I work at the local pizza restaurant during the lunch hour when we usually stay busy serving pizza by the slice, breadsticks, sandwiches, wraps, fajitos, and on Fridays, enchiladas.

This winter, soup was added to the menu. My co-worker is a marvelous cook and prepares these soups a couple times each week, varying between potato soup, chicken noodle, pizza soup, and broccoli soup. Unfortunately none of these soups are intended to be vegetarian so I don’t eat them.

A few weeks ago I took her broccoli soup recipe home and adapted it to my vegetarian diet. I still use milk products so I added whole milk to my soup; if you’re vegan, you can eliminate that and substitute water or broth instead. (Yes, more adaptions, but I’m sure you can handle it.)

Here’s my version of our Broccoli Cream Soup without the chicken broth!

In a large soup pan heat three cups of water while you’re chopping veggies.

Chop one cup of carrots and toss them in the water.
Then chop one cup of celery. Toss it in.
Next, the broccoli. You’ll need four cups of that. Toss it in and let it boil for about three minutes.

Hint: chop the carrots and celery in small pieces, not large chunks.

Next you’re going to drain the water from the veggies. But save the broth! I put the broth back into my four-cup pyrex measuring cup and put the veggies in my strainer which sits in the sink until I need them again.

The next thing you’ll need is an onion. Chop about 3/4 of a cup of onion and put it into the large soup pan with six tablespoons of butter. Heat the onions, stirring, stirring, until they are tender.

Add six tablespoons of flour, and stir until creamy. Work it all in.

Now gently and slowly, add back in your three cups of vegetable broth, stirring it into the floury onion-butter mixture so that everything is even and not lumpy.

Next add two cups of milk if you use milk. If not, stir in two cups of water.

Heat it up! You need for this to boil for at least a minute, and if you’re using milk, you’d better stir constantly.

Next add back in your veggies (remember, the ones you boiled earlier?)

To this mixture add one tablespoon parsley, one and a half teaspoons of salt, and half a teaspoon of garlic powder.

Simmer covered for 35 to 40 minutes.

Serve with warm tortillas, quesadillas, buttered french bread, or whatever you have that sounds and tastes good to you!

We get about four servings out of this soup.

It is my honor to introduce some of the finest new blog posts about vegetarian eating and cooking. The dedicated vegetarian bloggers who contributed to this carnival look forward to your comments about living life, vegetarian style.

International Pleasures

Michael, The Vegetarian Foodie, described the Vietnamese Sandwiches he buys. His article will make you wish you were in Seattle.

On the other side of the country, VnV, who blogs at Vegetarian Monologues, tried a variety of international-style vegetarian restaurants and wrote A Vegetarian in New York City.

The Harvest Is In

Stephanie at Stop The Ride has a great Zucchini Strudel recipe online for us: Too Much Zucchini?.

Lucynda, blogger at Quietly Into The Night, has been harvesting her Roma tomatoes and setting them out to dry. Her post on Making Sun Dried Tomatoes tells the story of how she makes and uses them.

Recipes To Try Out

I’m impressed by the Expat Chef’s culinary confidence as he explains Roasted Ratatouille — No Rodents (thank goodness) at The Expatriate’s Kitchen.

Annette, the Frugal Journey cook, gives us a great pasta recipe: Bowties With Black Olives and Sun Dried Tomatoes.

Stretch Mark Mama suggests hearty lentils with rice as a taco meat replacement for new vegetarians: Food Fixin’ Friday: Mexican Style Lentils and Rice. I have to agree with her; I’ve been vegetarian many years and still love lentils with rice in corn tortillas.

Lisa, who blogs at Lisa’s Kitchen, shares a mouth-watering recipe for Paneer Cheese and Vegetables in a Creamy Gravy. I admire this kind of gourmet cooking.

The Conscious Mom, Shrijnana, plans to share her kid-friendly Sunday brunch menus with us regularly. This time she gives us the recipe for a vegan form of quiche and Garlic-Thyme Home Fries in Vegan Sunday Brunch 8/5/2007.

Amanda, the foodie at Eat… and Be Merry suggests a simple and summery pasta recipe, Penne with Vegetable Marinara, in her post: Quick and Easy Monday Night Pasta. Her photo makes this look so good!

Gillian Polack is a Food History expert who offers two classic Australian recipes for biscuits in Biscuits from the Barossa. Very helpful and intriguing.

A Special Treat

Leo at the Organic Test Kitchen tells us the secret to making the best organic Cookies and Cream Ice Cream. Thanks, Leo!

