Vegan Cream of Mushroom Soup

I can't quite believe that after blogging since 2006 (including my vegetarian blog) I haven't posted a basic cream of mushroom soup until now! We are so in love with this soup, it's thick and super creamy with a velvety texture and great mushroom flavour. My husband, a huge fan of anything mushroom based was always disappointed by tinned cream of mushroom soup back when he was vegetarian as they never actually taste of mushroom - just  that rank artificial mushroom flavour. Well, he's  described this one as 'hands down the best cream of mushroom soup he's ever had' - so, yay!

I have made several cream of mushroom soups before but none have compared to this one. I think the reason for that is the outright simplicity of this recipe, I was probably trying too hard before, roasting the mushrooms, using exotic mushrooms, tons of fresh herbs etc.. when all it really needed was mushrooms, stock, cream, onion and garlic. Simple.

It's a great basic cream of mushroom soup recipe and would also work well in all those old time recipes that call for 'a can of cream of mushroom soup' that we all call old school and a bit naff but secretly love ;-) Remember noodle casserole made with a tin of cream of mushroom soup? Haha - delicious!

~Recipe Notes~

• For the mushroom stock I have used 1 Kallo Organic Mushroom Stock Cube dissolved in 500ml boiling water. If you can't buy this brand then I would use another brand mushroom stock, from either a cube or powder to make 500ml (2 cups) OR I would recommend you make your own mushroom stock (sorry I don't have a recipe but there are loads online). I wouldn't really recommend not using a mushroom stock here - you need that extra mushroom flavour happening.

• I have kept this simple with no herbs but if you like, thyme, marjoram and parsley all go brilliantly with mushrooms. Fresh would be best.

• Recipe makes 4 small servings or 2 large. We always go for the small servings as we have lots of bread with it, in fact I almost treat the soup like a mushroom fondue! Plus the soup is thick and rich so I find the small serving just perfect but keep in mind it doesn't look like much in the bowl. These photos have a large serving in them.

Cream of Mushroom Soup

2 Tbsp vegan butter
1 onion, chopped
250g white mushrooms, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbsp flour
500ml (2 cups) mushroom stock
250ml (1 cup) soy cream
1/8 tsp salt
freshly ground black pepper
freshly ground nutmeg

All the ingredients!

Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the onions and mushrooms and give it a good stir. Sprinkle over the salt and add about 12 grinds of black pepper. 

Fry until the onions are soft and the mushrooms are cooked through, about 10 minutes. You also want *most* of the liquid cooked off but not all of it, stop before you've cooked off all the liquid. Now add the garlic and give it a good stir then turn the heat down to low and add the flour. Stir well and fry gently for about 1 minute.

Dissolve the stock cube in the 500ml of boiling water and add a little bit to the pot, stir well to deglaze any flour then add a bit more stock, again stir well and keep adding more stock until it is all added. Now bring to the boil then reduce and simmer gently for 10 minutes. Do this with the lid off so that the stock reduces a bit. 

Stock being added.

Bring to the boil then simmer for 10 minutes.

...after the 10 minutes, reduced.

Now add the cream (for those of you in the UK and Ireland this is handily a whole 250ml carton of Alpro single cream). Mix well then turn off the heat.

Transfer the soup to your blender and blend on the highest setting until velvety smooth. I used my Froothie Optimum 9400 blender and as always, it did an amazing job here. Absolutely no "mushroom graininess" in this soup!

Return to the pot, add a couple gratings of fresh nutmeg (not too much, it can overpower!) and bring the soup back up to heat.

Ladle into warmed bowls and serve with bread of your choice, a nice 'fresh from the oven' French crusty bread with some vegan butter spread on is ideal :-)

♥

Source: adapted from this recipe.

Nutritional Information: based on 1 serving out of 4 (small bowls)

Calories: 176

Protein: 3.9g
Fat: 12.7g
Sat Fat: 2.2g

Fibre: 1.3g

Carbs: 10.4g

Sugar: 2.9g

Sodium: 607mg

Disclaimer: this post contains affiliated links to Froothie UK, however all views expressed are my own.

