Northern Hospitality

I went to Alaska a couple of weeks ago to spend time with my amazing sister, and went off to Wisconsin again the day after for business. I have been meaning to post this trip recap for a few days, but of course, life got in the way again. Anyway...

Anchorage is a very vegan-friendly city. Like everything else in Alaska, dining out can be very expensive. There are a couple of places I have to stop at each time I am visiting. Like Middle Way Cafe (I don't think they have a website). Middle Way is a fairly standard hippie-infested coffee shop/cafe. My dad took me there for lunch one day, and I was slightly bummed to miss their breakfast menu by about 20 minutes. I asked what a popular vegan lunch item was, and the cashier recommended the vegan version of the avocado melt.

This was literally the best sandwich I have ever had. I might have said that about some other sandwich before, but this one overruled all. I mean, it was stuffed with veggies and warm, gooey avocado slices, smothered in melted Daiya and Vegenaise. Sinful, but delicious. Speaking of sinful, I also had a vegan chocolate cupcake with cardamom coffee buttercream frosting.

Holy crap this was good. I don't think I have had such an indulgent vegan dessert since I lived by Vegan Treats a few years ago. I am not usually a cake/cupcake person, but I had to try one since it was vegan and looked so good. The frosting was very saturated with cardamom. Not in a bad way, it's just a spice you don't come across a lot.

A couple of days later, my sister and I drove to Girdwood and took the tram up the mointain at Aleyeska resort. Awesome pictures were taken.

We were going to go into Girdwood for lunch but the place we had in mind was closed until dinner. Lame! She took me to another amazing hippie restaurant instead, the Organic Oasis. We decided that we wanted to try a wheat grass shot, so we got a couple of them freshly prepared with ginger.

These were okay to sip very lightly. Gingery, grassy, not too strong. Then we took the rest as a shot. GROSS. The shots were super sludgy in the bottom, and I mean that in the most unpleasant way possible. If you want to simulate our experience, mow your lawn, scrape a bunch of crap off of your mower blades, and eat a big blob of it while stuffing fresh ginger root up your nose.

With my entree, I was offered a selection of soups. They were all vegan too! I was leaning towards the coconut potato soup, but our waitress informed me that it was slightly sweet. Not really my thing. I followed her recommendation and ordered the jewel yam stew.

This soup was a little underwhelming. It was pretty plain. Just some yams, zucchini, herbs, and not much else. What did it for me was the homemade bread slathered in tahini that it was served with. Why did I not think of this?? Probably because I don't usually eat bread. For my entree I had the "Vegan High Protein" wrap.

Like the avocado melt I had a few days prior, this blew my mind. I love love love tempeh, and this wrap included a big slab saturated in hummus and vegenaise, with some fresh veggies tossed in and some spirulina to give it that creepy blue-green hue. My sister opted for the tofu salad which was also accompanied with amazing tahini bread.

We actually learned a lot about tahini on this trip. Mostly that it is amazing on everything. We experimented with some salad dressings at her condo and made our own tasty blend of tahini, lemon juice, tamari, garlic, and ginger. Yum! We even brought a batch of this to my dad's house for a family dinner. My family and even my closest friends still crack me up when it comes to my diet. I am lucky that both of my parents and my sister all love vegetables almost as much as I do, but they still freak out when it comes to feeding me. My dad went all-out to make certain that I was included in the rare family meal. The dish that amazed me the most was his braised tofu.

This dish was quickly gobbled up by the entire gang. I can't tell you how it was made, because it seemed complicated and I didn't pay attention. It was full of tasty tofu slabs and green veggies. I did witness my dad slicing up some seasoned seaweed to toss in at the end. I took note to add seaweed to my stir-fries because it kicked ass.

After returning from my sub-arctic vacation and yet another business trip, I realized that I forgot my camera charger in Anchorage. Oh well! I guess it's more craptacular iPhone pictures for a while, but better that than nothing. Someday I swear I will get a nicer camera and learn how to take decent pictures. There are a lot of vegan blogs out there that make me jealous!

Nearly-Instant Mexican Style Soup

I returned to my house after a week-long business trip two days ago. Tomorrow, I am flying to Alaska to visit my sister. The day after I get back, I am off on another business trip. I am fighting the urge to scream. Especially when a prolonged absence from my job means I come back to my desk looking like this:

Thanks guys! You shouldn't have!

