Easy chilled peach soup

Some of you may remember that last summer I discovered that I was seemingly allergic to one of my absolute favorite fruits: peaches. I was extremely disappointed when I found that my mouth felt like cotton and my tongue itched. These are weird sensations to experience anyway, but when it is in direct relation to a long-loved fruit like peaches, it is so disappointing. This year, I seem to not be experiencing the same symptoms – or at least not as strong – so I am trying to still get my fix of summer peaches.

But let’s get to the important matter at hand – cold soup, most specifically cold peach soup. Soup and summers don’t generally mix, but this soup does the trick. It uses what is in season, plus a few other ingredients that are always available at your grocery store, and it’s easy to make. My suggestion would be to serve this at brunch, or as a first course with a small side salad drizzled with a raspberry vinaigrette. And of course, it’s perfect as a refreshing dessert after a heavy or spicy meal.

Chilled Peach Soup
Based upon the Pretty Peach Soup recipe found at Allrecipes.com
Serves 4 to 6

• 1 cup fresh or frozen raspberries, thawed
• 1-2 tablespoons water
• 3 cups fresh or frozen peaches, thawed
• 3 tablespoons lemon juice, or the juice of 2 small lemons
• 1-2 tablespoons water
• 1 cup peach nectar (you may substitute another nectar or fruit juice if peach nectar is unavailable)
• 1 cup plain vegan yogurt
• 1/4 cup vegan sugar
• 1 teaspoon almond or vanilla extract

Place raspberries in a blender; cover and process until smooth. If you are using frozen raspberries that have not been thawed, you may find that it will be easier to blend them with one or two tablespoons of water (or even three).

Making raspberry puree

Strain and discard seeds. It will be easier to strain if you use a spoon or spatula to scrape the bottom of the sieve. Once it is strained, cover and refrigerate the puree.

Straining raspberry seeds

Whether you use fresh or frozen peaches, make sure they're pesticide-free

Place peaches and lemon juice in the blender; cover and process until smooth. If using frozen peaches that are not thawed, you may need to add one to two tablespoons of water in case they have a hard time blending. Transfer to a bowl.

Making a peach puree

Stir or whisk in nectar, vegan yogurt, vegan sugar if needed (if fruit is tart) and almond or vanilla extract. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours.

I taste-tested the soup before adding the sugar in case it wasn't needed, then I whisked it into the soup

To garnish with the puree, drizzle about one tablespoon of the raspberry puree in a large circle on top of each serving. Grab a toothpick or knife to start in on the design.

Now to garnish

Use a toothpick to draw six or eight lines toward the center of circle, forming a flower. Or you can do other designs, too. Just do whatever feels creative and fun for you, and if you mess up – don’t worry, it’s pretty anyway.

Making the final touches before serving

This soup is lovely and would be the perfect accompaniment to any meal. I would only recommend that you do not serve this on its own as it is quite sweet, and really needs something else to balance it out.

Beautiful for serving

Do you have any favorite cold summer soups?

Pretty any way you look at it

Chipotle Mashed Potatoes

When it comes to holiday dinners, one of my absolute favorite side dishes is mashed potatoes. Probably one of the reasons why I love it so much is because they are nearly always homemade – not made from a box (please don’t make your holiday mashed potatoes from a box!) – and they usually have those little lumps of potatoes that escaped the masher. I always enjoy trying other people’s mashed potatoes, too, to see how they like to make them. There are so many variations to mashed potatoes, from the creamy to the rustic to the unexpected.

This recipe, I hope, falls into the unexpected category. It’s rare to find chipotle peppers in mashed potatoes, but they, along with the fresh garlic, add a little bit of a kick and flavor that is entirely satisfying. Because of the wonderful mixture of flavors, I’d recommend forgoing the gravy and stick to serving this with vegan butter or vegan sour cream instead.

Chipotle Mashed Potatoes
This recipe was inspired by Chipotle Smashed Potatoes on Allrecipes.com

• 2 pounds red potatoes (about 8-10 potatoes), peeled and cubed
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 tablespoons vegan butter
• 2-3 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, minced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup vegan mayonnaise
• 1/4 cup vegan sour cream or plain vegan yogurt

Prepare your red potatoes by peeling and cubing them. Place them in a saucepan, cover with water, and boil until tender, about 20 minutes.

