Miso Happy Soup

Some days, Folks, you gotta take a mental health day and just make some soup.  Today was one of those days.  It's freezing, work has been beyond stressful, and I just wanted to huddle under a blanket, watch reality t.v. and eat soup out of a mug.   Unfortunately, I haven't gone shopping in about forever, so I had to create something from my nearly-bare cupboards.  Good news is that I am ALWAYS up for a soup challenge and as long as I have water and some random ingredients I usually luck out.    I made today's soup with wheat berries because, as a whole grain, a wheat berry is a veritable powerhouse of nutrition.  I also used wheat berries because I didn't have anything else on my empty shelves!

4 cups water
1 cup wheat berries
1 small onion, chopped
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
1 tablespoon Earth Balance (optional)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 (.7 ounce) packet of powdered miso soup mix (enough for 2 servings.  This is optional.  If you don't have it, just taste the broth and add more of the other seasonings to taste)
Salt and ground black pepper to taste
1/4 cup collard greens, drained
1/2 brick of extra-firm tofu, drained and cubed

1.  Bring water to boil with all the ingredients added except collard greens and tofu. 

2.  Once boiling, add the collard greens and tofu, cover and reduce heat to simmer for about 40 minutes, or until the berries soften.  Wheat berries will not be as tender as, say, barley when done, but will soften up quite a bit.  They have a chewy texture and a nutty flavor.

3.  Stir occasionally as it simmers, making sure that the wheat berries are not sticking to the bottom.  When berries are tender, taste broth again and add seasoning if needed.

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Liberating Beatific Beans from their Flavor Packet Oppressor

Bean soup is a thing of beauty. The colors and textures of the beans combined with their nutritional properties make them something worth savoring. I love the bean aisle in my grocery story, but for some stupid reason the dried beans are relegated to the bottom shelf (much like poetry in a book store. Hmmm . . . that's an interesting coincidence). They are all so pretty to look at, and always so inexpensive. You really could live on 'em.

During my last couple of trips to my local grocery story I've paused in front of the bags of mixed beans, which always contain packets with "natural ham flavoring." The beans themselves are so healthy, why in the world would you tear open one of those oddly-colorless packets and injest that crap? To quote Snoopy, "Bleeeeech!"

Last week, I bought the darn bag anyway, and figured I could easily make a delicious bean soup without resorting to chemical suicide via powdered pig-essence.

NOTE: Yesterday's post included a marinade I made for my tempeh recipe. I used the reserved marinade for today's soup. If you didn't make that recipe (and why not? It is so darn good!) you can just use the ingredients for the marinade, simmer it to reduce it by half, then strain it before adding it to today's soup.

Beatific Bean Soup

20 ounce bag of mixed beans (sans the hellacious flavor packet)
Marinade from yesterday's post, simmered until reduced by half
1 container Imagine Low Sodium Vegetable Broth
1 container Imagine No-Chicken Broth
1 tablespoon of dark miso (if needed. You'll add it after a taste check if you do)
½ cup chopped onion
3 cloves fresh garlic, minced
1 tablespoon basil
1 tablespoon oregano
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon liquid smoke (definitely optional. If you aren't into "smoky" flavors, don't add it in)
½ cup cashew cream (optional. It makes it creamy-dreamy. You could also add vegan sour cream or skip this part altogether)

1. Thoroughly pick through and rinse the beans. Put them in a glass bowl big enough to accomodate them doubling in size. Add enough water to cover and soak overnight. I do an initial drain and rinse after a few hours of soaking to clean the beans more. Then I add fresh, purified water because I use the soaking water in the soup. (Yep. You heard correctly. I know there are different camps on this, but if the beans are clean and the initial yucky stuff is rinsed off after a few hours of soaking, I say go for it. The flavor is better and the soup is creamier.)



2. The next morning, add the beans, the soaking water, and all of the remaining ingredients (except for the miso and cream) to a large Crock Pot and turn on high.






Note: If you DO add the miso, put it in a coffee cup with a ladle-full of hot broth. Mix it to dissolve it before adding it all back in the soup.

3. After 3 hours or so, taste the broth and determine if it could use some more saltiness; if so, add the miso.

4. Soup is ready to serve when the beans are tender. It took about 4 hours in my Crock Pot. Add a dollop of cashew cream or vegan sour cream if desired to each serving. Make sure to eat it with some good bread!

