Vegan Squash Blossom Soup (Sopa de Flor de Calabaza)

This isn't necessarily the traditional way of making sopa de flor de calabaza. I've never really had the traditional version. But I do tend to have a lot of squash blossoms on hand, and I was tired of squash blossom quesadillas and tlacoyos. So I threw this together, and it was delicious.

This is a soup for gardeners, because you won't find squash blossoms (flores de calabaza) in your local gringo grocery store. Just wait until the flowers on your summer squash vines are in bloom or just opening, and snip them. I promise more will grow back and you'll still have more summer squash than you know what to do with.

Summer squash, by the way, is any squash that has a soft, edible skin. Zucchini is a summer squash, for example. Pumpkin and butternut are not.

INGREDIENTS:

• 20 squash blossoms with stems removed, divided
• 3 plum or roma tomatoes
• 3/4 small white onion, chopped and divided
• 1 chile (Your choice based on your heat preferences.  I used a serrano and it was perfect for me.)
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 cups cubed summer squash
• 6 tablespoons olive oil, divided
• salt to taste
• 6 cups water
• 2 teaspoons MSG (optional)
• 1 sprig fresh epazote or 1 teaspoon dried epazote or 1 sprig fresh parsley
• 1/4 cup texturized vegetable protein (TVP, optional)

PREPARATION:

1. Quarter the tomatoes and put them in the blender.  Add chile, the equivalent of 1/2 a small onion (leaving the other 1/4 aside for now), 10 squash blossoms, garlic, and blend until liquified.  Add a small amount of water to facilitate blending, if necessary.
2. Heat 3 tablespoons olive oil in a clay pot or large pot.  Add the puree from the blender and simmer until the tomatoes are cooked (the puree will turn a darker red).
3. While the tomato puree is cooking, heat the other 3 tablespoons olive oil in a cast iron pan.  Add remaining onion and squash blossoms and all the cubed squash.  Saute until squash is just cooked.
4. Add the squash/onion/blossom saute to the pot with the tomato puree.  Add water, epazote, and TVP and MSG, if using.  
5. Salt to taste and simmer ten minutes to let flavors blend.

Serve with crusty bread or warm corn tortillas.  Serves 2-3.

Vegan Chickpea and Dumplings Soup

This recipe tastes so much like chicken and dumplings soup that I would have thought it was made with chicken if I hadn't prepared it myself.

You can use canned chickpeas in a pinch, but I really do recommend that you use dried.  The chickpea cooking liquid is used as the soup base here.  It gives it a little more "chicken" taste.

INGREDIENTS: 

The Soup:

• 3 cups cooked chickpeas
• 1.5 liters chickpea cooking liquid (if you don't have that much cooking liquid left over, add water to the chickpea cooking liquid until you reach 1.5 liters)
• 2 spring onions, chopped
• 1 medium carrot, chopped
• 2 stalks celery, chopped
• 1 cup fresh or frozen peas
• 2 tsp poultry seasoning or hierbas finas
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 sprig fresh parsley
• 1 chile, finely chopped (optional)
• 2 tsp MSG
• salt to taste

The Dumplings:

• 2 cups flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 TB minced fresh parsley
• 3/4 cup soy milk (you can also use regular milk here for a non-vegan version)
• 1/4 cup canola oil

PREPARATION:

1. Put all soup ingredients in a large pot and bring to a boil.  Lower heat and simmer.  While the soup is simmering, prepare the dumplings:
2. Mix dry dumpling ingredients and fresh parsley together.  Add milk and canola oil and mix with a fork.
3. Let dumpling mixture sit at least 5 minutes, until the vegetables in the soup are cooked through.
4. When the soup vegetables are cooked through, turn the heat up on the soup to bring it to a rapid boil.  Drop spoonfuls of the dumpling dough into the boiling soup.
5. Cover the soup, lower the heat so that the soup remains at a simmer, and simmer for 10 minutes.
6. Ladle two dumplings and soup into bowls.

Serves 4-6.

