"I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re doing something." ~Neil Gaiman
I shared this quote in my newsletter this week, and I think it’s going to be my guide for 2017. Heck, I might even frame it for my office! I tend to shy away from things if I don’t think I can do them well, and this quote reminds me to take more risks in the year to come. My goal list tends to be pretty lofty at the start of each year, but I’m also not too hard on myself if I only complete a portion of them, which is usually the case. Seeing as it’s the new year, I thought it might be fun to update you on what we’ve been up to so far and what some of our goals are.
As you may have seen, we launched the Android version of the Oh She Glows Recipe App Monday after months of preparation. We can’t thank you enough for your support, excitement, and kind words!
On Monday we sent out the latest issue (#11) of In the Glow, sharing healthy recipe ideas for the new year, as well as exciting OSG news tidbits. Starting (and growing) a newsletter was one of our goals for 2016. We sent out our first one on February 9, 2016, followed by 9 more issues over the course of the year. We’re now over 40,000 subscribers and growing! THANK YOU. I’m hoping to send out a survey at some point this year so you can let me know what you want to see more (or less) of.
You may have seen that we’re looking to expand our team. Right now our small-but-fierce team consists of myself, Eric, Shari (Content Editor), and Nicole (Recipe Tester). This year we’d like to hire a Video Content Creator (details on the position here), and potentially, a Social Media Specialist and RD or Holistic Nutritionist intern. (As you may know, the latter two were hiring goals for 2016, but ones that didn’t end up happening due to how busy things were. Thank you to everyone who applied for those positions, and rest assured we haven’t forgotten!)
On the personal side of things, I’m hoping to make progress with my anxiety this year. It’s a never-ending struggle, and tends to be on my goal list each year, but I’m going to keep on with it. I’ve found that postpartum hormones have been making my anxiety a bit worse than usual, and I’m going to take some active steps in 2017 to, hopefully, improve how I feel.
Let’s see, what else? I’ve been hard at work developing recipes for the app. Last week I added 3 new recipes—Brownie Breakfast Bake, Easy Nut-Free Taco Salad, and Dill Pickle Smoothie—to the app. We launched the new Get Glowing Bundle last week, too, which contains 5 “reset button” recipes to kick off the new year. The app bundle is 99 cents, and for the month of January all of our revenue from this bundle will be donated to Blessings in a Backpack Canada. This charity ensures children in need receive backpacks filled with food every Friday throughout the school year, so they can return to class on Monday well fed and ready to learn. It’s awesome to be working with BIB again!
On the blog front, I’m starting to bookmark old recipes that are in desperate need of some updating—such as my Broccoli and Cheese Soup. The original recipe was posted back in 2011, and I took one look at the recipe and its photos and knew I had to breathe some life back into it with a fresh new approach. Last year I also started adding metric conversions to my recipes, and I’ll continue to share these calculations for each new recipe in the future. It’s tedious (mainly because I weigh each solid ingredient), but I love hearing from those of you in the UK and elsewhere who find it incredibly helpful! I want you to have similar results, ya know?! If there are any other old blog recipes that you’d like to see revamped in 2017, please drop me a comment below. I’d love to hear your ideas!
There are some other goals on our radar this year, but this feels long-winded enough for now.
Cheers to making mistakes, trying new things, and learning as we go in 2017!
Vegan Broccoli and Cheese Soup
Yield
8 cups (2 litres)
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
Like a big, cozy sweater, this soothing soup will help you get through the long winter. It combines my love for broccoli and cheese sauce, while doing without the dairy-based cream or cheese. This is a bit of a fussy soup (think weekend, not weeknight) as it involves a few homemade components (cheese sauce, soup, and homemade croutons), so you’ll need an hour start to finish. If you can make the cheese sauce the day before, that’ll help streamline things!
This soup is adapted from my 2011 version. The cheese sauce is lightly adapted from my cheese sauce in Oh She Glows Every Day.