UPDATE! Like most of the country, we're big on leftovers. This recipe made A LOT, and so we were faced with 3 days of bean soup. Here's how I switched it up each day to make it more exciting:

Day 1 Leftovers:

Leftover soup
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 cup chopped portobello mushrooms
1 cup diced onions or shallots
6 large Brussles sprouts, cleaned and quartered
½ cup quick-cooking barley
½ cup forbidden rice (or wild rice)
Salt and pepper to taste.

1. Put leftover soup (in batches, if necessary) into a blender and purée until creamy. Add soup to stock pot on stove and set to simmer.
2. Sauté barley and rice in a tablespoon of oil over medium heat until it begins to brown and get fragrant. Add grains to soup.
3. Add more oil to the skillet you used for the rice, and heat up the minced garlic. Add all the vegetables, tossing to coat with oil and garlic. Cook over medium heat until vegetables begin to camerlize. Add to soup.
4. Simmer soup until rice and barley are tender. Taste and add salt and pepper as needed.

Day 2 Leftovers Day (or is it day 3? By now I've lost count!)

Soup from yesterday (which will now have thickened very much, due to the barley and rice)
½ cup firm tofu, cut into cubes
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon freshly chopped cilantro (or half that if using dried)
1 teaspoon cumin
Minced hot peppers to taste (I use a hot pepper relish)
1 tablespoon Tofutti sour cream
Favorite wraps (whole wheat, etc)
Olive oil

1. Reheat the "soup," which will now have the consistency of refried beans.
2. Meanwhile, sauté the tofu over medium-high heat with olive oil, cilantro and cumin until it starts to brown up a bit.
3. Mix in a ½ teaspoon or more of minced hot peppers into a tablespoon of vegan sour cream. Spread cream mixture on a wrap.
4. Build a wrap with the "soup" and tofu. Toss in some Daiya cheese or avocado slices if you're feeling it!

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Wanton Wonton Soup

I had this recipe kicking around in my head for a week or so. I had most all of the ingredients I wanted to use, but when it came time to cook tonight I had to do more improvising than I thought. I didn't have bok choy, so I tossed spinach in instead. I ran out of soy sauce and made up the difference with miso paste. Turns out I didn't even have regular wonton wrappers- I only had the round. Oh well. The flavors were great and it turned out to be a delicious meal.

There are numerous definitions for "wanton." For this recipe, I'm using it as a synonym for "reckless" and "without regard to the rules." But this soup was so good, you might think of the word "wanton" in a whole 'nother way.


Wonton Soup

1 16 oz. package of Match ground “beef”
1 cup chopped scallions
½ cup chopped mushrooms
1 cup spinach
1 cup bagged broccoli coleslaw veggies
½ cup water chestnuts, sliced
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon ground ginger
½ tablespoon soy sauce
1½ teaspoons rice vinegar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
Five spice powder
1 teaspoon hot pepper flakes (more or less to taste)
2 tablespoons dark miso paste, divided
1 package wontons wrappers
8 cups No-Chicken broth
½ cup bok choy, sliced (I didn’t have any, so I used spinach)
½ cup sliced mushrooms



1. Do a quick sauté of scallions, chopped mushrooms, spinach, coleslaw, and water chestnuts in a hot skillet with about a tablespoon of olive oil until they just start to get tender. Once they’re cooked down a little, put vegetables in food processor (but don’t pulse yet).

2. In the same skillet, add more oil and cook the Match “meat” through with the garlic, ginger and soy sauce. Break it up like hamburger and let it brown a little bit.

3. Put the browned “meat” into the food processor with the vegetables. Add vinegar, oil, five spice powder, hot pepper flakes, and 1 tablespoon miso paste. Pulse until mixed and it begins to look like ravioli filling. Don’t pulse it down too much, though, because you want some different textures in there.

4. Assemble the broth. Add the No-Chicken broth, remaining miso paste, bok choy (or spinach in my case), and sliced mushrooms to a pot and cook to boiling.

5. While broth is heating, assemble the wontons, following the package instructions. I only had round wrappers, so my wontons ended up looking like empanadas. I made 24 using about a tablespoon of filling in each. That left half of the wrappers and mix for me to freeze and use another time.

6. Stir the broth to make sure that the miso is dissolved. When broth is boiling, carefully add the wontons. Do not overcook: wontons are done in about 3 minutes and if you overcook them they’ll start to fall apart. Serve soup immediately.

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