Tomato and Sweet Pepper Bisque and Grilled Daiya Sandwich

I’ve been going through a lot of changes over the past couple of weeks and am finding these last few months of winter exhausting. While I was working over at Jessica’s place this morning, I felt myself in dire need of some comfort – a warm hug from mom at just the right moment. Unfortunately, my mom didn’t happen to be standing outside the door with open arms (but wouldn’t that have been cosmic if she had?) so I jumped in the kitchen and started to prepare the next best thing: tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich.

With a few tweaks to accommodate our now more refined (and vegan) palettes, I created a fresh tomato and sweet pepper bisque and a grilled Daiya sandwich that was reminiscent of a simpler time in our lives. It was nice…

Ingredients:

2 tbsp olive oil

2 small yellow onions, chopped

8 roma tomatoes, roughly chopped ($5.68 got 8 gorgeous roma tomatoes on sale at Choices)

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 bay leaf

1 bouillon cube

½ tsp cayenne

4 small, sweet red mini peppers, chopped

4 cups water

¼ cup chopped fresh dill

1 tsp maple syrup

Method:

In a large saucepan, heat olive oil over medium heat, add chopped onion and saute for a couple of minutes. Add garlic, bay leaf, bouillon cube, fresh cracked pepper and cayenne and stir. Saute for a couple more minutes. Add peppers and water and bring to boil. Then reduce heat to medium low and simmer for 20 minutes. Turn off heat and let cool slightly.

Now prepare the sandwiches…

2 pieces of your fav whole grain bread – brushed with grapeseed oil and rubbed with garlic clove

1 tsp grainy mustard

about 1/4 cup of Daiya for each sandwich

Assemble sandwich and heat in a small fry pan over medium heat, oil side down. Flip when golden and crispy. Make sure daiya is fully melted, then remove from heat.

Back to the soup…

Add dill to the soup pot. Add to blender, making sure not to overfill – do it in batches if necessary. Pour back into pot and finish with maple syrup and a bit more salt, to taste. Lastly, drizzle with olive oil, if you like.

This recipe makes about 8 cups of soup.

~The Vegan Project