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Vegan Parmesan

Why has it taken me so long to make my own vegan parmesan style cheese? This stuff has transformed our lives, well, our culinary lives anyway! I actually made this ages ago and I've been using it in EVERYTHING - so much so that I feel like I should go back and update a lot of my recipes! I furthermore have so many recipes to blog that call for some of this stuff that I had to hurry up and blog this one so I can clear the backlog, haha! So yes, expect this to feature in a LOT of upcoming blog posts :-)

Now there are a lot of recipes out there for vegan parmesan cheese and they are all pretty much based on the same formula - nutritional yeast, nuts and or seeds and salt/seasoning. I didn't follow any other recipe here, I just kept experimenting with different ratios until I was happy with the outcome. In the end I found simple was best - just 3 ingredients with a nice balance of flavour. 

I absolutely LOVE the taste of this and while I am not going to say it tastes "just like parmesan" (because it doesn't, although close!) I will say that it works as a perfect replacement for parmesan in pretty much any recipe. You know all those risotto recipes that call for "1/4 cup of grated parmesan cheese"? Yup, just use this instead - it's perfect for risotto, sprinkled over pizza, pasta (of course!) but we even love it stirred into baked beans to make them cheesier and creamy. Loads of possibilities here! 

The other great things about this recipe? Only 3 ingredients and no food processor or blender needed! Simple.

Vegan Parmesan:

2 Tbsp ground almonds

2 Tbsp nutritional yeast flakes

1/4 tsp salt

Grind up the nutritional yeast flakes in a mortar and pestle until they are a fine powder. If you don't have one you can easily just powder the flakes by hand or by placing in a zip-lock bag and running a rolling pin over. Add the ground almonds and salt and mix. That's it!

Notes:  Recipe makes just 1/4 cup of parmesan which I find is the perfect amount for meals that serve 2-3 people. If I am making say, just a pasta for myself I will make up half this recipe to throw in. If you want a large jar of this then simply double, triple, quadruple or more! Personally, I tend to just make this up as I need it as it's so easy to do :-)

....and for another variation - Smoked Vegan Parmesan! This stuff is gorgeous thrown into anything you want to add a cheesy, smoky, almost dare I say, "bacon-y" flavour to? ;-)

Smoked Vegan Parmesan:

2 Tbsp nutritional yeast, ground

2 Tbsp ground almonds

1/2 tsp smoked sea salt

1/4 tsp smoked paprika

Make as instructed above.

....there will be a dedicated pasta blog post coming up featuring some of my favourite simple recipes using the parmesan!

♥

Nutritional Information: full recipe

Calories: 102

Protein: 6.0g

Fat: 7.2g

Sat Fat: 0.5g

Fibre: 3.0g

Carbs: 5.5g

Sugar: 0.5g

Sodium: 586.4mg

Basic Pesto

So, apologies to the daily food blog readers who have seen this before as it's already posted there but I decided as I get so few readers over there it should be on the main blog. Plus, it's rather crazy that my all time favourite meal isn't on the blog yet - pesto pasta. I know, it's very basic and common but I love it, I could seriously eat bucket loads of pesto pasta and love pesto on just about anything :-) Plus, as we now have a garden we now have loads of basil growing like mad which is fab as pesto takes a lot of basil - even for a small amount!

I have been using this recipe since we pretty much became vegan, finding a good pesto recipe was going to be essential to my transition after all! ;-) The only reason I haven't blogged it yet is that it's essentially not my recipe - this is basically the pesto recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance and it's brilliant. I decided to blog it as I have used my preferred pine nuts here and have scaled it down to suit enough pasta to serve 4.

Basic Pesto: serves 4 as a pasta sauce.
20g pine nuts
50g fresh basil
2 small or 1 large clove garlic, chopped
1/4 tsp salt
60ml extra virgin olive oil
4 1/2 tsp nutritional yeast flakes ground to a powder.
1 tsp lemon juice
♥
300g pasta to serve four

Lightly toast the pine nuts in a dry frying pan and set aside. Wash and dry the basil then place in a food processor with the nuts, garlic and salt. Process until finely chopped, stop and scrape down the sides if need be. With the processor running slowly pour the olive oil down the chute until all added then process until fine in texture. Add the lemon juice and yeast and process again.