Ingredients
For the cheese sauce:
- 1 1/4 cups (190 g) diced peeled yellow or red potatoes*
- Heaping 1/3 cup (55 g) diced peeled carrots*
- 2 tablespoons (6 g) nutritional yeast
- 2 tablespoons (30 mL) refined coconut or grapeseed oil**
- 2 1/2 tablespoons (37.5 mL) water
- 1 1/2 teaspoons (7.5 mL) fresh lemon juice
- 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 medium (4 g) garlic clove
- 1/2 teaspoon (2.5 mL) white wine vinegar
For the soup:
- 1 tablespoon (15 mL) extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 medium (350 g) onion, diced (2 heaping cups)
- 3 medium (13 g) garlic cloves, minced
- 1 cup (120 g) chopped celery
- 5 to 6 cups (350 g) chopped broccoli florets
- 1 1/2 cups (225 g) chopped Yukon Gold potatoes (about 2 medium)
- 3 cups (750 mL) low-sodium vegetable broth
- 2 tablespoons (6 g) nutritional yeast
- 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper, or to taste
- 1 1/2 teaspoons (7.5 mL) fresh lemon juice, or to taste
- Fine sea salt, to taste (I use 1/2 teaspoon)
- Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 1 1/2 teaspoons to 3 teaspoons (7.5 to 15 mL) chickpea miso, to taste***
For topping:
- Pan-Fried Garlic Croutons (use gluten-free bread if necessary)****
- Smoked or sweet paprika
- Fresh minced parsley
Directions
- For the cheese sauce: Place the potatoes and carrots in a medium pot and add water to cover. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce the heat to medium, and simmer uncovered for 10 to 15 minutes, until fork-tender. Drain.
- While the potatoes and carrots are simmering, add the nutritional yeast, oil, water, lemon juice, salt, garlic, and vinegar into a high-speed blender and set aside.
- Chop the onions, garlic, celery, broccoli, and potatoes for the soup and set aside.
- When the simmering potatoes and carrots are fork-tender, drain them and add to the blender. Blend the cheese sauce until smooth, then transfer to a bowl.
- For the soup: In a large pot, sauté the oil, onion, and garlic over medium heat, stirring frequently. Cook for about 3 to 5 minutes.
- To the pot, add the celery, broccoli, and potatoes and sauté for a few minutes more. Now, add the broth, nutritional yeast, cayenne pepper, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Cover and simmer over medium heat for about 13 to 15 minutes, until the potatoes are fork-tender. Turn off the heat and let the soup sit for a few minutes. Add the chickpea miso.
- Carefully transfer the soup into a blender (you might have to do this in two batches). Blend until smooth and place back into the pot.
- Set aside 1/4 cup (60 mL) of cheese sauce for garnish. Add the rest of the cheese sauce into the soup and stir to combine. Adjust seasonings to taste if desired.
- Ladle the soup into bowls and swirl in a tablespoon of the reserved cheese sauce into each bowl. Top with Pan-Fried Garlic Croutons, paprika, and parsley, if desired.
Tip:
* To cut down on cooking time, be sure to dice the potatoes and carrots very small.
** Refined coconut oil doesn’t have a coconut flavour, which is why I love it in the cheese sauce. Grapeseed oil also has a neutral flavour, but if you don’t have either you can probably get away with a light-tasting olive oil.
*** I love chickpea miso, it’s light in flavour and often soy-free (be sure to check the label, though). If you can’t find chickpea miso, any light or white miso should do the trick! I like a full 3 teaspoons of chickpea miso in this soup, but depending on the flavour of your miso you might prefer a bit less.
**** Instead of bread-based croutons, you can top this soup with my Roasted Chickpea Croutons.
This sounds so yummy!
Rachael xx.
theteacozykitchen.blogspot.co.uk
Postpartum hormones are the worst! At 23 weeks pregnant with my miracle baby after docs told me 0% of getting pregnant after 13 failed IUI’s and 1 whopping horrible IVF cycle, I’m with you on the anxiety. I’m trying to tackle it with diet and consistent exercise, but it’s never easy. Being off all those fertility drugs is helping a lot though!
