A Curry Pumpkin Stoup Dr. Fuhrman Would Love

Greens, onions, mushrooms and beans are a big part of Dr. Fuhrman's magical G.O.M.B.B.S. list and I try to be aware of eating these foods every single day. So when I saw that this soup recipe from Kitchen of Health had G.O.M.B.B.S. ingredients that are commonly found in my kitchen, I though it might be an easy, and hopefully fast, weeknight dinner.

It was.

And delicious too.

Not quite a soup but not totally a stew, this hearty and flavorful stoup (to borrow a phrase from Rachel Ray) just might become a regular weeknight thing for us.

Curry Pumpkin Superfood Stoup
serves 6

Print me!

1 large onion, chopped (approx. 2 cups chopped onion)
1 box (4 cups) low sodium vegetable broth
2 Tbsp curry powder (I prefer sweet curry powder, so if your curry powder is  hot/spicy, you may want to use only 1 tbsp)
1 large can (29 ounces) pumpkin puree
2 cups unsweetened almond or soy milk
2 tsp coconut extract
2 Tbsp natural creamy peanut butter
1 15 ounce can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
4 cups swiss chard (or other green you have on hand), chiffonaided
2 cups very thinly sliced mushrooms
hot sauce to taste (I used Sriracha)
salt (or not)

Coat the bottom of a large dutch oven or soup pot with vegetable broth. Turn heat to medium. When broth is bubbling, add chopped onion. Stir frequently. After 5 minutes, add curry powder and stir. Turn heat a touch lower and stirring frequently, saute onions and curry powder until onions are very soft (about 15 minutes).

Add vegetable broth, pumpkin puree, nut milk, coconut extract and peanut butter. Stir to combine.

When mixture is simmering, add garbanzo beans, swiss chard and mushrooms. Stir.

Let simmer for 20 minutes. Taste. Season with hot sauce (to taste) and salt (or not).

Hearty Mexican Stew with Seitan Sausage

This past weekend brought my second attempt at homemade seitan. This time I chose a recipe by the famous Vegan cookbook author Isa Chandra Moskowitz. The recipe is called Simple Italian Sausages and my results were, well, just okay. Nothing to write home about, or really blog about for that matter. The texture was fine, but I think I was expecting to be "wowed" by incredible sausagey flavors. It didn't happen for me.

But on Sunday afternoon I felt like making a stew. And I knew that almost any seitan, even this one, would be great in a stew. Cut into chunks, it gives a vegetable/bean stew that meaty texture that is so rare in Vegan cooking.

I had just gotten some huge sweet potatoes in my vegetable share that I was itching to use, and along with black beans and some Mexican seasonings, I prepared a quick Mexican Stew that was totally delicious. This recipe makes quite a lot, so it's great for a crowd or sharing with your friends.

Coincidentally, Debby over at happyhealthylonglife.com was just talking about a fabulous new faux sausage product that she discovered when travelling. It's made by Upton's Naturals and it's called Chorizo Seitan.

photo courtesy uptonsnaturals.com

If you have access to this product, I highly recommend making this stew and using Upton's Chorizo. You can find out if it is sold near you by visiting their website. Unfortunately, it's not sold in Cleveland yet. Yet. I'll have to work on that!

Hearty Mexican Stew with Seitan Sausage
serves 10

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3 cups diced yellow onion
3 garlic cloves, minced
8 1/2 cups vegetable broth, divided
8 cups peeled and diced sweet potato (3 large sweet potatoes)
1 Tbsp ground cumin
up to 1 Tbsp ground chipotle chili power
3 cans black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can fat free refried black beans
1 recipe Seitan Sausage, cubed OR 2 packages Uptons Naturals Chorizo-style Seitan
1 large bunch kale, sliced into ribbons about 1/2" thick
juice of 1 large lime
1 Tbsp salt (or not)
optional: cilantro to garnish

Prepare seitan sausages according to recipe if you do not have packages of Upton's Seitan Chorizo.

Coat to base of a large soup pot with 1/4 cup of vegetable broth. Turn heat to medium high. When vegetable broth begins to bubble, add onion. Cook onion, stirring frequently, for 5 minutes.

Turn heat to medium low and add garlic. Stir and cook for 3 minutes.

