Souper Easy Smokey Bean and Kale Soup

Sometimes it really feels that life conspires towards us. Take this example: Last night I was presenting a speech on overcoming emotional eating at Whole Foods during their Engine 2 28-day Challenge. A participant approached the leader of the challenge as I was standing next to her. She showed her a recipe for a very simple soup that she said was amazing. It was comprised of one can of refried beans, 1 can of beans, 1 jar of salsa, some oil and, I think, sour cream. She was so excited because she could see that all you had to do was eliminate the oil and sour cream and it would be a perfectly E2 soup.

After the evening was over and I was shopping in the store I remembered that Gena from http://www.choosingraw.com/ had been talking about a product called "Liquid Smoke" on her blog that day and raving about a smoky hummus that she had made with the liquid smoke. My mind started to put two and two together . . . a smokey refried bean soup with . . . can you guess? KALE!

Like I said, sometimes life just conspires towards us. This soup is incredible. The Liquid Smoke was only $1.99! But better yet, this soup couldn't be easier. I think a child could make it!

Healthy Girl's Smokey Bean and Kale Soup
serves 6-8 people

Printable Recipe

1 jar of your favorite salsa
2 cans beans-black or pinto-drained and rinsed
2 cans fat free refried beans-black or pinto
1/2 bag frozen corn-I like Trader Joe's frozen roasted corn
1 box low sodium vegetable broth (4 cups)
1 bunch lacinato kale, sliced into ribbons and washed
1/4 tsp or more Liquid Smoke
a few tortilla chips, optional

Place salsa, beans, refried beans, frozen corn, and vegetable broth in soup pot over medium heat. Stir and bring to a simmer.

Add kale, stir and lower heat to low. Simmer for 15 minutes. Taste. Add 1/4 tsp liquid smoke. Taste and add more Liquid Smoke to your taste.

Great with a few crunched up tortilla chips sprinkled over the top! O-M-Goodness!

Serve with a giant salad for a souper filling dinner. Okay, enough with the "souper" now.

Read more

Coconut Curry Kale, Chick Pea and Sweet Potato Stoup



I have officially become my mother.

But don't get mad, Mom. That's not an insult.

I saw a totally healthy recipe here on Mama Pea's blog and I made it EVEN healthier. Mom would be so proud. And thank you to Mama Pea, as this is a pretty genius recipe! My husband said, "This is the best soup you have ever made, it's incredible, it's perfect, it's so delicious. Holy cow. This is sick. This is so good. This is the best soup ever. Holy Shit. How could you ever make anything this good again?"

Nuf said.

Coconut Curry Kale, Chick Pea and Sweet Potato Stoup
adapted from a recipe by Mama Pea over at Peas and Thank You

Printable Recipe
2 cups chopped onion
2 large stalks celery, rough chopped
1 medium head bok choy, rough chopped
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp sweet curry powder
1 tsp hot curry powder (optional if you like heat)
4 cups vegetable broth (1 standard box)
1 14 oz. can light coconut milk
1 14 oz. can diced organic fire-roasted tomatoes (i.e. Muir Glen, Trader Joe's, Hunts all now have this)
2 14 oz. cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 Tbsp arrowroot powder
1 large sweet potato, diced medium
1 head organic kale, de-stemmed and chopped into pieces
1/4 tsp salt and pepper to taste (or to taste)

Place all ingredients, onion through chick peas, into a crock pot set to 6 hours. At the 4 1/2 hour, add the sweet potato. At 5 hours, remove a ladle full of the broth and pour into a small bowl. Dissolve the 1 Tbsp of arrowroot powder into the broth and return broth to crock pot. Then add the kale. After 6 hours, season to taste with salt and pepper and serve.

P.S. It seems that more and more doctors are catching on to the plant-strong way of eating as a method of disease prevention. Read about two of them here.

Read more

Vacation Kale and Bean Saute

Just a reminder, don't forget to participate in my first ever blog contest and enter to win a copy of the newly revised Eat to Live by Dr. Joel Fuhrman! Winner will be picked at random on January 1st.

Are any of you wondering why I've been so quiet lately? Probably not, but I'll tell you anyway. I'm travelling with my family, escaping the cold of frigid Cleveland, if only for a short time. We're lucky enough to stay in a condo on the beach in Southwest Florida, where I have my very own kitchen. And that makes this healthy girl a very happy girl! I've been cooking up this amazing recipe for greens from the Dr. Fuhrman Member Site.  Here's my variation on this winner:

Kale and Bean Saute
Inspired by a recipe on http://www.drfuhrman.com/
Serves: 4

2 bunches kale, tough stems and center ribs removed, chopped or 1 large bag of prewashed/cut kale
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes soaked in hot water for 30 minutes, drained and chopped
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 cup shiitake mushrooms, coarsely chopped
3 cloves garlic, pressed
vegetable broth, as needed
1 15 ounce can beans, any type, rinsed and drained
1 1/2 tablespoons fruity vinegar
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
red pepper flakes, to taste
1/4 cup raw sunflower seeds or any type nuts (chopped if the nuts are large)
dash of salt

In a large skillet over medium heat, add vegetable broth to just cover the bottom of the pan. Broth sauté the onions and garlic until onions are translucent. Do not let onions burn. Add mushrooms and cook for 5 minutes, stirring frequently.  Add kale and re hydrated tomatoes and cook, tossing with the onion and mushrooms, over medium heat , adding broth only as needed, until kale is soft.

