Chunky Potato Leek Soup (Vegan and Gluten-Free!)

Chunky Potato Leek Soup! 

I love potatoes, leeks, and dill. Today I was so freezing cold that all I wanted was a warm creamy and  potato chunked soup. I'm not going to lie, I feel warm and cozy now! This recipe did the trick. It's vegan and gluten-free but nobody noticed or cared. It was so good that maybe all potato leek soup should be vegan ;)

This soup was actually so simple! The thing that took the most amount of time was peeling the potatoes haha. To be honest if I wasn't serving this to people with certain expectations I'd have left the nutrient rich skin on and saved myself the time! But either way here we are with this super easy one pot recipe.

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp Vegan butter (I used Earth Balance "Great Buttery Taste”)

2 Medium Leeks, cleaned and sliced (for a great video on how to do this, here's a helpful link!)

1/2 White onion, chopped

4 Garlic cloves, minced

4 cups Yellow potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1" thick cubes

2 1/2- 3 cups Vegetable Broth (Less for thicker soup)

1/2 tspDried Basil

1/2 tspDried Oregano

1 Bay Leaf

1 tsp Salt

1 cup Soy Milk (plain)

1 TbspFresh dill, finely chopped

1 TbspFresh parsley, finely chopped

 Black pepper to taste

Instructions:

Peel, clean, and chop all vegetables. In a large soup pot, melt vegan butter on medium heat. Add the Leeks, onions, and garlic and sauté. After veggies are soft (5-10 minutes), add chopped potatoes and stir. Pour in vegetable broth and mix well. Raise heat to high, cover and let boil for 5 minutes. Lower

temperature to a low boil, and add basil, oregano, bay leaf, and salt. Leave covered and cook for about 15 minutes. Once potatoes are soft, uncover, lower heat to a low simmer, and mash contents with a potato masher. Once the soup is the consistency you like, add the soy milk, dill, and parsley. Remove from heat and continue to stir soup. Serve with black pepper to taste. Enjoy! 

Spinach Pasta! ...and pesto :)

How to make delicious homemade pasta :) Honestly, this one is with so many approximations that I hope you're the visual type of learner ;).

First of all, it's simple to make homemade vegan pasta. All you need is a veggie purée, flour, and a little oil. Here's how I made mine:

One packet of spinach
Whole wheat flour
Olive oil

First, put the spinach with a little water in a pan on medium heat, and cover it until the steam makes it soft. About 5 minutes.
Next, add spinach to a blender along with some of the steam water.

Put the purée into a bowl and mix in flour slowly until it turns from a paste texture into a dough texture. It took me about 3 cups of flour for the amount of purée that I had, but this can vary.

There are many ways to cut the shape of your pasta, but I chose to roll it into a ball, then flatten it to about 1/8" thick. I then rolled the dough up and cut it into thin slices. Make sure you flour the surface before doing so so that you can unwind the dough circles into long noodles :).

Add unwound noodles to boiling water with a pinch of salt added. The fresh noodles only need to cook for about 3 minutes. I did it in batches so as not to over fill the pot. They turned out ugly but yummy!

Next, I made the pesto:
2 garlic cloves
1 cup of fresh basil
1 cup walnuts
1/2-1 cup olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Just blend everything up in a blender! If it's too thick, add more olive oil. The measurements are approximate and depend on how much you like garlic etc. you can always make this a day in advance and keep it in the fridge to get the flavors better combined if you like. I didn't use all of it for my pasta but wanted to be sure I had enough.

For a fresh garnish, I added chopped tomatoes. Just mix it all up and enjoy!