Tag Archives: liquid smoke

Smoky, vegan pea soup

Posted in The vegan elephant by

pea soup close top.jpg

There’s something very homey and comforting about a bowl of pea soup on a cold winter day. I remember my mother making pea soup that started with the leftovers of a ham – leg bone and all – simmering in a pot and imparting its rich, smoky flavour.

But today we have liquid smoke and smoked paprika to the rescue. Pigs and vegans rejoice!

This recipe is fast, easy and will last for 3-4 days in your fridge. In fact, it’s even better the next day.

Let’s get started.

Ingredients

pea soup ingredients (2).jpg

2 Tbsps. oil

1 medium onion diced

2 medium carrots cut into quarter moons or diced

4 cups vegetable broth

1 cup yellow split peas

1– 3 Tbsps. red lentils (the more you add the thicker your soup will be).

½ tsp salt or to taste

1 tsp smoked paprika

½ tsp liquid smoke

 

thick soup.jpg

The more red lentils you add, the thicker your soup will be. I used 2 tablespoons of red lentils and can stand a spoon up in the soup when it’s cold.

Directions

In a medium-sized pot, sauté the onions and carrots in the olive oil until the onions are translucent (about 2 minutes). Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat, cover and simmer for one hour until the split peas are tender.

Optional – I like to use a hand blender and give the soup a brief whiz just to make it creamier while still retaining its chunkiness.

Enjoy!

p.s. This soup is wonderful with some crispy fried Sham.

 

Mom’s German red cabbage – veganized! (Sorry not sorry, mom)

Posted in The vegan elephant by

Red Cabbage bowl.jpg

Holiday dinners are so evocative. They’re steeped in tradition and emotion (hopefully happy) and help us measure the rhythm of the seasons and years. For vegans, it can be a hard time sitting at the table and having to forego old family favourite recipes that use animal products.

For me, red cabbage is one of those dishes. My mom made it at every holiday dinner, and only at holiday dinners. I can’t even see a red cabbage in the grocery store without thinking it’s a holiday.

My mother’s recipe calls for 4-6 strips of bacon to be rendered and crushed. Then the apples and cabbage are braised in this fat/pig-belly mixture. Ewww.

With just a bit of tweaking, I’ve figured out how to simulate the savoury, salty, smokiness of the bacon using miso, margarine and liquid smoke. The results are my mom’s recipes taken to the next level of delicious compassion.

Ingredients

Ingredients.jpg

1 red cabbage – remove the outer leaves and then cut out the core. Chop the cabbage into roughly 1 to 2 cm pieces

3-4 apples (I used MacIntosh apples – use a variety that is not sweet). You want a 2:1 ratio of cabbage to apples so adjust how many apples you use based on the size of your cabbage. Peel, core and cut the apples into 1 cm pieces (see image).

diced-apple.jpg

1 tsp liquid smoke

1 Tbsp miso paste

1 ½ Tbsp brown sugar

3 Tbsp cider vinegar*

3 Tbsp vegan margarine

½ cup water

1 tsp salt

1-2 bay leaves (optional)

A few grinds of pepper (optional)

Directions

Melt the margarine in a very large pot over medium heat. Add the miso and liquid smoke and stir to combine. Add the cabbage and apples and water. Stir everything together to get the cabbage apples coated in the margarine mix. Add the vinegar, salt and brown sugar and stir again to combine all. Add the bay leaves if using. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally for about 30 minutes. When it’s cooked, the cabbage volume will have reduced by about a third and the cabbage will be soft but not mushy). The apple will be pretty much impossible to spot. Fish out the bay leaves if you used them and serve the cabbage.

This recipe is also great with vegan sausages, perogies or “white” dishes such as tetrazzini, béchamel or alfredo-sauced pasta or mushroom stroganoff.

*Fun fact – you MUST add vinegar or some sort of acid to red cabbage when you cook it or it will turn the most unappetizing blue-gray hue that’s roughly the colour of sadness.