Add the beans, vinegar, mustard and red pepper flakes (be careful!), then cook for 3 more minutes. Taste and season with only a dash of salt.

I know from a lot of people that the holidays are an easting disaster.They resolve themselves to eating food that they don't feel good about mentally or physically and commit to eating healthy again as soon as January 1st rolls around. Why don't I just do the same? I'm here on vacation, why not go on a healthy eating vacation? Because something in me has changed. Maybe it was the reading and rereading of Eat to Live. Maybe it's the way that a green smoothie makes me feel. The "old" food just holds no appeal for me now. Brainwashed for the better I guess.

What have you been cooking up this holiday week? Are you sticking to your plans or falling prey to the holiday offerings?

Read more

Easy No Oil Vegan Butternut Squash and Kale Soup

So Easy Your 5 Year Old Can Make It!

Easy Vegan Butternut Squash and Kale Soup
serves 8 (small/1+ cup) or 4 (large/2+ cup)

5 small or 2 large yellow onions, peeled and chopped
2 32 ounce boxes vegetable broth
1 butternut squash
1/2 bunch kale-washed, stems removed and chopped
salt
pepper
dash of Cayenne pepper

Place dutch oven or other soup type pot over medium heat. Pour in vegetable broth to coat bottom of pot. When broth is bubbling, place chopped onions in pot and stir. Cook onions over low-medium heat, stirring frequently. Watch that they do not burn. They can cook slowly over low heat for up to 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, poke holes in the butternut squash and place it on a paper towel in the microwave. Heat on high for 2 minutes to soften it and make it easier to cut. Remove squash from microwave--be careful, it's hot--and peel it with a vegetable peeler. Cut in half lengthwise and remove seeds. Cut squash into medium sized chunks.

When onions are really soft, add butternut squash to pot and pour in enough vegetable broth to cover everything. This amount will vary depending on how large your squash was. You cannot mess this up!

Simmer over low heat for 25 minutes. Puree with an immersion blender. Add chopped kale and simmer for 10 more minutes. Season with salt and pepper and a dash of Cayenne pepper if you like heat (be careful!).

Read more

A Vegan Trifecta

Last week a cookbook was recommended to me by a friend, Scott, who is a far better cook than me. In fact, he's really a chef, only he's a lawyer who cooks just for fun. He is also a self-proclaimed meat addict. But he really put himself outside of his comfort zone and signed on to do the Whole Foods 28 Day Engine 2 Challenge. I'd like to think that I had something to do with inspiring him to try out this plant strong way of eating, after seeing my transformation. We'll never know.

I think Scott considers himself officially "plant strong" now, if not completely vegan. He's gone through quite a transformation himself, both physically and psychologically. Not only has he dropped more than 30 pounds since dropping the meat, he's dropped the emotional ups and downs that he used to experience. His testimony is actually quite moving.

So when Scott told me about a cookbook that he was getting a lot of inspiration from, I ordered it that day from Amazon. It's called Clean Food and the author is Terry Walters. If you are looking for an incredible variety of easy, fast vegan recipes full of unique, healthy ingredients, this cookbook is a must. There are four sections, one for each season, so you can even stick to eating what is in season if you'd like. The only thing that could make this cookbook better is photographs, but I guess I'll have to supply those for us!

In one day, Ms. Walters has already inspired me to cook my own aduki beans (instead of using canned), purchase a pomegranate, use up the millet that was in my pantry and much, much more. I just picked three things from the book that seemed appealing to me and figured I would serve them all up at once for dinner. The results? Beautiful, tasty, filling and ultimately nutritious.

Millet, Aduki Beans and Corn with Lemon Dressing

Warm Greens with Citrus Dressing and Pomegranate

Curried Parsnips

I do want to mention that Ms. Walter's recipes often include olive oil or grapeseed oil. I chose to eliminate it altogether and opted to saute in broth instead for the Curried Parsnips. In the case of the other two recipes, I reduced the amount of oil called for the in the recipe by 50%. None of the recipes that I tested seemed affected at all by these changes, which is generally what I find with all recipes!



Read more