Killer Kowalsky and Leo Tolstoy

I've started field work for my PhD. I can't technically start researching yet, since I don't have ethics approval, but I am attending meetings of the Townsville Indigenous Human Rights Group every Tuesday evening to meet people, get an idea of what sort of activism is going on, and that sort of thing. The meeting goes from 5:30 to 6:30, so this week I made some soup before I went so it just needed to be heated for dinner.

We got some beetroot marked down at the grocery store on Saturday (I used the leaves for pesto, which I will post about soon), so I decided to combine two recipes from the book Famous Vegetarians and their favourite recipes. It's a cool book that I got for xmas two years ago. It gives a few pages of bio on each person, and then a few recipes. I haven't actually tried any of the recipes yet, but I was definitely pleased with the results.

For this soup, I combined Leo Tolstoy's recipe for "Russian Beetroot Soup" with Killer Kowalski's recipe for "Vegetarian Vegetable Borscht". Basically, beets and potatoes chopped in match sticks. Carrot sliced. Add 6 cups of veggie stock, bring to the boil and then simmer for 20 minutes. Saute some onions and mushrooms, and mix those in to the soup along with half a tin of tomato soup, and then stir in juice from half a lemon.

The results are colourful and delicious. The only drawback to this soup is that it is messy! My chopping board is stained pink, I went to my meeting with red hands, and the tupperware containing the leftovers managed to leak all over my backpack the next day! But, I think, it was well worth it.

I'm looking forward to testing out some recipes from other famous vegetarians. Maybe I'll try one of Ghandi's favourite foods, or maybe Jesus Christ's. Yep, that's right, Jesus Christ is in this book. There is also an appendix at the back explaining why Hitler was not a vegetarian. And, though most recipes are originally vegetarian, the author has veganised them, or offered suggestions on how to make them vegan. Pick this book up!