Okay, so we have really started looking into taking up a vegan diet. I didn’t want to jump in straight away, because I didn’t want to fail. I wanted to have a few recipes up my sleeve and I wanted to establish if the household liked say ‘coconut yoghurt’ instead of Greek yoghurt and it could be seen as a good replacement. I mean, if I wasn’t able to fill up the kids then that’s where we would stumble.

We love a good soup…I mean we do own a soup shop! You can check it out here – Mr Perkins, Bondi. In fact, you can actually order our soups online.

So I thought that I would share this recipe for vegan broccoli soup with you. I think that it’s a Japanese play on a delicious broccoli soup with blue cheese – except that we aren’t eating blue cheese anymore. So if you like the sound of trying some vegan broccoli soup, then read on…

VEGAN BROCCOLI SOUP

1 leek
1 garlic clove
1 thumb sized piece of ginger
2 heads broccoli
4g dashi powder
400g green peas
30g pepitas
40g slivered almonds
2g sesame seed mix
5g shichimi togarashi
40g white miso paste
roasted seaweed
2 tsp vegetable oil
500ml (2 cups) water
1 tsp soy sauce

For this soup you can use Cooks Soup and Smoothie Maker.

Halve the leek lengthwise, then thinly slice. Peel and finely chop the garlic and ginger. Cut the broccoli into small florets and coarsely chop the stem.

Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the leek, garlic and ginger, and cook, stirring occasionally, for 3 mins or until softened.

Add the broccoli, dashi powder and the water. Bring to the boil, then reduce heat to a simmer. Cover with a lid and cook for 8 mins or until broccoli has softened. Add three-quarters of the peas and cook for a further 2 mins or until heated through.

While soup is cooking, put the pepitas and almonds in a cold medium frypan over medium heat. Toast, tossing, for 3-5 mins until golden. Stir in the sesame seed mix, then add the soy sauce and stir constantly until the liquid has evaporated.

Remove from heat and sprinkle with shichimi togarashi to taste. Stir the miso paste through the broccoli mixture. Cook for a further 1 min or until very well combined, adding extra water for a thinner consistency, if necessary.

Remove pan from heat. Using a stick blender, process the soup until smooth. For those who are less informed about the different type of blenders available, check out this ninja vs vitamix  article, they cover a lot of ground for blender beginners. Divide soup among bowls and scatter over the remaining peas, the seed mixture and more shichimi togarashi, if desired. Serve with roasted seaweed.

Have you ever whipped up a recipe from my blog? I would love for you to let me know…So I don’t feel as if I am just writing all this stuff down for nothing… If you choose to whip up one of my recipes , then I would love for you to share it on social media, and don’t forget to use the hashtag #goodfoodweek.