Lazy Yet Fancy Cream of Tomato Soup

I'm continuing my "lazy cooking" theme this week by jazzing up one of my favorite foods: cream of tomato soup. This particular dish is so easy yet it impressed an omnivore, too!

I began by making elbow macaroni. I know I could've done without the pasta carbs, but to me, cream of tomato soup just isn't cream of tomato soup unless it has elbow macaroni in it! LOL While the water was boiling for the pasta, I opened a standard can of condensed tomato soup. Instead of using water, I mixed in one can of plain soy milk with the soup. I mentioned yesterday that I was saving leftover diced canned tomatoes and its juice from the tempeh dish I had prepared. I dumped those diced tomatoes and juice into the soup and stirred well. Then I added in some dried basil, oregano and a bit of rosemary to taste and heated the soup on low while the pasta cooked. I added my preferred amount of pasta to the soup and voila! A super easy yet fancier cream of tomato soup. :)

My sister currently lives upstairs from me (we live in a multifamily home) and I joined her for dinner because her hubby wasn't going to be home till later that evening. She had prepared a chicken breast and side of veggies for herself. When I appeared with my bowl of yummy soup, she said "Wow, that looks gooooood. Can I taste it?" She said my soup looked more appetizing than her meal. :) Score another one for the veg*ns!

Tempeh Tuesday #1

I'm back from vacation. As promised, I'll post about my trip but I'll need an extra day or two to ready the photos and write it up.

In the meantime, I'm going to post my lazy cooking habits since coming back home. LOL. Sometimes it's difficult enough coming back from a trip and getting back into the groove of the reality we call everyday life, without having to worry about cooking elaborate meals. So, my theme this week is EASY. I'm trying to use ingredients I already have in the cupboard and just keep things simple.

I had three packages of tempeh in my fridge because I'm trying to motivate myself to cook this soy-based food more often. I decided to make the tempeh sausage crumbles from Vegan with a Vengeance. I love this recipe soooooo much. The crumbles are so good. Much much tastier than any similar product that can be purchased pre-made in a store, and they're really not that difficult to make. So, I prepared the tempeh as directed in Isa's book. I also made pasta: Meijer Organics whole-wheat cappenilli, which I coated with a bit of olive oil when it was done. I opened a can of diced tomatoes that was pre-mixed with olive oil and garlic and, with a slotted spoon, scooped out some tomatoes (leaving most of the juice) as a topping to the tempeh and cappenilli. Simple yet tasty. :)

I did save the remaining tomatoes and all the leftover juice... I have plans for those later this week. ;)

I titled this post "Tempeh Tuesday" because I'd like to make Tuesday dinners my tempeh night, in an effort to try more tempeh recipes and learn to cook it better. (Did I ever mention I once tried to steam tempeh in the microwave and it came out as a hard, black block of yuck?) If you have a really great tempeh recipe, I'm all ears. I'd love some ideas from my blog visitors if you have any recipes to share. Please send them to: veggiecookster [at] gmail [dot] com. If I cook up your recipe, I'll give you credit and link back to your blog, so be sure to include the URL in your e-mail. :)