Ras Iville Wright understands the need for soup.
I originally met Wright every week for an entire summer at Harbourfront Centre where he’d set up his giant pot at a food stall every weekend for festivals. It contained a vegan variation on Jamaican pepper pot soup: chunks of corn on the cob, heaps of roughly chopped vegetables (pumpkin, carrots), a little scotch bonnet pepper, the requisite sprig of Jamaican thyme, coconut milk and lots of love. That love bit sounds all wishy-washy, I know, but I’m referencing it because Wright named his company One Love Soup. He got it.
His soup became so popular that it was featured on the Food Network. (Here’s the recipe.) Now, he has a vegan restaurant on Bathurst Street in downtown Toronto where he sells roti, callalloo with boiled yam, dumplings, green plantains and avocado and homemade lemonade, in addition to the soup that started it all.
This is not that soup.
This is a tamed down, easy-on-the-stomach soup that’s quick to prepare. It’s what I crave as a North American and wannabe vegan. It’s like chicken noodle for gluten intolerants. It’s pure comfort. It’s, dare I say, love in a bowl.
Vegan Minestrone
You can also make this in a slow cooker or pressure cooker by adjusting the simmering time accordingly. In those cases, it’s best to still sweat the vegetables before closing the lid, but you can also get away with just chucking everything together at the start. It’s soup, after all, and therefore forgiving.
1 tsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced, optional
2 sprigs celery, chopped
3 carrots, chopped*
4 small zucchini, chopped
8 roma tomatoes, chopped
10 cups vegetable broth
1 bunch green onions, chopped (green parts only for low-FODMAPs)
small handful parsley sprigs, chopped
salt and pepper to taste
3-4 cups cooked brown rice
1 handful chives
Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat.
Add the garlic and celery and stir to sweat (the vegetables, not you) for 5 minutes. Reduce the heat if the garlic starts to burn.
Add the carrots and zucchini and cook a few more minutes.
Add the tomatoes and broth and bring to a boil.
Add a handful of the parsley stems and a handful of green onion along with salt and pepper to taste.
Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook until the vegetables are tender, about 15 minutes.
Add the brown rice and stir for a minute to reheat.
Stir in the rest of the green onions and some of the chives.
Serve in large bowls garnished with the rest of the chives and parsley.
*I usually chop vegetables for non-puréed soups into 1/2″ x 1/2″ pieces. For carrots and zucchini, that means slicing them lengthwise into quarters and then horizontally into bite-sized pieces. You can do this efficiently by keeping the four lengths lined up and chopping the final horizontal pieces all at once (four pieces, or one carrot, might be all your chef’s knife can handle at a time – and you should be using a chef’s knife). For celery, I slice each piece in half lengthwise and then into bite-sized pieces.
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