13 Bean Soup with a hint of Chili

13 Bean Soup with a hint of Chili!

Spring has finally come to Chicagoland, and we've been sick the past week (lol). Of course, this sort of thing is bound to happen. But that also means that we need to go back to our winter soups. And what a soup I have for you today!

Bob's Red Mill makes some of the best vegan, organic, whole grain, etc products I've ever had. Their 13 Bean Soup mix is no exception! I guess... all it is is 13 different types of beans, peas, and lentils. Basically, everything that makes a hearty soup, but needs a lot of prep time. Oh, and this is grain free. No barley, rice, or other things. For $5, this will make 2 full soups... about 10 or so meals. So it's worth every penny.

When we were sick, I made homemade vegetable broth. It's so easy! I took the recipe I did last year & added 3 small potatoes to the mix. (You can mash the potatoes when you're done cooking the broth, hehe). It creates a heartier broth, which is really really good if you're down with the flu! The leftovers of this broth is what I used for making this delicious concoction.

And you know what the best part about this thing is? I get to use my crockpot! I'm willing to bet that I could've thrown all these ingredients together into the crockpot & let it boil itself to perfection without all of the extra steps, but I felt like complicating things. Besides, it turned out great, so it's OK!

13 Bean Soup
with a hint of Chili

2 Cups Bob's Red Mill 13-Bean Soup Mix
5-6 cups vegetable broth
1 regular size can of diced tomatoes or tomato sauce
1 small yellow onion, diced
6 cloves of garlic, diced
salt & pepper to taste
1 heaping tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp cayenne powder


BEANS
Wash & soak 2 cups of beans overnight (6-8 hours). They should at least double in size. Once ready, cook as you see fit, but use the vegetable broth for cooking instead of plain water. I prefer to use a crockpot, since I have one.

Once you have cooked beans, set aside. DO NOT DRAIN THE BEAN BROTH! Because it is vegetable broth & you have cooked beans in it, most of your nutrients are going to come from this... besides, it tastes delicious.

THE REST
Add some oil to the bottom of a large frying pan & sautee onion & garlic until just translucent. Add salt & pepper. Toss in the tomatoes, and mix until hot.Add beans & broth to the sautee. Mix well.

Add your chili powder & cayenne now. If you want a stronger chili flavor or heat, add more chili powder and/or cayenne accordingly to taste.

Take off of heat & enjoy your bowl of soup!!


Notes: For a thicker soup, use less broth when cooking the beans, but remember to use enough broth so that it doesn't evaporate!

Miso-Glaze Dip & Raw Asian-Inspired Veggie Patties

What a title, right? Yessss, and prepping this recipe can take some time, but it's SO worth it.

I'm on a raw kick lately. Why? After doing a lot of research, a balanced raw vegan diet is the healthiest diet I've ever found, and it's SO delicious. When I eat cooked food, most of the time I crave raw food soon afterword. (Lately it's been orange juice... mmm, freshly juiced oranges...) Most of the time on raw it's best to be as simple as possible (salad, slaw, fruit smoothies), but once in a while you just have to go all out and make something extreme.

This is my raw extreme (lol). Well, to be sure it's not 100% raw, but it's pretty dang close. It could easily be made completely raw, given you have raw versions of some of these ingredients. I was lucky enough to find myself some raw/unpasteurized miso at the local Japanese grocery the other day. It's SO yummy.

Am I the only person in the whole world who thinks miso on its own is tasty? Hmm... maybe?

Well, if you like asian fusion cuisine, you'll really enjoy this meal. However, if you're scared of sodium, then stay away. This recipe has so much sodium it'll knock your socks off.

MISO-GLAZE DIP

1 tbsp white miso
1 tbsp mirin
1 tbsp shoyu / tamari /or nama shoyu
1/8 tsp sesame oil

Directions: Put ingredients into a small container. Take a whisk & blend by hand until smooth.
 

ASIAN-INSPIRED VEGGIE PATTIES

**This requires a dehydrator, but you can use this recipe as a Pâté if you don't have a dehydrator... I have done so before A LOT and it's delicious!**

1/2 cup walnuts

3-4 carrots, diced

3-4 sticks celery, diced

1 medium yellow onion, diced

1/3 cup raisins, soaked & drained (to make them soft)

1/4 cup cut wakame (a type of seaweed)

sea salt & pepper to taste

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp apple cider vinegar / lemon / or rice vinegar

Directions: Throw ingredients into a food processor. Blend well, until it becomes like a Pâté. If you have a dehydrator, heat it to about 110 degrees F or so. Form Pâté into patties & allow to dry over 8 hours or so. Yes, it takes FOREVER. :) If NOT using a dehydrator, then don't even worry about it. Just go to the next step...

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

Sushi Nori (seaweed wrappers for sushi)

Butter Lettuce (or other leafy greens)

Dice the sushi nori in half or in thirds, depending on how much you like the taste of seaweed. Add 2 leaves of butter lettuce onto the seaweed. Place about 2 tbsp of veggie Pâté / 1 pattie on one end of the nori. Fold in half. Dip in the sauce. Consume & enjoy.

Notes: If you want to cut back on the seaweed flavor, remove the wakame from the Pâté/Pattie recipe. After removing the wakame, you can alter the recipe to make different flavors. For example, add some fennel to make it taste a little like a "sausage" pattie. Add some Provencal herbs to make it taste more, I dunno, French, and add some sun-dried tomatoes for an Italian flair. Add curry powder or garam masala & make an Indian pattie. Add chile powder for a taste of the southwest. It's an extremely versatile recipe! I don't remember where I first discovered it, but it's one of my favorite recipes to mess with. You can even use it as a chip-dip!!

Orange-Miso Slaw

This is a slaw. This is the sort of thing I eat for lunch at work. It's not beautiful, but it's delicious, filling, and super low in calories. Wanna know how I made it?

It's a secret.

...Hah, no way! It's just that it's indescribably easy! Get a bag of Trader Joe's organic shredded carrot & broccoli stems ($2.00 - or slice your own veggies nice and thin), add some onion, and some of Ani Phyo's delicious Orange-Miso sauce, and... Voila! Simple perfection!

When I found the recipe in the book Ani's Raw Food Kitchen, I had all of the ingredients handy but expected it to taste too sweet. Thankfully, that wasn't the case at all. The Orange-Miso glaze is the perfect combination of savory-sweet. Try it, and you won't be disappointed.

ORANGE-MISO SLAW
(makes 3 servings)

How to make the slaw:
1/2 yellow onion, diced
1 clove garlic, diced
1 bag Trader Joe's Organic Shredded Carrots & Broccoli Stems (feel free to replace with shredded veggies of your choice, but I prefer this)

Instructions: Combine ingredients well. Divide into 3 portions.

How to make the Orange-Miso Sauce:
2 Tbsp White Miso
1 peeled orange
1/3 cup Olive Oil
1 tbsp grated fresh ginger (or 1/2 tsp powdered)
1 clove garlic

Instructions: Toss ingredients into a blender. Blend well, until smooth.

Divide sauce into 3 portions, and add to the slaw. Allow it to marinade overnight. Will last a few days in the fridge.

Celery-Chickpea Salad

So it's been a while... I've been on a recipe slump, since it's been January in Chicagoland & today's a record-breaking blizzard... But I made a great health decision & decided to go back to salads for the new year! I've been making various salads like crazy, and loving them. Now, I used to hate salad because I have never been a fan of leafy greens. Yes, I eat a green salad every day for lunch (typically with kale... mmmm, kale...) Kale is one leafy green I actually like.

But green, leafy salads get boring fast. What I like is some variety! I enjoy a leafy-green-free salad for dinner... perhaps it's actually called a Slaw, like coleslaw. Whatever. It's delicious, low fat, and filling!

Celery-Chickpea Salad

3/4 cup Chickpeas
3/4 -1 cup chopped celery
1 medium carrot, sliced in thin rounds
1/3 small yellow onion, diced tiny
1 -2 clove(s) garlic, diced tiny
1 tbsp Olive Oil
1 tbsp Lemon Juice
1 tsp agave nectar or maple syrup
1/2 tsp dill (dried)
Salt (to taste)
Pepper (to taste)


Mix well. Refrigerate overnight, or for at least an hour. It is delicious after marinading!

Note: If you're on a totally raw diet, replace the chickpeas with crushed walnuts!

Fried Daikon on Rice

 

I used to hate daikon. It's a huge Japanese radish that has a mildly yucky taste. I've never been a fan of radishes in general. They taste musty raw, and even worse when cooked. So...yeah, I avoid the radish like crazy.

...And yet... here it is, the king of radish recipes! I've learned to love daikon with the use of this little recipe! Of course, I had no idea how to fry a daikon properly, so I looked it up first & modified a neat little recipe I found here. (Basically, I tried making this recipe, and it didn't work for me so I added this simmer sauce to soften it up & enhance the flavor!)

 

This is a sliced half of a daikon. 

These things are huge. Like, as long as your forearm huge.

Daikon are versatile things.They're nutritious, filling, super low cal... and bland. Don't let anyone tell you they taste good plain. It's a lie. But this...actually makes them taste good.

  

 Fried Daikon on Rice

1/2 Daikon, peeled & sliced into 1cm rounds
2 tbsp sesame oil (or a little less)
1/4 cup vegetable broth
1 tbsp miso
1 tbsp sake
1 tbsp mirin
1 tbsp shoyu
sesame seeds* (optional, for decoration)
1 green onion, sliced fine* (optional, for decoration)

DIRECTIONS
Heat sesame oil in a frying pan with a lid on MED-HI heat, until it's about to start smoking. Add daikon slices CAREFULLY (as the oil can splash, slowly slide the pieces into the pan and DO NOT drop them in). Heat for 3 minutes on one side. They should look cooked but not burnt (a few black marks will be fine). Flip & cook on the opposite side for another 3 minutes.

