Easy Vegetarian Recipes

I’ve been testing out recipes from One-Dish Vegetarian Meals almost daily since I first laid my hands on the book. So far, my absolute favorite, hands down, has been the Hot Thai Soup. Some of the ingredients are a little different. I hadn’t used them before in my cooking, anyway. And I did have to do some very careful searching of the grocery store aisles to find a few of the items. However, I was able to find almost everything I needed at my local grocery store - not a specialty market. (I’ll note any changes I made to the recipe in parentheses.)

Ingredients
6 cups water (6 cups vegetable broth - I think it adds more flavor)
1 tsp. salt (omitted because I used veggie broth)
3 lemongrass stalks, cut into 1-inch lengths
2 serrano chiles, thinly sliced
1 tsp. slivered fresh ginger (1/2 tsp. dry, ground ginger)
1 cup canned sliced bamboo shoots, rinsed and drained (I used the whole can)
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut milk
1 Tbsp. Tamari
Juice of 1 lime
2 cups cooked jasmine rice
1/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh Thai basil, for garnish (omitted because I couldn’t find it)

Directions
In a large saucepan, combine the water, salt, lemongrass, chiles, and ginger. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.
Strain the broth through a sieve (I used a slotted spoon to remove the lemongrass stalks and chiles because I don’t have a sieve), return it to the saucepan and boil for 2 minutes. Reduce heat to low and add bamboo shoots, coconut milk, tamari and lime juice. Stir well and simmer for 5 minutes.
Place 1/2 cup of rice in the bottom of each bowl, ladle the soup over the rice, sprinkle with basil leaves, and serve hot.

Tip
Tamari is just a richer kind of soy sauce. If you can’t find it, or you already have soy sauce on hand, you can use regular soy sauce in its place.

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