Traveling this much is stressing me out, and causing me to miss out on one of my favorite things in the world: grocery shopping for produce. For the past couple of days, I have been surviving on things in my freezer. This is actually a good thing, because my freezer is hella full at the moment, but I miss cooking! Tonight I decided that I had to do something. I needed to eat dinner and a lunch before leaving tomorrow anyway. So here is what I came up with:

Not pictured: garlic. But you already know I add that to everything anyway.

Once again, it definitely pays to have a well-stocked pantry! These humble ingredients came together to make one satisfying, nutritious, tasty meal! Here is a breakdown of the magic that went on in my kitchen. You could easily dump just about anything into this meal.

Ingredients:

• One jar of salsa. Whatever you have on hand/already open in your fridge. I happened to have some Newman's Own black bean and corn salsa. I recently bought a few jars of this brand because it was on sale for $2.50. Normally it is almost twice as much
• One can of refried beans. I got the idea to add this from this recipe. The Casa Mamita brand from Aldi are the best in the world. I'm not kidding. And unlike most refried beans, they are fat free.
• One can of diced tomatoes. I chose to add it with the juice because my salsa was not very tomato-heavy. I buy cans of these at Sam's Club for around $6 an 8 pack. They are great to have on hand to dump in pretty much anything.
• Jarred jalepenos. I buy these at the dollar store.
• One small white onion. Brought to you by Aldi.

Method:

Basically, I just dumped everything in a pot, then added diced onion, jalpenos, and crushed garlic. It was a little thick, so I dumped in about a cup of water. No additional salt or spices were needed. Stir everything up and bring to a boil. How long depends on how cooked you want your onions. I didn't boil mine very long because I love to stir raw onions into my soup anyway.

Even before it was done, I was lamenting over the fact that I was out of vegan sour cream, but this soup honestly didn't need it. The refried beans made it super creamy without it. I did have some tortilla strips on hand to jazz things up a bit.

Not the sexiest looking soup, but holy guacamole it was delicious! It made made 3 large servings and was entirely fat free! (If you don't add any tortilla strips). It cost around $5 to make, and the entire batch came in at under 700 calories. I am glad that I do not have any long business meetings tomorrow though, tee hee hee.

Speaking of business meetings, being a vegan stuck in Wisconsin for a week is not fun! I made sure to book a hotel room with a refrigerator and microwave, and I packed plenty of Clif bars. I did manage pretty well with catered lunches after my dietary needs came up. My company's corporate office building actually had a great catering service and an on-site cafe with a huge salad bar, so I fared pretty well. Too well maybe. I ate heaps of blueberries, raspberries, and pineapple off of our daily breakfast fruit tray, and they even started bringing in custom meals for me. Like this pizza:


There was also salad every day. And one afternoon they brought in a giant bowl of freshly made salsa and a trough of fresh tortilla chips. I was totally expecting to starve all week, but quite the opposite occurred.

Taco Tuesday

I was driving home from the gym today, thinking about what to make for dinner. I was toying with the idea of making a batch of lentil salad to eat the rest of the week, but I was also feeling kind of lazy. Even too lazy to boil lentils and chop up onions! Suddenly, the idea of TACOS popped into my head. They would require slightly more work than lentil salad, but I could not stop thinking about them now. Taco Tuesday it was!

Now I try not to buy/eat a lot of processed or pre-made vegan products. But sometimes they are on a really good sale, and I do enjoy trying out new products. Also, these items aided me in whipping up some badass tacos in record time.

On the top left corner is Daiya vegan cheese. I've been a vegan for going on 3 years, and I honestly do not even care about cheese anymore. But there is something about the melty goodness of Daiya that keeps me buying a bag every couple of months. Only when it is on sale, because it can run upwards of $5 a bag. If it hits $3 or less, I buy a bag and toss it in the freezer, where it keeps indefinitely.

On the top right corner is some Westsoy chicken-style seitan. I usually avoid gluten-heavy items like this, but it was also on a good sale and I was very curious to try it. My mom buys Westsoy's tofu almost exclusively and I must admit that it is very good. So I figured I would give this seitan product a try. It wasn't what I expected.

I guess the last fake chicken type product I bought was Gardein, which is pretty creepy close to the real thing. This was pretty much just plain seitan. I prepared it by sauteing it with some minced garlic and a buttload of my homemade taco seasoning. Then it wasn't bad. It was going to be covered in other forms of taco-themed goodness anyway.

