Today’s post is written by my good friend Malinda who I’ve known for several years now. She transitioned to a vegetarian diet around the same time as I transitioned to a plant-based diet, so we’ve had fun swapping stories over the past few months. Enjoy!
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Hi! My name is Malinda. I’ve always tried living a healthy lifestyle through good nutrition and exercise, but after turning 40 my husband and I decided we needed to ramp it up! I’ve recently turned to an organic vegetarian diet and am devoted to “juicing”. I never enjoyed cooking until recently. Now, I am a bit more creative and open to exploring new healthy foods in the kitchen.
You can’t go wrong with SOUP! As I mentioned, I am new to the world of cooking (or at least new to finding ENJOYMENT in cooking!). I used to have this strange fear of the kitchen. I don’t know if it was cutting meat out of my diet that removed the fear (that whole cross-contamination thing freaked me out!) or what, but I seem to have a new sense of appreciation for food and the food preparation process.
When you’re new to something you tend to stick with the easy stuff. And for me, in the kitchen, that has been SOUP. I love that there aren’t really any “rules”, you just get creative and you rarely go wrong. So this post is about a great soup. And because this is BETTER WITH VEGGIES, this soup is naturally a vegetable soup!
It started when I found myself with way too many eggplants. Not something you typically find yourself with an abundance of, but somehow I did. I decided to search online for some ideas and stumbled across an Eggplant Supper Soup on allrecipes.com. With a few tweaks to make it vegetarian, here’s what I came up with.
- 1 T Earth Balance
- 1 T Vegetable Oil
- 1 T Minced Garlic
- 1 cup of sliced carrots
- 1 cup of diced celery
- 1 medium onion (diced)
- 1 large eggplant (or several smaller ones) quartered and diced
- 2 cans of Italian style diced tomatoes
- 1-2 cans of soup beans (depends on your preference for amount of beans)
- 32+ oz Vegetable broth (may need more depending on how hearty you like your soup)
- 2 tsp of sugar (I use sucanat)
- 1 tsp of freshly ground nutmeg
- 1 cup of spelt macaroni noodles (or another favorite noodle; I like spelt because they are higher in protein)
- 1 medium avocado
- Salt and Pepper to taste
- Heat the oil and Earth balance in a large pot.
- Add garlic, celery, onion, and carrot and cook until slightly tender (about 7-10 minutes), stirring frequently.
- Add vegetable broth, tomatoes, beans and eggplant. Simmer until eggplant is cooked, but still slightly firm.
- Season with sugar, nutmeg, salt and pepper to your preferred taste. There should be a slightly sweet flavor with a hint of nutmeg. (Everyone’s seasoning preferences are different, so play around until you find the taste that is just right for you! That’s the great thing about soup!).
- Add the dry noodles and continue simmering until noodles are al dente. You may need to increase the liquid content by adding more vegetable broth if you want it to be more like soup and less like stew.
- Serve topped with sliced avocado.
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This soup/stew is filling and satisfying! You could vary the ingredients by adding mushrooms, zucchini, or other veggies you have on hand. The slight sweetness makes it a nice surprise on the palate! And the avocado adds some healthy fat and creaminess.
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