Add sweet potato and 1/4 cup of vegetable broth. Stir. Add cumin and chipotle chili powder. Add less chili powder if you like your food less spicy (the full 1 Tbsp of chipotle chili powder will make this quite spicy). Stir to coat onions and potatoes. Cover, turn heat to medium high, and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occassionally.

Add 8 cups of vegetable broth, all of the black beans, and the refried black beans. Bring to a boil, stirring gently until the refried beans have dissolved.

Add kale and stir. Lower heat to low and cook for about 2 minutes, until kale softens.

Add lime juice and season to taste with salt. Serve immediately or keep over very low heat until ready to serve. Garnish with chopped cilantro.

Have you tried any of the Upton's Naturals Seitan products?


Have you ever made a homemade Chorizo Seitan? If you know of a kick a$# recipe for that, please let me know!

Favorite Soups: Split Pea and Barley Soup and Some More

As you probably know, I've been focusing on getting organized since the start of the new year. I'd say it's going swimmingly well. I'm pretty much following this 365 day organizing calendar that I found on Pinterest. I'm certainly not perfect, but even following along with the calendar in my own imperfect way, I'm decluttering, getting rid of stuff we don't use in droves and generally getting stuff organized.

Hence the new meal planning for the kids, grocery shopping and salad prep systems. And this all got me thinking, a few years ago, when I turned my life around and got really healthy for the first time in my life, I used to make a gigantic pot of soup every weekend.  At least half of the soup would go into two serving (4 cup) deli containers in a big case freezer in my basement that my dear hubby bought me for the storage of all of this soup. And that went on for months, so by the time winter hit, I had squirreled away a lot of soup that kept us eating uber healthy through the winter.

The next summer, I did the same thing, but not as frequently.

This past summer, not at all. Whatever soup I made got eaten and I just wasn't making huge pots of soup like I used to.

But in thinking about this whole menu planning and making life easier in general, I'm wondering whether I should go back to the weekly huge pot of soup. I know I'm going to do it this coming up weekend and I've already planned what I'm making. It's a recipe that Chris-Anna told me about. Seems it's a relatively healthy favorite of hers from the restaurant chain California Pizza Kitchen. But of course, we had to make it even healthier!

Split Pea and Barley Soup
serves 6-8
adapted from California Pizza Kitchen's Pea and Barley Soup

print me!

1/2 cup pearl barley
1 3/4 cups water
1 pound dried green split peas
2 quarts water
2 bay leaves
2 Tbsp low sodium soy sauce or Tamari
1/2 Tbsp dried thyme
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 tsp dried sage
1/4 tsp cumin
2 cups diced carrots (3 medium carrots)
3 cups diced onion (1 large onion)
1 1/4 cups diced celery (3 large stalks)

Place barley and 1 3/4 water into a sauce pot and bring to a boil. Turn heat down to low and simmer for 45 minutes, until barley is cooked and water is absorbed.

Meanwhile, in a large soup pot or dutch oven, combine peas, 2 quarts water, bay leaves, soy sauce or tamari, thyme, garlic, sage and cumin. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to a low, cover and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Stir in carrots, onions and celery. Cover and simmer until vegetables are tender, another 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, check to see if peas are completely soft, if not continue to simmer until they are soft.

Turn heat off. Remove bay leaves and discard. Using a hand-held immersion blender, puree soup, leaving it as chunky you prefer or puree completely. Stir in barley and serve.

Here's some other soups that rock that I plan on making double batches of in the upcoming weeks:

Red Lentil Soup with Cauliflower and Indian Spice
HGK's Energy Soup
Chaya's Carrot Soup
Coconut Curry Kale, Chick Pea and Sweet Potato Stoup

What's your favorite soup? 

Easy Vegan Chili and Pumpkin Spiced Cornbread Muffins

I'm SO excited, I have a guest blog post over at The Engine 2 Diet Blog right now! Please hop on over there and check out How Healthy Girl Makes a Salad and Makes Salad Making Easier.

And that's not the only thing I'm excited about! Did you see this article over at VegNews about the leaders of the Raw Food movement making a statement that oil and nuts are not good for you? Holy. Moly. That is a major shift in thinking for the entire raw food world. Here's the comment I left on the article:

"Oh. My. G... I am in shock. And actually, really relieved. I thankfully figured this same thing out after trying to go raw for a couple of months and gaining a ton of weight from the oils and the nuts and the raw desserts. I am so happy that this information is coming out now and that more people do not have to be lead down a ridiculous path of consuming coconut oil, olive oil, etc. and thinking that these things are health foods. Yes, eat raw vegetables! But don't shun incredibly healthy cooked food."

