This delicious soup comes from Isa Does It. So far I am extremely impressed with Isa. I’ve liked all but one of her recipes that I’ve made so far. I can’t wait to get to her entrée dishes. The reason I’m so impressed is because she is a Vegan cook. So, you know, as a omnivore who loves dairy products, that’s a big deal.
Some of you might be wondering, “Wait, the title says it’s creamy. Isn’t cream a dairy? Hmm?” Well, miss Isa has a trick for that. That trick is to soak cashews overnight and then blend into a nice cream substitute. It tricked my tastebuds. If I hadn’t made this soup, I wouldn’t have known it was cream free.
Another thing I like about Isa is that she’s aware people nowadays are slackers and don’t always plan ahead. I did plan ahead with my cashews, but she put a little note in her cookbook to let you know how to speed up the process if necessary. To do so, she tells you to boil them for 15 minutes and then soak for as long as you can.
She has great notes in general. So if you are a beginning cook, vegan or no, I recommend checking this book out.
The first step in making this soup is to saute one large leek, sliced, and one yellow onion, diced, in olive oil. I actually forgot my onion and had to add it later. Thankfully my soup turned out ok anyway, but ideally you want to saute the onion with the leek.
This should take about 10 minutes or until the leeks have softened.
While the leek and onion are cooking, you grind your cashews into cream. To do this, you add about a cup of water with your soaked cashews into a blender and just blend until it’s smooth and creamy.
The next step for the soup, is to peel and cut 2 pounds worth of potatoes into small chunks. Once cut, you add that to your soup along with black pepper, finely chopped fresh thyme, and four cups of vegetable broth. Cover your pot, allow it to boil, and then simmer for 15 minutes. Once the 15 minutes are up you smash your potatoes until everything is nice and creamy looking.
After that process you just add your faux cream of chestnuts. Let the faux cream heat up with the soup and you’ve got yourself some comfort vegan food.
The final result is quite tasty. I was skeptical about the faux cream, but it pairs nicely with the potatoes and like I said earlier, my tastebuds didn’t know the difference. I had some leftovers as well, and I swear it tasted better than it did fresh. This is a dish I’d be willing to make again.
Isa Soup
thehermitfool 