The other products that helped make my tacos possible where Toffuti's Sour Supreme and Food For Life's Sprouted Corn Tortillas. Sour Supreme is a staple in my fridge. It lasts forever and I love it stirred into soups, chilis, and stroganofs. Obviously, it's also great Mexican food. I had never tried Food For Life's corn tortillas, but I have never had a product of theirs that I was not absolutely crazy about.

To assemble my tacos, I first melted some Daiya on a couple of tortillas, then added the seitan.

I then proceeded to go crazy and top these suckers with sour cream, chopped onions and tomatoes, green olives, pumpkin seeds, salsa verde (Pace brand), and a squeeze of lime.

I dried not to dwell on the fact that I really wish I had some cilantro for these, and genuinely enjoyed the hell out of them! I have been going through a "put green olives on everything" phase, and they added a nice tang along with the salsa verde and lime juice. The pumpkin seeds added a nice textural contrast as well. Now that I am typing this up, I just remembered that I totally forgot to add hot sauce!! Good thing I have enough leftovers for at least 2 more meals.

Budget Meals for the Week

Ahhh Sunday! The day that I destroy my kitchen (even more than usual) to make my meals for the week. I have been super busy lately with working and going to the gym, so now it is even more important that I observe this ritual. Last week I ran out of home cooked meals and ended up eating lots of Boca burgers and Clif bars. Not that I am complaining too much. Today I made several dishes that will hopefully keep me fed all week. I also think I did a pretty decent job of keeping everything fairly inexpensive. Cheap food does not equal any lack of flavor or nutrients in my kitchen! This post will detail my cooking adventures for this weekend.

First off, I made a big stir fry with my old nemesis...frozen vegetables! I have never cared for the texture/flavor of frozen veggies. Something about them has always bothered me. Maybe because I grew up eating a lot of canned goods. I will eat any vegetable fresh (except celery, because that is NASTY), and I occasionally use canned veggies in my cooking, although I am trying to get away from that. Frozen veggies are very cheap and easy to stock up on, so I have been forcing myself to try like them. I think I found a winner with this dish.

Thanks to the magic of Sam's Club, I picked up a 4.5 pound bag of frozen stir-fry veggies for around $7. This mix includes broccoli, snow peas, carrots, red pepper, water chestnuts, and mushrooms. Oh, and I found 2 sketchy-looking sauce packets when I opened the bag. They weren't really frozen like the vegetables, which made me even more suspicious.


I tossed some veggies in my handy microwave steamer and put them in the microwave until they were in a less-frozen state. I ended up nuking 2 batches, or about half of the bag. I was actually planning on using a sauce packet for some reason.

For my protein in this whole ordeal, I decided to use some tofu. I picked up a couple of packs of Melissa's organic extra-firm tofu at Hy-Vee last week on sale for $1.99 each. My favorite brand of tofu is Nasoya, but since Melissa's is usually $3-4 I figured I would give it a try. All I did was press it for a while, using a handy kabocha squash

Cube it...


...and bake it. Yes, I bake tofu. Quite a lot, actually. It helps firm it up and dry it out, without adding much extra fat. My favorite thing to bake it with is my handy $1 pizza pan I got at the Salvation Army years ago. It is now well "seasoned" and really does the trick.


See? Slightly crispy, chewy, golden deliciousness! I didn't season it this time because I was going to add it to something, but it was still tasty plain and hot out of the oven. The sauce that came with the veggies was actually pretty decent on its own, but that didn't stop me from adding tons of fresh garlic, sesame seeds, and chili garlic sauce!


This dish came together beautifully, and ended up making 3 hefty servings for around $5.50, or about $1.83 each. It was so flavorful that I actually didn't mind the texture of the vegetables. Hopefully this is a step forward in training myself to accept frozen veggies into my life!


Another fairly cheap dish I made was a big breakfast scramble. I am famous for my scrambled tofu, which I usually make with firm tofu. Lately I have been making it with silken tofu for a change. I have a very rocky relationship with breakfast. I used to skip it all the time. Horrible, I know. It took me a lot of training (and Luna bars) to get in the habit of eating breakfast every day. A good portion of my morning meals still consist of eating some type of bar in my car on the way to work, but that is still better than nothing! I figured I would eat better breakfasts if I cooked a bunch of food to heat up in the mornings. So that is how this mess came to be.