So on and on it goes. Trying to figure out what is best for humankind. It's never easy, but I think it's worth it.

I have a feeling that a lot of people are craving chili right now. With the cold weather and the dreary days, I know that chili is one of the easiest ways to warm myself up.

But you don't always have the time for a complicated or lengthy chili recipe. That's why this recipe is so outstanding. It's fast, easy and very, very tasty.

And what goes better with chili than cornbread? I have tried a number of Vegan cornbread recipes and this is by far the best one to date! The pureed canned pumpkin and Pumpkin Pie spice add an unusual twist to this classic.

Easy Vegan Chili
serves 8-10
Prep time: 20 min. Cook time: 70 min.


Printable Recipe

2 cups chopped onion

8 garlic cloves, pressed

2 28oz. cans diced tomatoes

1 4 oz. can green chilies

4 Tbsp chili powder

2 Tbsp dried oregano

2 Tbsp ground cumin

3 15 oz. cans black beans, drained

1 10 oz. bag of frozen corn

Saute onions in a large pot over medium high heat for about 10 minutes, stirring frequently. Add water if necessary to prevent sticking. Add garlic and saute 3 more minutes.

Add tomatoes with juice, chilies and dried seasoning. Mix and simmer for about 10 minutes.

Add beans and corn. Reduce heat to med. low and simmer for about 45 minutes.

Pumpkin Spiced Cornbread Muffins

24 small muffins or 18 medium sized

Printable Recipe

dry ingredients:
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
2 Tbsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp salt
2 tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice
2 cups cornmeal (for a smoother finish, use corn flour)
wet ingredients:
1 15 ounce can pure pumpkin puree
1/2 cup maple syrup
2 Tbsp flaxmeal
2/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 cup unsweetened almond or soy milk


Preheat oven to 350 degrees.


In a large bowl, stir together all dry ingredients.

In a medium bowl or a very big measuring cup stir together wet ingredients until well blended.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry mixture and mix until well blended.


Distribute batter evenly into greased muffin pans (either 18 or 24 holes). Bake for 20 minutes.

What foods are warming you up these days?

Rich and Creamy Butternut Squash Soup with Spinach and It's Official! Binge Eating Disorder Recognized by the APA

This year is the first year that I haven't stopped going to our local farmer's market as soon as the weather turned cold. A few weeks ago I picked up a gigantic butternut squash not sure what I was going to do with it.

A lot of ideas came together to inspire the soup that resulted. A butternut squash soup recipe from Thrive Foods by Brendan Brazier, The Healthy Librarian's faux coconut milk, the spinach in my fridge that I wanted to use up, and my sheer love of anything with curry powder.

The results were fantastic. So rich and creamy and soul satisfying for such an easy recipe.

HGK's Rich and Creamy Butternut Squash Soup with Spinach

serves 8

Printable Recipe

5 pounds whole butternut squash

6 cups unsweetened almond milk

2 Tbsp coconut extract

1 tsp curry powder

2 cups vegetable broth

fresh baby spinach

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil or parchment paper.

Cut off the ends of the squash and discard. Cut squash in half lengthwise and remove seeds. Place halved squash, cut side down, on lined tray. Roast squash in oven for about 1 hour until largest squash is soft throughout.

Let squash cool so that you can handle it. Remove  all of the flesh from the squash and place it into a large dutch oven or soup pot. Add almond milk, coconut extract, vegetable broth and curry powder. Over medium-high heat, bring mixture to a simmer, stirring occasionally until heated through.

Turn heat to low. Using an immersion blender, process soup until smooth.

Add handfuls of fresh baby spinach and stir. Add more spinach until soup reaches the proportion of soup to spinach that you like.

Taste. Add salt (or not) and more curry powder (to taste). Thin with vegetable broth if consistency us to thick for your taste.

Next up on my winter squash to experiment with list? Delicata. Got some at the Farmer's Market this week and wondering what to do with it. Do you have any ideas?