I honestly didn’t know you could make vegan cheddar/broccoli soup but your spin looks fabulous and I will be trying it this weekend! Thank you =
Congratulations on your pregnancy, Laura–I’m wishing you and your growing family all the best. I hope you enjoyed the soup!
I love the looks of this soup! I was surprised to see this recipe come up in my feed this morning. It was one day late for me since I just made a big batch of my own vegan broccoli cheese soup last night. I will have to try again with the ideas you have here. Thank you for your blog and books. They really help me. We are mostly dairy-free vegetarian at home and sometimes I just need new inspiration. This year I want to work to “know” a lot more dairy free recipes by heart so that meal prep is easier.
I think you should definitely unearth the 5-ingredient date bars. I’ve made them so many times I no longer use the recipe…and really it’s just a template, because there are so many substitution options! I feel like the date paste in the middle makes them more special than just a regular Lara bar replica. One of my faves from your archives :-)
Thanks for the great suggestion, Hannah. I’ll definitely keep it in mind!
Hi there Angela!
I am so excited to try out this recipe in the cold days ahead to keep me extra cozy :) I actually have a question about the newsletter. I signed up for it, but don;t seem to be getting it sent to my e-mail address (in spam or in my regular inbox). I’m not quite sure what’s going on there! Just wanted to give you a heads up and see if anyone else was having any problems.
Also, while I’m here, thank you so much for all that you do! I’ve never made a recipe of yours I don’t like (most recently obsessed with your chickpea pancake and all that I can find to put on top of it!) and I have converted many a friend over to your delicious way of cooking :)
I am also signed up for the newsletter but not receiving it. I’ve checked my spam/junk mail folder but nothing. I’ve tried re-entering my email in the OSG sign up page but no luck. I would love to receive the newsletter, because everything OSG related is amazing!!
Thanks for letting us know, Courtney! We’ll check things out at our end, and if you could try adding newsletter [at] ohsheglows [dot] com to your contacts that might help with successful delivery as well.
I had also signed up for the newsletter and was initially receiving it, but have not recently received copies (?).
Sorry to hear that Jennifer! Thanks for letting us know. Please see my response to Courtney above. :)
Hi Hannah, Thanks so much for the kind words! :) I hope you enjoy the soup when you get a chance to give the recipe a try. I love it for keeping warm and toasty on cold wintry days!
As to the issues you’ve encountered with receiving the newsletter, we’ll look into things at our end to see if anything may be amiss with your subscription. You could also try adding newsletter [at] ohsheglows [dot] com to your contacts; this should help ensure that it gets delivered to your inbox!
Hope that helps!
Wow this looks amazing! I was just thinking about broccoli and cheese soup the other day. I haven’t had it for years and it looks like this is the perfect time to bring it back into my life! Can’t wait to try it out!
This was the second of your recipes I ever tried and it made me fall in love with your recipes. This is still one of my all-time favourites, along with the creamy avocado pasta :)
In case you haven’t encountered it, King Arthur’s ingredient weight guide can make all that weighing conversion so much easier!
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/learn/ingredient-weight-chart.html
Oh my goodness, this looks so delicious! Saving the recipe for a rainy day ♥
Amy // snippetsofamy.co.uk
The soup looks delish! Thank you so much for adding the measures in grams — I’m Canadian and much prefer using weight rather than volume, since it’s far more accurate and convenient!
I love everything about this!!! That cheese sauce is to die for! <3 xo
I’d like to see dimensions of tins and baking dishes please :-)
I don’t know what size a 2.5 litre square tin is as we measure our tins in inches.
I love the sound of the above recipe and have thoroughly enjoyed all the recipes I’ve made from your blog and your book I treated myself too. Many thanks.
I found your blog back in 2010 and we’ve been loving it (and both cookbooks and app!) ever since:) Your Canadian maple baked beans are a favourite staple in our house over the fall and winter, wouldn’t mind seeing that one revived!
Holy smokes woman! You are like a super hero!?!
