Since moving to Ithaca, we have attended several vegan cooking classes at our local co-op, Greenstar. Our favorite chefs are Priscilla Timberlake and Lewis Freedman, who are well known for their Friday Macro Dinners. They also recently came out with The Great Life Cookbook, featuring amazing vegan and gluten-free meals. I love that the recipes are categorized by month, feature vignettes of friends and guests who frequent their dinners, and is tailored for large gatherings (that can be adjusted for smaller groups).
At one of Priscilla and Lewis’ cooking classes, they provided the recipe for a soup that we continue to make again and again. The consistency of this soup is very creamy, despite not having any non-dairy milk or soy products.
Cream of Broccoli Soup
(shared with permission)
5 cups broccoli; stems and flowers separated
1 1/2 cups chopped onion
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
4 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup rolled oats
1 garlic clove, diced (my addition)
1 vegetable bouillon cube (my addition)
Chop broccoli into bite size pieces. Set aside the flowers. Water sauté the onions with the broccoli stems for about 5 minutes. Add water and salt, then bring to a boil. Mix in oats reducing heat to a simmer. Cook for 30 minutes.
Remove from heat and carefully transfer to a food processor or blender (I used an immersion blender for this step to save me from burning myself with transferring the soup). Blend until smooth.
Return the smooth oat mixture to pot. Bring to a low boil, then add the broccoli flowers. Simmer for 5 minutes, until the broccoli florets are bright green.
We’d rate the cream of broccoli soup a solid 4 1/2 out of 5 carrots on the veganlicious scale. 
To round out the meal, we served it with a hearty wheat bread from Ithaca Bakery, a mixed green salad (not pictured), and delicata squash from Darya Pino of Summer Tomato. I have never prepared delicata squash in such a simple way before, but it was so creamy, sweet and provided a nice balance to the soup and bread.
We’d rate the delicata squash 5 out of 5 carrots on the veganlicious scale. 