Kale and Turnip Vegetable Soup, Leftover Curried Tempeh

We are going through some cold weather, so I thought that soup would again be a good idea. never cooked squash in a waterless fashion (put in a high quality Saladmaster pan with no water, oil, or anything else; bring to medium high heat, covered, until the vapor lock starts to rattle; then reduce heat to low so the lock doesn't rattle) and decided to try it tonight. As I started working on this dish, I was reminded of the vegan "cheese" sauce that I described this past April, and thought it would go well atop the vegetables. I ended up making a one-course meal, as follows.


Ingredients

• 6 kale leaves (about half of a bunch), bottom 3/4" or so removed and then, including  both stem and leaf, cut into 1 1/2" lengths
• 1 medium turnip, peeled, and cut into 3/8" cubes
• 1 medium carrot very quickly cut into 1" or so lengths (I ended up needing a second carrot, similarly cut)
• Medium sweet potato, peeled and cut into 3/8" cubes (I used a purple-skinned white sweet potato; I recommend, for color, using a white one if possible, but orange would be okay. A purple fleshed one would probably result in a brown and unappetizing looking soup.)
• 1 medium onion cut into eighths
• 1 vegan bouillon cube
• 3 cups water divided into 1 cup and 2 cups
• 2t chopped basil (I used frozen basil)
• 2T broccoli stalk chopped into 1/2" cubes
• Salt (try 1/2 t) and lemon pepper (or black pepper - try 1/2 t, as well) to taste
• 1/4 cup cashews
• (optional) 2T nutritional yeast

Process

1. I put all of the ingredients, except the 2 cups of water, cashews, and nutritional yeast, into my Instant Pot pressure cooker and cooked on high pressure for 3 minutes.
2. In the meantime, I put the remaining ingredients (2 cups of water, cashews, and nutritional yeast) in my Vitamix blender.
3. When the pressure cooking was done, I slowly let out the steam and opened the pressure cooker, transferring all the cooked ingredients into the blender.
4. I blended on high for a few minutes till the soup was homogenous and nice and hot (in hindsight, I should have added boiling water instead of tap water to obviate much of the blending time to heat the water), then served. (I sampled and decided it needed more carrot, so put in a second carrot and blended.)

I also served some leftover curried tempeh from our banquet on Sunday.

Results

The soup was better than I expected it to be! The thickness was good and the flavor quite good. My wife particularly loved the soup.

Ideas for the future

I would have added garlic to the pressure cooker (perhaps 2 or 3 cloves), but my Dad doesn't eat garlic. Perhaps 1/4 jalapeno in the blender would have been good, as well.