Vegan Squash Soup

A nice bowl of soup is the best way to light your inner fire during the cold winter months. Squash is a versatile, easy to cook root vegetable. I used acorn for this recipe, but you could substitute with another variety (butternut, pepper, etc).

vegan squash soup

Vegan Squash Soup:
1 squash (acorn)
1 onion
4 gloves of garlic
1 tbsp ginger
1/4 tsp sage
1/8 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp salt
1 apple (peeled and cut into chunks)
4 cups vegetable stock
2 handfuls of spinach

Preheat oven to 400. Wash squash, cut in half, remove seeds. Lather with olive oil. Place on baking sheet, cut side down. Bake for 50 minutes.

In a saucepan, fry onions for 5 minutes, add garlic, ginger, spices and apple. Fry for 2 minutes. Add cooked squash and vegetable stock. Simmer for 15 minutes. Add spinach. Simmer 5 minutes. Enjoy!

Dinner Parties & Vegan Lasagne

Dinner parties can be tough as a vegan, but I have been lucky enough to have friends take my food choices into consideration when cooking. People will go out of their way to make me a vegetarian option. If it has dairy/cheese in it, I usually eat it, as I am so grateful for the effort. 

I recently attended a dinner party at my friend Anick's house. Her and her husband and 3 kids live on a farm in Hudson. They have an organic apple orchard (Le Verger de Hudson) and grow much of their own food. Anick served a fish entree, in which she made an eggplant version for myself and another vegetarian friend, and a lasagne for the main course. She made a cheese version for our vegetarian friend, and a vegan version for me! I was blown away. Not only is she raising 3 kids, running her own business and cooking for 10 people, but she took the time and energy to make something special for me. When I asked her for the recipe she said she mostly improvised... amazing!

check out Le Verger de Hudson on fb
and look for them at downtown markets

Anick's Vegan Lasagne

Anick's Vegan Lasagne:

I make a tomato sauce with (chopped onion, zucchini, red pepper, green pepper , eggplant, the veggies are all sautéed ) then add tomato sauce and chunk tomatoes, let sauce simmer a while, add fresh basil and dried oregano, salt and pepper.

The ''ricotta'' filling is firm tofu chopped in the blender with soy milk and basil, salt and pepper.

Layer lasagne noodles sauce and the tofu filling in the middle. You can make up to 4 layers. Keep some sauce to add to the top once the lasagne is cooked because the top layer tends to dry out during cooking.

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Why Be Vegan?

I get this question often. There's lots of good reasons to be vegan. In honour of World Vegan Day (November 1st) here are my top 5:

image courtesy of Snooters Farm Animal Sanctuary

1 - It's more environmentally friendly. Saves trees, uses less water (More than half of all water used in the U.S. is used to raise and kill animals for the table), less fossil fuels (Producing just one hamburger uses enough fossil fuel to drive a small car 20 miles), creates less pollution (animal feces is a major contributor to global warming and acid rain, plus pollutes numerous rivers and water sheds annually), the worlds 17 major fisheries are at the point of collapse because of over fishing.

2 - It's the most compassionate way to live. Animals feel pain. Modern agriculture keeps cows, calves, pigs, chickens, turkeys, ducks, and other animals in small overcrowded sheds, stalls, cages, or crates, where they're often unable even to turn around. These intelligent, social animals are deprived of veterinary care, exercise, sunlight--even the feel of grass under their feet. What we eat means choosing between the horrors of factory farming and respect for another sentient being.

3 - It's healthier. Vegans have lower rates of obesity, coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, large bowel disorders, cancers and gallstones. Not to mention the hormones and antibiotics used in raising animals

4 - It feeds more people. Seven kilograms of grain are required to produce 1 kilogram of beef; the conversion is 4-to-1 for pork and 2-to-1 for poultry. Each kilogram of meat represents several kilograms of grain that could be consumed directly by humans, not to mention the water and farmland required to grow the grain. To put this in uncomplicated terms, the beef in a Big Mac represents enough wheat to produce five loaves of bread.

5 - It tastes good.

The greatness of a nation & its moral progress can be judged by the way we treat animals

- Gandhi

Info from http://www.veganwolf.com/