Cold Weather Comfort: Vegetarian Lasagna Soup

Lasagna in a bowl and a cheese crisp

I've went off my whole foods diet a little with Halloween. I ate more than my fair share of candy and cupcakes.  However, I'm sworn off unhealthy foods until Thanksgiving.  I think I should eat whatever I want to on the day of a holiday, so all bets are off on Thanksgiving day.  I'll write more about that later.  Now that the weather is getting cooler and fresh, local produce is harder to find I think it's soup season.

I saw a recipe for a soup that was supposed to taste like lasagna in a bowl.  Yum!  However, the soup was made for meat eaters (it was mostly meat, pasta and tomatoes).  I modified it and made it vegetarian and cut back a bit on the pasta.

I think modifying recipes is one of the things you need to learn to do when you're trying to eat healthier.  You can't be afraid to experiment in the kitchen, and soup is an easy thing to experiment with.  A lot of people still act shocked when I tell them I didn't use a recipe or that I modified a recipe.  A friend said, "You might as well just throw some crap in a bowl if you're not going to go by the recipe exactly."  Well, I agree with her.  You might as well throw some crap in a bowl.  What's the worst thing that is going to happen? You'll waste a few ingredients? The best thing?  You might end up with an awesome dish.

My problem is that since starting this blog, I've had to write down what I do.  Which is good, I guess. It means if I make something good I can repeat it.   For this soup, I just made a soup of what I normally put in my lasagna.

Instead of the goupy cheese the original recipe had on top, I made a crispy cheese "cracker."  I like a crunch in my soup.  I love goldfish crackers in soup, but they don't fit a healthy diet.  When I was a junk food vegetarian, I lived on goldfish.  I always had a bag around.  Straight Parmesan cheese "crackers" satisfy that goldfish craving nicely.  It's not the wheat I loved, but the crunchy, cheesy, saltiness.

My onions are big because I pick them out, but I like the flavor. I'm weird.

The first time I made this soup, I made it without the pasta.  I found adding just a little bit of pasta gave it more body (it mostly disintegrated and just made the broth more substantial). You could leave the pasta out entirely if you wanted to be gluten free, and it would still taste good.  I cooked my soup in a crockpot.  I love crockpots for soups.  The pasta would hold up better in a regular pot.


Vegetarian Lasagna Soup

2 tsp olive oil
3 cup chopped onions
2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 chopped bell pepper
1 cup of chopped broccoli florets
1 28-oz. can diced tomatoes (try to find one without sugar added, they do exist)
2 bay leaves
6 cups vegetable stock
1/2 c. finely chopped fresh basil leaves
salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1 handful of crushed lasagna noodles
2 cups of spinach

1.  Add everything except the noodles and the spinach to your pot or crockpot.  It's that easy to make soup. Really.
2. In a crockpot, cook on low for 3-4 hours.  In a regular pot, you probably only need to cook it for an hour or so.
3. Throw the noodles and spinach into the pot in the last 30 minutes for the crockpot or the last 15 minutes in a regular pot.  
4. Remove the bay leaves before serving.
5. Top with a cheese cracker (below).  You can also toss in a tablespoon full of cottage cheese before serving if you want even more cheese.  Ricotta will work too, but cottage cheese is a little healthier and much better at satiating you.  For the amount here, it won't matter much. 

Cheese "Crackers"
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup mozzarella cheese

Flat mounds

1. Cover a cookie sheet with parchment paper or a silpat.
2. Mound the cheese in 4 separate areas. Flatten the tops so the piles look even.
3. Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes, until starting to brown.  
4. Because of the mozzarella, these won't get "hard" like crackers, but I like them for soup.  If you want a harder cracker, straight Parmesan will crisp up. (just use a whole cup of Parmesan). 

This is how brown they should be.

It really does hit the lasagna spot, and look how healthy it is.  As with everything, these nutrtional values depend on the products you use.  I read the labels on a bunch of broth and canned tomatoes when I was at the store last.  The carb and calorie content varies widely between them.  Some of the canned tomato brands are loaded with corn syrup or other sugars.  I used my own stock (vegetable stock is easy to make), but canned tomatoes are one thing I buy.  There's no sense in making your own if tomatoes aren't in season, and not all canned tomatoes are loaded with junk.  You just really need to read the labels.

