Creamy Broccoli, Carrot & White Bean Soup with Greens

I posted a picture of this soup on Facebook and some of my friends requested the recipe, so here it is.  The version in the picture isn't as creamy as usual because my boyfriend ate almost all of my cashew butter without replacing it.  It was still good, but it's better with more.  To make it less creamy, just half the cashew butter.  While I don't particularly care for cashew butter on it's own, it is amazing in soup.  I used navy beans and garbanzo beans that day, but you can use whatever white colored beans you have in the house.

I like to try to keep all the ingredients around for this soup (which is almost impossible with my boyfriend in the house, as evidenced by my earlier comment) so I can make it at almost any time - and I make a variation of it every other week or so.  It’s also very versatile.  You can use fresh or frozen veggies or add whatever other veggies you want to or happen to have around.  I’ve added cauliflower, celery, leeks, a small beet (from my own garden!) and garlic in the past. 

You can also stretch it by adding more broccoli or other veggies, more vegetable broth, and an extra spoonful or so of cashew butter (or a few more soaked cashews).  Without oil or anything bad, it’s so healthy you can feel great about it!

Ingredients:

v  1 Large Yellow Onion

v  Water or for sautéing

v  6-8 Carrots

v  4-6 Cups (chopped) Broccoli or 1 Large Bag Frozen Broccoli

v  1/3 Cup Cashew Butter or ½ Cup Cashews, soaked in enough hot water to cover for 30 minutes

v  2 Cans or 4 Cups cooked White Beans (Navy, Cannellini, Garbanzo, Great Northern, etc…)

v  10 Cups of Vegetable broth or 10 Cups of Water with the proper number of Vegetable or “Chik’n” (vegan chicken flavoring) Broth Bouillon Cubes according to the package

v  1 TBSP Mellow White Miso

v  ¼ Cup Nutritional Yeast (or to taste)

v  The Juice of ½ to 1 Whole Lemon (to taste)

v  1 Small Package of Baby Spinach or other Baby Cooking Greens

Chop your onion into small pieces while heating a large soup pot over medium heat.  Once hot, add enough water to cover the bottom (it will pop & fizzle when it’s hot enough) and throw in the onions*.  Sauté for a few minutes, stirring and adding extra water as needed so they don’t burn.  While the onions are cooking, peel and chop the carrots into small pieces, and add to the pot.  Cook for a few minutes more, stirring and adding water as needed.  Chop the broccoli into bite sized pieces, and add those to the pot as well.  Once the broccoli has been cooked a couple minutes, add nine out of the ten cups vegetable broth (or water for bouillon cubes) to the pot, cover and turn up the heat to bring to a boil. 

While waiting for the pot to boil, grab your blender and add the cashew butter (or drained, soaked cashews), white beans and one cup of water.  Blend until smooth, adding more water if needed, and add to the pot.  (If it seems like a lot at once, do in two batches with ½ cup of water in each.  I have a large Ninja blender so it may not be the norm that it all fits.) 

Once the soup is boiling, reduce heat and simmer for a few minutes until the carrots are tender.  While waiting for the veggies to tender, add the bouillon cubes if using by dipping out a cup or so of liquid and stirring/smushing them until dissolved.  Then add to the soup, stirring until combined.  Also, cut in half and squeeze the juice out of the lemon, straining out any bits of seed.  Add the juice to the pot.  Stir in the nutritional yeast**.   

Once the vegetables are tender, ladle some of the soup into your blender, concentrating on gathering as many of the chunks as possible, only filling the blender about halfway.  Blend that batch until smooth while covering the open top with a folded towel so the heat pressure doesn’t cause it to explode***.  Once blended, pour the batch back into the pot.  Continue blending small batches until you are satisfied with the creaminess of the soup, about 2/3rds of it blended.  Alternatively you can use an immersion blender to cream the soup if you have one. 

Once you are satisfied with the creaminess, take the pot off the hot burner and turn off the stovetop.  Let it sit for 3-5 or so minutes, then stir in the cooking greens or spinach in handful batches.  Once folded in, dip out about a ½ cup of liquid to dissolve the miso in (smushing and stirring it to dissolve it) before adding it back to the pot.  (Do not add the miso while the soup is boiling, or you will lose some of the nutritional benefits.)  Stir it to combine and ta dah!  Warm hearty dinner is served!

*This is called a water sauté.  I had no idea what this was until a few months ago.  It can be a little hard at first to get used to, but once you do its like why did I ever use oil before?  Just make sure to keep an eye on the pot and add more water when it looks a little dry to make sure you don’t burn what you’re sautéing.  I usually leave a 2 cup liquid measuring cup next to the stove with some water in it so I can quickly add more water when needed.  You can also use coconut water or vegetable broth for a little extra flavor, and just leave the container next to the stove while you cook so it’s handy.

