Winter Squash and Tofu Soup

It looked like cornmeal. Yummy cornmeal. And made me really want cornbread or popped corn or anything corn. But no corn involved. I did snack on the popped pumpkin squash seeds I made while roasting the squash...

I based the soup on a recipe in Robin Robertson's One-Dish Vegetarian Meals cookbook. I roasted my long pumpkin squash on Saturday, and needed to use up some of the goodness. A can't eat it all herself!

I also had a block of soft tofu in the fridge, taking up precious space needed for our $200 haul from Fairway... I'm a little afraid of tofu, so I tend to use it blended in things, made into brownies, etc. One day I will be brave and try some of those great sounding and looking tofu recipes out there, but until that day, beans are my staple and tofu will be incorporated into my dishes.

Here's Sunday's dinner

Winter Squash and Tofu Soup
Ingredients
1 1/2 T extra virgin olive oil
1 red onion, chopped
1 huge clove garlic, minced
1/2 cup chopped (frozen) celery
1 large carrot, chopped
1 Yukon gold potato, chopped
1 1/4-1 1/2 cup roasted pumpkin squash
5 cups water
1 block soft tofu, crumbled
2 cups frozen brown rice
1/4-1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2-1 tsp coarse sea salt
1/4 tsp fine sea salt
1/2-1 tsp no-salt seasoning
1/4 tsp dried thyme
1/4 cup (or more) nutritional yeast

What to do
Heat big LeCreuset, heat olive oil, saute onion for 5 minutes. Add garlic, saute 2-3 minutes more. (I forgot the garlic, and sauteed and added it after the soup was a soup; it still worked. :))
Add the vegetables, water, seasonings, nutritional yeast, and rice. Crumble the tofu into the pot. Cook for 30 minutes, until vegetables are soft.
When all the veggies are soft, puree the soup, with an immersion blender or by batches in a blender or food processor. (The immersion blender makes this step SUPER easy.) Taste and add more salt or nutritional yeast or no-salt seasoning, whatever you think it needs.
Enjoy!

It's a full meal in a bowl. You could serve it with fresh parsley, but I couldn't find mine. (Turns out it was still in a bag in the living room, having been forgotten the previous day! I crashed when putting the kiddies to bed after our Fairways trip, and D didn't remember that the parsley was hiding out in a bag with sweet potatoes and other non-refrigeratables.)

J and I ate our soup with extra sprinkles (aka nutritional yeast) and I added some sprinklings of coarse sea salt to mine. YUM.