Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Vegan Cream of Tomato Soup (aka Healthier Cream of Tomato Soup)

Last night it did get chilly. I wanted a yummy soup to go with our veggie burgers and fries but I didn't feel like chopping veggies. I knew I had diced tomatoes in juice so I decided to give Cream of Tomato soup a try. Normally I use Amy Dacyzyn's recipe from The Complete Tightwad Gazette but that calls for tomato paste and I only had the diced tomatoes. Time for a little experimentation.

Warning, the recipe that follows is a very loose one. You may find you want to add a bit more tomato if its not tomatoey enough for you. Its perfect for those of you who like to tinker in the kitchen. Those of you who like to follow a strict recipe might be dissapointed with this one. This made enough for dinner last night and lunches today so you may want to halve the recipe if you're not cooking for a crowd.

I put 2 cups of bulgur into a dry pot with a heavy bottom over medium/high heat. (You need to stir this frequently to prevent burning.) While that was toasting, I put 4 cups of diced tomatoes, drained, into my Vita-Mix and pureed them until smooth. Once the bulgur had browned a bit and began to smell nutty, I poured in about 1 cup of water and 1 cup of juice from the diced tomato can. Once the bulgur had absorbed most of the liquid, I added the diced tomato puree, about 6 cups of plain soymilk, 2 tsp celery seed and 1 tsp seasoned salt. I stirred it all together and let it simmer over low/medium until the bulgur was tender. Don't let the soymilk boil or it gets disgusting.

Another option would be to cook the bulgur seperately. In that case you'd just mix the tomato puree, soymilk, celery seed and seasoned salt in with the cooked bulgur and just heat through.

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