Note - I actually prefer to use a mortar and pestle here as my food processor struggles with smaller quantities. I'll use it to finely chop the basil, to make it all smaller but you can just chop it with a knife. Then I transfer to the mortar and pestle and pound it with circular motions with the pine nuts, chopped garlic and salt until it's a paste then I'll add the lemon juice to loosen it up then slowly add the olive oil, bit by but until it's the consistency you see above, smooth but still grainy. I then stir in the nutritional yeast until dissolved and creamy. This is actually the more traditional way to make pesto which, according to Wikipedia actually means "to pound" and is the same root word we get pestle from! So there you go, be traditional, ditch the food processor and get a little workout!!

Cook the pasta in well salted water and drain, any type is good here but I do love this Fusilli Lunghi Bucati No. 5 by De Cecco I've used here :-) Return to the pot and toss the pesto in, mixing well. It's important to do this off the heat, don't heat pesto as the basil can turn black and the flavour will be compromised, just toss it in the hot drained pasta and go! If it seems a little dry, sometimes I'll add a little more olive oil, sometimes a little pasta cooking water (depends if I'm dieting or not!) Season with salt and or pepper if needed at the table.

Of course you can add loads of add ins to this - we love cherry tomatoes, or sometimes sun dried tomatoes and sliced black olives. Fried vegan chicken strips would be lovely, seitan or some white cannellini beans for added protein would all go well too.

Source: Slightly adapted from Vegan with a Vengeance.

♥

Nutritional Information: Based on 1 serving out of 4.

Calories: 422

Protein: 10.2g

Fat: 19.2g

Sat Fat: 2.5g

Fibre: 2.2g

Carbs: 55.9g

Sugar: 2g

Sodium: 196mg

Back to Basics - Pancakes and Waffles

♥ Proper Canadian style thick, light and fluffy pancakes! ♥

♥ Guess what I got for Christmas?? ♥

Now I know I just said in my last post that I was going to be focusing on healthy eating, less baking and reducing my white flour and sugar this year and I assure you I haven't failed already! My standard pancake recipe is something I have been meaning to blog for years, we do after all have them once a week and have done so for a few years now. I even based the Carrot Cake Pancake recipe on this one and still didn't manage to blog it!

Well, this Christmas my lovely in-laws got me a waffle maker - something I've wanted for a long time and while there are a lot of vegan waffle recipes out there I just had to try my standard pancake recipe in it first, and guess what? They turned out beautifully! This gave me the perfect opportunity to not only finally blog the pancake recipe but a waffle one as well :-)

Funny thing about my pancake recipe, the waffle maker is a Gordon Ramsay one (yeah, I don't like him either!) and it came with a recipe book and his basic waffle recipe is almost identical to my pancake recipe but with eggs... if I had that recipe blogged already I'd have thought the dude copied me! :-D

~Recipe Notes~

A few notes on the recipe, it uses sparkling water to help give lightness and rise by reacting with the baking powder. I always use the sparkling water at room temperature but I'm not sure chilled will make any difference. As for the milk, I've only used soy milk so far with the waffles, I have used soy, rice and coconut with the pancakes and they all work great but you get the thickest pancakes with soy milk (as in photo). This is down to the higher protein content in soy milk, almond milk is similarly high in protein and would work too :-)

Pancakes or Waffles - makes 5 seven inch round waffles or 10 medium / 15 small pancakes.

280g plain flour or 2 cups
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
30g caster sugar or 2 Tbsp, can also use granulated
300ml dairy free milk - see notes above
120ml sparkling water
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract

Whisk the dry ingredients together. In a pyrex measuring jug mix together the milk, vanilla and oil give it a mix with a fork then pour over the dry ingredients. Now pour the sparkling water over and whisk the whole lot together gently until it all just comes together in a batter. Do not overmix or whisk until it is super smooth, little lumps are ok, over mixing will give you tough rubbery pancakes or waffles. I also like to add the sparkling water last like that so it first reacts with the flour and fizzes up, if you add it to the wet ingredients first I find it already loses some of it's fizz action.

