Diet Water: Simple & Easy Black Bean Soup Recipe

Hello!

So....I'm feeling A LOT better. It's kinda awesome. Thanks for all the feel better wishes! Marlowe, is of course feeling better too... she started picking up long before me :) I've had this post (well, half of it) sitting around for a while now and I completely forgot about it. I know, I'm the worst at posting recipes. Well, in general, I've just been the worst at blogging lately. With my mom has been in town, I've been able to work all these extra, longer and wonky hours in the kitchen, on the truck, and catering and whatnot. That, plus being sick, plus a million other fun things has thrown off my whole life sceduling-groove. But whatever! It's friday! And I've got a soup recipe! A really, really, simple and delicious soup recipe. 

Ingredients: 

1 sweet onion

1 celery stalk

peppers

mushrooms

few cloves of garlic

plum tomato or a few cherry/grape tomatoes

green onion

one to two cans of black beans (you can obviously used dried, soaked and ready beans too. I stick to cans out of convenience sake and my inability to get a decent consistency from dried beans)

garlic (as many of as few cloves as you would like)

vegetable stock or water

fresh: cilantro, oregano, and thyme

spices: cumin, chili flake, smoked paprika, hot paprika, coriander

Chop everything. You're going to add the layers of chopped vegetables to the pot in sections, cooking each group down, then adding more. The mushrooms are completely optional. I like to add them for a bit more of an earthy touch, plus it's an extra vegetable, and you can't go wrong adding some more healthy to your dish :)  This dish is low on spice because I've got to feed the little one too, but if you want to kick it up a notch, then add some jalepeno to the recipe. Chop everything as you cook or prep it all first and cook it after--- whatever works for you-- either way this is a quick meal!

First set of vegetables: onion, celery, mushrooms, peppers. You should have a pot heated, on the stove, with olive oil. Dice vegetables and add them to pot.  (If you are adding jalepeno or another spicy peppers, add them in here)

While you are sautéing, chop tomatoes and slice garlic. Add to pot.

Still sautéing, chop green onion and fresh herbs. (I used two to three times this amount of herbs)

Everything should be pretty cooked down at this point. Add green onion and herbs. (^^see lots of herbs oregano and cilantro and especially key)

Add spices. Heavy on the cumin (at least a hefty tablespoon). And a fair amount of paprika, chili, and coriander. Salt and pepper too. Mix, stir, blend. 

Add black beans. Amount of black beans will be dependent on how many veggies you've added and your preference to ratio. I usually use two cans, but one works fine too. Add stock or water and bring to simmer. Taste, and season. Allow to simmer for about ten minutes... and that's it! You're done.... and your soup is done too! 

Ladle in bowl. Serve with smoked paprika garlic toast and BAM you've got a delicious party. 

*Other pairing options: avocado toast or sweet plantain toast.
*To make this more toddler friendly, I spoon some over rice, with-holding as much liquid as possible :)


Happy Friday everyone! I've got today off and I'm looking forward to relaxing :) Hope everyone has a wonderful (and delicious) weekend!


napkins on right c/o dot and army ;)

Diet Water - Recipe {Sweet Potato and Kale Soup With Lemon Greens}

Yay food time! So, as mentioned in my last post, my camera took a crap this week. Every time I turn it on it tells me to turn it off and try again, but then it doesn't let me turn it off. Brilliant, right? I actually got about half way through this recipe before it gave out. Luckily, I have a picture of the finished product from a while ago so this post isn't a total fail. And this recipe is incredibly simple and requires little ingredients and little skill.... in my book: thats a winning recipe. Also, for a somewhat related/somewhat unrelated side note: A lot of people ask me if there are any foods M doesn't like... Sweet potato. Definitely: sweet potato. She's never liked it... and I don't blame her. I really only like it in soup form. I also discovered this week: she doesn't like pesto... that was actually a shocker! I thought she would devour the pesto pasta right up. Oh well... more for me.

Anyway... onto the soup!

Soup Ingredients:

olive oil

Sweet potato

yellow onion

celery 

carrots

garlic

herbs (oregano and thyme work well)

spices (red chili flake, smoked salt, pepper, chili powder, smoked paprika-- hot and/or sweet, and a dash of cumin)

optional, but recommend: kale

optional: liquid smoke

Dice: one onion, 2 carrots, 2 celery.

Heat up pot (med/med high heat). Pour in generous amount of olive oil. Add chili flake. Add diced veggies. Saute.

