Small Bowl #6

 

Here we have a veggie-packed savory muffin (recipe from Rainbow Nourishments) with some homemade tomato pasta soup (roughly following the recipe from Ela Vegan). 

This meal didn't use any non-perishables I wouldn't normally have on hand, and seemed like a good way to use some of a big bag of roma tomatoes I'd bought and some other produce that needed using (zucchini, carrots, red bell pepper, and spinach). But it left something to be desired. I garnished the soup with some vegan Parmesan after the photo was taken and that helped. So did adding some margarine and salt to the muffins as I ate them. The basic muffin recipe worked out pretty great, but it definitely needed more flavor. Next time, I'd add more nutritional yeast, some vegan cheese, and a bit more salt.

What was interesting to me is that both the soup leftovers and the muffin leftovers were better the next day! Usually that only goes for the soup. I did boil the noodles separately and store them separately so they wouldn't soak up all the soup and get soggy, which is a really important thing to do if you're making a soup with noodles. (Or maybe not really important, so much as a nice thing. Important is kind of a strong word. It's just soup.) In any case, I ended up really, really enjoying both the soup and the muffins after they'd had a chance to sit in the fridge overnight.

To boost the proteins, I used protein-boosted pasta and substituted cashews for the vegan cream in the soup. I also made the muffins with soy milk and was generous with the pumpkin seed garnish. It worked out fine, but because I wasn't fully satisfied, I made dessert.

It was just a slice of toast with peanut butter, chocolate, and vegan mini marshmallows, but it really hit the spot.