10 vegetable vegan soup
This is the best vegetable soup I have ever made. I quite often wondered if I could replicate that warm fuzzy feeling of chicken soup. That was always my “go to” to feel better if I was sick, hungover or just feeling the blues. Dream come true and surprisingly – without any vegetable stock or bouillon cubes. I haven’t checked in a while but those things are usually loaded with MSG which I would feel right away. Many people probably think.. oh.. it’s just soup. I quite often wonder however, how these stores make their hot soups for the public. Do they use all wonderful ingredients fresh and healthy or do they just crack open a huge can from a restaurant depot type store and call it their own? Perhaps, even a hybrid of the two. In most cases, it’s salt city and sure it tastes good but what’s in it? What oils are used? Are there milk products in there? How much salt is tossed in or already loaded? Is everything from a can? Is it GMO?
This time it started with my guilty trip to BagelSmith in Brooklyn. Yes, I confess that I bend to convenience occasionally when I have to get up really early to work.. I get it lol. I still swear that bagels make you fat, amongst a million other junk food quick grabs. Generally, I bring my own food but today, I ordered a pumpernickel scooped out bagel (300 -100 scooped calories) with some tofu scallion spread and yes.. what’s in that too while we are at it? Anyway.. it’s vegan lol. The point of the story is that they had a huge soup board with a row of regular soups of the day and a row of vegan soups. For this alone, I love this place. Although many shops carry soup right now and it’s freezing out, it’s still difficult to find a good vegan one when you want it. Obviously this catering to the vegans in a busy, quick & convenient 24 hour store made my day. Today it was “10 vegetable soup”. I grabbed it for lunch and it was delicious. It kinda got me thinking.. I have never heard it called that before.. 10 vegetable soup. On my way home later in the evening, I stopped at the 24 hour vegetable stand by my home and picked up things to make my own full on vegetable soup. Honestly, I was just in the mood to create a feel good soup packed with nutrients and lots of broth.
Basic recipe:
I started with a sauté with oil, the onions and garlic. I usually always use red onions. This is the first time I wondered off in a while. Now I know where the crying comes in. I was actually crying! I never cry with onions. I believe it was a yellow onion although it could have been white. I used a lot more onion than normal in making a vegetable soup. I definitely felt it- both in the air and from the taste. I thought it would be too much but it came out perfect.
I chopped and diced away, adding to the soup as I went. It became a meditative moment. I used water 3/4 of a big soup pot. I actually didn’t have any vegetable stock on hand and was hoping that the flavor would just come anyway. I loved the aroma and feeling of cooking up some early winter soups and staying warm. For the fun of it, I was going to call it my 8 vegetable soup but then I counted and I literally had 10. My 10 vegetable vegan soup.. healing for the mind, body soul!
Ingredients:
Yellow onion
Red onion
Garlic
Cilantro
Sun dried tomatoes
Carrots
Celery
Mushrooms- baby bellas
Potato- 4 or 5 average size red
Plantain- one green