I follow you on instagram and I’m absolutley amazed on all the recipes you create, as well as being a mother. Last year when you spread the word you were pregnant with Arlo, I was so happy and excited for you. I reached out to you because my husband and I had been trying for our second for 8 months! Low and behold, we eventually did concieve and now I am 6 months with our second (and last!) girl!! Sooooooo happy and blessed.
Anyway, thought I would share, I can only hope that I can juggle my blog, recipe testing, and being a mother of two as suave’ (definitley think this word is wrong but you get the gist) as you! Cheers to 2017…I have a feeling it’s going to be a good one!
Huge congrats on your pregnancy, Anne! That’s such wonderful news. :)
This looks so good – I can’t wait to give it a try! Also, I can really relate with your struggle to overcome anxiety – it’s so tough. Good luck with your goals for the new year!
-Sammy
http://www.sammyboycebal.com/
Omg this looks so yummy! Definitely making this soon. As for ideas of recipe revamping, the Pumpkin Maple Baked Bean Cornbread Casserole! A pumpkin pie overnight oats would be bomb too though haha :)
Thanks for the great suggestions, Gaby! I hope you love the soup when you try it. :)
Angela,
Been trying for the last few hours to download the latest “Detox Bundle” on my i-Pad mini 2, with no success (it keeps ‘trying’ but never downloads; no payment issue, as the payment has gone through, in fact when I retry downloading, it says it will try to ‘restore’ the bundle since the purchase was already made). Never had any issues downloading bundles on the same device previously, just wanted to see if you know if anyone else has experienced a similar glitch. I tried to send a message on your app page support, but that wouldn’t send either! Maybe I’m just having a bad tech day! Excited to try those Detox recipes AND the Broccoli Cheese Soup.
Update: Weirdly, I just received the email that the .99 payment posted today, but i-Pad still won’t download bundle (although your latest recipe (In the Buff Smoothie Bowl downloaded). Still won’t allow me to press ‘Send Message” on your App help page.
Hi Connie, I’m so sorry to hear you’ve been having difficulties with the detox bundle! If you’ve tried using the “Restore Purchases” button on the bottom of the bundle page and that doesn’t work, there there may be an issue with your Settings and I would try the following:
1) You may have in-app purchases disabled (check Settings App > General > Restriction), and they’ll need to be enabled.
2) Do you have a family iCloud account? The family account could have restrictions, too.
3) Try Sign Out and Sign In again the iTunes account. In Settings > iTunes & App Store (tap on email to show options)
Please let us know if any of these suggestions help!
Thanks Angela! We don’t have a family iCloud account, but after checking Settings, I did try #3 and the “Restore Purchases” and it worked! Thanks for the help. Excited to try the recipes!
Wonderful! Happy cooking!
Hi Angela!
Thank you soooo much for adding metric conversions to the solids in your recipes!!!
Even after living in the US for 17 years, as a native german I still find it bewildering to stuff ingredients in a small cup instead of simply weighing them.
My daughter and I decided to go vegan just last summer after I had been vegetarian since my late teens. We LOVE both of your books (wish you already had the conversions in them, now they contain a lot of my scribbling where I added the weights) and your website.
My husband is somewhat of a picky eater and used to love meat, but a lot of your recipes he really enjoys.
Thank you so very much for all the inspiration you give us (we also like to get creative and make our own versions of recipes) and keep up the great work!
Eve
Thanks so much for the lovely comment, Eve! I’m so happy to hear you and your family (even your husband! hah) are such fans of my books and blog. And I’m glad you’re finding the metric conversions helpful. :)
So out of curiosity and to clarify – from now on will you no longer be posting new recipes on the blog, but only in the app?
Hi Jessica, Thanks for your question! Rest assured, I’ll still be posting new recipes to the blog (and anytime I post a new blog recipe, it’ll get uploaded to the app for free).That being said, sometimes there will be exclusive recipes added to the app that won’t appear anywhere else. I hope this helps clarify things!
Tried this recipe tonight. It was pretty good, but I think it was missing a bit of creaminess. Perhaps adding a bit of soy milk or almond milk to the soup would’ve helped.