It rained all weekend. I mean all day, everyday. Being a native Phoenician, I loved it! To celebrate, I made a delicious oven roasted tomato soup. I also stayed inside and completed plenty of home improvement projects. But that's another blog post, entirely (though, there are a few pictures of my handy-work below). The soup turned out perfectly and was just the way to wrap-up the weekend.
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This soup is one of those that takes less than 45 minutes from cutting board to dinner table. I compiled a few different recipes and techniques to get the finished product, which confess I forgot to take a picture of until I had divvied it up for today's lunch at work! So even though the picture is a little odd, the flavor is amazing! My husband even loved it. The "layered" part comes from how the soup cooks, in layers! And you will need your immersion blender for this one. Just helps in the speedy-ness of the whole thing. Who has time to use a blender in batches? Certainly not me! I have a dog to play with and TV to watch. Last night I decided that I was going to take a plain ol' recipe for black bean burgers and spruce it up a little. I came up with this recipe as I was perusing our pantry. It turned out great! I was pretty impressed. I didn't however, stop to take a picture. I hate when that happens. So I borrowed one from TheCrunchyCarrot.com because theirs looks pretty much like mine! In Arizona, where we live, lately it's been too hot to do much of anything extraneous outside. Not that grilling is the least bit tiresome, but the heat from the sun (it's been around 113 here), the random humidity and the fire we created for grilling is a tad too much. To cope, I took to grilling all sorts of fresh veg inside last night. Though, I wanted more than just grilled veggies, so I also whipped up a batch of my Eggplant Veggie Burgers. They take some time to bake but putting them together is a breeze. I love reading fellow bloggers post's and getting excited and inspired to create something similar but change it just enough to make it my own. Ahh the amazing things about recipes. They're like idea jumping-boards. You start with a simple idea and craft the details and flavors into something delightfully different. That's what I did here. This recipe is adapted from last week's post on FatFreeVegan.com. It's lovely the way it is. However my enhancements were perfect for me! Sometimes, cooking even the simplest of recipes can be too time consuming. I love having multipurpose ingredients on hand to help me cope with these moments (which are rare). This morning I needed to create a quick lunch for me to have at work. Salad is usually my go-to dish, but I'm all salad-ed-out this week. After taking a quick look in my pantry and fridge I came up with the following recipe! Not only does it smell wonderful, but after a quick taste for seasonings I can tell you that I was even blown away by my own snap creativity This recipe was adapted from the one found in the Eat to Live book. If you're veg or vegan and are looking for additional insight or inspiration, this is the way to go! When you get the book, be prepared to get super-charged ideas of new meals to cook for your whole family! I was pretty excited, I must say. Anyway, I decided to make this recipe but I didn't have a few of the ingredients. I used Dr. Fuhrman's recipe as a guide and added my own touches along the way. It was wonderful, but didn't last. That's why I borrowed the picture! One of my favorite things to do is to make vegetable stock from the ends or unused pieces of chopped veggies. Or when I need to clean out my fridge (once a month or so) I toss all the "almost expired" veg onto the counter and then gather everything (yes, even the onion paper, seeds, carrot tops, celery tops, etc) in my large stockpot. It's a beautiful sight and smell. Then, in a few short hours you have the most lovely, flavorful, salt-free, natural stock you could ever imagine! You saved money and used every last ounce of nutrition from the veg. What a great feeling! Not many people I run into are huge fans of the Brussels Sprout like I am. My job here is to turn you on to the world of the wonderful mini-cabbage-looking things. One of my favorite ways to eat these little buggers is to simply roast them in the oven. Sounds pretty plain, but roasting any vegetable changes the flavor profiles enough to make the same old thing, new and different and exciting! Well, as exciting as a Brussels Sprout can be! |