Vegetable Minestrone Soup

Tomorrow is payday and the fridge and pantry are looking a little bare, so tonight I'm making another version of veggie soup (my first version is a roasted veggie soup that I need to post a recipe for). I spent some time in the garden this morning thinning out the carrots and Swiss chard so the carrots have more space to grow bigger as we are coming into spring and the Swiss chard can focus it's energy on new growth since I recently transplanted them. I also had some tomatoes, turnips, and jalapeno left over from the Fort Smith farmer's market. In the freezer I had a quart of white beans I cooked earlier in the winter, and in the pantry there were a couple cans of chickpeas. It all comes together to make an incredibly yummy soup!!! The ingredients are completely flexible based on what you have on hand. In some research, Minestrone traditionally has a bean based broth and contains whatever vegetables are in season.

Ingredients:

Onion, diced
Garlic, minced
Carrots, diced
Turnips, diced
Jalapeno, diced
Tomatoes, diced
Swiss Chard, chopped if needed
White Beans, previously cooked and frozen
Chickpeas, canned, drained and rinsed
Salt and Pepper to taste
Better Than Bouillon Vegetable Base
Oregano
Basil
Parsley
Olive Oil
Water

Heat olive oil, onion and garlic in a stock pot with a pinch of salt and pepper. Once fragrant and starting to turn clear, add carrots, jalapeno and turnips. Cook for a few minutes more to help enhance flavors. Then add remaining ingredients, enough water to cover and season to taste. Bring to a soft boil, reduce heat and simmer for at least half an hour.

Vegan Blueberry Ginger Muffins

One of the things I miss most about Texas are the Vegan Blueberry Ginger Muffins from The Cupboard Natural Food Store in Denton. I came across this recipe for vegan blueberry muffins a few weeks ago and thought I'd try it this morning. As I was about to stir in the blueberries (I used dried) I remembered I have candied ginger in the fridge, so I diced some up (about 1/4 cup) and tossed them in.

The muffins from The Cupboard are crumbly which make them messy to eat but they taste incredible. The muffins I made this morning are not crumbly and have the taste and consistency of any standard muffin recipe. The ginger and dried blueberries are amazing in them. I think this might be my new favorite muffin recipe and no one would ever guess they are vegan.

Easy Vegan Black Bean Soup

Since watching the documentary Forks Over Knives a couple of months ago, I've been making more of an effort to make my diet more plant heavy. This week I got my first reward, I dropped down a dress size!

For most of my life I was at a healthy weight. Once I started seeing a neurologist for my migraines, I started packing on the weight as a side effect of the medications. I've been struggling since I went off the meds in 2006 to take the weight back off. I had gone down a dress size fairly quickly and kept that weight off, but then I hit a plateau and even though I was eating healthy and increasing my activity levels, I just wasn't losing any weight. Now I feel motivated to stay on this course of a plant heavy diet and see how many more improvements I make not just to my weight, but also other health issues.

Tonight's dinner turned out super yummy. It's extremely easy too.

Ingredients:
4 cans refried black beans
1-2 cups of water (use what you need to make the soup a consistency you like, it may take more water)
1-2 Tbs minced garlic
1 diced onion
1 can Rotel
Cayenne
Espazote (this is an herb common in Mexican cooking and also used as a tea)
Oregano
Lime
Olive Oil

In a pot, add oil, onion and garlic and cook on medium heat until onions are translucent. Add Rotel and beans. As the beans heat up and spread, add water and herbs to taste. I think I used about a teaspoon of each except the cayenne which was only 1/4 teaspoon. Add a squeeze of lime before serving. You may also serve with tortilla chips.

The Heat Won't Give Up...

We live in the South, so as much as we long for cooler weather, the heat doesn't want to give up. The next few days we'll be in the mid to upper 90s, if not low 100s and that's not good news for my newly planted fall garden. The varieties I planted are heat tolerant, but not satan's armpit tolerant, so I used a bed sheet to create a tent over the bed. It seems to be working like a charm. I'm still having to keep an eye on the plants at each end because they aren't covered all the time, but they seem to be doing okay with some heavy watering.

In other news, Tony started drilling holes and setting pipes for the plumbing drainage system this weekend and realized he bought some of the wrong parts for the pipes so I'll be making a trip to Home Depot this week so we can work on that more this next weekend.

As for me and my personal projects, I'm looking into switching us to a diet that isn't so heavy with meat and dairy. I'm tired of battling sinus infections and I'm hoping that by eliminating the dairy from my diet it'll clear up the chronic infections. I also watched Forks Over Knives on Netflix and I'm amazed at how a plant heavy diet can reverse so many medical conditions. It's inspired me to figure out more ways to expand our garden beyond the 5-6 raised beds we have planned.

I have several knitting and crochet projects I'm working on, but the one I'm most excited about is the Palindrome Scarf. It may be hot outside and I'm forced to sip iced green tea but I'm daydreaming of winter and mugs of hot green tea. The local/little yarn shop in Fort Smith is closing and she has all her yarn on sale for 50% off. I picked up a couple skeins of a no-pill acrylic in Iron that is super soft. I'm in love with this yarn and so I decided I wanted to teach myself to knit cables with it. The "palindrome" comes from the scarf looking the same on both sides.