**For those of you who have never heard of nutritional yeast, it is a deactivated yeast that is used as a dietary supplement for vegetarians and vegans because those diets don’t naturally contain B12, and nutritional yeast is often fortified with it.  But mostly it’s just freaking delicious!  Before I was vegan, my boyfriend would sneak it into different dishes, never giving away until later that nutritional yeast was the reason why the dish was so amazing and creamy or cheesy.  It can be found at whole foods and other health food stores, in the bulk bins or the baking/seasoning isle.  Red Star is a good brand.  For more info, check out this blog post from one of my favorite cookbook authors!  http://happyherbivore.com/2012/01/nutritional-yeast/

***The first time I made a creamy soup, I didn’t know this rule and exploded cream of broccoli all over my freshly cleaned kitchen and clean dishes in the dish rack.  Apparently this is why most blenders have a plastic grip handle that is removable - to relieve pressure for blending hot things.  Just cover the hole the removed piece leaves behind or remove the lid and cover the entire top of the blender with a thickly folded towel, to make sure the soup doesn’t go flying and you don’t burn yourself.  Also never fill above half full so you never run into issues.

Salubritas All-Natural Deodorant Balm

SalubritasTM All-Natural Deodorant Balm

Hopefully we’ve all heard by now the warnings about using an antiperspirant/deodorant with aluminum in it, as it may be connected to breast cancer and also might be a potential contributor to Alzheimer’s.   It also apparently can be dangerous for people who don’t have fully functioning kidneys.   And there are also other ingredients that antiperspirants/deodorants commonly contain, including parabens, propylene glycol, triclosan, and/or artificial fragrances that you probably shouldn’t really be slathering on your body on a regular basis.  It gets into your body and does who knows what to your internal system.  While we can’t really be sure for now what the long-term dangers may be, why not just eliminate the issue with a natural deodorant?   If you have been wary of taking the plunge, worry no more, I’ve found your solution:  Salúbritas All-Natural Deodorant Balm. 

Honestly, I’ve been using aluminum-free deodorant for about three years now.  I was very wary of switching, as I am generally a pretty sweaty beast, and I had found a pretty good regular deodorant that definitely kept the smell off and also kept my pits pretty dry.  If only it was reasonable to slather it all over my body.  But when I started hearing about the possible health repercussions, I figured it was time for a change.

So I sucked it up and switched to a more natural deodorant about 3 years ago and it was…okay.  I found that when I stopped using anti-perspirant and just used a deodorant, my body got used to it and I don’t sweat as much as I used to.  So don’t be worried about that part.  You sweat all over anyway.  I know pit sweat can be embarrassing, but I find that it now usually only really happens when I work out, and since that’s a normal occurrence during exercise, I should hope that won’t deter someone from making a healthier choice.  The problem was that if I did something heavy-duty, I would end up reeking afterwards, and I would have to immediately apply more, wash or shower.  That was pretty inconvenient. 

But I continued to use it, because it wasn’t that bad, and it was a healthier choice.  I tried a bunch of different kinds, but got stuck on Salúbritas Deodorant Balm.  No matter what I do during my day, I always smell perfectly pleasant.  During my testing phase, I would constantly check to make sure I smelled alright, and I was never and have never since been disappointed with this one.  That’s my most important factor in choosing a deodorant.   Well, besides the health factor of the ingredients.  Lol.  It also contains arrowroot powder to help absorb some moisture naturally, which is a bonus.

Salúbritas Deodorant Balm is not applied like a regular deodorant.  Essentially, it’s a lotion balm that you scrape out of a tin with a finger/nail and rub into your armpit like you would rub in a lotion, if rubbing lotion into your armpit was normal.  That can take a little getting used to, and you may be tempted to use way more than necessary, but eventually you’ll realize you don’t need as much as you may be tempted to slather on.  It is soooo worth it.    

It comes in several different scents, and an unscented that I recommend if anyone finds they have armpit sensitivities.  (Sensitivity can still happen sometimes with natural deodorants because essential oils, often used for scenting, are strong and may cause bumps or itching in such a sensitive area, even if they are fine for use in products used elsewhere on the body.) 

Right now I think the only way us Connecticut/New England/the rest of the world besides Utah people can get it is online, but it’s definitely worth the extra effort.  Natural Joy Beauty carries the regular size and sample sizes, so you can buy samples of it to try all the scents or plunge in and buy a full size in a scent you usually like.  If you hurry, you can still use the code (INCH) from my last post to get 15% off through Saturday, August 11, 2012!  You can try all the scents and pick which one works for you.  Hope you like it as much as I do!  Feel good about your choice, and smell good too!  Enjoy!

