Happy Friday!

Feeling grateful that my niece spent her Christmas break with me. She flew back to Massachusetts yesterday. Sniffle sniffle. We started a tradition last summer to go on road trips together. On our first trip we drove up the east coast and visited Savannah and Charleston. My dear friend Elena was in St. Pete, FL last weekend and I had recently connected with my childhood friend Amy who lives in Dunedin so Em and I jumped in the car and headed west for the first road trip of 2018.

It was such a nice time visiting friends and seeing new places. We visited an incredible Farmer’s Market in St. Pete that rivals any I have ever been to and I went a little crazy. I loaded up with Chinese eggplant, green peppers, kale, more kale, yellow squash, sweet potato, green beans, pasta and fresh baked bread. Fresh pasta and bread is often made without eggs or dairy and it is homemade so of course I had to get me some of that! I figured we could eat all those veggies in the 3 days Emily had left with me before she went back to college. However, I attempted to put all that farm fresh food in my cottage-sized fridge in my cottage-sized home and realized it would never fit. Soup to the rescue.

This recipe is so easy. You literally use whatever vegetables you have on hand and it works. It’s the cashew cream broth that ties it all together and makes everything taste creamy and delicious. As soon as I got home, I put a cup of organic, raw cashews in spring water to soak. In the words of my favorite vegan food guru Isa Chandra Moskowitz, – Always Be Soaking – A.B.S.. I set Emily to work on prepping the green beans while I chopped everything else up. I order vegetable stock in bulk since I use it so much so I always have it on hand. First New Year’s Resolution of 2018 – learn to make my own veg stock. Actually, it’s my second resolution. My first is to run or do the NYTimes workout 6x per week. Got to finish this post so I can get to it.

CREAMY CASHEW FARMER’S MARKET SOUP

January 12, 2018

by Susie Belanger

Category Recipes

Ingredients

• SOUP BASE
• Use whatever vegetables you have on hand. I used the following:
• 1/2 a Chinese eggplant sliced into discs
• 1 yellow squash sliced into discs
• About a cup of green beans, each prepped (stem ends pinched off) and cut in half
• Two carrots, chopped
• Two celery stalks, chopped
• Two leeks, chopped into discs
• Kale - washed and chopped
• One yellow onion chopped
• 2-3 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
• sea salt & pepper to taste
• CASHEW CREAM
• 1 cup of cashews soaked for 2-7 hours
• 1 cup of vegetable broth
• 4 teaspoons cornstarch
• *organic ingredients are always best

Instructions

1. SOUP BASE
2. Add chopped vegetables (everything - just throw it in there) with vegetable stock just to cover the veg in a large soup pot
3. Bring it to a boil and then reduce it to simmer until veggies are soft but not mushy
4. At this point, I like to turn off the heat and use a potato masher to break down the potato, carrot, onion, leeks, etc.
5. CASHEW CREAM
6. Prepare the cashew cream once your cashews have soaked from 2-7 hours.
7. Drain soaked cashews, put them in the blender (if you have a Vitamix, it works perfectly) and blend the heck out of it with one cup of vegetable broth and 4 teaspoons cornstarch
8. Add the cashew cream to your soup and set the pot to simmer again for about 7 minutes stirring until it thickens
9. Add tomato paste, nutritional yeast and salt and pepper to taste
10. Enjoy and if you made a lot (like I did) gift it to friends and neighbors!

P.S. my dear friend Pelican Finn made a slammin’ plant-based Alfredo sauce with the pappardelle pasta I brought from the farmer’s market, which we enjoyed a few days later. You prepare the cashew cream same as you did for the soup, add whatever spices you like to it and mix it with fresh cooked pasta and some sautéd vegetables – Pelican used mushrooms. That dish was off the charts good. Not surprisingly, there were no left overs.

I’m off to the Everglades this weekend. Looking forward to getting lost in the woods – metaphorically speaking. Enjoy your weekend! – Susie

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