I also want to point out this very interesting article on binge eating disorder. It brings up a lot of excellent points like the linkage between "dieting" (not to be confused with healthy eating) and binge eating, which is an idea that completely rings true for me. It also points out that "The APA [American Psychiatric Association] will include BED [binge eating disorder] as a separate disorder in the fifth edition of its �Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,� referred to as the DSM-V.

Oh great, dieting made me crazy. Certifiably so.

Thoughts?

Cranberry Dressing-is it for salad or dessert? and an HGK Soup in the News

Wow, I am totally blown away by your response to my last post. Your appreciation for my work here on HGK and your thoughtful suggestions for newcomers are deeply meaningful to me. Thank you for taking the time to leave comments, I know how busy we all are in this day and age and I want you to know how grateful I am to all of you.

Today I just wanted to share with you something that I have really been enjoying lately. It's a fresh cranberry based no-oil vinaigrette and salad that I made after being inspired by this recipe from the blog Choosing Raw. Since I have quite a few fresh cranberries sitting around in my fridge since Thanksgiving, it looked like a recipe I needed to do an HGK riff on.
What's in this baby? Green leaf lettuce, roasted beets, red cabbage,garbanzo beans, dried cranberries, chopped walnuts and this fabulous, sweet cranberry vinaigrette. When I am craving something sweet, I totally dig this salad!

Fresh Cranberry Vinaigrette
makes approximately 2 1/2 cups

Printable Recipe

1 1/4 cups fresh cranberries
1 Tbsp orange juice concentrate
� cup water
� cup raw cashews
1 whole orange with peel removed but seeds intact
� cup vinegar (I used Orange Muscat Champagne Vinegar)
4 pitted dates
dash of salt, or not

Blend all ingredients on high speed till smooth.
Feel free to adjust the ingredients to your taste: more cranberries for tartness, orange juice concentrate or dates for sweetness.

A big shout out and thank you goes to Your Teen Magazine for being the first magazine ever to publish an HGK recipe! They chose a Leban-easy Lemony Lentils recipe by none other than HGK contributor Chris-Anna.

Chris-Anna's Soup-er Lebon-easy Lemony Lentils

serves 8

Printable Recipe

1 cup rinsed lentils with any debris removed

8 cups low sodium vegetable broth or water

4 cups white potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 1/5" cubes

3/4 cup fresh lemon juice (about 2 lemons)

8 garlic cloves

4 cups Swiss chard, chopped, including stems

1 cup tomatoes, diced

1 cup curly parsley, chopped

pepper to taste

Bring water or stock to a boil in a large pot. Add lentils.

While lentils are cooking, peel and dice potatoes. Add potatoes and lemon juice and turn heat to medium low.

Peel garlic cloves and crush garlic into pot with a garlic press. Add diced tomatoes and chopped Swiss chard and stir.

Turn heat to high. When soup is almost boiling, turn heat down to a low simmer. Cover and cook for 25 minutes or until lentils are soft.

Add parsley, stir and simmer for 5 additional minutes.

Taste. Add more lemon juice if necessary and pepper. 

What Exactly is Miso?

I've never been a stranger to Japanese food. In fact, one of my earliest memories is of being at a party and tasting octopus and thinking it tasted like rubber. I was around five years old, and an adventurous eater (I have always had a love affair with food). My father was working for Ikegami Electronics, the manufacturer of the finest television cameras in the world, and the Japanese are wildly hospitable. So along with receiving gifts galore from his boss and co-workers, I received the gift of sushi.

I don't remember when I had miso soup for the first time. All I know is that I dug it. And twenty years ago, when I was a first year law student, I attempted making a miso soup with noodles and vegetables for a new friend. I was newly living in Los Angeles and excited about shopping in the Asian markets there. My noodle soup creation was gross and I'm impressed that my friend Lisa still wanted anything to do with me after that culinary fiasco. It was like I was feeding her poison.

I'm happy to report that when I made Miso Soup with Buckwheat Soba Noodles this time, things went much, much better. Why?

We have the Internet now!

Thank you to my cousin Ira and his wife Angela for sharing this link with us for the South River Miso Company. I think you will find this video very interesting. It answered all of my questions about what miso is and how it is made.



Exactly twenty years later, my second attempt at miso soup. This time, perfection!