Preparing potatoes to boil

While the potatoes are boiling, mince your chipotle peppers and garlic, and gather together your other ingredients.

Getting other ingredients ready

Once your potatoes have finished cooking, drain them. Add the salt, vegan butter, minced chipotle peppers, minced garlic, and vegan mayonnaise. You can also add the vegan yogurt now, however I chose to add it in the next step. Mash everything together with a potato masher, or to make your potatoes smoother use a hand mixer. Add in the soy yogurt now if you have not already.

Tip: To reduce calories, use plain vegan yogurt in place of the vegan mayonnaise. This would increase your vegan yogurt to 1/2 cup.

Mashing the potatoes and the other ingredients together

Taste test to see if you are satisfied with both the flavors and consistency. To make it creamier you can add a little bit more vegan yogurt.

Suggested variations

• Don’t have or like chipotle, but still want to make it spicy? Try using jalapeños, either fresh or from a jar.
• For some, the garlic might be too intense still raw, so try roasting it. This will make the garlic not be quite as spicy, but will still give the dish a nice garlic flavor.
• Make the potatoes taste a little cheesy by adding in nutritional yeast and/or a handful of your favorite shredded vegan cheese.

A spicy twist on mashed potatoes

What is your favorite way to make mashed potatoes?

Learn more about Vegan MoFo.

Carrot cake muffin with vanilla soy yogurt

A couple of weeks ago when we went strawberry picking at Boxx Berry Farm, we also had the fortunate opportunity to pick some vegetables from a small farm called Half Acre Farm located on the same property. They had a variety of vegetables ready, but we decided to pick only a couple of items – some Walla Walla onions and two of bunches of carrots. As we dug the vegetables up, we had a really nice visit with the couple who are running this one-acre farm (yep – it’s one acre). They both work full time, but are passionate about gardening, so decided to start up a little vegetable farm. Seems ambitious, but I admit that we were standing there feeling a bit jealous. In our minds, being able to garden and have a positive impact on the community is a worthy combo.

When we got home, Matt opted to juice the carrots which resulted in a rich and sweet liquid. The other thing that resulted was about a cup of carrot pulp that I couldn’t face throwing away. After doing a little bit of research I realized that juicing takes away a lot of the flavor of the carrots, so if you try to make dishes where grated carrots are a large part of the ingredient list, you’ll find that you won’t taste them quite as much. I finally decided to try making some muffins. In the end the carrot flavor was definitely mild, but if you are not a big fan of carrot cake, this may be a viable alternative for you.

Carrot Cake Muffins
Makes about 12 regular sized muffins

• 1 cup white flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ginger
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon ground flax mixed with 3 tablespoons hot water (or egg replacer for one egg)
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup vegan milk
• 1 cup grated carrots or carrot pulp
• Vegan vanilla yogurt, optional

Turn on your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a cupcake tin with cupcake liners or grease them with vegan butter (or spray with a cooking spray).

In a large bowl, sift your flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger together. Mix in the brown sugar.

Mixing together the dry ingredients

In a separate bowl, mix together the flax seed mixture or egg replacer, oil, vanilla extract and vegan milk.

Mixing the wet ingredients together

Take the shredded carrot or carrot pulp and mix it in with the wet ingredients.

Mixing in the carrot pulp

Add the carrot mixture to the dry ingredients and mix until it is just combined.

Carrot cake muffin mixture

Add the mixture to your cupcake/muffin tin, and then bake in the oven for 25 or 30 minutes.

Carrot cake muffins about to go into the oven

Allow the muffins to cool before serving. You can serve with vegan butter or with a dollop of vegan vanilla yogurt.

Fresh out of the oven carrot cake muffins

The carrot flavor of the muffins was definitely mild, but I felt that what really made these was the addition of cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger. They added a nice balance of spice with the other ingredients. The muffins were also dense, yet moist.

Also, while I don’t really like nuts or raisins in my muffins, I am sure the addition of a handful of walnuts, pecans, raisins or cranberries would be a nice complement to these.

Carrot cake muffin

Do you ever bake or cook with carrots? If so, what is your favorite recipe?

