A few weeks ago I got the January issue of Vegetarian Times in my mail box. There was a whole section about quick and easy soups, so I thought it would be fun to try one recipe a night. Well, I made it through four nights. Too much soup can be a bad thing when had over and over, but I wanted to give it a go, you know, for you guys.

Below, you will find the four soups with notes as to why I liked or didn’t like them. I will say that one soup completely surprised me with it’s simplicity and flavor. Over all, this was a fun experiment and I enjoyed the recipes.

Monday Night: Quinoa & Spinach Soup

This soup was very simple to make, only taking about 30 minutes. If it was my own recipe I would have added something more zesty to the mix, like a sprinkling of Parmesan as a finishing touch. White beans would have been good as well. It just needed a bit more depth. I served it with a crusty loaf of bread from Durham’s Guglhupf Bakery, some Goat Lady chevre’ and a bottle of Altosur Cab I bought from our friends at The Wine Authorities.

The actors in this recipe…diced red onion, diced tomatoes, veggie broth, spinach, quinoa…and a few extra spices.

Saute onion in a bit of olive oil on medium heat until tender, about 5 minutes.

Add broth and 4 cups of water and bring to a boil.

When almost boiling reduce heat and add the quinoa. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes.

Next, add the tomatoes and spinach, simmering about 5 minutes.

Season with salt and pepper, or add a few herbs as I did.

Tuesday Night: Curried Cauliflower Soup

Tuesday night’s soup was a creamed soup that didn’t require any cream. This one took about an hour from start to finish. I liked it but on a scale from 1 to 10 I would rate it at a 5. I thought it could have used less water or maybe to double the cauliflower required because it was too thin for me. I will say at 156 calories a serving (I made 4 servings) this would make a good lunch soup. I even added some roasted tofu strips. We had this with an Amstel Light and some more good Guglhupf bread.

The Players…cauliflower, red onion, apple, curry powder, garlic, veggie broth, agave nectar and rice wine vinegar.

In some oil saute onion, then add apple, curry and garlic.

Add cauliflower and broth and simmer 20 minutes.

With a stick mixer (or in a blender) puree until smooth.

Stir in agave and vinegar and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Pretty easy…

Wednesday Night: Cream of Turnip Soup

This soup completely surprised me. Number one, I didn’t think I was a fan of the lowly turnip, but turns out I am. Number two, with only four ingredients I didn’t think this would taste like much, but it did!  The flavors were rich and nutty. It was super easy to make and at 126 calories a serving (I made 4 servings) I decided to make some faux sausage biscuits to have with the soup. This was by far my favorite!

Turnips, onion, bay leaf and creamer…a little oil to saute and that was it….oh, and water or broth.

Cook the turnip and onion for about 15 minutes in a bit of oil.

Add bay leaves and 3 cups of water or broth. Bring to a boil then reduce heat to  med-low and simmer for about 30 minutes.

Remove from the heat, take out the bay leaves and add some of the creamer.

Puree until smooth.

Add salt and pepper to taste.

Thursday Night: Carrot-Miso Soup

This soup would have been so much better had I not added the seaweed I had in my pantry. The recipe called for a piece of  kombu seaweed but all I had was some dried, unidentified seaweed stuff. It gave a strong fishy taste and smell that I couldn’t get past. I will try this again, but will not be using that sea stuff. As for making this soup, although not hard, there were more steps. I served it with some sesame crackers.

In this act we had carrots, leeks, rice, garlic, rice wine vinegar, broth,  miso, agave and seaweed.

Saute the leeks in a little oil.

Add vinegar to deglaze the pan.

Add carrots…

Rice…

Seaweed (but don’t use this kind!)

and 5 cups of water and/or broth. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

The recipe called for the removal of the kombu seaweed piece, but as you can see the seaweed I used completely unfurled into the soup and there was no getting it out. Puree the soup until smooth.

In a small bowl place about a cup of the pureed soup and mix into the miso…

then add the agave sweetener.

Add back into the soup pot and stir well. The recipe called for wasabi peas as a garnish, but I didn’t have any.