Miso Soup with Buckwheat Soba Noodles
inspired by Susan at Fat Free Vegan who posted her recipe the day I went to my local Asian Market

Printable Recipe

12 cups water
1/2 Tbsp dulse flakes or wakame or other seaweed
1 1/2 cups matchstick carrots
1 1/2 ounces dried shitake and/or porchini mushrooms
1 medium head napa cabbage, sliced
15 ounces buckwheat soba noodles
8 Tbsp mellow white miso
red pepper flakes
cilantro
2 scallions, sliced
1small bunch watercress
1/2 package firm tofu, drained and cut into small cubes

In a pot, bring water for cooking noodles to a boil. Cook noodles slightly under the package direction time (al dente). Drain noodles and run under cold water. Reserve.

In another large pot, place water, seaweed, carrots and dried mushrooms. Bring to a simmer and cover. Cook for 20 minutes or until mushrooms are tender.

Add shredded napa cabbage to soup and cook for another 5 minutes.

Place miso in a small bowl. Add 1/2 cup of the cooking liquid from the soup. Whisk until lumps disappear. Add mixture to the soup but do not let soup boil.

Taste and add red pepper flakes to taste.

Place individual servings of noodles into a soup bowl. Ladle on soup. Garnish to taste with tofu, scallions, watercress, and/or cilantro.

Salt Questions and The Soup of the Year: Red Lentil with Cauliflower and Indian Spice

I know you've experienced this scenario before: your favorite restaurant serves a dish and you think it's the best thing since sliced bread. And you wanna make it at home, because there is no way you could ever get enough of this dish. So you set about making said food yourself and hope for the best.

That's how this recipe came into being. My BP (business partner) and I created this soup recipe as a joint venture. Pretty funny since our usual jobs are managing a custom invitation printing company. But Red Lentil with Indian Spice soup was so near and dear to our hearts after eating it and loving it for so long at Organic Energy, we had to try creating an oil-free, low salt version for ourselves (more on salt after the recipe).

My husband pronounced, "it's the soup of the year!" It really is that good. Just don't make it when you are in a time crunch.

Red Lentil Soup with Cauliflower and Indian Spice

Makes 7 servings (2-cups each)

Printable Recipe
2 cups red or orange lentils

6 cups water

3 plum tomatoes

2 cups yellow onion, finely chopped

6 Tbsp low sodium vegetable broth

4 medium cloves garlic, chopped and made into a paste by sprinkling 1 tsp of kosher or sea salt (to act as an abrasive) and crush with the side of a large chopping knife over the mixture until the garlic breaks down and becomes paste like. Skip salt altogether if you cannot go there and just finely chop the garlic!

1 tsp white or black sesame seed

2 tsp cumin seed

1 tsp fennel seed

2 tsp brown or yellow mustard seeds

2 bay leaves

2 tsp turmeric

1 � cups unsweetened almond milk

1 � tsp coconut extract

1 lime, juiced

1 14 ounce bag frozen cauliflower

Optional: a dash or two of cayenne pepper (I used two)
salt (I added 1 tsp more for the whole pot) or salt free seasoning
Chopped cilantro, for garnish

Take frozen cauliflower out of freezer and leave on counter to partially defrost. Measure seeds (sesame, cumin, fennel and mustard) and place into one small bowl and set aside.

Place lentils in a metal sieve and rinse well with cold water.

Fill a medium sauce pan halfway with water and bring to a boil. Score the peel of the base of the tomatoes with a sharp knife in the shape of an �X.� Place the tomatoes in the boiling water and blanch for 1 minute. Drain the tomatoes and run them under cold water. Once cool, peel and finely chop the tomatoes, discarding the tough stem ends.

In the same medium sauce pan that you used for the tomatoes, place lentils and water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 10 minutes or until the lentils are soft. Turn off heat when lentils are finished and put to the side. Do not drain lentils or discard the cooking liquid, you will need this later!

Heat a large dutch oven or stock pot over medium heat. When pot is hot, add the seed mix and jiggle the pot around. You want to toast the seeds but be careful not to burn them. They are ready when they look toasty and you smell something wonderful. At the sign of any burning, lower the heat immediately. When seeds are toasty, add onion and 3 Tbsp vegetable broth. Stir frequently and �saut� onion for 5 minutes.