…

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this carnival. I am inspired by your cooking and menu ideas and amazed by the vegetarian food blogging talent out there.

The home page for the Vegetarian Blog Carnival is found at Veggie Chic’s Blog and the next carnival will be hosted there on August 27. You can participate! Submit a vegetarian post at the carnival submission form by August 26. See you then!

Vegan Visitor is a blog that invites you in with scrumptious recipes and colorful photography. The author starts her introduction by writing, “This is a guide to fill you, satisfy and demystify vegan cuisine.” Then she tells the story of her consternation at learning her fiancé’s parents, who were coming to dinner, were vegans. She had no idea what to serve them and had to research in cookbooks to figure out what to cook. That was a while back; now she’s a regular at vegan cooking and shares her recipes on her blog.

This blog is nominated for the Blogger’s Choice award. It would be nice to take time to vote for it while you’re checking it out.

One major thing I feel is missing from the blog is more description about the writer. I really prefer blogs where you can get to know the person who’s doing the writing. She’s got a great writing style, but there’s no name or picture to go with it. Still her personal stories are interesting and her talent for cooking is obvious. I recommend a look at her recipe blog, for anyone who enjoys vegan food.

Now I’ve got to hurry to get ready for work, and I’ll be out of town this evening and hopefully tomorrow. Today is my birthday and my boyfriend is taking me out on the town in the Eureka, California area. Have fun this Friday night.

It’s that day again. I’m putting on my hat and heading out the door to see what another blogger is up to. Today I’m dropping in on The Pioneer Woman Cooks - another country-style cook, albeit not a vegetarian like I am. That doesn’t mean we can’t learn something from her blog.

The first thing I noticed is that she’s got way too many photographs on the main page - and there’s no way I’ll get them all to load because I’m on dial-up. So I chose a single recipe page and . . . I’m still waiting . . . It is at times like this when I think I may someday break down and get DSL, which is the other option out here in the boonies, for those who can afford it. I hear our prices on DSL are higher than elsewhere.

Still loading.

The second thing I noticed was that The Pioneer Woman’s blog is friendly, personable, and has character. She says her name is Ree. She is the main character, and her side-kick, The Marlboro Man, is apparently her husband. In any case, we get to know who’s there and to put a face to it she has some retro-type graphics showing what she wants us to believe she looks like. In any case, it is cute and entertaining. Almost enough for me to want to do a blog makeover and hire a quality graphic artist to make a cool header for my blog too!

I’m looking at this page: Orange Mini-Muffins with Brown Sugar Glaze.

The Pioneer Woman has a popular blog - not just because she’s a strong, interesting personality - but because she illustrates her cooking experience with step-by-step photos, and that’s just what some people need to have the confidence to try out the recipes she features. And she doesn’t use recipes that are too difficult or confusing for common people. Not only that, she uses ingredients most people have at hand. She says, “I’m a desperate housewife. I live in the country. I love to cook delicious, abundant, satisfying food using the simplest of ingredients. Welcome to my kitchen!” Right away we feel like we know her, identify with her, and want to cook like her.

Still loading.

Well, this site is probably great for people with better internet connections than I have, and is a superb example of what a successful cooking blog can be. You can see she loves cooking and is dedicated to sharing that love and knowledge with people everywhere. I highly recommend a look at her site, to any food bloggers out there. The Pioneer Woman is an expert cook who exudes enthusiasm for her work.

The Pioneer Woman’s blog is insanely popular. The recipe I’m looking at was posted late in June, and has 63 comments on it already. Her fans love her home country cooking, and the detailed instructions. One of the comments suggests some changes to the recipe to make it perfect for vegans. Another says, “I love that you do the printable recipe, now! That helps alot!!” I tried the printable recipe link - it opened a doc file in my Open Office word processing program. Very cool!

There are 35 step-by-step photographs for this one recipe alone. Many of them are still loading into my browser, even though I’ve written all this. When I was a web designer, I tried to keep images to a six-per-page limit for quick loading. But these days with the fast connections, the image-heavy pages are acceptable to most. And for young cooks needing help and inspiration, The Pioneer Woman’s style is ideal.

As I finish this article, I see all the photos are displayed in my browser now, but the page is still loading. ::sigh:: Sometimes I feel so behind the times. Seriously, my town is known for being a throw-back to an earlier time here in California. We’re as remote as you can get in this state. People come here and feel like they’ve stepped back twenty years. Only recently we’ve gotten better cell phone reception and suddenly I see people carrying them around town more frequently. Before this, it was common to see tourists standing on Highway 96 looking desperate as they tried to get their cell phones to work!