Tomato Soup

Status: Vegan! (I think)
Mood: You want chunky soup, but not Campbell's
Labor: Moderate
Prep time: 1/2 hour

Ingredients:

• 5 or 6 small/medium-sized (or 3 or 4 larger-sized) ripe tomatoes
• 1 onion
• 1 red pepper
  
• 1 garlic clove
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
  
• 4 1/2 cups vegetable broth
  
• 1/4 cup (handful) basil leaves
• 1/4 cup tomato paste
  
• Pinch salt, sugar, pepper
• Shell/other pasta (however much you want)

Le Process

1. "Score" a cross in the top of the tomatoes, and place them in boiling water for a minute or two. Once they start to look wrinkled, take them out and place them immediately into cold water. When you remove them from the cold water, peel off the skins and set the tomatoes aside momentarily.
2. Cut up the pepper, onion, and garlic, and sauté them in a pot with the oil for about 10 minutes. While they are sautéing, cut up the tomatoes into chunks. Add this to the mixture in the pot and let cook for about 10 more minutes.
   
3. Add the tomato paste, vegetable broth, salt, sugar, and pepper. Stir and let cook for 10 minutes or so.
4. (At this point, it would be a good idea to start heating a separate pot of water. When it starts to boil, add the pasta)
   
5. Add a fistful or so of basil leaves (modest to liberal, depending on your love of basil). In about two batches, add this mixture to a food processor. You'll want to process on low for about 10 seconds, then high for about 7. The key is to produce a soup that is lightly chunky--you should see tiny bits of pepper and tomato. It can be processed until smooth, of course, but in my opinion, it's not quite as good.
6. Put the whole solution back in the pot, and, when the pasta is cooked, strain it and add it to the soup mixture. At this point, it will be done.

I love this soup. It is reliably comforting and flavorful. It's nice to make a good amount, and eat it as leftovers for daaaays.

Easiest Salad EVAR

Status: Vegetarian
Mood: You's lazy. And lacking in nutrients.
Labor: Minimal
Prep time: 5 minutes

Ingredients:

• Fresh spinach--a couple grocery-store tong-fuls
  
• 1 pear
• Fresh, finely age'd & sharp-tasting Parmesan cheese
• Olive oil--as much as seems right

Le Process:

1. Wash the spinach. Thoroughly, or my mother will admonish you.
   
2. Take the pear. Got the pear? Good. Now cut the pear into little pear pieces.
3. Put as much spinach as makes sense into a bowl and pour a few cap-fuls of oil into the greenery. Now stir a bit, 'til it's all slick and oily. Add the pear pieces.
4. Grate slices of Parmesan on the top.
   
5. Eat.

SEE HOW EASY?

Alright, so this was a teensy bit of a cop-out, as I'm terribly underprivileged currently and subsisting chiefly on white rice, pasta, and cranberry juice. And whatever they'll sell you at whatever coffee place is nearby (which too often for my liking has been Starbucks.)

My point is--I haven't had time nor mind nor heart nor soul nor money to concoct for you what you really deserve, which is not as starchy as my current diet.

Nevertheless, simplicity is nothing to scoff at. This is a tasty, tasty salad.

Vegan: Venn Pongal

Status: Vegan
Mood: Comfort Indian food
Labor: Minimal to moderate
Prep Time: an hour or two

Ingredients:

• 1 cup brown rice
  
• 1/2 cup yellow split peas
• Frozen spinach
  
• Mustard seeds
  
• Garlic
  
• Curry powder
• Turmeric
  
• Black pepper
  
• Salt
  

Le Process:

1. Add the rice and daal in a pot with six cups of water, and boil until everything is super mushy. This will take about an hour, but for some reason it took me longer? Must be the high Michigan elevation...
   
2. Dry-roast the mustard seeds in a skillet until they start popping, and add them to the rice-daal mixture along with the other spices. (I would have added cumin seeds if I had any left, so I would recommend dry-roasting those with the mustard seeds as well, in addition to any spice your particularly enjoy.)
   
3. I realized I had added too much salt, so to tone it down I added some frozen spinach, which ended up being delicious. You can anything you want, though, or just leave it as-is.
   