Once everything has been sauteed down pretty well: add as little or as much garlic as you would like. I have a garlic problem (and I don't care who knows it) so I add about four or five cloves. Saute. DO NOT BURN.

Add peeled and chopped sweet potato. It doesn't really matter the size since you will be pureeing the soup anyway...  Add generous amounts of spices and fresh herbs. Stir/blend.

Add stock or water. Enough to cover. Bring to simmer. Simmer until sweet potato pieces are soft. Turn off heat and puree soup. I use an immersion blender, but obviously: any blender will work fine. I've just found that with my overly clumsy and messy self, everything works a little more smoothly in the kitchen when I don't have to transfer hot (or any) liquids. If you don't have a blender you could always use a food processor, then strain the soup through a fine mesh strainer to make it extra silky smooth. Add more liquid (if needed) to reach your desired consistency. Bring soup back to simmer, season to taste (I like extra pepper and extra smokiness), and (if you'd like) add chopped pieces of kale. Allow to simmer another five to ten minutes. 

To pair with the soup: greens and bread! 

For the greens: In a bowl, toss greens (arugula or mixed greens work well... anything not overly bulky and heavy) with a fair amount of lemon, a tiny bit of olive oil, course sea salt, and pepper. 

Bread: Slice loaf of sourdough. Brush olive oil on bread. Toast or grill bread. Pull out of oven, toaster, grill, whatever, and rub a clove of garlic over warm bread. Salt and pepper. 

Top soup with greens and bread.... and ENJOY! 

recipe: A Valentine's Day Cheeseboard

With Valentine's Day quickly approaching I thought it would be fun to make a cheeseboard to celebrate. Normally I always see cheeseboards out around the winter holidays, but I think it's perfect for Valentine's Day! One thing I love about cheese is how you can pair it with so many complimentary items. Valentine's Day is about love, and since a traditional gift is chocolates, I thought it would be fun to make a cheeseboard paired with sweet, as opposed to savory, items. I partnered with Wisconsin Cheese to show how three of their cheeses could be used to make a delicious spread!

The first cheese on my cheeseboard is Merlot BellaVitano. This cheese has a creamy consistency similar to Cheddar, but is milder, and has hints of Parmesan. Pair Merlot Bellavitano with fresh blackberries and smooth dark chocolate. The blackberries and chocolate enhance the berry notes already present in the cheese.

Next, Pleasant Ridge Reserve, a Gruyere-style cheese made with unpasteurized cow’s milk from pasture-grazed cows. I thought some chocolate and nuts would be the perfect companion for this one. Creamy and nutty, this cheese really stands on it’s own.Last but not least, the crème de la crème, a wash-rind and soft-ripened cheese. Don’t be fooled when you unwrap the boldly fragrant Petite Frère; it’s a sweet, decadent and flavor-complimenting cheese. I loved pairing fresh strawberries and a drizzle of honey with it. Together they were absolutely amazing, and the perfect end to a delicious cheese course.

Are you getting excited for Valentine's Day? How do you like to celebrate?

xox

Diet Water - Recipe {Bean Stew With Biscuits}

Finally! Sheesh. White bean stew with biscuits. Asked for many times. And waited for even longer. Sorry. ;) Instead of calling it a white bean stew I went ahead and changed it to a bean stew. The main reason I did this was because I didn't want to leave my house (It's hard and not worth it, alone with a baby, when you only need a few items) to buy white beans. I used garbanzo beans instead which were just as equally delicious, if not more delicious. Feel free to use whatever bean you feel fitting or you prefer. I wouldn't recommend straying to far from the vegetablse listed, I mean, you can, and while some other vegetables would work, many others might just be weird. When I orginally attempted this, I used the recipe from: Veganomicon it came out... um, okay. I don't know. Every step of the way I questioned the recipe and was like "this seems backwards. Why am I doing this? Next time I'm making my own". So yeah, thats what I did. The basic idea was adapted from the book, but the cooking set up, directions, seasoning (and maybe the ingredients?)  are different. I also used a completely different biscuit recipe than the one found in Veganomicon. I wanted a biscuit with more flavor and buttery goodness. Because there are the two parts to this recipe, you will have to multi-task quite a bit. You need to be pretty good at cooking with a baby (if you have one) or asking a friend to help is always nice :) This is a really hearty and filling meal, great for cold days, or days where you just need a little extra comfort and loving inside your gut. I hope you enjoy it as much as Marlowe and I do :) 

Ingredients: 

-Onion: small chopped. Half.

