What do you eat the day after Thanksgiving?
Many of you, particularly the ones who hosted dinner yesterday, may be enjoying turkey sandwiches today.
Well, we didn’t cook turkey this year and we didn’t come home with turkey, but we did come home with lots of vegetables!
My sister-in-law who brought a large veggie platter did not want to take home the left-over veggies, and I happily volunteered to bring them home.
So I decided to make a large pot of veggie soup that should last the whole weekend (or not).
The carrots and cauliflower that came from last night’s dinner went into the pot.
Those pre-cut baby carrots from the veggie platter come handy, because they are pre-peeled, so I just sliced them.
The cauliflower were already washed and cut into bite sized pieces, too, so no work was required by me!
I also added whatever the vegetables I happened to have in our kitchen and then added some lentils.
I couldn’t decide if I wanted to make this soup tomato flavored or milk based, so used both.
I used sun-dried tomatoes (I pureed them) to flavor the soup; this idea came from a local Italian restaurant we just recently tried.
I used to use canned whole tomatoes, and then switched to tomato paste because I liked the condensed flavor in the paste.
Now I’m moving onto sun-dried tomatoes, which seem to have even more condensed flavor!
This soup is super flavorful (but not heavy), and it’s hard to believe it’s vegan!
Italian Veggie Soup
olive oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1~2 cups sliced carrots
2 stalks celery, chopped
5~6 leaves Napa cabbage leaves, chopped
salt and pepper
1~2 cups cauliflower, cut into bite sized pieces
water
2 bay leaves
Italian seasoning herbs
1/2 cup lentils
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes from a jar (lightly rinse to remove excess oil)
1~2 cup soy milk
sugar
salt and pepper
Louisiana hot sauce
1. Sautee the vegetables in olive oil. Salt and pepper.
2. Add water to cover the vegetables. Add bay leaves and Italian seasoning herbs. Boil and then turn down to low heat. Continue to cook until the vegetables are cooked through.
3. Add lentils. Cover and continue to cook until lentils are cooked through.
4. In a tall container add sun dried tomatoes and soy milk. Puree the tomatoes using a hand-blender.
5. Add the tomato-milk mixture to the soup.
6. Add sugar, salt, pepper, and hot sauce.
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