For waffles simply use as per your waffle maker's instructions.

For pancakes I lightly grease non-stick pans and preheat, when hot pour on the batter, I like smaller pancakes and use a 1/3 cup scoop. 1/2 cup scoop will give you slightly bigger pancakes. When they start to bubble on top have a little peek underneath that they are golden brown then flip over. I usually turn the hob down to minumim when I flip to ensure these cook thoroughly, as they are quite thick you do have the risk of golden brown pancakes on both sides but with a raw, doughy centre - not good!

For both waffles or pancakes I always have the oven preheated quite low, 80 - 100C, and keep the cooked ones warm while I make the rest, then we can sit down and eat together :-)

These also freeze beautifully, for waffles just let them cool completely, separate into 4 wedges then place in freezer bags as you can toast them straight from the freezer for yummy instant vegan waffles! Just slather them with your vegan butter of choice and fill those little pockets with lots of maple syrup! We also like to have the pancakes with some raspberry jam, and have had the waffles with some raspberry compote that you see in the picture there, just some defrosted frozen raspberries mixed with some caster sugar - it makes it's own sauce, easy!

♥

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Creamy Tomato Pasta Sauce

Served with Spaghetti and my Garlic Bread.

Well, we had quite a bit of leftover Tomato Cream Sauce from the Buckwheat Crêpes recipe and I just had to try it with pasta as it was so good on it's own. Wow. This is a seriously good pasta sauce and will be a staple in our house for sure, even the kid loved it, yay! I'm going to re-post the recipe here as I've increased the quantities for a pasta sauce. The photo there is with parsley but I prefer basil for a pasta sauce and parsley for a crêpe sauce, although both work well. I also took some step by step photos for you here, although it's a dead easy sauce ;-) I've showed this sauce on it's own here so you can see it clearly but any kind of vegetables added would be great.

Sauce is loosely based on/inspired by The Pioneer Woman's "Penne a la Betsy" :-)

Recipe Notes:

♥ I love the coconut milk in this but I have also made this with soy cream, it's just as good.

♥ Don't drink? Simply swap the wine with equal amounts of water. Again, it's still good.

♥ Passata is just sieved crushed tomatoes, I understand this product is harder to find in the US. To help you substitute the ingredients are: tomatoes (99.7%) salt and citric acid and the product is completely smooth. Plain canned tomato sauce can most likely be used in it's place. Make sure the ingredients are as above with no oil, basil,vegetables etc.. and it is very smooth with no seeds, skin or chunks. 

♥ Please don't confuse passata with tomato paste either, I've seen some sites online saying they are the same - they are not....375g of tomato paste would make for an *interesting* sauce, lol.

2013 photo with my new favourite pasta shape - De Cecco Fusilli Lunghi Bucati -5 

Creamy Tomato Pasta Sauce

makes 1/2 litre, good for about 6 servings.

• 1 1/2 Tbsp vegan butter
• 1 1/2 Tbsp olive oil
• 60g chopped shallots
• 4 -6 cloves garlic, I used 4 large ones, use 6 if they are small, chopped fine
• 150ml white wine
• 375g passata (about 375ml) 
• 200ml full fat coconut milk 
• 1/4 + 1/8 tsp salt
• 6 -8 grinds black pepper
• about a 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil (to be honest, I didn't measure here, I just eyeballed it)

First, heat up the butter and olive oil until the butter melts. Add the shallots and garlic and fry until the shallots are soft and transparent, a few minutes should do.

Pour in the wine and bring to a strong simmer, cook until the wine reduces by about a third. Now add the passata, salt and pepper. Stir well, bring to a boil then reduce to low heat, put the lid on and simmer for 20 minutes. Make sure to stir it now and again. It should cook down considerably and be fairly thick.

