Quick and Healthy Snacks: Tapas

Vegan Tapas make great snacking material. They're quick, easy, and packed full of veggies. Best of all, they're delicious.

If you're keen to get your day's vegetables all at once, Gazpacho is the soup for you. It's a thick, velvety cold soup bursting with ripe tomatoes and refreshing cucumber and seasoned with vinegar, garlic and olive oil. My favourite recipe is this one.

If you're looking for something comforting and a little more filling, try Pan con Tomate, thick slabs of baguette toasted and topped with grated tomato, salt and olive oil. I love to pile them up with more grated tomato and drizzle extra olive oil on top. So good!

 

What are your favourite Tapas? Do you know of any other Spanish dishes that adapt themselves well to vegans? I would love tips!

Simple Tomato Soup

One of the things I really enjoyed eating in my childhood was canned tomato soup. It was a rare treat since my mother didn't like to buy foods that were processed or high in salt. So, this is a recreation of canned soup, but it does taste better and is lower in salt than the original.

Simple Tomato Soup

Serves 4

Ingredients

2 onions
2 cloves garlic
2 400 g cans chopped tomatoes
375 ml vegetable stock

Method

1. Dice onion and mince garlic. Heat a soup pot over medium heat. Fry the onion in oil until soft, then add the garlic and fry for a few more minutes. Add the stock and tomatoes. Simmer for 20 minutes, add salt to taste, and blend.

Zupa Ogórkowa (Polish Pickle Soup)

I went to Poland recently and thoroughly enjoyed all the vegan food I could get my hands on. Since then, I've been bookmarking hundreds of recipes to try out. I'm not up to making vegan smoked sausage yet, but I have tried my hand at some Polish soups. Zupa Ogórkowa consists of potatoes, grated pickles and vegetables in a rich, milky broth.

Zupa Ogórkowa

Serves 3
Based on this recipe

Ingredients

1 leek
2 carrots
1 onion
1.25 litres vegetable stock
1 bay leaf
6 peppercorns
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
6 pickles
4 potatoes
250 ml soy milk

Method

1. Slice the leeks. Dice the carrot and the first onion. Add to a soup pot with the stock and bring to the boil. Simmer until the vegetables are soft. Add the bay leaf and peppercorns.

2. Dice the remaining onion and mince the garlic. Grate the pickles. Heat some margarine or oil in a pan and fry the onion until golden. Add the garlic and fry for a minute, then add the pickles and fry for a few minutes, until most of their liquid has evaporated. Add to the soup pot.

3. Peel and dice the potatoes. Add them to the pot and cook until soft. Mix in the soy milk and heat briefly. Remove the bay leaf and season with salt and pepper.

Spring Eats: Simple Pea Soup with Sauteed Radishes

The spring has come to Berlin! We are enjoying sunny weather and the first delicate green leaves. And some spring meals full of vegetables. This colourful pairing of pea soup and sauteed radishes makes a lovely fast dinner that comes together in about 10 minutes.

The radishes lose their pungency through the cooking and become wonderfully mild. The recipe for the radishes is here - just substitute oil or vegan margarine for the butter. Now, the soup.

Simple Pea Soup

Serves 2

Ingredients

1 small onion
300 ml vegetable broth
800 ml frozen peas
salt and pepper

Method

1. Finely mince the onion. Combine with the broth and peas. Bring to the boil and cook for a few minutes, until peas are done.

2. Remove from the heat and puree. Add salt and pepper to taste.