I actually had about half of a tube of Gimme Lean sausage in the freezer, so I figure I would use that up. I also added some diced red onion, minced garlic, and jalapenos, along with two boxes of tofu. Seasoning includes ground mustard, tumeric, nutritional yeast, Braggs, and black pepper.

While I was making this mess, I was trying something new in my slow cooker. I guess you could call this a Tuscan style "baked" beans dish. I will probably tweak this a little next time, but it basically consisted of a pound of white beans soaked overnight and a jar of Trader Joe's bruschetta.

I just tossed the ingredients in my slow cooker and let 'er rip on high for about 8 hours. I have learned the hard way that when set on low, even for 10 hours, my slow cooker is NOT capable of cooking beans. I checked on these beans a few times during the day, and they were technically cooked after about 4-5 hours, but I love how they broke down a little after going all day. They really have the same consistency of baked beans from a can. Yum! This whole pot of beans cost about $3.50, and it made a TON. I am not sure how many meals it will last me, but they will all be super cheap.

Waffle My Falafel: A Cautionary Tale

Another Friday night home alone. For some people, the boredom could be stifling. For me, it is a chance to catch up on laundry, clean the litterbox, and most important of all, clean and prep the kitchen for massive weekend destruction!

I did a little shopping at my local food coop after work today. The primary reason being that I needed more lentils. I have been making an awesome lentil salad on a regular basis so my need to restock has been high. I will share my recipe at the end of this post.

Anywho, I came home, put stuff away, (ate another Boca burger with sauerkraut), and stood back to assess my fridge situation. I have a feeling that a lot of vegans do this to make best use of fresh ingredients on hand. There are usually my most costly (not to mention perishable) goods in the kitchen, so extra care is needed to ensure proper usage.

Looking at this picture, you would think that I don't have any actual "food" in the house. Also, I have a really shitty fridge because I rent. I swear there are about 7 packages of tofu in that middle drawer though! Bare fridge aside, there was one thing in there staring me down...

...nestled among the almond milk, soy milk, and carrot juice was this stupid bowl of sprouted chickpeas that has been haunting me all week! I sprouted them a while ago with every intention of snacking on them during the week. They were good, but they just didn't hit the spot for me this time. They are pretty cute with their little curly "tails" though!

Somehow the idea came into my head to make falafel. Even though I've never really cared for it or made it before. There is some spice in it that has never really agreed with me. I decided that it would be good this time because I would be the one controlling what went into it. So I threw these suckers into my Magic Bullet and pulsed them into a gross clumpy mess. I am sure that a food processor would have been the tool of choice here, but I actually do not own one! Soon though. Soon. I really need something between the mini-convenience of the Magic Bullet and the extra-large death machine aka Vita-Mix.

After getting the chickpeas to a workable consistency, I tossed them in a bowl and stirred in some lemon juice, chopped red onions, minced garlic, cumin seeds, cayenne pepper, black pepper, and sea salt.

I know parsley is a main falafel ingredient but you know what? I didn't have any and I think it's gross anyway SO THERE! I had chickpea flour on standby in case the mixture turned out to be too moist, but it wasn't. It wasn't actually a bit on the dry side. Just the excuse I needed to stir in some of my favorite tahini of all time. Falafel blasphemy, I'm sure.

This is seriously the best stuff ever. After stirring in about a tablespoon, my mixture didn't look much different, but it did stick together fairly well went pressed into balls (hehe..balls!). I didn't think it would hold up enough to be fried though. Plus, frying is a very very rare activity in my kitchen. So I turned my oven on and even oiled a cooking sheet when I suddenly struck inspiration: I have a waffle maker!

And not just any waffle maker! A George Foreman waffle maker that I got on clearance at Target for $7 a few months ago! I had only used it once so far (to make waffles of all things) and I was impressed at it's non-stick abilities. Hopefully they would impress me again because I was about to squash some pretty wicked stuff between it. So I balled up my dough and waffled away!
Ladies and gentlemen, this experience has changed my life! Excuse the crappy picture, but they were perfectly crisp on the outside and densely moist in the inside. SO GOOD!

This awesome discovery in waffling got me to thinking: wouldn't this be a great way to make all veggie burgers/patties? Because if you think about it, what is the main problem with making these at home? I know what mine is. They fall apart either while frying them or flipping them over while baking them. Unless you add a boatload of vital wheat gluten, which is not always a bad thing I suppose. But really think about this! With a waffle maker, you can have a doughy or crumbly batter, but it will all stay in the same place while cooking evenly on both sides! I have also been toying with the idea of making pakora in muffin format to avoid frying, but now I am thinking that I will waffle them instead! Long story short, expect more waffle posts!