Add garlic/salt paste and 3 more Tbsp vegetable broth. Cook for 3 minutes, stirring frequently and lowering the heat if the onion/garlic/spices start to burn. Add turmeric, bay leaves, almond milk, coconut extract and peeled chopped tomatoes. Stir. Simmer for 10 minutes.

Chop partially defrosted cauliflower and add to pot. Add lentils and their cooking liquid and lime juice and simmer for 20 minutes.

Optional: Partially puree soup with an immersion blender. Season with Cayenne pepper and/or salt or salt free seasoning to taste. Garnish with chopped cilantro.

Notes:

Blanching the tomatoes really does take just one minute so the skin will peel off. You don�t want to cook the tomatoes.

You can leave this soup to simmer for a long time and the flavors will only get better.

This soup is absolutely delicious. But BP and I were very fascinated by the taste difference between our version and the restaurant version of the soup. It got us talking about salt. We calculated the amount of added sodium (from the salt, not the other ingredients which also contain natural amounts of sodium) per 2-cup serving (yes, a large serving) and it came to about 650 mg of sodium.

That's a decent amount of sodium. But by no means does our version even begin to taste "salty." We talked about how much better it would taste with more salt and either real coconut milk or oil, but neither one of us is willing to go there anymore!

The point is, that even a soup with 650 mg of added sodium per serving does NOT taste salty to us. And even more importantly, I thought I was creating a low sodium soup by only having 2 tsp of salt in the entire big pot of soup. I now know that 2 tsp of salt is 4600 mg of sodium, which calculated out to a whopping 650 mg/serving.

So how much sodium is in foods that DO taste salty to our palate? A whole crap load, I'm sure of it now.

What are your thoughts/experiences with salt? Are you struggling with this? Do you add it to recipes anymore or have you eliminated it from your home cooked food?

What is the best salt-free seasoning? I'm now considering purchasing a whole truckload of it! 

Sunday Night Dinner with Friends

Maya the Sous Chef

This past weekend I spent an inordinate amount of time in the kitchen. It's where I like to be, so I don't mind. I wanted to make a special dinner for a friend who is going through a very difficult time. So difficult, in fact, that she is having trouble eating (she's NOT an emotional eater!). I'm proud to say that she enjoyed the food and was able to eat. Yeah!

Here's the dinner in it's entirety, along with my thoughts on each dish:

Ever since hosting the Plant-strong Pot Luck at our house, I have been wanting to give Terry Walter's recipe for Sweet Potato, Corn and Kale Chowder a try. Everyone was raving about Quinn's take on the soup the night of the party, and Chris L even went as far as saying it was the best dish of the night!

But there wasn't enough to go around, so I, as the host, didn't get a taste. Then Chris-Anna, my business partner, made her own version using white potatoes and brought it to work for us for lunch. Holy cow! The secret is in the use of cashews. This is one extraordinary soup. I followed the recipe exactly, except, of course, substituting vegetable broth for the oil when sauteing the onion. Seriously folks, this is one of the best soups of all time. Get the recipe here.

This Vegan Ceviche could give any salad a run for its money. Consisting of chopped hearts of palm (yum!), tomato, cilantro, red onion, cucumber, red pepper and avocado and dressed simply of lime juice, salt and pepper, it's a new personal favorite. It's fresh, crunchy, and citrusy with a surprise of creaminess from the avocado every few bites. I can't tell you how much I LOVE it, except to say that I'm making it again tonight for my company b-b-q tomorrow.

Want Mama Pea's recipe? get it here.

Vegan Ceviche

Next up a salad from Appetite for Reduction called Wild Rice Salad with Oranges and Roasted Beets (p. 39-40). I happen to love beets, so giving this recipe a try was a must for me when my friend Liz said that she had made it recently.

Check out that recipe here.

Did I love it like I thought I would? No. Was it good? Yes. Maybe my expectations were too high based how incredible it sounded.

Actually, I really enjoyed it when using the leftovers, but more on that in a future post.

 Wild Rice Salad with Oranges and Roasted Beets from Appetite for Reduction by Isa Chandra Moskowitz

Also from Isa Chandra Moskowitz is Baked Falafel (Appetite for Reduction p. 121-122). If you are expecting and craving crispy, fried falafel, this is probably not going to satisfy you. They are extremely dry (I substituted the oil in the recipe with water, so I can't really blame the recipe!), but they went well with the moist salads that I served them with. My oldest daughter has been enjoying the leftovers in her camp lunches and I really like them with a dollop of hummus on top. Recipe here. 

