Vegan Wild Rice Soup En Croute (or "Under Puff Pastry" for the Non-French)

Don't let the simplicity of this dish fool you. It is amazing. I crave hot soup year round for the obvious reason: my waistline likes it better, plus it compensates for my ridiculous obsession with bread right now. So I try to cram as many warm comfort foods--wrapped, stuffed or baked suitable to the dark days of January and February--as I can, placing bread somewhere within the plate of whatever it is I'm having.

 

 To compensate for all this bread love, I've enrolled in a step aerobic class (as well as my swim class). There are five women in my step class. Why has step aerobics gone out of fashion. I love my step. I love doing step aerobics. Now, all you find are dance DVDs and workouts. Like Zumba. What the?!  I want a good cardio workout, not a line dance workout, okay! Here I am in step --working up a good calorie burn, swinging arms and legs, (trying really hard to not flip my step over itself) as my feet go back and forth, up and down, now v-step, now side step, etc. It's good medicine--an excellent calorie burn.

I have a special shelf in my kitchen where I keep cookbooks of soup, sammiches and breads: The Carb Collection. (Just looking at it makes me happy inside.) I stumbled onto a jewel of a used cookbook find a few weeks back: Bernard Clayton's Complete Book of Soups and Stews. I am smitten as all get out with this five dollar DEAL. Sure, the book lacks a dust jacket, but whatever. It was sitting all alone atop a mess of books in a little used book store I like to pop in on every few weeks. This was my lucky day. There's not a single picture in the entire thing. But it needs no photos. It's that good. I've been known to pick up a cookbook filled with luscious photos shot at all the right angles only to put the thing right back after realizing not a word was written to describe any of the dishes: what inspired it, where the recipe came from, even a tidbit about what kind of carrots, potatoes, or beans it might take to make this dish even MORE perfect. Give me something! Not, Here's your recipe, have at it.

I'm reading Bernard's cookbook in fits and starts as you might read a novel, these past few mostly dark winter weeks. This cookbook is a collection of wonderful, carefully crafted recipes: a journey he had taken, some friend, family member or fellow chef he'd encountered. Bernard is also a bread aficionado and I have passed up getting his bread book for quite some time. I think I may be on a hunt for it next. Delicious writing. Delicious eating.

This wild rice soup is about as easy as it gets. As an added bonus, you bake it under a light layer of puff pastry. (I just love the Puff!) I am sure you could make a crust from scratch, and that would be fine. But as was not the case on Sunday, I opted for the thawed out Puff.

Not the prettiest site right before heading into the oven, but you get the idea. As you roll out the Puff after it's thawed, I placed my Puff between two pieces of parchment paper. This soup was incredible and a very filling meal. Never mind that I had to hunt all over God's creation to get just the right baking bowls for serving my newest cooking trend. (I ended up at Wal-Mart purchasing a two-pack CorningWare dish set for eleven bucks. These things can get expensive--one set they had there went for $24!) By the way, I picked up a large bag of wild rice at Wal-Mart, too, for like $4.50--another great deal because this soup takes a lot of wild rice. I love the wild rice.

Vegan Wild Rice En Croute

(Adapted from Bernard Clayton's, The Complete Book of Soups and Stews)

2 tablespoons canola oil

1/2 cup wild rice

2 tablespoons sliced almonds

1 large onion chopped

1 large carrot chopped

1 large celery stalk chopped

2 tablespoons garlic minced

1 teaspoon dried thyme

S & P to taste

3 cups veggie stock or 3 cups water and a veggie boullion cube

2 tablespoons corn starch mixed with 1/3 cup water

1 package of Puff Pastry (thawed--you will only use one half of the package)

Heat the oil in a large soup pot over medium heat. Add the wild rice and almonds--toasting them in the oil for a few minutes. Add the chopped veggies to this and cook all together until the onion begins to soften, about five minutes. Mix the cornstarch and water together in a small bowl. Set aside. You will use this as a thickening agent for the soup later. Meantime, with all the veggies cooking now, add the stock to this a cup at a time, then seasonings and bring to a boil. After it comes to a boil for a minute, turn down the heat to a simmer and cover, allowing to cook another 45 minutes over low heat. Preheat the oven to 400. Line a cookie tray with parchment paper and lightly spray your OVEN SAFE soup bowls with cooking oil. Again, let me stress--they must be OVEN SAFE bowls! Not all bowls will work in your oven. If in doubt, don't. Meantime, take the Puff dough and place it between two parchment sheets and roll it out a bit flatter--just a bit. Hard for me to describe this exactly. But thinner than it was straight from the package. It does "puff" after it bakes! After the soup has simmered 45 minutes, check the rice for doneness. (A little chewy is good.) If you'd like, you can thicken the broth with a tablespoon or so of the cornstarch mixture. Just use your own judgement on this. I only needed a bit because I knew the soup would thicken a bit when it baked. Turn the heat off under the soup and allow it to cool down about ten minutes. (It's a good idea to NOT ladle steaming hot soup into any bowl.) After the soup has cooled a bit, ladle it into the bowls for baking. Next, cut a piece of the Puff large enough--even a bit larger than the bowls, and place it over each bowl. Press down slightly on the dough to secrure it. You can poke a few holes in the dough for steam to escape. I did. If you have some dough hanging over, so be it--this will bake up nice and crisp and will make a wonderful addition to the soup. Bake for 40 minutes or until crust is beginning to turn brown. Remove from oven, allow to sit and cool about 10-15 minutes before serving. I placed my bowls on top of a big plate. Poke holes over the soup to allow it cool faster. Enjoy!