And oh yeah, I'm not done...as promised, here is my famous lentil salad "recipe". I make this almost every week!

The base of this dish are French lentils. These are super cute little green speckly lentils that I buy in bulk at my coop super cheap. They also have the best flavor of any lentil I have ever tried. You could probably use just about any kind of un-split dried lentil you want. Just boil them up until they are cooked through, but not falling apart and mushy. Try using 2 parts water to 1 part lentils, boil for about 20 minutes, then drain any excess water. I also highly recommend adding some vegetable bullion to the water for extra flavor.

Let the lentils cool for a bit, then toss them in a bowl with sea salt, black pepper, dried thyme, and chopped red onion. The thyme really compliments the earthiness of the lentils, and the onions add an amazing textural dimension, along with a pungency that really brightens things up. But the party doesn't stop there! For a light "dressing", I stir in a dose of red wine vinegar and a big spoonful of good quality whole-grain mustard. This final mixture tastes amazing warm right out of the bowl. It's very hard not to immediately shovel it all into your face! It will keep in the fridge for a few days, getting even better as it "marinates".

Stuff I've Eaten Recently: iPhone Addition

Since I was without blogging capabilities for a couple of months, I amassed a decent collection of food photos on my iPhone. I tend to take pictures of food when I am eating out and stumble upon something tasty anyway, since I use Foodspotting (follow me here). I also sometimes take pictures of delicious food I make to text family members and such. Yes, I lead a life of non-stop excitement. Don't be jealous.

So here is a round-up/catch-up of some of my food highlights from late 2011 and early 2012. In all of their crappy iPhone 3GS glory!


Exhibit A: Sam's Club inspired salad

Location: Break room at work via my kitchen at home

Ingredients: Baby spinach, avocado, blackberries, walnuts, home-grown mung bean sprouts, red onion, and a homemade red wine/dijon mustard vinaigrette.
Comments: I got the idea for this salad from a recipe on the bag of avocados I got at Sam's Club. Most of the other ingredients came from Sam's too, hence the name. It was tasty, with a nice contrast of textures, but I made the dressing a little too tangy and it kind of clashed with the avocado.

Exhibit B: My favorite Aldi salad!
Location: My kitchen
Ingredients: Garden salad mix, carrots, cucumbers, red peppers, red onions, radishes, green olives, raw sunflower seeds, garlic vinaigrette.
Comments: This is one of my all-time favorite salads! Everything is from Aldi, including my favorite dressing of theirs. Okay, I guess the sunflower seeds aren't. I make this salad with an entire bag of their lettuce mix and happily spend the next half an hour crunching away. Oh, and I have to make it in my big mixing bowl because it's the only bowl I have that is large enough to contain all of this goodness!

This is just another example of my favorite salad, with a little Hy-Vee mixed in. I shop where the veggies are the best deals!

Exhibit C: Split Pea Soup. Two liters of it, to be exact!
Location: My kitchen
Ingredients: Split green peas, carrots, onions, garlic, veggie stock, and spices...all boiled up and destroyed in the Vita-Mix.
Comments: Super cheap, easy, filling, and freezes well! Also very nutritious and high in protein and fiber.

Exhibit D: HEALTHY SURPRISE PACKAGE!!!
Location: Delivered monthly to my house!
Ingredients: AWESOME AND WIN!!
Comments: If you have not heard of Healthy Surprise, you have now and you have no excuse not to subscribe to it! You get tons of awesome natural, gluten-free vegan goodies delivered to your door monthly. You can cancel any time you want (you won't) and the people that run it are super friendly and dedicated to making sure you are 200% satisfied with everything. The package pictured above was actually a larger size than I normally get. Thanks to the incompetence of the USPS, one of my packages was "lost" (I know you ate it, Minnesota mailman!), but as soon as I notified Healthy Surprise, they sent me a double-sized one to make up for it. I will probably be posting more Healthy Surprises, and some product reviews.