Appetite for Reduction Baked Falafel

Mama Pea's Blueberry Cheesecake Muffins.

Yum-oh! I tried out a new sugar substitute made from coconut called Coconut Crystals. It's a raw and unprocessed sweetener available at Whole Foods. With half the calories of sugar, I'd say this is an ingredient worth exploring for those times when you do want to bake. You can read all about it here.

Blueberry Cheesecake Muffins from Peas and Thank You

And the best part about spending the weekend in the kitchen cooking for friends? A whole weeks worth of awesome leftovers!

Updated Energy Soup Recipe and Beck, Day 4, Give Yourself Credit

For those that are participating, how are you all doing with keeping up with reading your response cards and sitting down to eat? I did pretty good with sitting down, better than I have in a long time, but I totally lost it on a grocery shopping trip at Whole Foods with my three kids at 4:30 in the afternoon. I was really hungry, so were they after a long day at camp, and I had gotten all of them a treat (vegan of course, but full of sugar nonetheless).

I proceeded to eat, as I walked around Whole Foods, a full half of one of their treats AND a mess of pretzels that were available for the pickin'.

The old me would have beat myself to hell, figured I could never stick to Eat to Live, and continue for however many days to eat whatever came my way. But the massive problem with that is the stress it causes us. So much stress that we never see the situation for what it is, a learning opportunity. We need to free ourselves of the hate talk and instead, take a deep breath and think about how, next time, things could go differently.

Next time, I can bring apples for all of us to eat before we go into the market. Or maybe there just shouldn't be a next time.

And instead of dwelling on the negatives from yesterday, I can focus on the positives, just like Beck insists that we do. We need to give ourselves credit, in our head, every time we make a good food decision, resist unplanned eating or overeating. Like this, "Wow, Wendy, that was awesome that you resisted eating the &#^$%@ on the kitchen table at work just now! Good going!"

Here's the reason I schlepped my kids to Whole Foods after work and before dinner: I needed mushrooms. I wanted to make a big batch of my Energy Soup. It has been a major weapon in my weight loss arsenal and I cannot remember the last time I made it. For real, that is not winning behavior. But I fixed that yesterday. Credit!

Healthy Girl's Energy Soup
makes 10 servings (2 cups of soup per serving)

Printable Recipe

1 very large yellow onion, chopped
4 cloves if garlic, smashed
vegetable broth for sauteing
8 cups vegetable broth (2 boxes)
6 medium sized zucchini, cut into cubes
1 package mushrooms, cut into chunks if mushrooms are large
3 big handfuls kale, washed and rough chopped
1 bag fresh spinach or 3 big handfuls fresh spinach
Salt and pepper to taste
Other seasoning to taste
12 ounces frozen butternut squash, defrosted

Saute the onion over medium heat in a large soup pot in a few tablespoons of vegetable broth, until translucent and slightly soft. Add more broth as necessary to prevent burning. Add garlic and saute for a few more minutes.

Add the 8 cups of broth, zucchini, and mushrooms. Bring to a boil and then turn down to a simmer. Simmer for about 20 minutes or zucchini are soft.

Stir in kale and let it wilt. When kale is wilted, stir in fresh spinach, it will wilt immediately.

Using a hand (immersion) blender, puree the onion-garlic-zucchini-mushroom-spinach mixture until soup reaches your desired consistency. Some will like it completely smooth, others will like to puree about 50% and leave a lot of chunks and texture. It is delicious both ways!

Add the defrosted butternut squash and stir until it is incorporated. Season with salt and pepper and ANY other seasonings you like, to taste. (I use a Southwest spice blend and you can use whatever spice blend you like, there are so many on the market now. My husband likes everything spicy, so we add hot sauce to his.)

How are you going to remember to give yourself credit? I'm going to create a credit account right here, on the right side of my blog. At least once a day, I will edit what is in there and fill it with the good choices that I have made that day.

