Cauliflower Mushroom Soup

One of the easiest ways for me to stay on track with my food throughout the day is to eat a good lunch.

I eat a very small breakfast most days so by the time lunch comes around I am starving but I don't have a ton of time to put anything together because lunchtime can be chaos around here. 

So what used to happen is that I either don't have time to eat anything myself so I find myself doing the dreaded pantry graze from 1-3stuffing my face with tiny bits of lots of different things and telling myself it's OK since I did not eat lunch that day so surely I have room in my calories for a few crackers, and some nuts, and the leftover corner of that peanut butter and jelly sandwich, some cottage cheese....you get the picture here. Please tell me I am nit the only one that does this! 

(and yes-before I cleaned out the pantry from sugar and processed foods, chips and chocolate were also standard on this list of-stuff them in my face without even thinking about it snacks!)

My best solution is to be prepared. If I am prepping salad for my husband to take to work, I measure out one for myself and put in right where I will see it and can grab it quickly out of the fridge for myself. If dinner was delicious and nutritious I portion out my serving size and keep them in see through containers right in the front of the fridge so they don't get pushed back into no man's land where no one will see them until you go in search of the mysterious smelly item once a month and then realize you wasted all that good food for no reason. 

Also, I have discovered that making soup is so much easier than I thought. 

Yes, you can just buy soup. 

But when you make it yourself you control the quality of ingredients, freshness and cut out all that unnecessary salt and preservatives that is found in many canned soup products.  You can make soup out of just about anything and I promise to share lots of my favorites here with you but this week I had some straggler veggies left in the crisper drawer at the end of the week so I pulled them out and made this soup on the fly and it was sooooooo good!

(Not the prettiest mind you, but very yummy!)

Cauliflower Mushroom Soup:

(if you are allergic to mushrooms you can leave them out of course or replace them with leeks, or a small chopped potato but I think they add a meaty depth to the soup so if you are not allergic and you think you just don't like them try it, they might surprise you!)

1 Cup coarse chopped cauliflower

1 Cup sliced mushrooms

1/2 red onion (chopped)

1/2 cup Cashews

1 Cup water (or organic chicken stock) divided

ground black pepper

 

Place the cauliflower, onion and mushrooms in a saute pan

(I use a coated pan to avoid needing any oil 

but you can use a teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil 

if you need to just to get them heated through and soft.)

I  cook them uncovered for a few minutes and 

then covered for about 5 more 

just to make sure they are soft enough to blend easily.

 

While the veggies are cooking place your cashews in the blender

with 1/2 Cup of water or organic chicken stock

start the vitamix on level 1 and slowly increase the level to 10

until you have a gorgeous smooth cashew cream.

(again this recipe was made in a vitamix- 

if you have used a different blender to make cashew cream 

please feel free to share your method in the comments)

If you do not have a high powered blender I have heard that it may help to soak your nuts 

(haha, I said soak your nuts)

for half an hour in water to help them get nice and soft and then drain of the excess water before adding to the 1/2 cup of water or stack and attempting to blend. 

The softer your nuts are prior to blending,

 the smoother the consistency of your soup base will be.

After your nuts have been blended add in about 1/2 to 3/4 of the heated vegetables

into the blender and blend until at a smooth thick consistency. 

My blender has a setting for soup that I use

but of you are doing this with a hand blender or a different type

 just blend until it looks smooth and creamy. 

Now add the remaining vegetables, 

sprinkle the top with some fresh ground black pepper 

and pulse or lightly blend just to break them up a bit.

The amount of blending you do at this stage 

depends on the  amount of chunks you like in your soup.

 

Once you are are happy with the consistency.

pour about 1 cup of the soup into a bowl and enjoy!

in less than 15 minutes you have a healthy, delicious and filling lunch

(and it's even vegan!!)

Now pour the rest of the soup into small single serving containers 

and pop them in the fridge so you have some for tomorrows lunch too!

 

I'm telling you, this may not look that yummy but it really is good.

I had it for three lunches. 

Once by itself, 

once with a salad and 

once with some leftover turkey meatballs (recipe to come later this week).

Does this not sound like something you would like? 

Try it. 

We have a lot of preconceived notions about food. 