Exhibit E: Big Ass Boca Burger
Location: My kitchen
Ingredients: 2 Boca Grillers Vegan patties, pickles, tomato, red onion, sauerkraut, and vegenaise on a toasted whole wheat sandwich thin.
Comments: I know, I know, faux meat and...wheat?? I'm horrible! My mom actually bought Boca burgers for me the last time I was home and I somehow got addicted to them. I have also wussed-out in ridding myself of wheat 100%. I don't actually have a wheat allergy/intolerance, I just used to work for the wheat industry and I HATED IT. I think lately I have just been working out and lifting weights so much that I have been bad and craving some omni guilty pleasures. Like a huge, disgusting, sloppy burger. I am definitely guilty of not getting enough protein at times (not my fault salads are awesome), so I have been making a conscious effort to boost my intake. This sandwich contained 37 grams for only 350 calories!

Exhibit F: Rajas Tacos
Location: Rusty Taco, St. Paul, MN
Ingredients: Corn tortilla, grilled veggie filling including pablano peppers and mushrooms, fresh cilantro.
Comments: So. Freaking. DELICIOUS! This place blew my mind! After scarfing up these little beauties, I promptly returned to the counter and ordered more.
This one was filled with black beans and toasted pumpkin seeds! I will definitely be craving these in the future!


Exhibit G: Veggie humus sandwich and veggie chili with blue corn chips
Location: Bushel & Peck's, Beloit, WI
Ingredients: The sandwich was filled with house made humus and carrots, cucumbers, and lettuce; the chili had three different kind of beans in it and was probably the best chili I've ever eaten.
Comments: I was stuck in Wisconsin last week on a business trip and the only health food type store just happened to be a block from my hotel. They have a little cafe in the back that has a couple of vegan options if you ask. The chili was seriously amazing. I thought I made a mean vegan chili, but I am seriously jealous of theirs now.

Well, this post takes care of a bunch of pictures on my phone! Who knows what I will blog about next time. In the not-so-distant future, I do have a lot of business trips coming up, so expect some posts about vegan survival on the road!

Color Me Vegan Soup Review

Wow, my computer has been "broke" for the last 2 months, and I haven't had the money to fix it. I am way behind on blogging some of the fun things I have been up to. Here is a post that I was literally in the middle of when my computer started having issues.

I recently checked out a copy of Color Me Vegan at my local library. I tried out a couple of recipes tonight, both of them soups, and I can tell you right now that I will definitely be buying this book in the near future. AMAZING! I am all about emphasizing simple vegan dishes based on whole foods, and this book accomplishes this flawlessly while following a whimsical color-sorted scheme. It was fun to read.

The first recipe that caught my eye was for edamame...soup? I am a fan of edamame, but never had I ever imagined putting it in soup! I just had to try this, and lo-and-behold I happened to have all of the ingredients already. It pays to have a well-stocked vegan kitchen!

This recipe was extremely easy and also very cheap to make. Thanks to Trader Joe's, Hy-Vee, and potatoes from my grandpa's garden! I do not normally buy vegetable stock, since it is way cheaper to use boullion, but Hy-Vee was having a pretty good sale so I stocked up. It's kind of a luxury item for me.

I am not going to give away the recipe since it is from a cookbook that I did not write, but basically everything gets boiled in a pot with some simple seasonings. Then it meets its fate in the Vita-Mix.

To serve, the recipe suggests drizzling with toasted sesame oil. Normally I would avoid adding even the tiniest iota of unnecessary fat to any recipe, but sesame oil has an incredible flavor and really perked up this soup. It may sound gross, but eating this soup really reminded me of sushi. Here it is served up with some gluten-free crackers. Yes, I really need to figure out this food photography thing. And get some prettier dishes.

The next soup I made was the Roasted Red Pepper and Carrot Soup. I made it on the same night too. I guess I was just super excited to try out new recipes and felt that it was also a good time to stock my freezer with frozen meals for future use. Once again, my winning kitchen supplied everything I needed for this soup.

I am stoked that Hy-Vee has it's own brand of organic unsweetened soy milk now! I don't like to drink soy milk of any kind because it tastes like ass (I prefer almond milk), but it is great to cook with IF you can find it unsweetened. Trader Joe's has it too, but Hy-Vee is a lot closer to my job and house. Also, I do NOT buy roasted red peppers anywhere but Dollar Tree. Why? Because they are $1! Go find them anywhere else and gasp at the price. Total rip-off.

So this soup recipe has pretty much the same technique. Toss everything in a pot (except the soy milk) and boil.

Then toss it all in the Vita-Mix and add a splash of soy milk. I served it with some extra thyme and gluten free crackers. Yum! This soup had a totally unique flavor. It didn't really taste like any of its components. Odd, but delicious. I will definitely be making both of these soups again!