Vegan Recipe: Easy Watercress & Potato Soup

Vegan Watercress Soup

I adore watercress. It's got such a unique combination of spicy bitterness and is such a versatile green. Delicious for salads but hearty enough to stand up to a bit of cooking. No to mention that it's generally pretty cheap, available almost year round and has some nutritional vitals that are out of this world. Yes and Yum.  

I grabbed a bag the other day and whipped up this tasty bowl of soup that would have served two, it I hadn't eaten it all!

Vegan Recipe: Easy Watercress & Potato Soup

Serves 2

Ingredients

1/4 onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic
1 tbsp vegan margarine
500 ml vegetable stock
4-5 small potatoes chopped (with or without skins is up to you I generally go with skins)
100 g watercress
2 tbsp almond milk

Instructions

1. Saute onion and garlic in margarine on low/medium heat until onions are soft.
2. Add coarsely chopped potatoes and stock to pan, then bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cover for about 10 minutes or until the the potatoes fall off the fork when you give them a poke.
3. When the potatoes are soft, add the watercress to the pan and stir until the leaves wilt into the spuds. 
4. Add the almond milk and stir for another minute or so.
5. Remove pan from heat and blend mixture into a soup using a hand blender or tabletop blender.
6. Once smooth, return to heat and stir for another minute or so before serving.
7. Grab some bowls and dig in.

'Cress to impress: what's the deal with watercress?

Who knew that mild mannered watercress was actually a superfood? Yeah, I know, not quite as pretty as rocket and slightly more complicated to eat than spinach:  watercress.
I recently came across this  article from Positive News and turns out that the quiet little sproutling is actually ‘packed with 15 essential vitamins and minerals. Weight for weight, it contains more vitamin C than oranges, more calcium than milk, more iron than spinach, more folic acid than bananas’….yeah, watercess! I’ve been upping my quota and I’m loving it. It’s a major crop here so not only do I get to eat tasty greens, but I’m also supporting my local farmers  and eating on the cheap, making it taste event better.
So what about the taste? If you've never had watercress it's really spicy  with a hint of bitterness like eating rhutebega greens. And actually it's actually quite versatile. Soup, salad, sandwich, hot or cold.
My favourite cressipe (you like that? I just came up with it and I’m very proud. Watercress marketing people, you’re welcome to use it.) so far is a simple salad with cheese with I regularly have for lunch. I won't bore you with a 'how to put stuff in a bowl' recipe but here's a lovely Indian recipe for Watercress and Chickpeas from vegetarian blog jugalbandi.