Editor’s Note: Upper West Side personal chef Elyse Prince plans to write an occasional column about recipes using ingredients you can buy locally.
By Elyse Prince
Looking for great fall soup recipes? Below are two similar ingredient-soup recipes that are a snap to make. The butternut squash soup is slightly sweet, and the potato leek is savory. Both are divinely comforting. You can find all of the fresh produce at the local farmer’s market on 97th and Columbus, and the rest of the ingredients at the Whole Foods around the corner. If you have leftovers, the soups freeze quite well and are easy to heat up for a chilly fall evening!
vegan butternut squash soup
serves 4 to 6
ingredients
21/2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 small onion, diced
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 medium carrot, chopped
1 small russet potato, chopped into 1-inch pieces
1 small butternut squash peeled, seeded and chopped 1-inch pieces
3 to 4 cups vegetable broth
¾ cup coconut milk/cream
2 tablespoons honey
fine grain sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
procedure
1. Heat oil in large pot and cook the onion, celery, carrot, potatoes squash 5 minutes or until lightly browned. Pour in enough veg stock to cover veggies.
2. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and cover pot and simmer for 40 minutes or until veggies are tender.
3. Transfer soup to a blender and blend until smooth. Add the coconut cream and honey, and give a quick blend to combine.
4. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
vegan potato leek soup
4 to 6 servings
ingredients
21/2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 small onion, diced
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 medium carrot, chopped
2 medium russet potatoes, peeled, chopped into 1-inch pieces
3/4 lb. leeks (white and pale green parts), well rinsed and chopped
3 to 4 cups vegetable broth
fine grain sea salt to taste and freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
3/4 cup coconut milk/cream
procedure
1. Heat oil in large pot and cook the onion, celery, leeks, and potatoes for about 5 minutes or until lightly browned. Pour in enough veg stock to cover veggies.
2. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and cover pot and simmer for 40 minutes or until veggies are tender.
3. Transfer soup to a blender or use a hand blender and blend until smooth. Add the coconut cream and blend to combine.
4. Season to taste with salt and pepper and drizzle with lemon juice.
Learn more about Elyse at elyseprince.com.
Paleo versions of these carb bombs may be based on steamed and then pureed cauliflower or spinach, with some water and cream. With less water you get Indian dish sauces and gravy bases. A high power Robot Coupe 240 V.V. stick blender from a restaurant shop on Bowery and a few tall stackable 32 oz plastic soup containers affords best control and the stick blender also avoids froth and floating berries when making watered down frozen blueberry smoothies, also quite low carb.
A sort of Vegans Annonymous exists online, here:
https://www.beyondveg.com/
Adding some chicken stock to these recipes would really help