Miso Love Veggie Soup

Miso Love Veggie Soup
20 May 2014

How good is this time of year? It is my ultimate. The season I look forward to more than any other. The light is amazing, the weather is perfect and those colours. It is also my fave lunch making season. It is the lazy lunch makers delight, those cooler months. I make a HUGE pot of soup, dal or curry for dinner the night before and then whack it in the kid thermos for lunch the next day. Brilliant! No making sandwiches, rice paper rolls or salads. Just simply moving liquid form one vessel to another. And when it is hard to get out of bed, as my kids put it perfectly “BUT IT IS STILL DARK!!!”, this lunch option is a real winner.

I also love the thought, that at lunchtime as the girls open their steaming hot thermos, it is warm, comforting and it smells like home. All round feel good for all! And you can take some to work with you too!

So this is what I made last night. It is SUPER easy. And there is no fancy ingredients whatsoever.

Miso Love Veggie Soup

What you need

• 2 medium onions finely diced
• 2 celery stalks finely diced
• 4 biggish carrots diced, not as finely as the onion and carrot, nice little mouths bite size pieces
• 6 medium potatoes, washed (not peeled, who can be bothered with that), and diced like the carrots
• 8 tablespoons of miso (I used white miso)
• 10 cups of boiling water
• 1 cup of soup mix (lentils + barley, I found a bag of it hanging around the kitchen, I don’t remember buying it, and it is usually something most people will find in their pantry also not knowing how it got there)
• tiny bit of oil to fry the onions and carrots

What you need to do

1. Dice up all your veg, as I have instructed in the ingredients
2. Mix the water and miso paste in a large bowl or jug and have it ready for its time for the pot
3. Place the oil in a low to medium heat large heavy based saucepan
4. Chuck in the onion and celery
5. Let cook down for a little while until the onion is getting a little translucent
6. Put in your carrot and potato and stir for about 10 minutes
7. Pop in the stock you have made with the water and miso
8. Give it a stir and heat, but don’t boil it, as some lovely person told me that destroys the goodness in the miso
9. Then pop in your soup mix
10. Give it another stir, pop the lid on and let simmer for about 15 – 20 minutes
11. I found we didn’t need to add salt, as the miso is quite salty, but feel free to add some if you like.
12. EAT! And save the rest for lunch tomorrow, when it will taste even better than the first bowl (I made little grilled parmesan toasts for them to have with it too, oh lah lah).

Enjoy the rest of your week. Lots of love. Kate x