Vegetable Soup

It's the end of March and I'm craving a hot bowl of soup?? Those little days in between the bitter-cold where it's about 65 degrees out and you can walk out of the gym in shorts and not FREEZE really tease me.  I still felt like making some soup to warm up the kitchen AND drink some hot broth to release any of the cold I still have in me, so I went to Russo's and bought mounds of wonderful vegetables to melt into something creative.

Came home, and decided on a Harpoon Munich Dark beer first. Thank you Jesse, it was great.

The vegetables I used:

4 celery stalks
4 carrots
1 sweet potato
1/3 summer squash
1 white onion
1 yellow squash
1/3 Savoy cabbage (the crinkled-leaf kind)
1 28oz can of diced tomatoes
handful of chopped flat leaf parsley

Cut the root veggies up into large chunks, turn the oven up to 400 Degrees and roast them until very soft.and sweet. This takes about 40 minutes.

Also, there's no need to peel them, just wash them.  They're going into the blender.

Dice the onion and add it to about a tablespoon of crushed garlic and extra virgin olive oil that is being heated in a deep frying pan.

I tried to take a picture of my crying eyes here after I cut the onion. NONE of them came out even half way decent to share.

Sweat baby, sweat. Sweat the onions until translucent and then add the chopped up yellow squash. Then the chopped celery.

Next, I took out my large soup pot added 2 48oz cans of fat free chicken broth, the cooked onion, squash, celery, and chopped cabbage.  I turned the flame up to medium-high and put on the lid to let the cabbage slowly cook.

Out of the oven! Root vegetables are soft.

BLEND IT. Add some water to make it easier on yourself

Add the blended orange vegetables to the soup and stir!

Next, add the following spices:

Garlic powder
Dried Chives
Onion powder
Black pepper
Basil

Just add a little at a time. I honestly can't estimate how much I put in, just enough to make it taste very delicious!

Let the soup cook on low heat for another 40 minutes until the vegetables are soft. Heat it up and enjoy :)

Green Morning

"Ooo BABY," was my reaction to trying this Green Smoothie for the first time.  It's a breakfast (or in my case, my lunch) that will surprise you! I've been seeing a lot of these in the "Blog World" and wondered if I'd like them. I obviously did.

What is so wonderful about these is that you can use that imagination of yours and throw whatever comes to mind in your blender and wizz away. 

Always start with a green. Spinach, kale, mustard greens, etc.

Wash your greens well.

Today's ingredients included:
-LARGE handful of washed spinach
-1 container of Oikos plain 0% fat yogurt
-1/2 cup red grapes
-1/2 ripe banana
-1/3 cucumber
-water for thinning

Oh, and it was sweetened with about a tablespoon of this guy:

Pack it all into the blender, add your water, and blend. Start with a small amount of water and increase as you go.

Take a look inside.

Blend it well. Pour it.

I had my roommate Jesse and his girlfriend Alex try some. Only a little.

They liked it!

Cheers!

It was thick, sweet, and a pretty color green. The honey I used was a bit older, so I heated in the microwave to loosen it. We all agreed we could taste little crystallized chunks of honey. Not a bad thing though.  Newer honey or even agave syrup would work better i think.

Here's a list of other things to incorporate to make an amazing Green Smoothie:

Fruit
Apple
Pear
Kiwi
Mango
Plums
Pineapple
Any kind of berry (blue, black, straw, etc.)

Dairy
Milk (Cow's, soy, almond, hemp, etc.)
Yogurt

Greens
Spinach
Kale
Mustard greens
Collard greens
Cabbage
Swiss chard

Nuts/Nut butters
Peanut butter
Almond butter
Cashew butter
Chai seeds

Sweetener (optional)
Honey
Agave syrup

Random
Avocado (VERY CREAMY!)
Protein powder
Vanilla/Almond extract

Don't be nervous. Just try it.