This is my vegan version of my Mum’s vege soup. She is affectionately know within the family as Granny and has made possibly 1000’s of litres of this soup over the years. Granny’s soup however, involved brewing up the stock from bones, usually lamb, for several hours. She would leave the brew overnight to cool, then skim the solidified fat from the top (yuk!). Then she’d add the good stuff – the veges. My kids loved Granny’s vege soup, and I tried desperately to replicate it (actually, I wanted my version to be slightly better). It didn’t help that Granny didn’t even follow a recipe.
I translated her measurements and instructions of “handful”, “shake”, “about that much”, “whatever I’ve got”, “until it looks right”, “for long enough” to build a recipe. But alas, no matter how hard I tried, each batch I made got rated as “not quite as good as Granny’s”. But then when my kids turned vego, I realised I had my chance. All I had to do was to make some tweaks toveganify Granny’s “recipe”, win over the kids and maybe, hopefully, finally bump Granny off the “Best Vege Soup Ever” podium.
Vegetable Soup
The brew
- 4 litre vegetable stock
- 3 teaspoon vegan chicken stock powder (I use Massel)
- 1 cup pearl barley
- 1 cup yellow split peas
- 1 cup green split peas
- 1 cup dried lentils
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
The veges
- 1 onion (finely diced)
- 3 carrots (grated)
- 3 celery sticks (sliced)
- 1 turnip (coarsely grated)
- 1 swede (coarsely grated)
- 1 potato (coarsely grated)
- 1/2 cup risoni
- 1 pinch salt (to taste)
- 1 pinch pepper (to taste)
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Combine all “The brew” ingredients and simmer on low for 1 – 2 hours.
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Stir “The veges” into the brew. Simmer for a further 30 minutes.
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Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve.
Variations: use whatever vegetables you like and they can be as coarse or fine as you want.
Serving: crusty bread is a great accompaniment.
Storage: the soup keeps well in the fridge for a few days and can be frozen for up to 3 months. After a day the soup becomes quite thick and may require thinning with some additional water or stock.
The tools I used to make this delicious recipe:
