You can tell Autumn is in the air, even though the temperatures aren't quite there yet during the day. In the mornings, sure. More than once already I've waken up to temps still in the upper 40's, but they warm up to near 80 by afternoon. But morning comes later, night comes earlier, and my body starts craving those soups and stews. I've read on a few message boards and blogs that others are feeling the same way.
Speedy Vegetable and Bean Soup
Serves: 10
Preparation Time: 15 minutes
Ingredients:
1 pound frozen Asian vegetables
1 pound frozen broccoli florets
1 pound frozen mixed vegetables
1 pound frozen collard greens
2 cups frozen corn
1 cup frozen onions
7 cups carrot juice
4 cups water
1 1/2 cups sun-dried tomatoes, snipped in half
1 cup cooked adzuki beans, or canned no salt added or low sodium, drained
1 cup cooked red beans or canned no salt added or low sodium, drained
3 cups cooked lentils or canned no salt added or low sodium, drained
4 cloves garlic, chopped
4 tablespoons Dr. Fuhrman's VegiZest or other no salt seasoning
1 tablespoon Spike, no salt
2 teaspoons chili powder
8 ounces organic baby spinach or coarsely chopped organic spinach
Instructions:
In a large soup pot combine all ingredients, except the fresh spinach. Cover and simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Add more water if a thinner soup is desired.
Turn off heat and stir in spinach to wilt.
The recipe above was taken from the Member Center on the Fuhrman web site using his link to recipes from the book. The link only works for forum members. The recipe as printed in the book is a bit different:
First off, the name is Quick Vegetable Bean Soup.
The first few rows of frozen veggies stays the same, but there's no corn in the book version.
Then there's just one cup of water and 4 cups carrot juice.
The lentils are listed as 2 cans instead of freshly made.
Adzuki and red beans are both listed as one can each.
The sun-dried tomatoes aren't clipped in half and is only a cup.
The book calls for a pound of spinach, the web only half.
Garlic is listed as 1 teaspoon garlic powder.
Other spices are 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander, 1/2 teaspoon garam masala and an optional 1/2 teaspoon curry powder. There's no mention of Spike.
Another optional ingredient is 1/2 cup of nutritional yeast.
Cholesterol Protection for Life
Joel Fuhrman, M.D.
page 102
My changes include combining both recipes.
Frozen veggies stay the same and I'm including the corn because I love corn. But wait - Where's my broccoli? I know I bought a bag of broccoli the other day! Crap! No broccoli! Oh, well. Too late now.
Since all I have left in the closet is one jar of carrot juice, that's what I'll be using. The water is a bit more than the one cup in the book but less than the 4 cups in the web recipe. This finally finishes off my stash of carrot juice.
I made fresh lentils and there are no adzuki beans in my entire city, canned or dried, so one full can of red (1 1/2 cups) will have to do. This pot is getting really crowded, and it's the largest one I own, too.
Who cares about what size to cut sun-dried tomatoes? I just grabbed a bag of julienned. No mess, no measure.
Same ease for the spinach. I have a 1-pound bag of triple-washed baby spinach to dump in. That'll bring it up to the rim of the pot when I add it.
Spike and nutritional yeast are being used, for both taste and convenience, but I'll leave the nooch at 1/4 cup, thanks to my having powdered, not flakes.
 |
| After the spinach was added |
I love these dump, heat & eat recipes! As soon as VeganMoFo is over I already have some Jeff Novick SNAP and Engine 2 meals planned. This one takes an hour to heat, but once everything is dumped in you can just forget about it until dinner time.
As usual when I make these big batches of soup, I used the large pot from my pressure cooker, the 8 quart one. When the spinach was added, as I predicted, the greens were over the top, but once they warmed and softened and mixed into the soup, the level came down to about an inch below the rim of the pot. Whoa, mama! This makes a heck of a lot of soup!
But because it's mostly green/yellow veggies, it's not that filling. My husband even dunked 4 slices of whole wheat bread in his bowls just to feel fuller. We each had 2 large bowls of it and used up half the pot, even though Dr. Fuhrman says this makes 10 servings. I guess they would have to be smaller servings than we're used to eating. We'll have those smaller ones when we finish this soup over over the next 2 days for lunch.
As for the taste? Well, there are so many things in there you can't really taste any one - it's just a mouthful of, well, stuff. All that stuff made this a fairly expensive meal to make, compared to the usual starchivore meals I make, that is.
All those frozen veggies alone, even choosing store-brand when I could, cost over $20, then add the juice, the ebans - well, it certainly costs more than a bag of veggies and a few taters. To be honest, if it wasn't for the spices - the VeggieZest and Spike, this would probably be pretty much tasteless.
Others may enjoy it, but this isn't a soup I'll be making again. My husband had a dizzy spell and cold sweats in cardiac rehab this morning and my son had to go over to drive him home. His blood pressure dropped to 90/50 during the session. While waiting for them to get in I phoned the rehab nurse and found out from her that he had diarrhea all night long that he didn't tell me about, and her feeling is that he was just dehydrated. Maybe this is why Dr. Fuhrman calls for the recipe to make small servings. She also discovered today that he doesn't eat any breakfast before he goes for his hour exercise session and said she reprimanded him for that, too, and now wants him to eat before coming. She told him she doesn't care that he's not a breakfast eater usually but should have at least a few pieces of toast before coming in to give the body the fuel it needs. I think a nice bowl of something like Apple Pie Oats or just plain old fashioned oats with blueberries will do the trick. Only takes 3 minutes to get ready from pantry to table so he has no excuse. I'll even make it for him while he gets his sneakers on, it's that quick to make.
Back to the soup - he has informed me that he's not going to any more of it ever, and has said not to make any more very veggie heavy meals like that ever again. Even before his heart thing he had a hard time with meals like this, and I had been asked not to make any on a work night. He has a 90 minute commute each way via public transportation, and there are no restrooms on subways or light rail trains nor their stations, so if the urge hits, he's literally SOL. So no more Fuhrman or other greens-heavy meals for us, at least not the night before any day we have to leave the house, which is just about every day.
It sucks to get old.
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