Super Tasty Roasted Red Pepper Soup

This recipe involves minimal work and is pretty quick to make. Most importantly though, it tastes really good. This is one of the more flavourful recipes in my repertoire.

Ingredients
1 jar of roasted red peppers
3 cups veggie broth
1 cup orzo (or any pasta you like, or even rice)
1 tsp basil
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
pinch of red pepper flakes

Directions
1. Dump the jar of peppers into a blender, liquid and all, and blend. Set aside.
2. Bring 3 cups of broth to a boil and add orzo (or pasta or rice). Cook until tender while stirring frequently. To save time you can add all the seasonings to the boiling broth as the orzo cooks.
3. Once orzo is tender add the red pepper puree. Cook until heated through and serve. Enjoy!

How to Make a Simple Vegetable Stock

I have never been  to culinary school so there is probably a proper way to make stock that I don`t know about but I find this method easy and cheap. I can`t bare the thought of chopping up a bunch of good, edible veggies, boiling them all day then throwing the veggies out. It`s too wasteful. I don`t have the cash to justify that kind of action.

Instead, I keep a big ice cream container (not my ice cream, my husband would eat it a while ago so I saved the containers) in my freezer. When I chop up veggies through the week, I take the best trimmings and add them to the container. Ideal trimmings can be anything really but mine include pepper middles, herb stems, tops of leeks, mushroom stems, celery leaves etc. Be sure to wash well and don`t add anything spoiled, rotten or moldy.

When you have a good pile of veggies, add them to a stock pot with ample water and 2-3 bay leaves. I use the broken up bay leaves because you will not have to fish these out anyway so it is a good time to use them up. Bring the whole thing to a boil then turn down the heat to a simmer. Simmer until half the water has evaporated and your done. You can salt as desired or maybe use some lemon pepper instead if you are avoiding salt.

The stock works well as a soup base. Just add some veggies, water if needed, maybe a handful of sunflower seeds and a few cubes of tofu then boil a bit and your done :)

Healthy Reset Week

Fourth Floor Homestead has recently moved onto the eighth floor of a high rise building in a brand new, more urban neighborhood. As a result of this, all of my time has been devoted to moving and cleaning as well as taking care of baby. Healthy eating has not been the priority it should be for the last month. For this reason I have decided to pour some energy into developing an extra healthy meal plan for the week ahead.

The recipes I am including are all high in vegetables and low in processed goods and sugars. Though this is not a detox I will still try to drink lots of water as I have been finding it difficult to stay hydrated. Breast feeding takes a lot of liquid out of you and I don't like the taste of the water here. I am back to buying water unfortunately but I try to buy as big of a container as possible so as to not add water bottles to landfills.

I have been relying on fried foods and sugars to keep my calories up but this reset will force me to find a healthier way of doing that. Perhaps increasing the serving size will suffice, I'll have to experiment a bit. I made a large batch of hummus to snack on through out the day and intend to make lots of snacks. I hope to post the recipes here as I go. Hopefully I'll have the time to do it :)

The hummus recipe I used will be in it's own post. For supper tonight we had this Spicy Raw Vegan Carrot Soup from Beautiful Vegan and toast with hummus. I made the recipe with a few changes, most notably I cooked it. I was hoping to eat it raw but I am an onion wimp and the soup was too spicy for my so I mellowed it with a couple minutes on the stove. The consistency remained the same so the soup didn't cook too much. I sprinkled on some flax oil, paprika, sunflower seeds and cilantro to garnish. I quite enjoyed the soup and would make it again.

Quick and Easy Potato Soup with Dumplings

I made this soup tonight and remembered just how simple it is so I thought I would post it. It's the perfect recipe for a weeknight because it is so quick, requires little prep and is nice and filling. My husband is a fan.

Servers 2-4

Ingredients for Soup

4 potatoes, peeled and chopped

4 cups of vegetable broth

1-2 cups water

1/2 cup soy milk (or other kind of milk)

Ingredients for Dumplings

1/4 cup soy milk (or other kind of milk)

1 tbsp oil

1 tsp lemon juice

1/2 cup of Flour

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

Directions

For the soup, add broth, water and potatoes to a pot and bring to boil. Reduce heat if needed and boil until potatoes are tender. Mash potatoes with a masher while in pot. Its fine if the potatoes are a bit lumpy as that is just added texture. Add soy milk.

For dumplings, mix soy milk, oil and lemon juice in a small mixing bowl. Add flour, salt and baking powder to the bowl and mix. Cut dough into 4 and drop into soup. Cover and let steam for 5-10 minutes and serve.