups water
to a boil in a large pot, and add
2 Tablespoons tamari (soy sauce)
6 oz. (about 8 cups) coarsely chopped spinach
8 oz. (about 3 cups) thinly sliced white mushrooms
4 scallions, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 celery rib, chopped

Variation: Thinly sliced radishes also go great in miso soup. Plus, their greens are edible and can be chopped up and thrown into the mix along with the spinach.

Boil for several minutes, until the vegetables are tender. Reduce heat to low, remove some of the broth (a cup or so) and transfer it to a bowl. To this bowl, add
2/3 cup miso
and blend the miso into the water until there are no lumps left.



Return the miso mixture to the pot and blend with the rest of the broth. Add
4 oz. silken tofu, cut into cubes
1 cup okara
and stir into the soup.

Note: What size cubes should the tofu be cut into? Whatever size you want them to be when you eat them.

When the mixture is heated through, the miso soup is ready to serve. Make sure you give it a good stir before ladling it into bowls -- the miso and okara tend to settle to the bottom.

Note: A widespread claim about miso is that it has nutritive properties that disappear once the miso is boiled. I am skeptical of this claim, but on the other hand, it doesn't take much effort to make sure the soup doesn't boil once the miso is added in, so what the heck. Use this information as you see fit.

Verdict: I think this tastes great, although I wish I had added another carrot or two, as well as additional tofu. (I was working with what I had on hand, though.) I also think the soup could have withstood even more okara.