Broccoli Cheddar Soup and Vegan MoFo!!

Happy October everybody! In my opinion, October is the first real month of autumn, because September is really half summer, with a couple of chilly nights thrown in. In October, we can break out the scarves, the plaid, the pleather boots, hoodies, admire all the pretty colors of the trees, and most importantly, make soup!

Today is the first day of Vegan Month of Food! It's the first year I've participated, so I'm super amped to see what everyone comes up with and how many faithful bloggers will make it through the month without missing a post. I'm hoping to do one a day for the whole month, because I have tons of recipes to test, and this is a perfect excuse to cook, and show it to the world!

So anyways, this soup.

Did you ever go to Panera or Ruby Tuesdays and get broccoli cheddar soup? Me neither, but it always looked really good. My friend Sarah, who's vegetarian, told me how she'd been getting the broccoli cheddar soup from Panera for years and one day found out it wasn't vegetarian, for whatever chicken-based reason, and she flipped out. So anyways, this is my version of Broccoli Cheddar soup, Cheddarless, and chock full of pumpernickel croutons. Have you ever had the croutons from Ruby Tuesdays? Me neither, but that's what I was going for.

Broccoli Carrot Soup with Pumpernickel Croutons

10 carrots, peeled

4 potatoes, diced large

1 large onion, diced

2 shallots, diced

4-5 cloves of garlic, chopped

3 cups broccoli, cut into florets

5 cups vegetable stock, homemade is best

1/3 cup nooch (ie, nutritional yeast)

1/2 cup unsweetened soy or almond milk

1 tablespoon cornstarch or arrowroot powder

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon dried thyme

1 teaspoon cayenne, less if you aren't a spicy lady like myself

1/2 teaspoon paprika

salt and pepper to taste

1 teaspoon olive oil

about 10 sliced pumpernickel bread, cubed

1 tablespoon olive oil

In a large soup pot, heat 1 teaspoon olive oil over medium heat. Add onion and shallot, and sautee until light brown. Meanwhile, slice carrots down the middle, lengthwise, and slice into 1/2 moons. Add to pan with chopped garlic. Sautee about 5 minutes. Add potatoes, nooch, garlic powder, parika, thyme, cayenne, salt and pepper and stir to coat. Cook for 1 minute, then add stock. Bring to a boil and reduce to simmer. Simmer about 15 minutes, or until potatoes are tender.

Meanwhile, in a measuring cup, mix together soy milk with cornstarch with a fork or whisk. Set aside.

In a steamer basket, steam broccoli florets for 8-10 minutes until tender.

Preheat a large pan with 1 tablespoon olive oil to medium heat. Add bread cubes and toast, stirring and flipping with a spatula for about 5 minutes or until all sides are toasty. Turn off heat.

Once potatoes are tender, Stir in the almond milk mixture. Stir on low heat until the soup is slightly thickened. Turn off the heat. Add broccoli florets to soup. Using an immersion blender, puree the soup until no chunks are left. You can do this in a regular blender in batches if you don't have an immersion blender (but you should totally get one).

Ladle soup into bowls and garnish with small broccoli florets and croutons.