Creamy vegan gnocchi soup with sausage and kale, and on re-reading books

I have found that it is a lot easier to be eating a good meal and discover I have made it before than to start reading a book only to find that I have read part of it before.  Cadry's Creamy vegan gnocchi soup with sausage and kale was added to my bookmarks some years ago.  I was excited to make it this year in May as wintery weather made for starting each day with the heater on and then riding home from work in the dark evenings.  This cosy warming soup was exactly what I needed.

In my notes about making it I have reflected on all sorts of minutiae of life happening over the times I have made this soup: Sylvia chatting to a customer at the counter in the op shop where she is volunteering, recycling bottles in the machines that suck up the bottles and spit out a payment voucher in return, losing my purse after buying doughnuts and a kind soul dropping it off at my house, returning home from the op shop with a new wood, cane and tapestry lounge chair that reminded me of the lounge suite in my grandmother's home, and meeting up with a lecturer and friends from my Masters course.  Good memories.

When I made the soup this May I had a niggling feeling that I had made it before.  Yet I could not find it in my photos or blog.  Strangely enough I later stumbled on photos from when I made it in July 2024.  Even now I have a feeling I have made it even earlier than that.  Last year I lightly toasted the gnocchi under the grill but I am sure I made it previously when I baked the gnocchi as directed by Cadry.  When was that?

I love how my blog stores my memories of meals and so much more.  This soup is a great example of how I have taken notes on the changes I made to a recipe each time I made it.  But the longer I blog, the harder it gets to organise the memories of all the fantastic recipes that I make.  There are so many that I want to make again and again until they are ready to blog about.

It's a bit like books.  The older I get, the more books I want to read.  And the more books I want to read, the less time I have for them.  So when a week ago I finally started a book from my to-read pile, I could not believe that niggling feeling that I had already read it.  But not all of it.  So then I had to work out which of of the detective stories I had read in Philip Pullman's Whodunit collection.  Argh!  It is so much easier to eat good meals over and over again than accidentally reread good books.

But like good meals, my accidental rereading made me think of the books that I choose to reread over and over with years in between each reading: Tirra Lirra by the River, Housekeeping, A Monster Calls and the K.M. Peyton's Pennington and Flambards trilogies.  They have moments that frame how I see my life and when I reread the books, the stories take me back to different times in my life.  I miss reading so much at the moment.  I miss escaping into other  worlds and perspectives.  However I also have meals that I love for the memories that they evoke: the meals I have made over and over and those that are becoming part of the fabric of my life.

I can see this gnocchi soup creeping into my life with it's creamy come-hither cashew sauce.  It is really really good.  I don't usually like the taste of dairy sauces and Sylvia does not like the way her stomach reacts to dairy sauces.  The cashews work for us.  My high speed blender makes them so smooth you would never know it is filled with crunchy nuts.

Each time I have added the cashew cream to the soup, it feels like it is too thin.  It isn't.  The taste is so velvety and unctuous, in the best way possible.  It is comforting like a warm snuggly blanket.  I love it thin like a rich broth but it thickens as it cools and by the following day is almost more like a stew.  When I first made it, the flavour was a bit lacking so I added mustard and miso which made it taste like heaven.  A little umami is always welcome in a meal.

We have tweaked the recipe in other ways.  I use more sausages than Cadry.  We love them.  I find it easier and kinder to the stockpot to grill them while I prepare.  I also have tried her idea of baking the gnocchi and don't see the advantage.  These days I just add gnocchi straight from a shelf stable packet.  (I would not dare use fresh gnocchi which the gnocchi man at the market says must be fried.)   

We have been making this meal as seasons cool and it is one of our favourites of this winter.  Today the sun shone, my puffer jacket was too warm and the daffodils were in flower.  Spring will soon be upon us and we will probably make this soup less.  But come next winter, I can see us having a hankering for this cosy warming soup all over again.

More recipes using vegetarian sausages on Green Gourmet Giraffe blog:

• Baked curried sausages (vegetarian) (gf, v)  
• Potato, sausage and tomato brunch (v)
• Pumpkin and sausage roast (v)
• Sausage pasta - three ways (v)
• Tomato sausage barley soup (vegetarian)
  
  

Cadry's creamy gnocchi soup with sausage and kale
Adapted from Cadry's Kitchen
Serves 6

• 6 veggie sausages

• 1 and 1/2 cups water
• 3/4 cup raw cashews
• 1 tbsp white miso

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 large brown onion, chopped
• 2 tsp garlic granules
• 1 tsp granulated onion
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp seeded mustard
• 6 cups water
• 1 tbsp stock powder

• 1 small bunch of curly kale, in small pieces with ribs removed
• 1/2 cup (60-70g) sliced sun dried tomatoes
• 1/2 tsp salt, or to taste
• Generous dash of pepper to taste

• 500g gnocchi from shelf stable package

Grill sausages until brown and/or crisp outside.  While they are cooking, prepare other ingredients.  Once sausages are done, slice them in about 1 cm slices and then slice again on the vertical to make rustic chunks.

Blend cashews and miso with water to make a creamy sauce.  I use a high powered blender but if you are using a regular blender you should soak them for a few hours. 

Fry onion in oil in a stockpot over medium for about 5 minutes or until soft.  Stir in chopped sausages and seasonings, then water and stock powder.  Bring to the boil and then reduce to a simmer.

Add chopped kale, sundried tomatoes, gnocchi and seasoning to taste.  Bring to the boil and reduce to a simmer.  Pour in the cashew mixture.  Stir well and simmer for two to five minutes so all the flavours mix well.  Serve.

Notes:

• Although there are quite a few ingredients, it helps to break them down into small steps.
• I used Veggie Delights sausages which have very little oil. Other brands should work too.
• To prepare the kale I prefer to pull it off the ribs by hand, breaking it into bite sized pieces as i go.  This means no chopping but you can slice it up if you prefer.  Then pile it into a colander and rinse before adding to the soup.
• There are many variations.  I have tried it with nutritional yeast flakes and lemon juice, with mushrooms, with fresh garlic instead of granulated.
• I used dried mixed Italian herbs until they ran out and the I used dried oregano.  Either works. 
• Check that the sausages, stock powder and gnocchi suit your dietary needs, either vegetarian, vegan or vegetarian.
  
  

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Strict Joy: Swell Season