June 4, 2009

vegan potato cashew soup

[Source: FatFree Vegan Kitchen]

Last month, I embarked on a 3-week allergy-testing elimination and reintroduction diet. It was awesome. Seriously!

The elimination piece of the diet had me taking any potential allergy or GI irritants out: animal products (meat, dairy, eggs), wheat, soy products, corn, tomato, and all sugars but agave nectar. Now, on a normal week, I probably eat most of these--particularly wheat and tomato in one form or another--on a daily basis.

As a result, I had to learn to eat very differently. The first few days, I relegated myself to simple salads, my prescribed shakes, and almond milk 10 different ways. They were good, but boy, was I craving something savory or starchy after a while! My two indulgences (oh, in addition to almond butter, and more almond butter) were oat bran and potatoes.


I'll tell you first about potatoes: I almost never cook them these days, but in those weeks, I happily rediscovered the humble potato. My favorite find was a vegan soup as found here from FatFree Vegan Kitchen. It was so savory and satisfying, and was the inspiration for me to continue pursuing vegan cooking.

I followed her recipe pretty closely, just cooking up some Yukon gold potatoes till firm, and then adding 2/3 of them to the remaining ingredients after they're blended in a mixer. I substituted plain almond milk for the milk, and didn't have any nutritional yeast so didn't add it. I didn't miss it! I also used fresh rosemary and a swirl of olive oil, since oils and nuts were my only source of fat in those weeks. Oh, and I really enjoyed it with chopped scallions as you see above.

I'll definitely be making that one again, possibly with some sweet potatoes or curry incorporated.

5 comments:

  1. That's pretty interesting...I've been thinking that I need to do something about my serious caffeine and sugar addictions...it'll probably take a detox diet to get me to a good starting point.

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  2. I love curries, any foods, most ways!

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  3. I can't wait to see what happens with the elimination diet. An allergist told me I was allergic to chicken, tuna, and wheat. So far, chicken has been the only real culprit for tummy problems, after elimination diets. Now even if I have chicken broth in anything I get sick. Oh well.

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  4. Hmm... it's very good!!!

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  5. sounds good! thanks for sharing, gonna give this a try :) Good luck with your allergies. My hubs and I have been enjoying a vegan diet since 6/5/11. We love it and have lost weight, been able to remove medications and I have seen a big difference in my allergies.

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