After frying the daikon, add the vegetable broth and quickly put the lid on the pan. (It will start steaming immediately, and you don't want to lose any vapors). Let the vegetable broth "steam" the daikon until it evaporates - this should take about 3 minutes.

Whisk together the miso, sake, mirin & shoyu. After the vegetable broth has evaporated, add this new broth to the pot & steam again for another 2 minutes.

After a total of about 5 minutes of steaming, maybe more but no less than that, take off of heat.

Place daikon slices on a plate with rice. The pan should have a decent amount of "broth" remaining. Add it to the top of the daikon slices & rice as a sauce. Sprinkle with sesame seeds & green onion slices for display.

Notes: Make sure that the timing is right. Daikon are like carrots... they take a while to soften, but you don't really want them to get too soft either. And the amount of oil looks like a lot, but yeah...it's the right amount for this because it adds the perfect amount of sesame flavor.

Butternut Squash Soup

This soup is SO easy and versatile. This is easily my favorite soup to make...and eat.

These are the main ingredients, chopped up!

Most traditional butternut squash soup is sweet. This is, too, but it's definitely more savoury. I don't add the traditional spices to it. Instead, I keep it really basic, and it's delicious this way, too.

Please feel free to see my notes section at the end if you want to add some traditional spices.

Butternut Squash Soup

Ingredients
1 Buttnernut squash (or 1/2 LARGE butternut squash...these things can get pretty huge) cubed
1 small onion, diced**
2 cloves garlic, sliced thin
2 cups veggie broth
1 1/2 tsp earth balance


Instructions

Sautee diced garlic & onion in soup pot with earth balance until they become fragrant. Add diced squash. Mix & heat through.

Add veggie broth. Bring to a boil. Simmer for 10 minutes with lid on the pot.

After 10 minutes, turn off the heat and place all soup contents in a high-speed blender. Slowly increase speed, and blend at highest speed for a minute or two. Make sure it's really smooth.

My little Cuisinart blender

That's it!

**Either red or yellow onions are good, of course. Red onion gives it a bolder flavor, while yellow is mellower and allows the squash flavor to be stronger.

Notes: It's not the traditional "sweet" butternut squash soup, but a butternut squash in its prime will taste naturally very sweet. If you want to add the sweetness commonly associated with this soup, add maybe 2 tablespoons of maple syrup and/or brown sugar, about 1/2 tsp each of cinnamon & nutmeg, with a pinch of allspice and/or clove to taste.

Vegetable Broth

I love making soup. I actually used to hate it until this year, and now I'm hooked. It's like a drug...but a really, really delicious and healthy one. I guess.

The base of every soup is a good vegetable broth. Well, every western-style soup, at any rate. I make a lot of Japanese-style soups with a broth called "dashi" made out of kombu seaweed and shiitake mushrooms, which is even easier to make than this, which therefore makes Dashi the EASIEST recipe I know... but I digress...

A good vegetable broth is the heart of a good soup! It's better to make your own fresh broth than to use pre-made or cubes. However, I use vegan stock cubes more often than I care to admit. They're not bad or anything...just neither as nutritious nor as satisfying as making your own.

This here is my most basic veggie broth recipe. It's basically the bare minimum that you'll need to make a tasty broth. Feel free to omit the salt, add other things, and generally mess with this recipe as much as you see fit.

VEGETABLE BROTH
(makes about 7-8 cups)

1 tbsp olive oil
1 med-large onion
3 cloves garlic
2 carrots
2-3 celery sticks
9 cups water
*pinch of salt


DIRECTIONS

Chop veggies coarsely.

Heat oil in LARGE stock pot on medium. Sautee garlic & onion until fragrant. Add carrots & celery. Heat through. At this time, if you want to add herbs, spices, or salt, do it now.

Add all 9 cups of water at once. Mix well. Heat until it starts to boil. Simmer on med-low with the lid mostly on (leaving a small space for vapors to escape) for about 1 - 1 1/2 hours.

Filter out the veggies through a strainer, and toss them away (they taste disgusting at this point). Save the broth in a glass container, or use it right away in a soup!


Notes: Vegetable broth is an extremely open-ended recipe. You can add root vegetables as you desire - parsnips, potatoes, turnips, rutabaga... whatever you want. The more things you add, the richer it will become. Add herbs, fresh or dry (such as parsley, rosemary, thyme, sage, oregano, etc) to add a "provincial" flavor. You really can't go wrong. And if you don't plan to use it within about 5 days or so, then freeze it.