4. Let everything cook for another 15 or so minutes to meld the flavors together.

Notes:

I don't give proportions of spices because I couldn't really tell you how much I put in. I just dump things in according to my own tastes, so just do whatcha want. This is how most future recipes posted here will be as well, so I will cease stating it.

This recipe isn't exactly traditional, because I omitted some ingredients I don't particularly care for, like ginger and cashews. I also don't think it's as thick as it's supposed to be, but I was too impatient to wait. So instead this bastardized version will suffice for me.

Vegan: Chai

Status: Vegan
Mood: Cozy on a grey, cold day
Labor: Minimal
Prep Time: 12 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1.5 cups of water
  
• 1 cinnamon stick
  
• 8-10 cardamom pods
  
• 10-12 whole cloves
  
• 3/4 cups soy milk
• 6 teaspoons sugar (or to taste)
  
• 3 teaspoons unperfumed loose black tea
  

Le Process:

1. Add water, cinnamon, cardamom, and cloves to saucepan and bring to a boil.
2. Cover and reduce heat to a simmer for 10 minutes.
   
3. Add milk and sugar. Bring to simmer again.
   
4. Add loose leaves, cover, and turn the heat off. Let steep 2-4 minutes and strain into a cup.
   

Vegan: Potato gnocchi with creamy sauce, purple cauliflower, and purple poatoes

Status: Vegan
Mood: Starch cravings, purple cravings
Labor: Minimal/Moderate
Prep Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

• Frozen vegan potato gnocchi
  
• Purple cauliflower
  
• Purple-flesh potatoes
• Potato onions
• Purple garlic
  
• 1 tablespoon Earth Balance
  
• 1 cup soy milk
  
• 1 cup nutritional yeast
  
• 1 teaspoon miso paste
  

Le Process:

1. Cut potatoes into eighths. Cut cauliflower florets into small pieces. Save the stalks and leaves to make something else with! Boil cauliflower and potatoes, strain.
   
2. Boil gnocchi.
   
3. Make creamy sauce by melting Earth Balance in a small saucepan over medium heat, then add flour and wisk together to make a roux. Add soy milk, nutritional yeast, miso paste, and salt/pepper to taste. Wisk all together until thick. I finely minced old lacinato and curly-leaved kale because it was all I had and I wanted to add an accent of green, but I'd recommend using an herb like basil for extra flavor.
   
4. Chop onions and garlic. Sautee for a hot second (...) in the potato/cauliflower pot, add the cauliflower and potatoes back to the pot, add the gnocchi, and pour creamy sauce over all. Gently combine.
   
5. Mash purple potatoes. Add Earth Balance, soy milk, or both.
   

I would have tried making my own gnocchi if I weren't lazy. Maybe another time. Also, this was just a cutesie dish that arose out of coincidence of the produce I had. Please don't think I'm being all that serious. You don't have to specifically use potato onions or purple garlic, but it fit with the "theme".

Asparagus Soup

Status: Vegetarian. Vegan potential.
Mood: It's cold outside. You want soup. Green soup.
Labor: Minimal/Moderate
Prep Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 pound asparagus
• 1 onion
• 1 3/4 cup vegetable broth
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup yogurt
• 1 squeeze of lime or lemon
• fresh Parmesan

Le Process:

1. Chop off ends of asparagus, then chop into roughly smaller pieces. Chop onion. Put asparagus, onion, and 1/2 cup vegetable broth in a pot and heat until vegetables become vaguely soft.
2. Put mixture in a food processor, puree until smooth. Then add butter & flour; puree again until smooth.
   
3. Pour mixture back into pot, turn the heat back on. Add the rest of the vegetable broth, milk. Whisk in yogurt. Allow to cook for a short while longer. Pour into bowls.
   
4. Grate the Parmesan, sprinkle on top--liberally for more flavor (and fat), conservatively for less.

I ripped this recipe from online and changed a few things--it said to use soy milk and I used regular, it called for lemon and we only had a lime, and it was more particular about the butter & flour step, while I ended up just processing it with the asparagus mixture. For a soup, this involved very little labor, few steps, and it still tasted lovely.