Achievement Unlocked: Radish Green Soup

I’m brand new to vegan cooking.  Six months ago, I would never have thought to make anything other than a salad, or perhaps compost, out of radish greens.  But when friends are coming over for the evening, I feel rather remiss if I don’t at least offer them dinner, so that’s fueled a good bit of experimenting lately.

I’ve also been on a home pickling bender of late; after those bread and butter pickles came scallions brined in a dead simple bath of white vinegar, dried dill, and salt.  Into that same jar in the fridge, I plunked seven large sliced radishes, microwaved the jar that a bit to kick-start the process, and shook it.  After leaving it in the fridge for a couple of hours, the vinegar was pink and the radishes were delightful.  That biting crunch that radishes are known for gets softened, but no less tasty, when pickled; I’d put them on a sandwich, but they’re just as tasty straight from the jar.

So, back to last night’s dinner.  I roasted some asparagus with olive oil, sea salt, and grinds of Everyday Seasoning; tasty, but hardly worth writing a recipe for.  (It’d be like those mayo jars that feature a recipe for a turkey sandwich.  Uh, thanks?)  Then I went on the Googlemachine and here’s what happened.

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This was adapted, heavily, from VeganVisitor.

1. Slice two bunches of radishes away from the greens.  Set aside radishes for another use.  Plunk the greens into a large pot of cold water, swishing to remove dirt.
2. Place greens in colander; reread recipe.  Dry pot.
3. Into newly dried pot, pour 1/4 cup of olive oil.  Turn heat to medium high and add two cups of vegetable stock.
4. Add radish greens to pot, along with generous helpings of whatever fresh herbs you have around.  In my case, this was about three inches of coarsely chopped spring onions, just the green part; two stalks’ worth of dill; six or seven mint leaves; and an inch and a half of dried chives.
5. Saute greens until wilted and fragrant.  Grind in some Everyday Seasoning.
6. When wilted and smelling very, very green, turn off heat and pour contents into food processor.
7. Puree until smooth…except that didn’t happen.  I have no idea how the wonderful Dayna of VeganVisitor got her soup looking like the photo, but that just never came together for me.  I had a sloshy mess of shredded greens in broth and certainly wasn’t going to serve that to my friends.  So…
8. Slice and boil the heck out of five red potatoes.  When that’s done, add those to the soup and puree until it starts to look at least somewhat thick and edible.  Since I was in mixed dining company, I resisted the temptation to add bacon; if not serving this to vegans, however, I think the perfect finish at this point would be some bacon.  And perhaps the grease, too.
9. Call vegan friend from another part of the house and request taste-testing of soup.  Friend decided that all soup needs is salt, so, add several generous shakes of salt and give it another whirl.  Re-test, and since it meets the vegan’s approval, stop tinkering with the soup and serve!

It tastes very…green.  And it’s honestly a rather fugly soup, so I’m probably not going to post a picture of this one.  But, it got sucked down well enough during a game of Arkham Horror, so I call that a success.  🙂