Natural Joy Beauty and a Special Offer!

I know I said I would review and recommend individual beauty products, and I promise I will soon.  In the meantime I wanted to touch on a great resource to tide you over until a specific product you might be looking for comes to light.  I discovered Natural Joy Beauty when I received a ColourFusion Lip Glaze sample from the website in my Conscious Box.  (I’ll go into Conscious Box at another time.) 

So I pretty much never wear anything besides chapstick or occasionally lip stain or gloss, but when I tried the sample (it was textured like a lipstick) I really liked the way it looked, the texture, the color and the scent.  I was intrigued.  The sample came with a little card that listed the ingredients, the Natural Joy Beauty web address and a discount code.  The ingredients were all recognizable and totally reasonable, so I decided that as long as the price was reasonable as well, I would probably buy it!  I went to the website to take a look.

The main page has this note that immediately made me glad I had come:

“Don't be fooled by all of the products claiming to be "NATURAL" or "ORGANIC" these days. Many products labeled as Natural or Organic, even those sold in health food stores, still contain questionable ingredients.”

I definitely agreed with that statement, and reading further, I got excited:

“The only way to really know is to READ the ingredient label. We read the labels and do the research for you!  Discover "Freedom from Artificiality" Today! Here's a list of what you won't find in the products we carry...”

·         NO Phenoxyethanol (a.k.a. Optiphen)

·         NO Parabens, Germall or Germaben

·         NO Japanese Honeysuckle (preservative form)

·         NO FD&C Colorants or Synthetic Fragrance

·         NO Toulene, Formaldehyde or Phthalates

·         NO Propylene Glycol, Dimethicone or Diazolidinyl Urea

·         NO Talc, Nano-Particles or Aluminum

·         NO Bismuth Oxychloride, Titanium Dioxide (loose form)

·         NO Petroleum, Mineral Oil or Paraffin

·         NO Triclosan or Sodium Lauryl/Laureth Sulfates

·         NO Animal Testing

Doesn’t that immediately sound like a good idea?  Most websites that purport to do the work for you mention just two or three ingredients that their products do not contain and call it a day, all proud of themselves.  Natural Joy Beauty definitely does their homework on a way more in-depth scale.  It sounded excellent.  Some of the list of things the products wouldn’t contain were things that I had never even been aware that I should be avoiding!  Upon further exploration of the website, I was not disappointed.  The selection was extensive and the prices reasonable.  All ingredients are listed with every product, so you can be ultra-sure that what you’re getting is a healthy product.

My favorite part is that the site offers for purchase samples of almost any product!  I LOVE samples, as I’m sure most beauty-junkies do.  At first paying for samples might seem a bit out of the ordinary, since most of the time we don’t end up paying for them, but then again we rarely get to choose what samples we receive either.  If you stop to think about the fact that you get to choose what you want to sample (from almost anything on the site!), the value of the amount of product you receive and the convenience of trying a product before committing to full-size (and full price!) the small fee for a sample is not a big deal.  In fact, it’s a great deal!  My first order included the full-sized ColourFusion Lip Glaze, a couple other full-sized items and probably like 20 samples.   I quickly ended up purchasing several of the items that I had received as samples, or plan to do so in the future.  You also always get free samples in addition to any purchased samples with any order, and samples are always exciting.  Yay!

Since my initial purchase, I have made several more and always been happy with the results.  Shipping costs are totally reasonable, and there is free shipping with orders over $100 (which is pretty easy to do with beauty products, let’s be realistic) and service was fast and efficient.  There are also various other items on the site like jewelry, home cleaning products, supplements, candles and more which are just as rigorously screened for ingredients as well.  I love it. 

I actually ended up being contacted by to owner, Joy, about my first order (I had ordered something that came in different patterns figuring they’d just pick one and it’d probably be fine) and I mentioned my blog and she was very supportive of my idea.  She added a vegan section to the site at my suggestion, and she even offered you - my readers- a special offer!  How awesome is she?!    

Now through Saturday, August 11, 2012 use promo code INCH to can Save 15% off storewide at www.naturaljoybeauty.com!  Go have some fun without feeling guilty!  Enjoy! J

 

An Alternative to Oreos – Back to Nature Classic Crème Cookies

An Alternative to Oreos – Back to Nature Classic Crème Cookies

Eating junk food pretty much always makes you feel kind of crappy, am I right? Or at least guilty.  Before becoming vegan, I had a terrible habit of eating random junk, in bulk.  Now I try not to eat nearly as much processed sugar and it definitely helps with that issue.  Adding richness in other ways to desserts helps as well.   But sometimes you just want an Oreo.

