Menu: Early Autumn Supper from The Complete Vegan Cookbook

Another day, another menu, as I do. To celebrate the start of Autumn I decided to make this Early Autumn Supper menu from The Complete Vegan Cookbook (my second ever vegan cookbook and the first one I started using regularly).

Here's what it has to offer.



Grilled Butternut Squash Soup with Shiitake Mushrooms. Sadness, I'm afraid. The recipe called for such a teeny amount of pumpkin, by the time you add the stock and the soy milk it is very pale and the flavour is so very faint. I didn't have the facilities to grill the pumpkin, so I roasted it. Maybe that had some great influence on the intensity of flavour? It also had cute little soup pasta in it, which added some bulk. Alas, the mushrooms ended up being flavourless and squidgy. *sigh* I served it with fresh wholemeal bread rolls, which were tasty!



Green Bean Salad with Asian Seasonings is much more tasty. I've made this before and it is very tasty. The only problem is that it only makes quite a small amount. Unfortunately, but the time the soup and rolls and salad were done, people were asking if there was a main course. Alas, the answer is no. But there was...



Dried Apricot and Coconut Pudding! The undoubted winner of this menu. It is SO yummy and creamy and sweet. A blog of soy ice cream would go really nice with it.

So, we had a wishy washy pumpkin soup, a lovely but too small salad and an amazing dessert. Not the biggest success, but the dessert is certainly worth repeating and the salad is a great little side.

Food that heals.

You know the feeling, where you wake up. Your head is sore and fuzzy, the joints are achy, the throat is throaty... and you have 'flu'. OK, not the real influenza. I had the joy of that last year, and if that was the case I wouldn't be awake, let alone blogging! But flu-ish enough that you are not up to functioning in the normal world.

On days like this, I always try to get up and showered, and remove myself from the bedroom. To 'the nest'. The nest involves a sofa, the TV, DVDs, a pillow, blankets, kittens and, now, a laptop. So entertainment and naps are on tap.

I tend to have a strange appetite when I am sick. Ranging between feeling like I couldn't even look at food, to ravenous cravings for the most unhealthy and horrible stuff. So today have alternatively craved jam roll (thanks Baker's Delight!), salt and pepper chips, and slab cut fries. Hardly the stuff of nutritious legends.

But the food I crave the most when I am ill is soup. Specifically hot and sour soup, though a sweet corn soup or a miso soup (even out of a -gasp- instant package) makes a good second. Unfortunately, my takeaway hot and sour soup tonight was more hot than sour and a little underwhelming. But a good hot and sour soup just seems to soothe all the aches away!

My favourite hot and sour soup comes from Veganomicon (I swear, I do own more cookbooks!). I haven't made it for a while, but here is a picture of it for your viewing pleasure:



It is fabulous. And just hits the spot when you are feeling a little bit down.

So the point of all of this blogging, is that I was wondering if anyone else (of the few people reading) would care to share their favourite foods for feeling ill. Especially those super easy to make foods for those of us who end up sick all on our own. Kittens a great, but they lack certain culinary skills.