Mom’s Potato Soup, made vegan

I can remember the soup-drizzled pages of the 1988 Milk calendar that my mom kept with this recipe on it. It’s a simple, creamy, peppery potato soup that’s easily made vegan with a couple of substitutes. The original recipe can be found here. To be sure, as my vegan recipes likely indicate, I am necessarily against the use of dairy and other animal byproducts, for all of the reasons, and I hope that if you do decide to look at the website, you do it with an eye for vegan conversions ;)

I’ll be eating this up this week while I write some papers and wait for the warm weather to come. (I can hear my bike calling my name!)

Ingredients:

2Tbsp vegan butter (I used Earth Balance Butter, vegan Becel would work too)
3 medium potatoes, washed, peeled and diced
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 1/2 cp vegetable broth/stock (I used Knorr powdered stock)
1/4tsp dry thyme
1 1/2 cp non-dairy milk (I used almond)
1 1/2 cp of mozzarella Daiya shreds
Salt and fresh cracked pepper to taste (heavy on the pepper)

Directions:

Heat up the butter in a large saucepan. Add the onions and garlic and soften.

Add potatoes and combine well.

Add thyme and liquid stock (for powdered stock, add water and appropriate amount of powder) (with Knorr, 1 1/2cp of water gets 1 1/2tsp of powder).

Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and and cook gently covered for 20 minutes, until potatoes are tender.
Once tender, blend half of the soup either by transferring half to a blender and then back to the pot or using an immersion blender right in the pot. If using an immersion blender, don’t blend until it’s all smooth, leave a good amount of potato pieces.

After blending, add the milk and heat until it just starts to boil. Stir in daiya shreds until melted.

Add a dash of salt and a good amount of fresh pepper and serve with fresh crusty bread. Add some fresh cut chives or green onion on top for a bit of fresh colour and crunch.