Spinach Curry Soup

Today is my Play in Cafe day. I get to go in to the ministry and make food for the staff that choose to eat in-house.  We have a few vegans who always come down, and many of the staff like to eat healthy.  We had lots of soups today perfect for a nice rainy day!

Usually our lentil soup is vegan but we had lots of ham left over at Christmas and some of it made it into today's offerings.  We discovered that this was the last of the last batch of lentil with Ham in it! oops can't serve that to the vegans. 

One of the other staff members donated a big bag of spinach. But oh no we aren't "Officially" cooking till next Wednesday, and we had more spinach than we could use up in the salad bowl. 

So I asked if I could make a vegan soup out of this and that... I got permission yippie! and put on my thinking cap. After a glance around the fridge and stock room. I knew I had to use up the spinach, and we always have canned black beans... and yes we still had Dried Shiitake Mushrooms... this bag of mushrooms is like Elijah's bin of flour every time I look in there there is another handful... I really did use all of them up this time tho.  

So here is how I made today's Spinach Curry soup. Which we had to pull out of the line and save the last bit... because all the non-vegans were gobbling it up.  LOL 

Take a cup of Dried Shiitake Mushrooms and add to
4 cups of warm water.

Add in the following spices:

Basic curry powder Sweet (2 big dollops) what you were expecting measurements???

Cayenne Pepper (a few hard shakes)

Black pepper to taste (more than a tablespoonful) 

Garlic powder (shake shake shake it up baby lots o garlic) 

Onion powder (Enough so you don't have to use onions, but the taste of onion is not overwhelming) 

Some Cumin Powder.

and about 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt. 

let sit for 15 minutes. 

 

In a food processor add in 

2 pounds of Spinach by handfuls till it's finely chopped, not pureed but no big pieces.

Pour off the spiced mushroom water into a pot and start to heat it up. 

Add in the spinach and mushrooms when it is simmering.   Once the mushrooms are cooked add in 

1 can of black beans (washed no juice). 

Now I discovered while in the bowl a bit of sour cream really made this a treat to eat.... but that is not vegan! So If I was to make this on purpose again and keep it vegan I would add in coconut milk, a bit of fat is exactly what is needed to round out the flavors in this recipe.