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Vibrant Vegetable Soup

January 25, 2013 in recipe by traveleatlove | 6 comments

When last week’s plan of healthy eating turned into dining out, events, and takeout every night, we were left with a fridge full of produce that we needed to eat in a short space of time. Smoothies and chips took care of the kale overload, but we had a bunch of other healthy ingredients to use up. With temps falling, soup seemed like the perfect idea, and in just a short amount of time, a vibrant veggie soup came together.

broccoli

The ingredients:

4 cups broccoli florets, roasted at 400 for 20 minutes

3 cups baby spinach

2 cups sweet peppers, roasted at 400 for 20 minutes

1 cup white onion, chopped and sautéed in olive oil until soft

4 large potatoes, boiled until soft

Coconut milk – enough to make it into a soupy consistency

handful fresh cilantro

pepper

spinach

So Delicious Coconut Milk

Once the veggies were roasted and the potatoes were cooked through, I added it all to my Ninja blender with some curry powder, garlic, cumin, and chili powder and pureed until nice and smooth.

potatoes and spices

I returned it all to the pot and simmered it on low until we were ready to eat.

creamy vegetable soup

We each had a big bowl topped with Greek yogurt to add some protein and creaminess to it. For being just a bunch of vegetables and a few other ingredients blended together, we both thought the soup tasted like something you’d find at a nice restaurant. It was a great green color, packed full of nutrients to keep us from getting sick, and an easy way to avoid wasting food, something I absolutely hate doing. I’m trying to be more careful with grocery shopping, only getting enough for what we need and also trying to stay home more. It’s not been too hard in this frigid weather!

It’s time to meal plan for yet another week; what do you have on your menu for next week?

Tags: broccoli, coconut milk, Food, healthy, peppers, potatoes, recipe, soup, spices, spinach, vegan, vegetables, Vegetarian

Creamy Pumpkin Curry Sauce

October 10, 2012 in Food by traveleatlove | 7 comments

Some weeks just seem to be cursed. For me, last week was that week. I happen to be a lover of Mondays. I know my love for the first day of the week is not that common, but I usually have fun, relaxing weekends and wake up feeling rested and excited for the possibilities the week will bring.

But when you find out on a Monday before 9 am that not just one, but two of the long-term projects you’ve been working on are ending unexpectedly, well, that’s not the kind of possibility I am looking for. Add to that a virus-infected blog (sorry!), another project disappointment, a few promised calls that never came, a bad running week, and a few other things that I can’t really mention, and the week is like being behind a punching bag that keeps being hit.

Cooking is almost always a comfort in times like this, and I felt some positive energy as I thought about mixing in the season’s favorite ingredient, pumpkin, with a few other ingredients to make a vegan “cheese” sauce for pasta.

While in the checkout line at the store, I noticed that my can of pumpkin was severely dented. With just a minute to spare until it was my turn to check out, I sprinted back to the pumpkin aisle to grab another can.

pumpkin mac and cheese ingredients

When I got home I realized it was pre-made pumpkin pie filling instead of plain old pumpkin. With the week I was having, this was last straw kind of stuff. We were eating this pumpkin for dinner if the meal had to consist of pumpkin pie.

Luckily, we have a kitchen full of spices, and I was able to counteract the pumpkin pie flavor, making a creamy, delicious sauce that was full of flavor and nutrition.

The ingredients:

19 ounce can of cannellini beans, drained

30 ounce can of pumpkin (or pumpkin pie mix)

3/4 cup of nutritional yeast, plus as much as you like for topping finished product

1 medium white onion, chopped

4 cloves garlic, chopped

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon chili powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons curry powder

shake of red pepper flakes

image

Since I knew I would be blending the sauce for a long time, I roughly chopped the onion and garlic, just so that it could cook and soften all the way through.

pumpkin curry sauce

Once the onion and garlic were smelling great and softening in some olive oil, I layered in the other ingredients for the sauce: white beans, nutritional yeast, chili powder, curry powder, and pumpkin, plus a dash of habanero sauce.

I let the mixture get nice and hot, stirring everything together as it simmered, and then transferred into my trusty Ninja blender. I love this thing!

pumpkin curry sauce - perfect for pumpkin mac and cheese

I blended for about five minutes until the sauce was nice and creamy and used it as a topping for whole wheat elbow macaroni, adding extra nutritional yeast to make it a little more “cheesy”.

While the week might have been a bad one, and I completely flubbed on the pumpkin purchase, a little bit of creativity and a lot of spice was able to turn dinner around, avoiding a GrubHub order. We’ve certainly been doing enough of those lately!

There’s nothing like a good dinner and a positive attitude to try to turn things around!

Have you had any kitchen “oops” moments that you were able to fix into something fabulous?

Tags: delicious, dinner, Food, healthy, healthy comfort food, pumpkin, recipe, sauce, vegan

Greens and Beans Soup

October 4, 2012 in Food, recipe by traveleatlove | 7 comments

With the New York City Marathon officially one month away, I’m starting to hope that eating really well will be able to help make up for lack of training, even if ever so slightly. It works that way, right? Maybe if I believe it enough, it will be so.

We’ve been trying to eat less meat in general, and I’ve been trying to cook on the cheap, and since it feels like winter out, a simple soup came out of a few pantry ingredients along with some fresh additions.

onion

I started this soup by adding a chopped onion, a bunch of garlic, and a big bowl of beautiful kale to some olive oil in my treasured Le Creuset French oven which will soon be two years old. I love how kitchen memories sometimes spark life memories. Two years ago, I had quit my full time job, was really, really, sick, and was cooking up this delicious pork dish in my new cookware. It’s been quite the two years. . . and I having a really good memory is a blessing a curse.

Back to the soup!

kale

I let the kale cook down a little bit before adding a can of stewed tomatoes, using my vegetable scissors to chop the tomatoes into smaller pieces.

stewed tomatoes

I drained a can of white beans and added them in.

cannelini beans

Then I poured in enough veggie broth to cover everything.

vegetable stock

To season the soup, I added two heaping tablespoons of Pastene pesto. I am not generally a fan of jarred pesto; fresh pesto is SO good. But Pastene makes great products and I thought I would give this one a try. It’s quite good, especially on toast with olive oil, which we had alongside the soup. I am embracing my emerging carb monster!

Pastene pesto

I let the soup simmer for about 20 minutes, then turned the heat off until we were ready to eat. At that point all of the flavors had combined nicely, and the kale was perfectly soft but not mushy.

kale and white beans soup

The soup, along with pesto toast, made for a delicious and simple dinner. My favorite thing about a soup like this is how versatile it is. Add some chicken sausage, small pasta, rice, other veggies, really whatever you have on hand. Recipes like this make for great leftovers and take some of the thought out of lunches during the week.

Is it the weekend yet?

Tags: healthy, kale, recipe, soup, vegan, Vegetarian, white beans

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