-Two Carrots. I small chopped one for the mirepoix and chopped the other into larger pieces for stew heartiness. 

-Celery: One or two. (Very) small chopped

-Mushrooms: (optional, but totally recommend. They give the soup more heartiness and an earthy flavor). I had four left in my fridge.... so thats what I used.

-Two Small Potatoes: cut to match the size of your bean (or slightly larger)

-Garlic: diced and sliced, whatever you prefer. Doesn't have to look pretty, just makes the soup (and everything) better. 

-Green Onion (or leeks): chopped. 

-Beans: White, garbanzo, or whatever you have or like, just don't do anything like black beans, cause that would be weird. 

-Peas (I always have frozen. It's a staple item in my freezer)

-Butter or Oil. I used a little of both.... I ran out of both this day. (reoccurring theme, right?) I use Earth Balance Vegan butter. You can find it at most grocery stores, it's not a specialty item or anything, but it is delicious. 

-Vegetable Stock (or other stock or water)

-Herbs. Lots of them. Fresh is better. Dried is fine. Thyme, oregano, basil, rosemary, and whatever else might be growing in your garden. I left out my spearmint. 

-Flour: A few tablespoons. 

-Salt & Pepper

-Nutritional Yeast (optional)

(And I think I even threw in a bit of cumin, cause I can't help but do it, quote Modern Family, and giggle.)

For the biscuits: I followed THIS RECIPE, until the last step. Super easy, delicious too. 

Prep everything. Wash and drain garbanzos, clean and chop all the veggies, and grab some herbs. 

And onion, green onion, mushrooms, celery, and the small cut batch of carrots to a well buttered or oiled, heated pot. Saute and allow everything to cook down and caramelize a bit. 

Once everything has cooked down a bit and onions are translucent: add larger carrots. Stir. 

Add garlic. Stir. 

Add herbs. I added a little more than double the amount pictured. 

Add potatoes. Stir. Salt and Pepper. Turn the heat to medium low and let everything cook for a while, stirring occasionally. You really want the flavors to blend together, all while allowing your potatoes to soften (not completely, but a bit). This might be a good time to start your biscuits, if you haven't already done it. 

Make sure your veggies have a bit of moisture. They should still have some left from the oils and the mushrooms. If not, don't be afraid to add a bit more oil or butter. Add about one and a half to two tablespoons of flour and blend well, into the vegetables. You are going to have some browning on the bottom of the pot, but this will come off later and give some extra flavor to the stew. 

Bring heat back up to medium/medium high and slowly start adding stock to your pot. Maybe a quarter cup at a time (at first). You want the stock to simmer on the bottom so that the brown goodness cooks off the bottom while you stir it in. Add more stock, stir, and scrape the bottom more. Add enough stock to cover vegetables. Add beans. Bring to simmer and allow to cook until potatoes are fully soft. (Work on your biscuits!) Taste and season. Feel free to add more herbs, spices, or nutritional yeast, and of course: salt and pepper. Add peas. Turn off heat. And stir. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. 

So.... you've been working on your biscuit dough right? I mean, at this point your kitchen should either be spotlessly clean and you're like *oh crap, I forgot the biscuits!* or your kitchen should be a mess and you've got a big lump of dough in front of you. Instead of rolling, cutting, and all that jazz, you just pull chucks off the dough and roll them into one and a half inch balls. (For reference: I've got small hands.) 

Plop (nicely place) your biscuit circles on top of the stew. The stew should be thick enough so that biscuits mostly sit on top with little sinking. 

Place the whole pot into pre-heated oven for 15 to 20 minutes. Depending on the size of your biscuits and oven you've got (I've got a crappy one, that gets and stays incredibly hot from the bricks in it) it will take different lengths of time. You want the biscuits to be firm to the touch and slightly browning. 

Once the biscuits were done, I actually pulled the whole pot out of the oven and Michelle and I drove it over to my brothers house (without the lid on) for my sister-in-laws *I'm making you dinner for your birthday dinner* This is optional, but, once I arrived to my brothers, I brushed a bit more melted Earth Balance on the biscuits and placed the pot under the broiler for a few minutes for optimum browning. 

