Rainy Day Delight

Vegan Creamy Potato Soup:

 Last night it started to rain and it made me want some creamy soup. So I decided to make soup for our Vegan Sunday dinner tonight. Unless we have other pans that get in the way, we’ve been trying to have vegan dinners on Sundays. This allows us to try something new once a week and to start building a good recipe box full of vegan dishes. Soon we will have enough yummy recipes to have vegan dinners during the whole week and not just on Sundays.

 This Sunday we wanted to clean up the house and organize our back room so I decided to go for a Crockpot cooking method - set it and forget it. To make this soup vegan you will need to make a homemade cream of mushroom soup. If you don’t care for your meals to be vegan this recipe is easy to substitute items to fit your needs.

What you will need to make your vegan cream of mushroom soup: 

2 Cloves of garlic
½ Onion-diced (I had ½ a red onion left from a previous meal)
 ½ Cup Mushrooms-diced ¼ Cup “Butter” (we use earth balance)
 ¼ Cup Flour 1 Cup unsweetened “Milk” (Almond, Soy…)
 ¾ Cup Vegetable Broth

What you will need for the Potato Soup:

 Roughly 3 Pounds of Potatoes (we used golden)
 1 Bell Pepper (we used red)
 1 Onion (I had white)
The Cream of Mushroom soup you made
 4 Cups Vegetable Broth 8oz “Cream Cheese” (Safeway, Trader Joes, Sprouts all carry vegan C.C.)

(The size I diced everything) 

Your first step is to make the cream of mushroom soup which took less time than I expected and tasted amazing!

Put a little oil, I use olive oil, in your pan just to cover the bottom of the pan and set it to medium/low heat. While the oil heats get your garlic, onion, and mushrooms peeled, cleaned, and diced. To know if your oil is hot enough place one piece of your onion in the pan, if it sizzles your ready to go. Add everything to the pan and began to sauté.

 While that sautés, grab a medium/small pot and get the “butter” melting on a low heat. Once butter is melted add in your flour and whisk until smooth. Cook for one min while slowly moving the mixture so it doesn’t burn. Next add in the “milk” and broth, whisk until everything combines. Add in your sauté mixture and bring the pot to a boil. This will then start to thicken the mixture. Bring the pot down to a simmer and let it simmer for about 10 minutes. I slowly whisked the mixture a few times here and there but I can’t seem to be able to leave my food alone when it’s cooking, so I’m not sure if this was needed or just fun to do.

 While the cream of mushroom soup simmered I then began my prep for the soup. Peel, wash, and dice the Potatoes, peel and dice onion, wash and dice the bell pepper and add to the Crockpot.

(what your cream of mushroom soup looks like when done)

Add in the vegetable broth along with your cream of mushroom soup once it’s ready. Set the Crockpot to 5-6hours depending on your settings. 30min. before you are ready to eat, add in the “cream cheese” and you are now ready to enjoy.

(Crockpot set for 6hrs)

Note: I did add some spices to the cream of mushroom and soup before serving to add more layers of flavor but that’s completely up to you. I added some natures seasoning, pepper, and we have a grinder which has salt and red pepper flakes which I added as well. We also enjoy nutritional yeast so I added about 2 tablespoons. It’s really up to you a good add would be some “cheese” I used a vegan mozzarella to top my soup off and added a slice of garlic toast. Hope you enjoy and comment if you thing of some great changes. Happy cooking!

Vegan Creamy Potato Soup!