Here's why giving ourselves credit is so important. Ultimately, if you do it consistently and you never stop doing it, it ends the struggle over eating food that is off plan. You start to feel really, REALLY great (like a natural high) about staying on your plan. Way better than if you gave in and ate the junk. I know it sounds hard to believe, but this happened for me, and I was able to walk right by the stuff I didn't want to eat and feel so great about doing it.

It's a very important skill to master. So how are you going to remember to give yourself credit throughout the day?

What have you done today that you can give yourself credit for?

No-oil Almond Ginger Dressing and Crock Pot Lemony Lentil and Kale Soup

Just so I don't scare you guys who are here for the plant based recipes with all of my talk of how to be successful at adapting a plant-strong diet, here are some of the things I made this week in my makeshift kitchen. Just 4 more weeks until I am back in full action! The time is really flying.

I dressed a huge salad that I made for a girl's night pot-luck dinner with this creamy and delicious dressing. This recipe would also work well as a dip for veggies, just cut the amount of water in half.

No-oil Almond Ginger Dressing

adapted from a recipe from DrFuhrman.com

makes about 2 1/2 cups

1/2 cup raw almonds
1/2 cup unsweetened soy, hemp or almond milk
1 cup water
4 tablespoons tahini or unhulled sesame seeds
6 dates, pitted
2 small cloves garlic or 1 medium clove garlic
1 inch piece fresh ginger, peeled

Place all ingredients into a high powered blender or food processor. Blend until smooth. Add more water if a thinner consistency is desired.

This soup is best if you serve it the day after it is made. It allows the flavors to develop.

Crock Pot Lemony Lentil Soup with Kale

 adapted from a recipe from Better Homes and Gardens, January 2010 issue

2 large carrots, peeled and chopped

1 medium onion, chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

3 cups low-sodium or no-sodium vegetable broth

2 cups green lentils

1 tsp. dried basil

1 tsp. dried thyme

2 tsp. salt

8 cups chopped kale leaves (about 6 ounces)

6 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice

Place all ingredients except kale into a crock pot on low heat (approx 8 hours). A half hour before serving, stir in kale and let kale wilt.

What's going on with you? What are your plans for Memorial Day Weekend? Do your plans involve social gatherings with food? How are you preparing to handle those challenges?

Crock Pot Eggplant Chick Pea Curry

Thank you for the generous responses to my post about healthy convenience breakfasts. I hope that everyone enjoyed my list of ideas as well as all of your additions in the comment section. It was a true group effort!

A few days ago, Julie Ann over at The Reduction Project was blogging about a recipe from Appetite for Reduction called Eggplant-Chickpea Curry. Imagine my surprise when I read on to find out that she had experimented with turning this normally stove top recipe into a crock pot recipe because she was in a time crunch.

As most of you know, I am currently relying heavily on my crock pot due to our ongoing kitchen renovations. Combine these personal needs with my deep love of anything Indian and I was immediately intrigued by Julie Ann's post.

I would say that the texture I achieved in my crock pot is A+ but the flavor is a B. I'm left wondering how to get that amazing Indian food taste without the ghee (clarified butter). Maybe this is the best it can be without the fat!

But my husband loved it! When I got home from an event at my daughter's school, he was raving about dinner and telling me that he ate three bowls full. He thought the flavor was great.

Crock Pot Eggplant Chick Pea Curry
adapted from a recipe by Isa Chandra Moskowitz from Appetite for Reduction

2 cups diced onion
3 lbs. eggplant, diced
4 cloves garlic. minced
2 15 oz. cans fire roasted tomatoes
3 cups vegetable broth
1 Tbsp mild curry powder
1 1/2 tsp hot curry powder (optional)
1 Tbsp garam masala
2 tsp cumin
2 Tbsp fresh ginger, minced
2 tsp salt (optional)
dash of powdered stevia

2 15 ounce cans chick peas, rinsed and drained

Place all ingredients, except chick peas, into a crock pot on low heat (my lowest setting is 10 hours, 8 hours would be plenty). Let cook all day, stirring once throughout the day if possible, but not necessary. Thirty minutes before serving, add chick peas and stir. Once chick peas are warmed through, the dish is ready.

Serve over brown rice with chutney if you've got it (I really like the Trader Joe's chutneys).

Do you like to make no-added-fat  Indian Curries? Have you ever had a no-added-fat Indian Curry that was as good as Indian food from a restaurant?