Friday, January 2, 2009

Recipe: Dairy Free, Macrobiotic, Gluten Free Cream Of Broccoli Soup

The winter season is the perfect time to snuggle up to your space heater and a warm bowl of thick creamy soup. Alas with all my food allergies a traditional "creamy" meal can be hard to come by - but here is a fabulous basic recipe for Vegan Cream Of Broccoli Soup (slightly modified from "The Self Healing Cookbook" by Kristina Turner.) - BTW, this is so easy to make you'll freak out! You'll need 3 main (organic) ingredients and some seasoning: Cooked Brown Rice, Broccoli, Red Onion, and then Sea Salt or Ume Plum (plus Rosemary if you happen to like it's taste!)
You will want to skin three broccoli stalks then chop them up into smaller pieces (to make it easier for your blender to handle). Depending on how much red onion you can tolerate you can use anywhere from the whole chopped onion to 1/4 of it, and add all your diced goodies to some boiling water. Simmer for about 10 mins, or until tender. (At this time you can add whatever salt source you like to use also).
Once the simmered broccoli and onion have cooled some you will add approx. 2-3 cups of cooked brown rice to your blender, then pour in the simmered liquid and veggies. (If you want it less thick, use less rice.)
Then blend the ba-jeezus out of it, till it is as creamy as it can possibly get and makes your mouth water!
Chop up the broccoli heads and add them into the pot with the blended cream. Then simmer until the new pieces have gotten soft. If you would like to add an herb for flavor this is the time to throw in the rosemary branch.
MMMMmmmMmMmMm. Ok, this is not only really yummy but also filling, delicious and the smell brings back memories. It's totally 100% dairy free, macrobiotic, gluten free, organic and vegan!!!
Some tempting variations to add to this soup would be after making the cream, adding not only broccoli but also cauliflower, flavorful mushrooms, or using leeks instead of red onions. The rice can be used to make a creamy base in many other recipes too... get wild and experiment a little. :)
xoxo

9 comments:

Meg said...

That looks delicious! I love cream of Broccoli soup. I am allergic to rice, but I have always thought rice based soups looked good. I have also heard of doing the same thing with potatoes, have you tried soup with a potato base? They bother me some, but it is not bad enough to make me avoid them all the time, too much else I absolutely have to avoid!

I usually just make my soup out of pureed broccoli and onion, with some milk added if it needs thinning, since I very fortunately don't have a problem with that!

Mokihana Calizar said...

Leslie, Thank you for reminded me of Kristina Turner's wonderful "The Self-Healing Cookbook" ... After all the years of packing up and trying to outrun the chemicals, I continue to carry it. I had to stop this comment to look into our little box of book treasures ... and THERE SHE WAS. Funny how the teacher shows up.
Mokihana

Anonymous said...

Oh man that soup was good. Got any more?

Miss Voodoo said...

Hey Meg!
You are soooo lucky you can eat dairy, I can't tell you how much i long for a little cream cheese- Ok, i'll stop there before I hurt myself ;)
Alot of people are allergic to rice too- I am allergic to every single other grain and ever corn - rice is all i can have. You definitely can use potatoes too for this, but stick with what makes you feel good!

Mokihana! That book is so great isn't it? She writes so many cute and personal things in it, making it way more easy to understand then most cookbooks, glad you found it in your box!!!

Nick...
I ate the rest for breakfast, it was so good! I have to make another version now :) Will call you over when i do.

Liberty said...

Great recipe! Meg this should work the same with cooked millet too - do you tolerate that? I am sure it would work with cooked potato - potato thickens soup really nicely(I react to that too). So do pureed yams, squash or zuchinni (zuchinni probably adds the least flavour of those 3).

Meg said...

I have a problem with all grains, so millet would be out. I do like the idea of using squash, I think some of the winter squashes would add a really interesting flavor, I might have to try that!

If it makes you feel any better, Leslie, I can not eat cream cheese, either - anything aged is a huge problem for me! I think I am really lucky to be able to eat any dairy! I have just a little issue with lactose intolerance, but since it is really easy to get lactose "free" milk now, that is not even an issue! And milk is a very nice filler, you might say:)

Miss Voodoo said...

Thanks Meg-
Sometimes I wonder why we all have so many kinds of food allergies... is it the food alterations with pesticides and hormones etc,... or is it so much mixing of genetics that we havent adjusted to, is it pollution???

Anonymous said...

Mmmm that sounds delicious. Going on my meal plan for next week! Thanks. :)

Unknown said...

Meg!
Millet is actually a seed! I am going to try this recipe with quinoa, I am thinking it may be less creamy but still tasty.