carrot & leek soup & kale caesar salad

When I lived in cooler climates, soup season started around the time a jacket was required. It was one of the best parts of the changing seasons. Soup makes for the perfect lunch: it's inexpensive, not too heavy, and diverse. You can eat it for days and never feel bored--there are just too many options.

The only trouble, for me anyway, is I find it so tied to the idea of a brisk, chilly day. Not easy to come by in Southern California. Well, it's been unseasonably cold the last few days--Still close to 70 degrees, but there's a definite chill and even a few yellowing leaves falling from the trees. It could be the drought, but the idea of Fall is far more pleasant. So we decided it was time for a soup and salad combo.

When it comes to making soup, we like to keep things simple. We had carrots, and when are leeks not good in a soup? This one was about as simple as it gets (we literally made it up as we were throwing things in the pot). It turned out amazing:

Carrot, Leek, Ginger and Thyme Soup (Serves 4)

6 cups carrots, leeks mixed (about 2 leeks diced, the rest carrot)
3 cups water
2 springs fresh thyme (some roasted with garlic, others roasted with veggies)
1Tablespoon chopped ginger
2 Tablespoons coconut oil
1 bulb garlic (roasted with 1 teaspoon coconut oil)
1/2 teaspoon to 1 teaspoon salt (to taste, basically)

Roast the carrots, leeks and coconut oil at 400 degrees for 30 minutes. While veggies roast, wrap garlic bulbs with thyme and the teaspoon coconut oil in foil and roast for roughly 45 minutes.

Add roasted veggies to a large, deep pot with ginger and 3 cups of water and simmer for 15 minutes, then transfer veggies, roasted garlic plus cooking liquid to a blender and blend until smooth (make sure to leave the thyme in too--but remove the roasted stems and retain only the leaves). Add more water if it looks too thick.

Full disclosure? We totally didn't clean the blender between making the cashew caesar salad dressing and blending up the soup. Our laziness paid off and gave it some added zest.  Read on for the salad recipe.

A salad made this soup far more substantial, and we mixed them together and ate it as kind of a stew. As far as a salad recipe goes, I generally like to make them up. But this cashew caesar gem is one of the few I didn't create by whisking around spices with lemon and olive oil (those are good too, just different). Like everything I make, it's ever so slightly adapted: I use 2 Tablespoons of mustard, a full teaspoon of soy sauce, no lemon zest (too time consuming) kelp flakes, and freshly made croutons. (toast 3 slices of Ezekiel bread then dice them, toss them in a skillet with olive oil, a generous dusting of salt and pepper and let them get brown on one side, then flip. If you're feeling really ambitious, you can pop the toasted croutons in the oven for about 3 minutes at 400.).














I also add in capers and sub walnuts for sunflower seeds. It's a crowd pleaser for vegans and non-vegans. In fact, I often use this as my "bring something to a party" dish. I usually have to tell people it's plant-based because it looks pretty legit.

mac & cheese & nachos!

A vegan cheese sauce used two ways.

This recipe offers a great "alternative" (rather than substitution) to some "cheesy" favorites. While it looks like  the real deal and the finished flavor was remarkably similar, the ingredients were pretty surprising. Made up entirely of "whole foods"like potatoes, carrots and red pepper, we used Veggie's Don't Bite's Ultimate Cheese Sauce (adding a little more garlic, mustard and nutritional yeast, then thinning it out with some almond milk and Earth Balance).

People interested in a plant-based diet often ask how it's possible give up cheese. Eliminating cheese lacked the intense moral implications associated with straight meat (I know they're still there, but it's different), and the taste was always something I liked. In the end I found taking an apples and oranges approach was the best method. When I tried to simply substitute cheese with faux alternatives I was left disappointed (or worse, repulsed). It wasn't until I switched out cheese for something entirely different that it began to be easy.

This cheese sauce has some of the flavors and essence of the real deal--the textures and look as well as the zip of cheese, but it's also entirely satisfying on a different level. Tortilla chips covered with fresh cilantro,  homemade beans, diced avocado, tomatoes, pickled jalapenos, fresh onions and of course, cheese sauce, made this far heartier than any traditional take on nachos.

We used fresh Farmer's Market yellow beans and thinned the sauce with almond milk and a little Earth Balance to give it more of a "nacho cheese" sauce-feel.

And it made for a perfect baked mac and cheese--we used quinoa pasta and finished it by tossing in raw broccoli and crumbled bread crumbs and melted Earth Balance  in a casserole dish and baking at 350 for about 25 minutes (Tip: we suggest covering with foil for the first 15 minutes and removing for the last 10 to brown the bread crumbs to avoid drying out the cheese sauce). A garnish of cashew cheese made it as decadent as the traditional counterpart and just as filling. The broccoli steamed nicely, the bread crumbs browned--delicious.

Of course adult-friendly recipes don't always make the transition into kid-world. My incredibly picky three-year old took one look at the sauce and informed me she only likes crumbled parmesan (she's the only non-vegan in our household, but that's her choice to make if she ever wants to). She ate quinoa pasta with a little olive oil and steamed broccoli, and of course, her parmesan.