Nutrition Facts for Vegetarian Lasagna Soup

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Amount Per Serving (serves 6)

Calories:  192

Total fat: 10.7 g

Protein: 9.3 g

Total carbohydrate:  17.5 g

• Dietary Fiber: 3.3 g
• Sugar: 3.9 g

Nutrition Facts for Cheese Crackers

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Amount Per Serving (serves 4)

Calories:  105

Total fat: 8 g

Protein: 8 g

Total carbohydrate:  1 g

Braving Celery Root

A creature from another universe or food?

I don't normally eat things that look they've been stuck in the back of my fridge for a month.  I decided to give celery root, or celeriac, a try anyway. It's pretty nutritious and everyone says it makes a great addition to a healthy diet.  Hard to believe since it looks like something my cat could have coughed up.

Celery root is used a lot as a potato substitute. It has less than half the calories of a potato and one third of the carbs (reference). It's great for low carbers. However, nutrition wise, a cup of baked potato has about twice as much fiber, three times as much vitamin C, three times as much potassium and about the same amount of phosphorus. You're only cutting calories and carbs by substituting celeriac, not adding nutrients.  Celeriac is just less dense, with a higher water content than a potato.  That's helpful if you're trying to lose weight, but not if you're just trying to eat better. 

One cup of celeriac has 1.5 grams of protein, 9 grams of carbs, 42 calories and 1.9 grams of fiber. Vitamin C - 5.6 mg, Potassium - 268 mg, Phosphorus - 102 mg

One medium baked potato has 4.33 grams of protein, 27 grams of carbs, 161 calories and 3.8 grams of fiber. Vitamin C - 16.6 mg, Potassium - 926 mg, Phosphorus - 121 mg

Since this furry cousin of celery is a root vegetable I've always passed at the store and never thought twice about, I decided to purchase one and be brave.

Picking out a celery root is not that tough, if you can get past the hairy exterior. You want one that's firm, has no fleshy or soft spots and looks uniform in color. Like a lot of vegetables, smaller ones don't taste as woody as the large ones.

I had a problem at the checkout.  The young guy ringing up my groceries looked at it and then to me and said, "What is this?"
"It's celery root, or celeriac.  I'm not sure what it's listed under."
"Oh.  Is it supposed to look like this?"
"Well, I think so.  They all look like that."

He finally figured out how much to charge me.  Celery root is more expensive than a potato, in my experience.  The one pictured above was $3.  You can sometimes buy a whole bag of potatoes for that.

To prepare celery root, you have to wash and peel the skin. I tasted a piece raw. The raw piece had a strong celery flavor, but when I sampled a cooked piece I barely detected it. I hate raw celery (big surprise). This was actually much nicer. It has the flavor of celery but a nice, clean texture. It's more like a turnip in texture, which is so much nicer than the stringy celery plant.

I think I could like this vegetable.

For my first experience in celery root, I decided to make a very plain soup. I like my first sampling to be pretty plain.  I just used made my favorite leek soup, but used celery root instead of potatoes.

Celery Root and Leek Soup (6 servings)
2 tablespoons butter
Olive oil to coat pan
3 leeks (cleaned and chopped)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 large celery root (peeled and cubed)
3 cups of chicken stock
2 cups of water (or to taste)
Salt and Pepper to taste
1/2 cup whipping cream

1. Heat stock pot with butter and olive oil. When heated, add leeks and cook for a few minutes before adding garlic. Cook until translucent.
2. Add stock and celery root and simmer for about an hour. Check the celery root like you would a boiled potato. If you can pierce it with a fork, it's done.
3. Puree in a blender or use a stick blender until the desired consistency. I used my Vitamix. If the soup is too thick, which it probably will be, you can add the water (or add more stock if you want to). Season to taste.
4. Add the whipping creme and put the soup back in the stock pot. Reheat gently on low heat.

Great for a cold day.

I really liked the soup. It's said celery root tends to take the flavor of what it's cooked with, and this tasted as good as any leek soup I've ever had. Leek soup generally uses potato as a base, but leeks are such a  powerful flavor.  I always taste the texture of the potato more than the flavor. I can imagine spicing the soup up would make it even better. Also, if you really wanted a low fat soup, you could leave the whipping cream out.

Nutrition Facts

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Amount Per Serving (makes 6)

Calories: 122
Total fat: 9.5 g
Protein: 12 g
Total carbohydrate: 8.8 g

• Dietary Fiber: 1.1 g
  
• Sugar: 2.3 g

Cutting out the cream drops it to 87 calories, 5.8 grams of fat per serving. Protein drops to 1.5 grams and the carbs remain the same.