Vegetarian Not-Tuna Salad

This not-tuna salad recipe is delicious, easy, and fast.  My husband, a big fan of seafood, was surprised at how much it tasted like real tuna.  My vegetarian friend gave me funny looks as he ate his not-tuna sandwich; he was still trying to decide if I was telling the truth about it being vegetarian or if I had tricked him into eating fish.

The fishy taste comes from the nori, which is the same seaweed used in sushi.  Seaweed is high in vitamin B, and even contains vitamin B-12.  So eat up.  And nori never goes bad, so don't be afraid to save some money per sheet and buy the larger pack.

It's easy to make this salad vegan--just use vegan mayonnaise.

If you're looking for something a little less spicy, you could replace the canned jalapeño with with a dill pickle or dill pickle relish.  I've just never seen a dill pickle in Mexico.  Wait, that's not true.  I saw one once: it was floating in a jar of pickled chile peppers.

INGREDIENTS:

• 3 cups cooked or canned chickpeas (garbanzo beans)
• 1 spring onion, chopped (white and green parts)
• 1 stalk celery, chopped
• 1 small clove garlic, minced
• 1 rajas (strips) canned jalapeños (equivalent to half a jalapeño), minced
• 1/2 sheet nori, shredded
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise (vegans, use vegan version)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp ground black pepper

PREPARATION:

1. Place the chickpeas in a large bowl.  Mash them with a potato masher, or smash them with the bottom of a glass cup.  You want the mashed chickpeas to be chunky; you're not making hummus.  
2. Fold in remaining ingredients.
3. This recipe is light on the mayonnaise.  Add more if desired.
4. Serve with lettuce and sliced tomatoes on bread.  

Vegan Un-Chicken Barley Soup

I knew this soup was a winner when my husband tasted it and exclaimed, "Wow! This really does taste like chicken."  You see, my husband is a meat-eater.  But not just any old meat-eater.  He was raised in a town where the only meat you can find is fresh, never frozen.  So when he thought my Un-Chicken Barley Soup actually tasted like chicken soup, well, I think that says something.

Most un-chicken soups I've seen assume that cooks have access to fancy condiments like vegetarian chicken-flavored bouillon.  Not in Mexico.  

However, in Mexico we do sometimes have access to this soup's secret ingredient: MSG.  I found some in a little stand that was part of a Chinese food restaurant in a tiny mountain town where I used to live.  If you are lucky enough to come across MSG, buy a bag.  You can also purchase MSG online.  It's cheap and lasts forever because you use so little in every recipe.

Scared by the anti-MSG hype?  I can't find evidence that a little MSG every now and then causes health problems in adults.  However, feel free to use the comments section to argue otherwise.

INGREDIENTS:

• 3 liters water
• 1/2 cup onion, chopped
• 2 medium carrots, chopped
• 2 stalks celery, chopped
• 1 chile, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 handful (about 1/3 cup) texturized vegetable protein (TVP)
• 1/2 cup pearl barley
• 2 TB dry parsley or 2 stalks fresh parsley
• 1 1/2 tsp poultry seasoning (sold as hierbas finas in Mexico)
• 1 TB soy sauce
• 3 tsp MSG
• 1 bay leaf
• salt and pepper to taste

PREPARATION:

1. Put water in a large pot to boil.
2. Add remaining ingredients.
3. Simmer until vegetables are soft and barley is cooked (about 30-45 minutes).
4. Adjust salt to taste and serve.

Serves 4-6.

Mexican Noodle Soup (Sopa de Fideo)

This soup is generally served as part of a multi-course meal.  Traditionally, it is simply pasta in tomato broth, no vegetables added.  However, last night we found some vegetables in the fridge and texturized vegetable protein in the cabinet, and we turned this soup into a meal.

Texturized vegetable protein (also known as TVP) is surprisingly easy to find in Mexico--more so than in the United States.  It's sold as "soya" in natural food stores in the Mexico City metro or in the bulk foods section of your local grocery store.

