Caledonian Vegan

Just when you think it’s almost safe to relax a little, and maybe even plant a wee seedling outdoors, Mother Nature comes along and reminds you she IS the BOSS. No planting, or indeed T-shirt donning shall take place until she’s good and ready for it.

Take today for instance – blistering sunshine when I left for work at 7.30am, but by 11.30am we had hailstones. I mean….what could be stranger? Well, 3pm in Edinburgh comes to mind, when we had blistering sun, blue skies AND hailstones! I have no clue where they fell from as there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Gotta love Scottish weather (at least that’s every Scottish person’s mantra).

Anyhow, the soup-making continues unabashed, and most likely will throughout summer. This is a hearty soup, designed to keep you full and happy for hours (regardless of the weather). I’ve used bacon flavoured seasoning here, which is very easily available on Amazon (along with chicken flavouring etc), but in this instance I tried Deliciou for the first time. It’s worth the money….very, very deliciou (why no s????).

Recip (see? leaving off one letter does not make a word cool!)

oil of choice

1 leek – sliced

1 onion – chopped small

1 parsnip – chopped small

2 carrots – chopped very small

2 stalks celery – chopped

2 cloves garlic – chopped finely

200g red lentils – washed

1.5l veggie stock

2 bay leaves

1 tsp all purpose seasoning

2 tsp dried mixed herbs, or fresh of your choice

4 TBS tomato puree

juice of 1/2 lemon

1 heaped tsp bacon flavouring

sprinkling chilli flakes

salt & pepper

Method

• Heat around a TBS of oil in a large saucepan and fry all the veggies until soft and translucent, then add the garlic and cook for no more than a couple of minutes.
• Add absolutely everything else, put on a tight lid, and allow to cook for at least 30 mins.
• Keep an eye on the water level. For some reason, not all lentils are created equal, and I’ve made this soup probably 100 times, yet sometimes I need to add more liquid. Just top it up with boiling water and adjust the seasoning.
• when the veggies and lentils are cooked you can either leave it as is, or get a tattie masher and pulverise everything to a softer and less defined soup. I think this is much nicer, but it also seems require even more liquid! (Lentils clearly have magic powers!)
• Taste, season, try some more lemon juice, add some chopped parsley, or bacon style pieces, and enjoy!

My love of soup is no secret, but as the warmer weather approaches my taste in soups changes slightly. This is a lovely light soup, yet still substantial enough to satisfy my lunchtime hunger pangs, especially if served with some crusty bread or a savoury scone.

It’s also the work of mere minutes to whip up, and the chances are you’ll have most of the ingredients kicking about – major bonus if you live in a small village with only one small grocery shop (like me!).

I’ve kept the amount of mint quite minimal here, as I don’t like soup to remind me of my toothpaste – feel free to increase it, or omit it completely as the soup is still tasty on its own.

Recipe

oil

1 onion

2 carrots

2 sticks of celery

1 courgette

2 cloves garlic, minced

750g frozen garden peas

1 litre stock (veg or chicken flavour)

2 tsp All Purpose seasoning

salt & pepper

juice of half a lemon

6 or 8 mint leaves, finely chopped

• Chop all veggies to a similar size.
• Sautee the onion, carrots, celery, garlic and courgette in some oil till soft.
• Add the garden peas, all purpose seasoning and stock
• Simmer for 10-15mins
• Add chopped mint leaves
• Adjust seasoning and add lemon juice
• Blitz in a blender and serve

I enjoy sprinkling some seeds over the top and a few chilli flakes, but it would also be lovely with a swirl of plant based cream or some chopped chives.