| 1 | Bring water to a boil in a tea kettle. |
| 2 | Coarsely chop the onion and celery. |
| 3 | Thinly slice the garlic. |
| 4 | In a soup pot, heat oil, onion, garlic and celery. |
| 5 | Cook and stir 1 minute over medium heat, then add vegetable. |
| 6 | Continue cooking and stirring 1 minute longer. |
| 7 | Add boiling water and bring back to a boil over high heat. |
| 8 | Stir briefly and reduce heat to medium. |
| 9 | Cover and cook 8 minutes. |
| 10 | Lift cover, stir in miso, and continue cooking and stirring for another 2 minutes, until miso is dissolved and vegetables are tender. |
| 11 | (at this point, you may puree soup directly in the pot with a hand blender, liquefying a small amount of soup with the tahini in a separate bowl and returning it to the pot. |
| 12 | Or, follow steps 4-6. |
| 13 | Pour soup into a bowl to cool. |
| 14 | Remove ?cup of broth from soup and stir remaining soup to cool it. |
| 15 | While soup is cooling, place tahini and ?cup broth in a blender. |
| 16 | Blend to a smooth cream. |
| 17 | Set aside. |
| 18 | Place three-fourths of soup in blender and liquefy to a cream. |
| 19 | Pour into original soup pot. |
| 20 | Place remaining one-quarter of unblended soup in a blender. |
| 21 | Pulse-blend for 2 to 3 seconds, allowing mixture to remain lumpy and textured. |
| 22 | Pour it into creamed portion in the original soup pot. |
| 23 | Place soup over medium heat and stir in tahini mixture. |
| 24 | Gently reheat soup, taking care not to let it boil and stirring frequently. |
| 25 | Add pepper to taste. |
| 26 | variations: |
| 27 | if you don"t have light miso, substitute 2 vegetable bouillon cubes, 2 tbs powdered vegetable broth, or 5 cups of homemade stock in place of 5 cups water. |
| 28 | creamed soups can be served hot or cold. |
| 29 | If serving cold, skip the reheating. |
| 30 | add ?tsp dried thyme, basil or marjoram to the sauteeing vegetables for fuller flavor. |
| 31 | add 1 tbs nutritional yeast to the soup pot when you add the water. |
| 32 | note: after the tahini mixture has been added to the cream soup, boiling will make the tahini itself thicken and the soup will be too thick. |
| 33 | Take care to reheat it gently, _not_to_boil_! |
| 34 | the american vegetarian cookbook by marilyn diamond/mm by deeanne |