INGREDIENTS:

• 5 plum tomatoes
• 1/4  medium onion, roughly chopped
• 2-3 cloves garlic
• 1-2 dried chile de arbol OR 1-2 jalepeños
• 3 cups water plus more for blending
• 1 200-gram bag small pasta, uncooked
• 1/8 cup canola or vegetable oil
• 1-2 stalks fresh epazote (1 teaspoon dried) OR 2 stalks fresh parsely
• 1 medium carrot, chopped (optional)
• 1 stalk celery, chopped (optional)
• 1/3 cup texturized vegetable protein (TVP)

PREPARATION:

1. Quarter tomatoes and put them in a blender with the onion, chile, and garlic.  Add enough water to cover the tomatoes.  Blend until liquified.
2. In a large pot, heat the oil.  Add the pasta and fry, stirring constantly until it begins to brown.  As soon as it begins to brown, add 3 cups water and contents of blender.  Stir to make sure no pasta is sticking to the pot.
3. Add epazote or parsely.  Add vegetables and TVP, if using.
4. Cook until pasta and vegetables are thoroughly cooked and TVP is re-hydrated.
5. Serve with warm corn tortillas.

Serves 4.

Scrambled Eggs al la Mexicana (Mexican-Style)

This is a simple recipe for scrambled eggs.  I make it several times a week because of all of the Mexican breakfasts, it is by far the easiest and quickest.  That's right, I make it several times a week--here in Mexico we eat eggs for breakfast nearly every day.  And if we don't eat them for breakfast, we eat them as part of another meal.

I added a mild option, replacing chile with green bell pepper.  It's sacrilegious, but I know that not everyone likes chile.

Mexicans generally prepare their eggs (and all other food) in vegetable oil.  I don't like vegetable oil because it is generally at least half soybean oil (and who knows what else), which is very high in saturated fat.  Saturated fat is one of the worst fats: your body turns it into cholesterol.  While diet's role in a person's cholesterol levels is still being debated, one thing's for sure: saturated fat is not your friend.  For that reason, vegetable oil is not your friend, either.

When I'm cooking, I prioritize two things: health and flavor.  Vegetable oil is neither healthy nor flavorful, so I never use it and you won't find it in my kitchen.  Olive oil, which I use in this recipe to fry the vegetable ingredients, is relatively low in saturated fat and contains some "good fats."  It is also very flavorful and makes a wonderful combination with the vegetables.  However, I've found that frying eggs in olive oil has less-than-desirable results.  Butter, however, is by far the best fat to fry your eggs.  It's not healthy, but it sure is flavorful!

Another thing you won't find in my kitchen is non-stick cookware.  That stuff causes cancer.  For frying eggs, I use a heavy-duty stainless steel frying pan.  You need to use more oil with a stainless steel pan than you would with a non-stick one, but I do think it's worth it.  If you are using a non-stick pan, feel free to reduce the oil.

INGREDIENTS

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1-2 tablespoons butter
• 2 plum or roma tomatoes, diced
• 1 chile, chopped (jalepeño for milder eggs, serano if you want a very spicy breakfast) OR 1/4 cup chopped green bell pepper
• 1/4 cup diced white onion
• 5 eggs
• salt to taste

PREPARATION

1. Heat the olive oil in an 8-inch frying pan over medium heat.  Don't let the oil smoke; that means you're burning it.
2. Add tomatoes, chile, and onion.  Fry until onion is translucent.  Add a little more olive oil if the tomatoes start to stick during frying.
3. Add butter.  Use less if a decent amount of olive oil remains from frying the vegetables; use more butter if the vegetables have soaked up a lot of the oil.  The goal here is that your eggs don't stick.
4. Add eggs.  You can either crack them right in the pan or you can crack them in a separate bowl and beat them and then add them.  Obviously, cracking them straight into the pan is much easier.
5. Scramble the eggs and add salt to taste before they're cooked through.
6. Serve with warm corn tortillas and Basic Beans, Mexican Style.

Serves 2.