Soup and Sandwich.

This reminds me of a meal you'd get at a 24 hour coffee shop. My soup is Greek Manestra, a tomato and orzo soup flavored with olive oil, garlic, and oregano. My sandwich is so basic, it's Tofurky slices, a slice of Tofutti american vegan cheese, Vegenaise and lettuce on white bread. Not the most wholesome sandwich but there you go. Everything was very satisfactory, especially the soup. I sprinkled a bit of "parmezano sprinkles" for a bit of cheesy-ness.

Soup recipe from "The Olive and The Caper" cookbook. Not a vegetarian cookbook but it has a wonderful array of veggie mezes, soups and dishes. Highly recommended. And not just for the recipes, there is also a wealth of information about Greek culture and cooking.

Almost Manestra

Manestra is a Greek soup with a simple base of tomatoes, olive oil, oregano and orzo pasta. I got the recipe from 'The Olive and The Caper' cookbook. I call it "almost" manestra because I couldn't find orzo anywhere so I had to replace it with anellini pasta. Such simple ingredients but so tasty, warming and full of flavor. The traditional greek way to eat this is with a generous sprinkling of parmesan or kefalotyri cheese on top. I used "parmezano sprinkles" which is a mock parmesan recipe made with almonds, nutritional yeast, salt and miso paste. Worked very well with the soup. I am definitely making this again with orzo in the future.

The recipe is posted at this blog.