Recipe Review of Chickpea Noodle Soup

It's been snowing for the last 2 days. And my kids came down with the stomach flu. It's been a little stressful here.

Since it is cold and I am tired and feel like I am about to come down with my own brand of sickness any minute, I wanted soup. Something broth-y and noodle-y. Tonight I made Chickpea Noodle Soup from Veganomicon.

Despite juggling sick kids and my exhaustion, it came together very fast. I am lucky in the regards that on a couple of previous health food store trips I had conveniently picked up both miso and soba noodles. I saw them, thought, "Hey, those look cool. I have no idea what I am going to do them but I think I will buy them." Not very frugal, but this time it worked out to my benefit. I think I have read on the ppk.com forums that the miso isn't absolutely necessary, that it just adds a certain wine-like taste and if you don't have it available you can skip it. Miso does have some health benefits, supposedly it can be used for treating radiation sickness. I've made simple soups with it before with mushrooms and greens, and they are soothing in that healthy way.

So back to the recipe. I did take pics.

The ingredients.




The kale because I thought it looked all pretty and green.





And finished product. It's some good looking soup.




I followed the recipe very closely, the only things I did different were I didn't use mirin to deglaze (just veggie broth,) I only used 1 cup of the vegetable broth and the rest was water, and I only used 2 Tbsp of the miso based on the comments from the recipe link.

That's nice and all, but how did it taste? It was really good, very much reminiscent of chicken noodle soup. The flavors aren't over-powering and I really liked the mushrooms, soba, and kale together. I've never had soba before and I liked it, I want to try some other dishes with it now.

As far as my kids, my oldest and youngest daughters liked the noodles and broth, but my son wouldn't touch it. 2 out of 3 is pretty much a win in my book considering how incredibly picky everyone is about different things.

So yes, I would definitely, absolutely recommend this soup. Especially if you are snowbound with sick kids.