Broccoli tofu soup and a quinoa salad

For today’s lunch, we added a bit of Asian flair, preparing a soup with tofu and broccoli as our main course and a quinoa salad to accompany it. We even ended the meal with a special dessert: homemade banana and avocado ice cream!

Many of you probably use broccoli on a regular basis when cooking; we have also used it here at Hungry Pumpkin before in a soup and a side dish, so let’s take a moment to talk about this cute little vegetable a bit.

As you can guess from the appearance, broccoli and cauliflower are very closely related. So closely related in fact that they are the same species, just different cultivars. Both are the species Brassica oleraceae, which is the species that also gives us cabbage, kale, brussel sprouts, and kohlrabi. Though they are all the same species, the original ancestor plant was so heavily cultivated in various directions to emphasise different parts that they have emerged as the vegetables we know today. Broccoli was cultivated from wild ancestors and listed by gardeners as far back as 600 BC in ancient Rome. Today, 3/4 of our global production for this vegetable comes from India and China. 

Broccoli is a very nutritious yet low calorie food. A single 100 g serving gives you only 34 kcal (1.7% of your daily caloric requirements) while providing almost 5% of your daily iron requirements! Though not often considered a protein-rich food, its contribution on this front can be quite significant! It is even richer in vitamins and minerals, with all of them (except B12 and D, as in all unfortified vegan foods) appearing in quantities greater than the amount of calories, so above 1.7% of your daily needs per 100 g serving. Its main vitamin is vitamin C (107% daily requirement) followed by folate (16%), and vitamin B6 (13%).


Recipe, preparation, and price

 

Quantity

(g or ml)

Price for 4 person (EUR)

Soup

 

 

Olive oil

5

0,03

Carrots

200

0,20

Broccoli

250

1,25

Tofu

150

1,19

Soya sauce

10

0,08

Tartar buckwheat

50

0,61

Salt

3

0,00

Main dish

Quinoa

200

2,28

Peas

100

0,47

Tomato

250

0,80

Reddish

200

0,94

Olive oil

10

0,06

Vinegar

3

0,01

Salt

3

0,00

Dessert

Avocado

150

1,44

Banana

200

0,41

Cherries

50

0,25

Together

10,01

 

To prepare our soup, we first cut our carrots into disks, broccoli into smaller chunks, and tofu into cubes. We cooked up the carrots in heated olive oil until they had softened a bit before adding the broccoli. Tofu was added at the very end. We added our water in and seasoned it with some soy sauce, a bit of pepper, and salt to taste. In the last third of the cooking time, we added Tartary buckwheat, enriching both the nutrient content and taste of our soup. When it was ready to serve, we added in a bit of fresh parsley.

While we had our soup bubbling away, we cooked our quinoa in salted water and allowed it to cool. We then cut up tomatoes and radishes before adding them to the quinoa. We also added cooked peas (from a can in our case). We seasoned it all together with olive oil and a bit of balsamic vinegar.

Now, the part you have all been waiting for: the homemade vegan ice cream! Many people make vegan ice cream at home by putting various types of frozen fruit into a food processor. The real secret ingredient though are bananas! The trick is to cut them into pieces and then freeze them. Once they’re whipped up, they give a smooth and lovely texture just like ice cream (not to mention the great taste). This is especially useful if you have a lot of bananas about to go bad and you can’t eat them fast enough. For our ice cream, we added avocado to the bananas. Since avocado contains about 15% fat (about as much as cream), it served to give a very creamy consistency to our ice cream. The difference, though, is that fats in avocado are unsaturated and do not contain cholesterol, so it is much healthier than fat from cream. When serving, we also garnished with cherries brought in by our colleague, Nina.

The price for today’s lunch came to 10€ for 4 people, so 2.50€ per person. Compared to our regular lunches, this was quite a bit, but realistically, still not expensive. The most expensive things were the quinoa as it is imported, but the price is worth it for the many nutrients packed in it! Make sure you are getting ethically grown and harvested quinoa, as the surge in interest in this plant in recent years has led to a shortage for the native peoples of South America who use it as a staple of their diet. We also counted the cherries into the price, but since they were donated, our cost was actually a bit lower than this.


Nutritional value

With lunch consumed quantity

% From daily needs

Energy

511,31

kcal

25,6

Proteins

20,595

g

36,8

Total fats

16,665

g

37,9

Carbohydrates

76,916

g

 

Starch

39,345

g

 

Sugar

15,608

g

 

Fibers

15,695

g

62,8

Calcium (Ca)

366,975

mg

36,7

Iron (Fe)

5,393

mg

53,9

Magnesium (Mg)

215,48

mg

53,9

Phosphorus (P)

489,143

mg

69,9

Potassium (K)

1495,173

mg

74,8

Sodium (Na)

871,018

mg

158,4

Zinc (Zn)

3,698

mg

37

Copper (Cu)

0,795

mg

88,3

Manganese (Mn)

2,313

mg

100,6

Selenium (Se)

14,884

µg

29,8

Vitamin A

478,125

µg

47,8

Vitamin E

3,783

mg

25,2

Vitamin D

0

µg

0

Vitamin C

87,263

mg

87,3

Thiamin (B1)

0,484

mg

37,2

Riboflavin (B2)

0,495

mg

33

Niacin (B3)

4,541

mg

31,3

Pantothenic acid (B5)

1,983

mg

33,1

Vitamin B6

0,931

mg

62,1

Folic acid (B9)

235,95

µg

59

Vitamin B12

0

µg

0

Vitamin K

92,808

µg

132,6

 

We managed to get 25% of our daily calorie needs with today’s lunch, as well as getting as much as 36.8% of our protein requirements, 62.8% for fibre, and 37.9% for fats. The meal was rich in minerals and vitamins, with us getting basically all of them in quantities over the 25% daily requirement mark. As you will expect, this did not include vitamins D and B12, as these are only found in fortified vegan foods and vitamin tablets. Our meal gave us 36.7% of our daily calcium needs, 53.9% for iron, 53.9% for magnesium, and 74.8% for potassium. We also got enough selenium and zinc, which are important for the functioning of our immune systems. For vitamins, the main one we got was vitamin C, reaching 87.3% of our daily requirements. This was followed by folic acid, vitamins B6 and A, and others.

If you have questions about today’s lunch (or ideas for future lunches) then feel free to write to us at info@hungry-pumpkin.com and we will get back to you!

Have a great weekend!

-The Hungry Pumpkin Team

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