Two Soups: Tomato and Spring Greens

It has been rainy here and I am not complaining - we needed it. Chilly rainy weather says soup to me. I could have posted this recipe a few days ago, but I needed to take a picture of this red stuff... of course!
My favorite tomato soup:
I grow a bunch of tomatoes during our short growing season and freeze them whole. I put them into the pan (skin and all) from the completely frozen state and cook them down with the flavorings. I have a good quality kitchenaid hand mixer (stainless steel arm) with nine powerful settings. I blend this soup smooth. Considering the seeds and the peel is in there, my mixer is pretty powerful and the soup does get smooth.

Saute onion and garlic until softened:
1 medium onion
1 tsp fresh garlic
Then add:
3 lb tomatoes (stemmed and cut into chunks)
1 carrot (diced)
1 tsp salt
Cook for 15 minutes (until all veggies are soft) and puree with a hand mixer right in the pot. Then add the following and simmer for 20 minutes or more (I leave it go on warm for sometimes all day):
2 Tbsp veggie broth powder or bouillon
3 Tbsp tomato paste (depending on the quality of the tomatoes)
2 Tbsp sugar (or a little more to taste... I add 1/4 tsp stevia = to 1/4 cup sugar sweetness because we grew up on the corn syrupy canned tomato concentrate stuff
3 Tbsp rice protein powder and 2 cups water OR use your favorite milk... not soy because tomatoes are acidic and that milk may curdle.
Sprinkle with 1 tbsp dried basil. Taste for salt and pepper.


This soup is taken from the lastest Vegan Feast Newsletter. It is made with spring nettles ( a mild green that doesn't have oxylates like spinach, but needs to be harvested while wearing gloves because nettles will cause your hand to burn... they are called stinging nettles. I searched all over a woodsy area near us and found none, so subbed kale from my freezer and worked well. This concoction is a garlicy, white bean and carrot meal deal. I liked it. I do usually add more liquids to soup recipes because I like my soups on the soupy side.

Bon Appetit' and happy weekend!

My sis is home and doing well and my catty (Tiger/ gray tabby) is still missing. He is an indoor-outdoor cat and we've had him for three years. He's never ran off before, but actually we never really "got" him either - he showed up as a stray.

Peach Porridge & Mocha Granita with oats

PEACH PORRIDGE
Here is a picture of snipped dried peaches and a jar of irish cut oats (aka steel cut oats) on the right and a porridge/ peach nutmeg pudding using the oats that we enjoy. I put this in one cup containers in the frig and it is a fast snack grab. DH likes to warm these up and top with tofuuti ice cream, he says it reminds him of a peach pie. The dried peaches are VERY flavorful, when cooked.
I make this on the low setting of my stovetop (slow cook feature). I start with 1 - 12 oz package of dried peaches, chop them and add to a pan with 2 cups water and bring to a boil and cook for 5 minutes, turn down heat and turn on stovetop slow cook option at the lowest setting. Add 1 1/2 Cups oats, 6 cups water, 1/2 tsp sea salt, 1-2 tsp nutmeg, and stevia or sweetener to taste. I typically add 1/3 - 1/2 tsp KAL extract powder which is the equal to cups vs. teaspoon. I typically allow this to slow cook overnight, otherwise stell cut oats take about 45 minutes to absorb the cooking water... I use more water than typical for this recipe because I wanted a softer pudding style result. My stove top feature cooks at a lower temperature than a common low setting on a slow cooker. I have heard of rice makers that have porridge settings. I taste it and adjust sweetener before I eat it. This yields a breakfast bowl full for me in the morning and 6 - 1 cup servings for later.

MOCHA GRANITA
This is a yummy coffee smoothie I had this morning. In a Magic Bullet cup place 1/4 C water and 2 Tbsp flax meal, blend until thickened. Then fill 3/4 full with ice cubes, 1 scoop of protein powder (soy, or rice, or hemp - you choose), stevia to sweeten, 2 Tbsp expresso powder (instant), 1/4 tsp cardamom, and water to fill 3/4" from the top. Blend until smooth. This has a very strong coffee flavor, which I like and it is a nice change of pace from hot coffee in the summer. I enjoyed this with a bowl of cocoa oatmeal.

COCOA OATMEAL
I buy dark cocoa powder in the bulk section of a food store I like to visit, this has a robust chocolate flavor meant only for serious dark chocolate lovers (like me). I placed 1/2 C rolled oats in a bowl, added 1/4 tsp salt, 1 Tbsp dark cocoa powder, 1 C water and sweetener to taste (I use stevia). Micro cook 2 minutes, watch to ensure no boil over occurs. Allow it to sit for 5 minutes before serving if you like a firm oatmeal. I put some of my coffee granita on top of this before eating. It was heavenly. I completed my meal with a nice red organic apple.