What we think we like or don't like.

Healthy food is yucky food. 

Something your mom made you eat when you were little so now you refuse.

Don't let those silly reasons get in the way.

Try new foods.

Try old foods you have not had in a decade.

Try to cook things in different ways.

Experiment.

Have fun with your food

and it won't feel like a chore to eat healthy

it will make it a fun adventure!

Eat well, be well and have a happy day~

Patty

Cauliflower Mushroom Soup

1 Cup coarse chopped cauliflower

1 Cup sliced mushrooms

1/2 red onion (chopped)

1/2 cup Cashews

1 Cup water (or organic chicken stock) divided

ground black pepper

•  Place the cauliflower, onion and mushrooms in a saute pan and cook them uncovered for a few minutes and then covered for about 5 more just to make sure they are soft enough to blend easily.
•  place your cashews in the blender with 1/2 Cup of water or organic chicken stock
• start the vitamix on level 1 and slowly increase the level to 10until you have a gorgeous smooth cashew cream. (if you do not have a vitamix you may want to soak your cashews for about 1/2 hour in 1/2 water and then drain prior to this step)
• After your nuts have been blended add in about 1/2 to 3/4 of the heated vegetables into the blender and blend until at a smooth thick consistency (or use the soup setting if available).
• add the remaining vegetables, sprinkle the top with some fresh ground black pepper and pulse or lightly blend until desired consistency is reached.
• ENJOY!!

*if you are eating this as part of the beachbody 21 day fix 1 cup counts as 1 green and ~1/2 blue

Homemade Peanut Butter

Peanut Butter...yum.

(sorry if you have nut allergies I am going to spew wonderful nut fantasies here for a minute)

Whether you like it on apples or celery, sandwiches, with bananas or crackers, mixed in baked goods or even blended into a protein shake or some Greek yogurt (or straight off the spoon shhhhh, don't tell) peanut butter is just one of nature's yummy inventions.

But I am not talking about the stuff off the shelf I am talking about real, homemade, 1 ingredient peanut butter. SERIOUSLY!

 Here is what you need:

That's right. Just peanuts. Unsalted roasted peanuts (or you can use raw and roast them yourself but I don't always have time for that and my kids seem to like the store bought ones a bit better) and a really really good blender or food processor.

Now I happen to have a vitamix (which I love) and it is able to process this peanut butter without any additional ingredients. I am sure there are other amazing blenders and food processors that can do the same thing but I have only been successful using the vitamix. I have made peanut butter with a food processor but ended up adding a touch of peanut oil just to get the consistency I was looking for but if you don't have a vitamix experiment with what you've got- I will attach a few links to the bottom of the post for some other good recipes.

I put 3 cups of peanuts in the vitamix

Turn it onto setting 1 and then slowly increase the power to 10 while using the tamper to get all the nuts moving.

It sounds pretty loud and like its working hard (which I assure you it is) but just keep smushing the nuts down until the magic happens and they transform into liquid gold. 

Ok seriously though, once the peanut butter starts flowing freely the motor sound will change into a high pitched sound and this is when your peanut butter is done so turn of the blender.

For real now, turn it off!
(I have heard that if you run it much longer it can overheat the motor and thank GOODNESS that has never happened to me but I usually turn it off before I hear the high pitched noise just to be on the safe side!)

And that's it! 

No salt, no additional oil, definitely no sugar. 

Just delicious, velvety peanut butter!

I pour mine into a few little ball jars and seal them up and pop them in the fridge. 

3 cups of nuts usually gives me about 2 8oz jars full.

If that's too much trouble for you at least read the labels on the store bought stuff.

I mean wouldn't you rather eat this:

 

Than this:

 That is a whole lot of extra ingredients don't you think?

So go try it, I promise it's easy and the taste is so different!

As promised if you don't have a vitamix here are a few other recipes that might work better for you:

Peanut butter in food processor

(don't judge me here this ladies pictures are WAY better than mine-they even made me hungry)

Don't like it plain or the kids aren't buying it? Try this food network recipe, its got a few more ingredients but it's still better than the stuff on the shelf and you control everything that goes in so you know exactly whats in there!

Alton Brown's homemade Peanut Butter