I don’t consider myself a big fan of soups, but somehow I end up cooking soup at least once a week. This week, as I am still in holidays mode, I made this wonderful pumpkin soup. We are spending the holidays at my mom’s house, in a small village in North Greece. Peanut loves it here but for Almond was his first trip. I am very happy to see them getting along that good. They both love my mom’s old burner stove and they spend all day sleeping or playing in front of the fire. I can talk about these two for hours.
my adorable kitties enjoying the heat
Anyway, my mom’s garden is still full of huge pumpkins so the first thing I did once we got here was of course to pick and cut one. It’s been a crazy pumpkin week. Except this creamy and flavorful pumpkin soup, I also make Greek style pumpkin pie, a pumpkin new year’s cake and many many cookies. Will post all the recipes in the next few days, but let’s start with this one first!
Pumpkin Velouté
Ingredients
1 kg/2 pounds fresh pumpkin cubes
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp coriander
1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
2 carrots, cut in small pieces
8 cups vegetable broth
2 cups soy milk
1 cup chestnuts cut in small pieces
salt to taste
Pumpkin Velouté
In a big pot heat the olive oil over medium heat and saute the onion and the spices. Add the carrots and the pumpkin and saute for a minute. Add the vegetable broth, bring to a boil, lower the heat to medium-low and cook for about 40 minutes, until the pumpkin is fully cooked and soft. Add the soy milk and season with salt to taste. Blend the soup using an immersion blender adding more vegetable broth or soy milk depending on how thick or think you want your soup to be. Serve topped with the crumbled chestnuts. Enjoy!
peanut warming his butt
almond posing as Mr. T
At this week’s vegan cooking class at Nea Guinea we made a holiday mushroom soup, great to serve it on your Xmas table, a veggie pot pie and glazed green beans.
cutting the veggies for the mushroom soup
sauting the veggies for the veggie pot pie
more veggies in the pan 
and the potatoes in the pan
setting the baking pan for the pot pie
placin the puff pastry phyllo in the baking pan
adding the veggies stuffing in the pot pie
covering the veggie pot pie and sealing the edges
veggie pot pie ready to go into the oven - sprinkled with some smoked paprika
cooking the mushrooms soup
mushrooms soup yumminess
garnished with parsley - set on the table
veggie pot pie - set on the table
glazed green beens
ready to eat!
tasty vegan food served!
Recipes to come later as I will be serving all these at my Vegan Xmas Eve Dinner Party!
We made a soup like this a couple of weeks ago at the Vegan Cooking Class at Nea Guinea. Elsa had found it online at the NutritionMD. What I like in this soup is that it is extremely easy to make, very filling and really good for a cold night’s dinner. I didn’t have the recipe in front of me last night and I did it my way so here is my version
green split peas soup
Ingredients
500 gr/1 pound dry green split peas, soaked overnight, drained and rinsed
1 1/2 litre vegetable broth
1 medium onion, thinly chopped
2 medium carrots, cut in small cubes
2 stalks of celery, thinly chopped
2 spring onions, thinly chopped
2 large potatoes, cut in small cubes
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tsp mixed dry herbs
1/4 cup fresh basil leaves
salt and pepper to taste
2 Tbsp of olive oil
green split peas soup
Simply place all the ingredients except the olive oil in a big pot and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to medium and cook for an hour until peas are soft and all veggies cooked. With an immersion blender, blend the half soup – be careful so you won’t blend the whole soup. Add the olive oil and serve topped with grilled bread. Enjoy!