I will be posting my tomato soup recipe Monday by request of Catharine, the Food Snob. I enjoy when my blog has visitors, thanks for commenting. I hope to get in a picture of some quinoa/brown rice sushi (which means vinegared rice) rolls that I hope to make this weekend. My oldest sister fell in California where she was doing contract work last week and broke her arm. She went in for emergency surgery at that time and now is coming home to re-cooperate. I will be picking her up from the airport tonight. Mend quick vibes for my sis!

Mushroom Polenta Gratin

This idea and recipe (although I made substitutions in many places) came from the Vegan Feast Newsletter Jan/ Feb/ Mar 2006... BRYANNA'S POLENTA GRATIN WITH MUSHROOMS AND "GRUYERE". I didn't have sundried tomatoes or fresh basil, so subbed tomato paste, dried basil and roasted red pepper (for color) in areas and we liked it well enough. I added this to my 2x2 table basket and definitely plan to make this again when have fresh basil and tomatoes that I can oven dry.

The first thing I did was roast the red pepper in my oven. Then when it was charred I wrapped the foil around it loosely so that when I needed it the skin would come off easily when I was ready to slice it. Then I blended the silken tofu, tomato and basil mixture to have ready for use. I also had 1/3 C Bryanna's gruyere cheese in the freezer ready to shred and sliced mushrooms ready to use.

Next I made the polenta using 2 1/2 C strong flavored vegetable broth and 3/4 cup Beb's Red Mill corn grits. I have tried to use an organic corn meal (Hodskin Mill, I think) before for a polenta recipe, but it didn't set up like I knew polenta should. I think that it was a finer mill than required for polenta. The corn grits set up perfectly. I cooked them in the microwave, Bryanna offers an easy cooking method for this. The last time I tried to make polenta in a pan I burned it on the bottem of the pan. I spread 1/2 of the polenta while it was still warm into an 8x8 lightly oiled pan, spread 1/2 the tomatoey basil spread, topped with 1/2 the slices of mushrooms and red peppers.

Next I spread the remaining polenta. It was still warm and freshly made enough to do this. In the picture I wanted to show it spreading, it did and covered all the sauce, mushrooms, and red peppers. I topped polenta layer two with the reamaining sauce and veggies. At last, I took a small block of Bryanna's Gruyere Cheese out of the freezer and shred it to my double layered casserole, it spread so well and gets melty and actually browns as you can see in the finished product below.
We enjoyed this casserole.

This is an example of a grain rotation dish. On a "corn" day, that is the only grain eaten for all meals. Corn could be corn based commercial cereal, cornstarch in a Chinese veggie sauce, corn chips, etc... there would be no other grain that could be eaten on this day... it's not hard to accomplish this. We could have another corn day in four days since it was a low level allergen for him. Dealing with so many allergies (which is a sign of an over reactive and improper functioning immune system), we eliminated all allergens for three months after the test results came back so that we could rid the system of irritants as best we could (this was the hardest part!!). Then we started a rotational diet because our goal is to re-train his faulty immune system, a few foods which were immediate reaction/high level allergens (anaphlatic type reaction) may never be tolerable. We did work with a doctor throughout this process and still do, we have actually seen this immune system begin to recover (confirmed by blood chemical tests) . He is not "recovered", but it has been and still is an interesting journey. I 'll talk more about rotational diets this in later blogs since I want the main feature of this post to be the magnificient gratin.

4.26.06 Midweek Munchies and a hungry planet

Our back yard tree is flowering. It does this before turning into leaves, so pretty. These flowers do not have a nice smell though. I have also cleaned out and prepared the planters on our back porch to bear beautiful flowers for us soon. DD is glad she can get her bike out!

Meal Plan:
*keep using green beans and cauliflower from my freezer: chinese chili garlic green beans and a curried dish with red lentils and the cauliflower over brown rice

*Something with organic adzuki beans (spontaneous buy) - any suggestions?

* Quinoa spring salad like that posted by Vicki at the vegetarian family blog

*A white bean garlicy soup including nettles from Vegan Feast Newsletter

*Taco salad with taco'd lentils me*t

*Tomato Soup - I forgot 6 gallon bags of tomatoes in the bottem of a freezer at the bakehouse, I thought I had used my stock from last year, to be served with grilled sandwiches.

