Chickpea Cilantro Soup

I never used to like soup, aside from chicken and stars with a bunch of saltines. I think the reason I wasn't into soup had to do with not having much soup growing up, as well as not liking celery, which seems to be in most soups.

I've been surprised, however, that I've like nearly every soup I've made, even without a recipe. Inspired by Dr. Joel Fuhrman's suggestions of cooking soups, I've tried a few that involve blending.

This time I made a soup not very much like those Dr. Fuhrman recommends, but good and healthy nonetheless. First I sauteed some onions and then some garlic in a cast iron pan. I transferred this to a bigger pot and added some water, turned it to medium-high and added some chili powder, garlic powder, Bragg's liquid aminos, epazote, and part of a chopped over-sized and tough zucchini that some friends grew in their garden. Once the zucchini was pretty well cooked, I put some water, sunflower seeds, and leftover cilantro stems into a blender, then used a slotted spoon to add about half of the non-liquid ingredients from the soup pot.

You have to be careful with hot liquids in blenders. I usually use less liquid while cooking, then add cool water for the blending, then mix the rest of the hot liquid in at the end- in the pot.

I poured the portion I just blended into a large glass container that I will use for leftovers if there are any. I then added a bit more water and the rest of the non-liquid pieces from the cooked soup. I then added all of the blended soup in with the liquid that remained in the pot. I then added some cooked chickpeas, tasted it, and added a tiny bit more each of Bragg's, cayenne, and chipotle powder. I also added a little bit of lemon juice (didn't have fresh). Now I need to eat it because it's getting cold...

Healthy Chocolate Pudding

No, this is no tofu pudding. This is no "sugar-free" pudding with fake sweeteners, sugar alcohols or stevia, this is a delicious pudding made from mostly raw whole foods. This is healthy enough that I've had it for breakfast a couple times. It's probably less calories than many cereals people eat for breakfast.

I wasn't going to include this because it wasn't as affordable for a treat as I'd like to promote. But in comparison to a similar sized serving of a frozen dessert like soy icecream, I'd say it's pretty comparable.

The key to this recipe is a nicely ripened mango. I've made this several times now, and the riper the mango, the less it clashes with the chocolate.

So initially I made this with a handful of macadamia nuts (unsalted!), but when I ran out of those, I made this with cashews and was not disappointed. Today I made it with raw almonds and it was good, but I think I prefer cashews.

I take about a handful of nuts per mango and blend them up in a blender or food processor (the blender seems to work best for this recipe) until I have a finely ground powder. You could also use a nut butter, in which case I could add that after blending the mango. Then i rinse and peel the mango with a veggie peeler. I cut the mango off the core in smallish pieces and put all those pieces in the blender. I add some vanilla extract, maybe a teaspoon or so. I blend this for a bit, and I might have to scrape the sides and the bottom to get it all blended. Then I add cocoa powder to taste. I usually add enough that it looks and tastes like chocolate pudding (although I've not had any sort of chocolate pudding in a long time, so I'm not sure how accurate this is). Then it's done! It should be a nice pudding-like consistency.

I would like to also try this with avocado instead of mango some day...

Quick Beans and Kale

The other day I was a bit hurried for dinner. I had some pre-cut kale in the fridge and was in the mood for beans. I threw a can of rinsed pinto beans and the kale in a pan with a little water. Once the kale was cooked through, I added some chipotle salsa, a little nutritional yeast, Bragg's liquid aminos, garlic powder, and tahini. It probably took around five minutes.

Other types of salsa could probably work. The chipotle salsa I used is not very hot, which is preferable in my case. I would've also enjoyed a salsa verde.

I used tahini to add a bit of creaminess since I don't use any sort of cheese nor oil. The nutritional yeast is commonly used by vegans to add a bit of a cheesy flavor.

Beans and greens are a good combo, it's just a matter of seasoning.

Tabouli-Inspired Sunny Cilantro Millet Salad

I've recently come to love cilantro, but I haven't yet come around to parsley. I know tabouli is a healthy dish, so I came across a cilantro tabouli and thought I'd try it.

The recipe was actually for a cilantro tabouli made with millet, and since I already had some millet that we made for our dog, I was even more encouraged to pick up some cilantro at the local farmer's market.

We had some red bell peppers to use up, and I regret not having any fresh tomatoes, but roasted the red bell peppers and soaked and chopped some sun-dried tomatoes. While the red pepper was roasting, I saw that I also had a zucchini to use up and figured I'd use it raw by grating it. This turned out well because the millet was a little on the dry side, which the moisture of the zucchini made up for.

So I mixed some chopped garlic, a little salt, and some lemon juice (unfortunately not fresh, but it worked anyway), and the grated zucchini into the millet. I chopped the cilantro as the roasted red pepper was resting in a bag and the sun-dried tomatoes were still soaking. Then I cut up the pepper and tomatoes and mixed those into the salad. Finally I added some sun flower seeds and a dash of apple cider vinegar, mixed it thoroughly, and it was done!