Pour in the coconut milk, stir and remove from the heat.

Pour it all into a blender and blend until super smooth, it should thicken up and change colour to a glorious orange:

Now simply pour it back into the pot, stir in the basil and or parsley and bring it back up to heat. Check seasoning and it's ready to use!

Fantastic with penne too, or of course, any pasta :-)

♥

Nutritional Information: just the sauce - per 1 serving out of 6
Calories: 151
Protein: 1.3g
Fat: 5.9g
Sat Fat: 1g
Fibre: 0.6g
Carbs: 7g
Sugar: 3.5g
Sodium: 358mg

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Back to Basics - Houmous

I debated whether to post this at all, not that it's not good, it's fantastic and I no longer buy houmous it's so good. Rather I find that people are very particular about their houmous and this one is very particular to me. I have tried making my own houmous so many times and have never been happy with it. It's either bland or too bitter, too much tahini, not smooth enough etc. The first time I tried this it was almost spot on perfect except for one strange flavour, I kept blaming the tahini and tried to adjust that but then realized it was the olive oil. Yes, I know it's traditionally what is used in houmous but I found the flavour too strong and unique here. I then thought I would check the ingredients in what has always been my favourite houmous - tesco's own label regular houmous (for real!) and yes, no olive oil - they just use vegetable oil.

So, I tried it again with vegetable oil and ... perfection! Well, for me, and my husband who concurs this is the best houmous he's had. It's very much like tesco's but with more flavour, like a pimped up version. I even tried to recreate their quantity of chickpeas vs tahini by percentage. Commitment. I also do one thing which is a bit of a time consuming hassle but worth it. I peel the chickpeas - yes, all of them. I think it makes for a smoother less bitter houmous. And of course, you can always replace the vegetable oil with olive oil here if it just seems sacrilegious to you without it ;-) I also wanted to keep the calories down in this but if you don't care about that and want an even creamier houmous you can double the oil and reduce the water to 1 Tbsp.

Note: I don't always peel, I only do this when the tinned chickpeas skins are already falling off when you wash them. Sometimes tins of chickpeas are smaller with tighter skins - I don't bother then.

Houmous:
200g drained, rinsed and peeled chickpeas (One 400g tin drained and rinsed)
50g tahini
1 Tbsp + 2 tsp lemon juice
3/4 tsp salt
1 clove garlic - smallish, pureed
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
2 Tbsp water

Add everything but the oil and water to a food processor. Process until well mixed, stop a couple times to clean down the sides. Then while the processor is running on low add the oil, again stop a couple times to clean the sides. Again, with processor running slowly add the water. Increase speed till high and process until super creamy. Transfer to a bowl, cover with cling film and refrigerate. As it sits it may get thicker, I then add a few more drops water and beat well to get the creaminess back.

2012 Edit:  I have been making this all the time but the worst thing has happened. I appear to have developed an intolerance to chickpeas! Not to get into the details but through process of elimination they seem to be the culprits. As I couldn't imagine a life without houmous I made this using a tin of haricot (navy) beans and it turned out delicious! I really had trouble telling the difference and I had no reaction to it, you have no idea how happy this makes me :-)

I also made this with the Cannellini beans - the more traditional chickpea replacement in houmous and it was equally delicious. So if you have issues with chickpeas too or simply don't like them, this is a great alternative:

White Bean Houmous:

1 x 400g tin of haricot OR Cannellini beans, drained & rinsed. About 200-225g drained weight.
50g tahini
1 Tbsp + 2 tsp lemon juice
3/4 tsp salt  (use less if your tinned beans are in salted water)
1 clove garlic, pureed
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 Tbsp water - optional, you may only need it if the houmous needs to be creamier.

Add everything but the oil to a food processor and process until creamy, then add the oil and process until super smooth and creamy. Add water if need be.

♥

Nutritional Information: per 100g (chickpea version)

Calories: 232
Fat: 17.6g
Sat Fat: 1.8g
Protein: 6.8g
Fibre: 3.1g
Carbs: 13.5g
Sugar: 0.4g
Sodium: 515mg
Calcium: 41.7mg

♥

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Perfect Vegan Scones!

