What Vegans Eat, Part II

I've written it often enough here: I love to make soup. As long as I have some basic herbs and spices stowed away, maybe a handful of dried beans or grains and a few odds and ends in the crisper, I can come up with something tasty and nutritious. The flexibility involved is nuts once you get the hang of figuring out complementary tastes and textures, and recipes for old favourites are often very forgiving.

I always get a little excited when I see some of my favourite food bloggers posting new ideas for recipes, since it gives me the opportunity to expand my own experimentation with a bit more confidence. I noticed a whole bunch over the past month when I did some looking around last week and decided to post them here separately, since there were so many of them to share:

Things to Do With Tomatoes

Renae from i eat food posted a recipe for a seafood-less Old Bay Soup which, even with its lengthy list of ingredients, sounds incredibly simple to make. I've never used Old Bay before and may give it a short starting with her recipe.

Liz at Food Snobbery Is My Hobbery ended up succumbing to a craving to whip up a Midnight Minestrone (see her photo at right) that sounds exactly like the sort of quick-fix soup I'd whip up close to the wee hours, as well.

Vegan Epicurean featured a variation on another old tomato-based favourite -- Creamy Mushroom and Tomato Soup. I've really not experimented much with cashews, although I see them come up often in recipes for things like fake cheeses as well as in various creamy dishes. I should really play around with them, since one of the people for whom I end up cooking most has a bit of a soy intolerance; it would be nice to explore alternatives to soy-based products.

Speaking of Creamy Dishes

Meg at The Snarky Chickpea shared a recipe for Potato-y Soup for One a few weeks back, which was an adaptation of one she'd found on a friend's blog. Having recently started trying Daiya, myself, I'm curious now about using it with potatoes and particularly in potato soup. I agree with her that cheddar Daiya might be a more interesting addition to this.

Allyson at Manifest Vegan posted something I tried making this past weekend and adored -- Carrot Cilantro Soup (see her photo to the right). It's so simple to make and its flavour is so different from the usual standbys I prepare. This will definitely be one to haul out to try on dinner guests in the future if I can just figure out what to include in the meal to round it all out.