Creamy Vegan Roasted Red Pepper and Garlic Soup

This easy, tasty, super-creamy soup was inspired by, of all things, a blender. That, and a challenge from a friend.

Yes, after more than a year filled with green smoothies and veggie soups, I finally broke down and bought a Vitamix. I know I’m a little late to the party. I’ve been wanting one for months and months, but the trouble was that I already had a blender that was pretty decent. It was hard to justify forking over the big bucks when I already had something that was getting the job done. But when the old Osterizer started to give me trouble this week, I pounced on the excuse. I so glad I did! Though I’ve only had my new toy 24 hours, I’m already completely smitten.

If you’ve heard of a Vitamix, you already know it makes a mean green smoothie. It takes the texture to a level of smooth that I didn’t think was even possible, no matter what I throw at it. But it was a lesser known Vitamix feature that I thought I’d test out first - the ability to ‘cook’ soup right in the blender. I’d heard about this before and always wondered what the big deal was. I mean, what is so hard about getting out one more pot?

Having now tried out this feature twice, I can say that for some reason, it really does seem to be significantly more convenient. Yesterday, I made a wonderful tortilla soup this way. Start to finish, including prep and clean up, took less than 15 minutes. Today’s recipe couldn’t be quite that fast given the time required to roast the peppers and garlic. Even so, there was very little hands-on time, especially considering the delicious, creamy result.

Speaking of creamy, this recipe is based on one from a friend that originally called for butter and cream. My good friend Cheryl, who is trying to avoid dairy, passed it along and asked me to veganize it. Since I was already roasting peppers anyway, I thought I might as well toss in a head of garlic to deepen the flavor and provide some of the richness offered by the butter in the original recipe. I replaced the cream with a simple mixture of soaked cashews and water. Other than that, I tried to keep the recipe very simple to let the flavor of the roasted peppers shine through. So here you go, Cheryl. I hope you enjoy it - I sure did!

Creamy Vegan Roasted Red Pepper and Garlic Soup

Makes 7 cups

4 red bell peppers, halved, de-stemmed and seeded
1 head of garlic, outer-most papery skin removed and top sliced off to expose cloves
1/4 cup raw, unsalted cashews
1 onion, peeled and chopped
1 tsp dried rosemary
5 cups low-sodium vegetable broth or water
3 Tbsp tomato paste
freshly ground black pepper and paprika to taste

Place cashews in a small bowl with cold water to cover, set aside. Heat oven to 450 degrees. Line a baking sheet with foil. Place red peppers on baking sheet cut side down and garlic head on sheet cut side up. Roast for approximately 45 minutes, until skin on peppers is blackened and garlic is soft. The garlic may be done before the peppers or vice versa, so be sure to check periodically. When done, remove from oven and pull the foil up around the roasted veggies and crimp together to create a seal. Capturing the steam in this way will make it much easier to remove the pepper skins. Careful, the foil will be hot. Set aside for 10-15 minutes while you prepare the rest of the soup.

Water saute chopped onion with rosemary for approximately 5 minutes or until soft. Set aside. Drain cashews and place in blender with the stock or water*. (I used water and didn’t miss the stock at all.) Blend on high until a smooth milk forms. Add the sauteed onions and tomato paste to the cashew milk in the blender. Set aside until the peppers and garlic are ready.

When peppers have cooled enough to handle, pull off and discard skins. Add peppers directly to the blender. Squeeze individual garlic cloves out of their cells and into the blender container. Blend on high speed until smooth. If you are using a high-powered blender, continue processing for 6-7 minutes until steam starts to escape. Otherwise, transfer to a stock pot and heat through until warm. Season to taste with pepper and/or paprika. Serve immediately.

If you’d like to make this a more substantial and filling soup, try stirring in a cup or two of cooked cannelini beans just before serving.

* If your blender isn’t big enough to hold all of the ingredients, you may need to blend in batches or use an immersion blender in a stock pot. If you go the immersion blender route, I’d still blend the cashews with one cup or so of broth in a regular blender to get them as smooth as possible, then add the cashew milk to the remaining ingredients in the stock pot before you do the final immersion blending.

** To make this recipe faster, you can roast the peppers and garlic up to a few days ahead if you like or skip the roasting altogether by using commercial roasted red peppers. If at all possible, I highly recommend that you roast them yourself. It is so easy and I find the flavor to be far superior.

Black Rice Salad

There’s been a lot of good news about black rice lately. It is full of antioxidants, including anthocyanins. It is also tasty and easy to prepare. Combined with the orange of sweet potatoes, what better dish could you ask for at Halloween time?