This recipe makes the most lightest, yummiest scones. It's based on the same one from my old blog which came from Joy of Baking . Now that called for 1 egg, butter and cream so I thought I would first try with no egg, shortening (veg fat) and rice milk instead. They turned out almost perfect, the only thing is they are so light and delicate they do crumble rather easily.

So the next time I made them I added some cornflour to help bind and that solved it perfectly! They stayed light and delicious but held together a lot better. Furthermore I love Joy of Baking's idea of dusting icing sugar on top and grilling them just until it caramelizes. It gives a sweet crunchy topping which is lovely :) I probably make these for breakfast every Saturday or Sunday - they are seriously the best scones, vegan or not, I've ever had!


Scones - makes 6


280g flour - 2 cups
2 Tbsp cornflour (cornstarch)
50g caster sugar - 1/4 cup
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
80g cold shortening (vegetable fat) - 1/3 cup
1 tsp vanilla
150 - 180ml dairy free milk (180ml is 3/4 cup)
50g raisins (optional) - I no longer add these as my son is not keen!
icing sugar (optional)

Preheat oven to 190C/ 380F. If using raisins, pour some boiling water over the raisins and let sit until their edges start to turn white. Drain and pat dry and set aside. Place the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt into a large bowl and whisk well. Add the fat and cut in with a pastry cutter until the mixture is like coarse crumbs.

Stir in the raisins (if using) then add the milk and vanilla - stir quickly with a fork until it just comes together - do not overmix! You may just need 150ml or the full 180ml, I find it depends on what type of milk I'm using. It should be moist but not sticky and initially will not come together into a ball. Bring the dough together with your hands and place on a lightly floured surface, turn over and shape into a 1 1/2" thick circle. Do NOT knead it or handle it too much or your scones will be tough. Cut into 6 triangles, separate and place on a baking sheet lined with baking paper. If not grilling the tops you can brush the tops now with some dairy free milk. Bake for 15 - 18 minutes or until lightly golden and a toothpick comes out clean.

For the optional topping: Turn the grill on and get the rack in the upper half of the oven. *Remove the baking paper from the sheet!!!* and sift a generous amount of icing sugar on top of the scones. Place under the grill until it just starts to bubble, melt and is golden. Watch constantly as it will burn fast. Transfer to a wire rack to cool slightly then serve warm with vegan margarine and jam.



Nutritional Information: based on 1 plain scone out of 6

Calories: 352
Protein: 4.8g
Fat: 14g
Sat Fat: 5.5g
Fibre: 1.3g
Carbs: 50.8g
Sugar: 9.9g
Sodium: 106.9mg

♥

Chocolate Chip Cookies

My absolute favourite basic chocolate chip cookie recipe, these always turn out wonderful and can even take a lot of substitutions. I have often made these with 140g or 2/3 cups golden caster sugar in place of the white and brown sugar and have even just used full granulated sugar - they still turn out fantastic. I have also made these with about 4 different brands of vegan butters and they will yield different results, some give you thinner and crisper cookies like in the photo, others thicker, soft and fluffier cookies. They all taste fantastic though :-)

Chocolate Chip Cookies
makes about 18

180g vegan margarine (3/4 cup)
70g caster sugar (1/3 cup)
70g light muscovado sugar (1/3 cup)
1 tsp vanilla
200g plain flour (1 1/2 level cups)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
100g dark chocolate chips or chopped (2/3 cups)

Preheat oven to 180C. Beat the margarine, sugars and vanilla until light and fluffy. Mix flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda together in a separate bowl. Stir dry into the sugar mixture with a wooden spoon, until well blended then stir in chocolate chips. Drop with a tablespoon onto baking paper lined baking sheets and bake for 12- 15 minutes. They should be golden, particularly along the edges. Let cool on sheets for a few minutes to firm up then carefully transfer to a wire rack to cool. Now get the coffee on....

Source: Loosely based on a Canadian Living recipe.

♥