When I was growing up it was tradition that my mom would always make me some variation of strawberry shortcake for my birthday. I am not entirely sure why. Maybe it was because of my love of the Strawberry Shortcake. Or maybe it was because strawberries were showing up on grocery store shelves in April. No matter the reason, I loved it. The cake. The strawberries. The whipped cream. Mmmmm…

A few days ago when my…ahem…30th birthday was approaching (ahem!) I decided to honor tradition by making vegan strawberry shortcake for myself and my husband.

Vegan Strawberry Shortcake

• 1 pint fresh strawberries, sliced (you can use frozen, but it is so much better when you have fresh strawberries)
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 cups flour (I used only white all-purpose flour)
• 2 Tbsp. sugar
• 3 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/3 cup shortening (or you can probably use Earth Balance or Soy Garden)
• 3/4 cup milk (I used unsweetened Silk soy milk)
• Vegan plain or vanilla yogurt, or vegan vanilla ice cream, or Soyatoo

Mix the strawberries and the 1/4 cup sugar together and let it sit while you make the cake.

Heat the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. In a large bowl mix all of your dry ingredients well, then cut in the shortening or vegan butter with a pastry blender or two knives. When the mixture has fine crumbs, stir in the milk until it is just blended.

On a lightly floured surface knead the dough a few times, then you can prepare your cake(s) in one of a couple of ways:

1. You can roll out the dough until it is 1/2 inch thick, and use a large biscuit cutter to cut the dough. Place these on a cookie sheet and then bake for about 10-12 minutes.

OR

2. You can do what I did. We have little Pyrex baking dishes which are perfect for making little cakes. I split the dough in half into equal pieces and then I pressed them into two small Pyrex dishes. I then placed the dishes on a cookie sheet (makes it easier to take out of the oven), and then baked them in the oven for about 15 minutes. I also checked in on them occasionally to make sure I wasn’t over baking.

When you take these out of the oven, take them off of their cookie sheet or out of their Pyrex containers and put on a cooling rack. Let them completely cool if possible, or at least wait until they are cool enough to comfortably handle.

Cut one of the cakes in half horizontally, then place the bottom half on a plate. Scoop some vegan yogurt, ice cream, or squirt Soyatoo on top of the cake. Spoon some of your strawberries on top of this. Place the top half of the cake on top of your strawberries and cream, and repeat with more yogurt, ice cream, or Soyatoo and strawberries.

I have to say that I love this. The cake is sweet, but not too sweet. The fresh strawberries add more sweet and the flavor of spring. And the yogurt/ice cream/Soyatoo rounds it out with creaminess.

Happy birthday to me. I may have to celebrate off and on for the next few weeks. I need to revisit this. :)

“We love you, man,” the postman said, and held out a glass like you’d hold out a bag of something made by the sea. We all want what’s in the bag. You’d have to be crazy not to take some. Have you ever had a mango lassi? Thick down the throat, crazy orange, delicious and happy if you like that sort of thing? What else can a fellow do, in the grip of mango and yogurt and fruit, spun up into a substance just like love? It is love. It’s a part of it.

-Adverbs by Daniel Handler

I feel as if I am giving you this post a week in advance. I also feel that since I am giving you a recipe inspired by love that I should probably give you another one next week on (or near) the 14th.

I’m spoiled by novels. They are easy, seamless, and satisfying. You start it knowing that the characters you have come to know and love (ah love) are going to have their issues resolved. But this book was completely different. I started off by learning about Andrea and “I” and Peter, then I went to chapter two, and I was learning about someone else. It was as if the book was both a collection of short stories about completely unrelated people and a book about the same people. So I am not sure what to tell you. It was completely illogical as a novel, but that may have been part of the point. It was a book about love, and love is not always considered to be logical.

It seems illogical to be having a cool and refreshing mango lassi in the middle of winter, but truth be told we’re not having a normal winter. It’s been warm, and we’ve been denied a good snowstorm so far (winter, in my mind, is not justified unless there is a good amount of snow).

Mango Lassi
This is for one serving

• 1/2 cup frozen mangoes
• 1 single serving sized plain or vanilla yogurt (I used Silk)

Place both the mangoes and the yogurt into a blender and blend until smooth. Pour into a glass, enjoy, and pat yourself on the back for creating something so good in a matter of seconds.

Other recipes call for ice, honey, and spices. It’s completely up to you. I left out the sweetener because I used Silk yogurt which already has sugar in it. It was very good as simple as it was – thick, creamy, and sweet. Lovely!