Oreos actually happen to be vegan (if you ignore the way sugar is processed), so technically I could eat them if I wanted to, but just because I can doesn’t mean I should.   They have a bunch of over-processed addictive crap in them, like most other boxed cookies in the cookie section of your grocery store.  So I suggest next time you want to treat yourself, maybe venture to the natural foods section for your choice instead.

I suggest Back to Nature Classic Crème Cookies.  They are essentially Oreos, but they contain unbleached wheat flour instead of enriched flour which has all this stuff that is stripped out added back into it.  Instead of plain sugar and high fructose corn syrup, they contain evaporated cane syrup, raw sugar, and brown rice syrup.  Granted, the nutritional facts end up being very similar, but you can feel way better about what you’re putting in your body.

 I find that with the Classic Crème Cookies I’m satisfied with a few cookies without feeling the need to reach back into the box for more and more.  For my birthday, I made myself an ice cream cake using store-bought coconut ice creams with Oreos for a crust and a middle layer as a treat.   It was wayyyyy too much sugar.  I could barely eat it, and ended up throwing out at least two thirds of it.  What a waste.   The Classic Crèmes would have made it just enough treat without overwhelming it.   So enjoy some Classic Crèmes without feeling the accompanying guilt of binging on regular junk.

Here’s a special treat for you.  Another thing I’ve craved since becoming vegan is a good cookies-n-cream ice cream.   I finally designed a great recipe a few weeks ago, using the Classic Crèmes.  All you need is a trip to the grocery store (no fancy health food store needed!) and an ice cream maker.   This one’s for my new friend Mallory who requested the recipe.  It’s adapted from a vanilla ice cream recipe taken from http://www.godairyfree.org/.  Its coconut based, but I promise you won’t be thinking about coconut when you try it.

Cookies-n-Cream Ice Cream

Ingredients:

·         4 cups canned coconut milk (full fat, not light, not the boxed type either)

·         3/4 cup raw sugar or maple syrup

·         pinch of salt

·         1 Tbsp vanilla extract

·         A dash of cinnamon

·         A sprinkle of ground ginger (optional)

·         One box Back to Nature Classic Crème Cookies

Shake the cans of coconut milk for 30 seconds each.  This helps incorporate the “water” with the creamy fat in the can.  Open the cans and dump into a large bowl or blender.  Add all other ingredients besides the Classic Crème Cookies.  (Depending on the temperature of your storage area, it may be helpful to blend all the ingredients except for the cookies in a blender to break up the coconut fat.  If you skip this step, you may end up with small chunks of coconut fat in your finish product, which actually seem like small bits of white chocolate in the ice cream and are pretty good, but are virtually undetectable in the cookies-n-cream recipe. It’s really a texture preference.)  Mix or blend together until ingredients are fully incorporated.  Pour into your ice cream maker and freeze according to the directions for your model.  Crush the Classic Crème Cookies with your hands into desired-size chunks.  Add these to the churning ice cream in the last few minutes of processing.  If you add them too early, the chunks may break up into miniscule crumbs.   Once churning is complete, freeze for four or so hours before serving, or eat soft right out of the ice cream maker!  Yum! 

Note:  To make an end-product that hardens softer (if that makes sense; it’ll make it creamier) substitute 1 cup Mimicreme Unsweetened Almond & Cashew cream for 1 cup of the coconut milk.  This can be found in health food stores, usually near the boxed milks or the non-dairy creamers.  But just the coconut milk is fabulous as well.

Note 2:  Remember that freezing liquids makes them expand.  My ice cream maker was not large enough to fit this whole recipe along with the whole box of cookies.  It’s supposed to hold up to 1 ½ quarts.  To make sure you’ll have room for everything, you can either make a half recipe or refrigerate half to use a few days later.  Follow the rules for your machine.  My ice cream maker has a drum that goes in the freezer and has to be frozen for 48 hours before reusing.  It won’t work properly if I emptied half and tried to immediately churn the other half. 

Hope you enjoy! 

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog! Sorry for the book long intro but I felt some explanation was necessary.



Some of you may remember my old blog Body Product Whore which I was having fun with and had planned to continue. However, over Christmas this year things changed. It started like this: My sister requested a few cookbooks and diet books for Christmas presents. I went on Amazon.com to find them and ended up buying a few for myself. Specifically I bought myself Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin and The Kind Diet by Alicia Silverstone.