Serve and enjoy :) 

ps. Maybe you've noticed, I've been trying to keep up with reply comments lately. It's been working well, for now. Feel free to leave questions in the comments. And as far as emails.... you can imagine, my inbox is pretty full... I'm working on it ;)

pps. if you notice the stew isn't thick enough to place the biscuits comfortably on top you can always add a mixture of flour/water and cook for longer. The more flour, the thicker it will be <3

Diet Water - Recipe {Vegan} {Cooked Kale}

I have to give credit where credit is due: I am totally not the ad wizard behind this recipe. Honestly, I never really ate cooked greens until I dated Eric. No, thats a lie, I guess I sometimes ate them... because I cooked spinach for THIS recipe... and I ate that quite often. So yeah, Eric made collards for me once or twice. They were a bit different and very spicy, but either way... he never showed me how, or gave me a recipe... but he is quite a chatterbox and explained here and there what he used and added when he cooked the greens. Well, I have no idea why, but one day I thought: "Let me attempt cooked kale!" Well, they came out fantastic. And since Marlowe just kept shoveling them in her mouth they became a pretty regular menu item for Marlowe and I. I think you'll be pretty pleased with this recipe. It's incredibly easy and while the greens cook for about forty-five minutes to an hour, the actual total hands-on cooking and prep time is only about fifteen minutes. It's pretty much fat-free (there is olive oil) and it's loaded in: fiber, vitamin A, C, and K, and calcium! And come on.... look at Marlowe, how could you not at least attempt to make this for yourself or your kids after seeing an adorable 14(ish) month old devouring kale. You gotta try it for yourself!

garlic tee c/o: b&b

Ingredients: 

one bunch kale

one small onion

few cloves of garlic

vegetable stock (or water, but stock is preferred)

apple cider vinegar

salt/pepper

something smokey (choose one of the three: smoked salt *recommended, liquid smoke, sweet smoked paprika)

optional: 

tomatoes (any kind will do. I always have cherry/grape on hand)

chili flake

Instructions:

wash kale and tear off stems. then: either rip or chop kale into smaller chunks/strips. smaller pieces will make this much easier for baby mouths and possibly, digestion.

small-chop onion. add to olive oil and saute until translucent and soft.

(optional: add chili flake. mine is bordering on bland, so be cautious for kiddos if yours is a bit stronger)

slice garlic, add to pot, saute for a few minutes. do not burn. 

add kale. saute.

it will go from: filling the pot, to cooking down, to almost nothing fairly quickly. 

once kale is cooked down, add vegetable stock--- enough to cover kale (about three to four cups). 

add about three tablespoons of apple cider vinegar. 

Alright, so... this is the part where I like to season the greens. My favorite way to do this is to use smoked salt instead of regular salt. It brings a very excellent smokiness to the dish without having to add pork stock or bacon. Well, I ran out of smoked salt about two weeks ago and it's not exactly one of those things you can just *pick up at the store*, so an excellent substitution is liquid smoke. I picked this one up at whole foods a while back and all you need is a few drops added to any dish and BAM, you got smokiness. Another pretty good (but not as good) substitute would be a teaspoon of smoked paprika. If you're not using the smoked salt, be sure to still add a few heavy pinches of sea salt. Also: freshly ground pepper. 

Bring stock to simmer and cover. Let it simmer for about forty minutes. 

While simmering here are a few (optional) suggestions: chop up a little bit of tomatoes, clean up, do the dishes, entertain a baby, give your dog some much needed attention, come back to this post and comment about how excited you are, a pedicure. 

Once forty minutes has passed (or if you're impatient, thirty), open lid, stir in tomatoes, and check on greens. The kale should be pretty tender, and the stock should have reduced a fair amount. 

Leave uncovered and continue to let the kale (and tomatoes) simmer. You want to reduce the stock to almost nothing. It will be a deep golden yellowy brown and taste salty, smokey, and fantastic. If you want to reduce the sodium content a bit for your little ones, then only reduce the stock a little bit-- enough time for your tomatoes to cook in, and strain the rest of the stock and save it for something else (soup, your own greens, a spoon and your mouth).

And that's it! Now you've got cooked greens a baby could love! 

And to further prove my point...

this is the face of Marlowe when I am attempting to photograph the kale and I tell her "No" as she reaches her hand into the bowl. She loves it that much. 

Happy kale eating! 

*Marlowe got the kale about two minutes later after it was cool enough for her to eat. A burnt baby mouth is not a happy mouth.