2 cups black rice
4 cups water
2 Tbsp Tamari or low sodium soy sauce
1-2 Tbsp sesame oil, to taste
3 medium roasted, diced sweet potatoes
1.5 cups diced red peppers
1 bunch sliced green onions

Rinse rice well. Place in sauce pan with water and bring to a boil over high heat. When boiling, reduce heat to low and cover. Cook for approximately 30 minutes or until al dente. Wisk together tamari and sesame oil. When rice is done, drain any excess water if necessary, but do not rinse. While still hot, toss with tamari and sesame oil mixture. Allow to cool. Place rice in large bowl, add remaining ingredients and toss well.

Roasted Cinnamon Chickpeas

I travel a lot for business, and that often involves long flights. Because I haven’t found an airline offering unprocessed vegan food, this means I have to bring my own. One of my favorite go-to travel foods (other than my tried-and-true Black and Blue bars) is a bag of crisp roasted chickpeas. 

Roasted chickpeas are an amazingly versatile snack that can be flavored any number of ways. I will often toss them in a simple mixture of lime juice and chili powder. Since I love the combination of tahinni and cinnamon on toast, I thought it might work well on chickpeas too.

This version is a bit higher in fat than my usual variations because of the tahini, so they should be considered somewhat of a treat, but what a healthy one. Consider the advantages:

• Chickpeas are a great portable source of protein and fiber
• Tahini is a healthy fat and contributes healthy minerals
• Cinnamon is excellent for battling insulin resistance

If you squint your eyes and imagine really hard, they taste just a little like graham crackers. Whatever it is that they taste like, my son liked them so much that I had to hide them from him so that I’d have enough for my flight.

Roasted Cinnamon Chickpeas

3 cups chickpeas, cooked or canned
2 Tbsp Tahini
1 Tbsp Cinnamon
1/2 Tbsp agave (optional)

Drain and rinse chickpeas. Blot dry with paper towels. Place on roasting pan (they aren’t very prone to sticking, but I put them on a silicone baking mat or parchment paper just in case). Roast chickpeas at 350 until crispy, about 1-1.5 hours. You have to watch them, because there can be a very wide range in cooking times, depending upon the moisture level in your chickpeas. As soon as they come out of the oven, mix remaining ingredients in large bowl to form a paste. Stir in chickpeas to coat. Set aside to cool.

Store in a sealed container. I wish I could tell you how long they keep, but I’ve never been able to keep a batch around for more than a couple of days.

Raspberry Date Coulis

Raspberries are very fragile things. When you are fortunate enough to bring home a flat or two of fresh-picked raspberries, you will inevitably be left with a fair number of berries that are no longer holding their shape. They aren’t really pretty enough to use in a salad, but they taste great and it would be a shame to waste them. What to do? Make a coulis of course!

(What’s a coulis? That’s just a fancy term for a strained puree.)

Traditional raspberry coulis recipes contain just raspberries, sugar and lemon juice. I’ve swapped out sugar for whole dates to up the nutrition and added some optional vanilla and almond extracts for flavor. This sauce takes just a moment to make, requires no cooking, and freezes well.

Use raspberry coulis over fruit (peaches, pears and mangoes are especially good), in smoothies or as a salad dressing. It makes a great topping for my black and  blue bars too.

Raspberry Date Coulis

2 cups raspberries, fresh or frozen
4 medjool dates, roughly chopped* (+/- depending upon the sweetness of your berries)
1 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp vanilla extract, optional
1/4 tsp almond extract, optional
cinnamon to taste, optional

Place all ingredients in a food processor or blender and puree until smooth. Taste and adjust flavorings and/or sweetness. Pour through a fine mesh sieve into a bowl.

* If you don’t have any dates on hand, you can substitute agave. I’d start with 1 Tbsp of agave and add more until you reach the desired level of sweetness.

Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to three days, or freeze.

Hint: freeze coulis in ice cube trays for 24 hours, then transfer cubes to freezer bags. When you find yourself wanting some raspberry coulis, just pull out the number of cubes you need. This trick works great for pesto and other freezable sauces as well.

Tomato Garlic Dressing

I have a son graduating from high school tomorrow, the World Cup starts in mere hours (which is a VERY big deal in a house full of soccer fanatics) and I’m prepping a party for 75. Needless to say, there is lots going on, so our meals have been necessarily simple this week. But that doesn’t mean that I have to give up good taste. I whipped up this quick dressing for my lunch salad, and it was great.

1 cup grape tomatoes
1 clove garlic
2 Tbsp rice vinegar
1 tsp tahini, optional but gives better texture

Throw all ingredients into a blend and blend until smooth. Drizzle over the salad of your choice. That’s it!