I went with The Kind Diet because I thought it sounded nice, like it might be a nice way to be nice to myself but also lose weight. Lol. Good luck, right? But I like Alicia Silverstone and it was pretty cheap so I figured, why not? I picked up Skinny Bitch as a last minute addition to my cart because I had heard of it before in a general way and it sounded smart and sassy, and because it was cheaper than any of the other books I had added.


So come Christmas I finally got time to actually read the books. I read Skinny Bitch first. Basically it started with things that seemed reasonable. The beginning talks sassily about crap you shouldn't put into your body including but not limited to junk like: white flour, white sugars, coffee, alcohol (unless it's an occasional glass of organic red wine made without sulfites), and generally processed foods. Next it brought up the evils of dairy. I'm lactose intolerant, but had still been having dairy and had been meaning to stop because it always gave me horrible heartburn, so that one wasn't too hard for me.


Then it brought up meat. When I was five years old, my favorite food was prime rib. No joke. And that hadn't really changed since then. I loved meat. But after reading all they had to say about why you shouldn't eat meat, I was totally convinced. Then they were like, "Okay, so now you're vegan!" Whoa there.


Essentially I had always stayed away from literature from vegetarian groups or about the treatment of animals because I knew if I had to think about where my meat came from I'd probably have a hard time justifying continuing to eat it without crazy guilt trips. But what really convinced me wasn't the animal treatment on factory farms (and I love animals don't get me wrong) it was the health issues surrounding meat consumption. I've essentially always been overweight and have a history of heart disease in my family so I knew I had to do something now while I'm still young enough to actually enjoy it. So....Surprise! Now I'm vegan. Reading that actually made that happen.


Reading The Kind Diet after that was kind of weird because it says essentially the same things as Skinny Bitch concerning what you shouldn't put into your body and why but does it in a pleasant, sweet way instead of being sassy. Alicia's adorable. And it reinforced the messages I had gotten from the first book, and made me excited about my decision to actually be vegan.


So I became vegan on January 1, 2012. Coincidentally, my sister also read Alicia's book (which I had gotten her for Christmas) and decided to be vegan as well, also starting January 1st. We both came to the same decision on our own, without talking about it. Then we were just like wait, you're vegan too!?! We were excited.


So obviously, life changed. I didn't just become vegan; I made a commitment to being healthy. I had always glanced at labels and ingredients, but now I really read them and don't eat anything that contains an ingredient that I'm not sure about what it really is. Actually, I really stopped eating much processed food at all, so that made things easier and more importantly, healthier.


Now that I was caring about what I was putting into my body it felt incredibly wrong and unhealthy to slather on products with just as sketchy ingredients as some of the processed foods I used to enjoy. And I didn't know what to do about my old blog. I didn't feel good about recommending most of the products that I had recommended on there once I looked back at what was actually in them. I didn't really know how to go on from where I had been, so I just kinda stood still on that front. I figured my blogging about beauty products was done.


But obviously, I wasn't done with using beauty products! At first I just told myself to enjoy and use up what I had, give away what I could (which was a crapload, because I apparently stockpiled enough body products to hold us over through an indefinite shutdown of all the beauty companies), and not to buy anything from then on that wasn't vegan. But buying only vegan wasn't enough. I mean, Oreos are vegan (and support gay rights!), but that doesn't mean they're made out of whole grains and non-refined sugars and that I should eat them every day. I wanted to make healthy choices from head to toe. So I started reading beauty product ingredients not just to figure out if they were vegan but to judge if I would feel good about putting them onto my body. Turns out almost nothing I already owned fit the bill.


But I have found some great things to replace what I used to use. You can find anything if you take the time to look. And this was important to me, so it got done. It's still a work in progress, and always will be.


Finding a great website that does a great job weeding out crap for you was a great inspiration to start up the blog again. (The site I'm talking about is Natural Joy Beauty, which I'm sure I'll talk about in later posts.) This time I decided to expand my reviews to include recommendation of any items that are healthier for you than what you may currently have. That way I can share my food, home and other healthy finds in addition to beauty health.


And don't worry; I won't become preachy about the vegan lifestyle. You probably wouldn't even notice my recommendations are vegan if I hadn't gone on with this whole explanation about why I decided to become healthier. You would just notice that what I've found is awesome! I wouldn't recommend it if it wasn't. So while becoming vegan was my choice, everyone has to make decisions like that on their own, and I don't expect anything from you. But knowing where and how to find healthier options should be something that everyone has easy access to. So I thought I would share my finds. I hope you enjoy as much as I know I will! Thanks for reading!


<3Kati