* I also rediscovered that I had strawberry rhubarb jam and peach puree on my top shelf. I have pulled out a jar of each of these to use this week.

*A tofu omelet with greens and soy feta cheese

*Muffins, chocolate covered raisin bran muffins (new)

*Big Breakfast Cookie (redo of an older recipe I have made before)

BUYING CLUB ORDER IN TOMMORROW: I have been waiting anxiously for it and feel like my cupboards get bare. My buying club isn't a store that I can go to. I have grouped with other health conscious familes in my area who order one time monthly and then when the truck comes in with our goods (two weeks later) we unload the semi at distribution. Together as a group we get "food store" prices (about a 40% discount from what I can pick things up at a health food store). One bad thing is that we must buy in cases, one good thing is that there are enough of us that we can often split a case with several others. Some items I am looking forward to include: split red lentils, currants, firm tofu, guiltless gourmet corn chips, soy yogurt, quinoa grain.

Other shopping needs:

Since my garden greens are not up yet, I will be purchasing some organic romaine lettuce again for salads and organic baby carrots. I haven't planted any because only I like it, but am looking forward to the farmers market and getting some arugula and raddicho for salads for a change.

ON ANOTHER NOTE:

I noticed a chain grocery store near us is getting in more organic produce. While I am thankful for the availability I get concerned about how little the farmer makes when selling to a chain store. Being a vendor at a market I have heard of the small prices offered to the grower and the difficulties of supplying a local store, some are family farm friendly others care less. No one gets rich growing, but family businesses and lifestyles that support family values do die without that lifeline.

Leslie at Eat Peace Please blog recently shared her bookshelf and library finds. She was passionately impressed with one book called, Hungry Planet (amazon.com link) by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio. This is a beautiful book with its large colorful photographs introducing families from all over the world and their food. I had to be on campus yesterday and stopped at the library, so I checked it out and have read the first three chapters. One concept that totally grabbed me is commercially packaged conveniece goods in the hands of poverty stricken children who need real food and real nutrition. In a poor area being "modernized" with the progress of fast food restaurants and workers who need convenience food, two children have a package of ramen noodles. One child opens the package and starts eating the crunchy noodles while the other opens the seasoning packet and dumps it into his mouth. Is this progress? Are the children in our country receiving better nutrition even if they are able to cook the convenience noodles? Cheap JUNK for occassional fast meals, who is benefitting here?

Want to know more about Midweek Munchies ?

Check out Harmonia's Hut.

A Happy Garden Dog

Links below show pictures of the garden through this 2006 growing season.

Pup says, "Yeah, It's garden season!"
Then she does a happy puppy dance.










She loves garden season. She is doing her happy dance here, but she knows she has to sit pretty to be able to be let free to roam in the garden with me. Our garden ground is freshly planted in the pictures below, but today as this is being posted I have spinach, turnips, and potatoes poking through the ground. I took my first cutting of asparagus that DH started for me three years ago, 1 shoot was delish... I didn't even cook it. I just harvested rhubarb, 12 cups worth of diced tart veggie... I'll have plenty more throughout the season because we started six root plants two years ago and they are hardy. My raspberry plants (heritage) are going well, we also have two yellow raspberry plants and an early summer bearing plant.

This is half of what we have planted in previous years because I will be teaching at the public school in the fall for 12 weeks. That is also a time of great harvest, cutting back will stop alot from going to waste this year. It's hard to hold back though... I have a serious case of garden-i-tous this spring! This problem is kind of like going to the grocery store when you are hungry, only it deals with hankering for fresh produce after a long winter.

Follow the LINKS below to see our 2006 GARDEN grow.

April 18 - May 20

This link will show you our garden center plant purchases and an update of what is growing on towards the end of May in my personal blog entry called WHAT'S UP.

June 12, 2006

Picture includes the tomato that blessed Dave as the winner of the earliest tomato contest at his work. You have to scroll past the family outing and kitchen detail entry to see the garden. A spinach salad and vegetarian sukiyaki recipe is included in this post.

June 17, 2006

2 links below with good pictures. Brussel sprouts, watermelon, kale, broccoli, our kitten (oops!), tomatoes, etc.

The Garden Grows

The Garden Grows and Grows

JUNE 30, 2006

Dori picking green beans... the corn is also growing well.




We harvested the first section of corn July 25-29 at the same time that we removed all of the spent early spring plants as well as zucchini plnat. The zucchini plants got "the bug" and were dying off. We just take them out to try to control the infestation as best we can.