When there’s days with little sunshine… there’s soup. Soup is my sunshine on a cloudy day. Is there anything else more comforting than a home cooked filling hearty soup? I love a good steamy bowl of soup of any kind, pretty much ~ but ones that I like the most is when they fill you up, leave you satisfied and your tummy happy. (Let’s slip in the added benefit that a hearty soup – means you don’t need to cook two course meals! IT is the meal. And it’s all made in one pot.) Do I hear cheering for big hearty soups? Like this Hearty Minestrone Soup!

HEARTY MINESTRONE SOUP

(healthy gluten free/ wheat free, dairy free, vegan recipe)

1 large onion, diced

4 organic tomatoes, diced (or 1 can of diced tomatoes)
(if using fresh tomatoes, add a small can of tomato paste)

3 zucchinis, chopped

2 medium sized potatoes, chopped

2-3 carrots, chopped

3 cloves of garlic, chopped fine

1 stalk of celery, chopped

1 cup of sweet peas, frozen are great

1 large can of large lima beans (red kidney beans also work great)

1/2 cup of gluten free pasta

olive oil for sauteing

1 teaspoon of each, Oregano & Basil

1 tablespoon of sea salt

fresh cracked black pepper

fresh basil for plating (I was lucky to pick the last of my purple basil from the garden)

hot water from the kettle

I like to start this big pot of Vegetarian Hearty Minestrone with a big drizzle of olive oil in the bottom of the pot. Heat that up and add my onions, then my garlic, then celery, then carrots. Drizzling in more olive oil as needed so the veggies don’t stick to the pot. You want to heat them up slightly so they release some flavour but are still not fully cooked. At this same time I also boil some water in the kettle. Pour that over to cover the veggies. Add in the potatoes and pasta. Add in salt and stir and dried herbs. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and cook for about 10-15 minutes on medium low heat.

Then I add in the sweet peas and zucchini and tomatoes; vegetables which cook quickly and aren’t great when overcooked. At this time you can also add in the canned beans and the can of tomatoes (if that’s what you’re using) or tomato paste. Stir again and cook for another 10 minutes or so until all nice and cooked and mingly with all the beautiful flavours. Enjoy.

This is our table setting for all three of us at dinner time ~ including a little bowl for the little one. To my eyes it’s not just a food to satisfy hunger. It’s comfort food, love that brings the family together. These are the best times of our family life sitting around our round kitchen table….

Minestrone has quite possibly dozen’s of variations. It’s one of the most versatile soups ever. You can see what you find in your fridge. Some red bell peppers and eggplant would also work nicely. Long green beans instead of sweet peas are great. And changing up the beans automatically makes it a new soup recipe. One of the best things is that it’s easy to pull off, just look for Italian-dish vegetables. If you eat mushrooms (I don’t as it contributes to Candida) then they would also go well.

I was also happy to pick the last few leaves off my basil plant in the garden. No happy that it was it for fresh herb season, especially basil. It seems like basil is one of the most delicate herbs. My parsley and mint are still doing well, but I should be making plans on what to do with that big pot. Either cut it and bring it in to eat up or consider bringing the whole pot it and enjoying it through the next few months of fall-winter. But I am worried about bringing in some slugs into the house. Yuck! Any advice?

Back to soups and comfort foods cooking in the kitchen…what are you cooking right now?

I love making savoury cakes! These are always big crowd (hubby + daughter) pleasers as they remind them of little burgers. I love them because they’re tasty, use great healthy ingredients, are packed with protein and carotenoid and are quick and easy to make. Yes, these are quick and easy to make and what’s great is that they are a great meal to make from your leftovers.

I like to plan my meals for two days sometimes and when boiling potatoes one day, I make sure I bake enough for two. For this recipe I used up leftover sweet potatoes – yup, this is what leftovers look like at my house – sometimes ;)

SWEET POTATO & MUNG BEAN CAKES

GLUTEN FREE & EGG FREE, DAIRY FREE; VEGAN HEALTHY RECIPE

 1 1/2 cups of cooked and mashed sweet potatoes (leftovers work great)

1 cup mung beans, previously cooked and cooled

1/2 red or sweet onion  (I used red in this recipe)

1 teaspoon of chia seeds (soaked in 2 tbsp of hot water)*

1 tsp turmeric

dash of cayenne pepper

sea salt + pepper to taste

1 tablespoon of chickpea flour + 1/2 cup more for coating

grape seed or olive oil for cooking

 Directions: cook the sweet potatoes, mash and let cool. (leftovers are great for this recipe). Soak mung beans overnight or 6-8 hours, cook as per directions (about 45 min.) strain and let cool.

Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl. With your hands, make balls about the size of a golf ball, press gently to flatten slightly, then dip them into the chickpea/ garbonzo flour. Coat on all sides. Fry on medium low for about 3 minutes, flip over once and continue cooking about 2 minutes. Do not move them around on the pan at all as they might fall apart easily if the sides aren’t firmed up yet.

Notes: *the chia seeds and water are 1 egg replacer.

Yum! Making these little cakes ~ or sure call them ‘vegan burgers’ if you like ;) is so much fun. That’s if you don’t mind getting your hands a little dirty ;) I also prefer making vegan burgers because I don’t have to handle meat at all! That always grossed me out (sorry, meat eaters). Plant-based cooking is definitely a lot more tactile and easier and a lot less expensive!

Here is some nutritional info for Mung Beans:

100 grams (which is about a cup, 7/8 of a cup to be exact) of Mung Beans, boiled without salt, have 7.02 grams of protein, 105 calories and 7.6 grams of dietary fiber.

They are also high in Potassium, Magnesium, Folate, Vitamin A, K and are a good source of Calcium.

Not to mention that this is a great flavour combo of the Sweet Potato and Mung beans together! And going gluten free, and actually completely grain free in this recipe (as chickpea flour is made from beans) is so much healthier.

These little vegan cakes were served up on a bed of spinach pesto gluten free linguini, with a nest of spinach and cakes on top. Yum.

Do you love a good pasta dish that’s topped with good flavourful sauce and veggies, it’s sooo good, you go back for seconds? Well I do. And I certainly do go back for seconds… ;)
Yes, this Pasta Rotto ~ translate that to ‘Broken’ Pasta from Italian ~ is really that good!

This beautiful rich pasta dish isn’t just a pasta dish! The difference and the reason I so love going with wheat-free pastas is that it just doesn’t give you that full/bloated feel you get from wheat pasta. Oh I remember those days, it didn’t matter what was served with it, if it was made from scratch at home or for $25 at a fancy Italian restaurant. Wheat pasta is just not that great and I couldn’t be happier that I’ve finally discovered that. For those of you ‘restricted’ read that ‘blessed’ with a diet change should be thrilled that you get the better piece of the pie – in this case, pasta!

Celiac Disease isn’t the only concern here, Gluten Sensitivity and GS awareness is on the rise. For the American population in general, 1.8m adults and 300,000 children have undiagnosed CD – people who, sooner or later, are going to develop vague symptoms of feeling generally unwell, for which they will be offered various drugs that are unlikely to make much difference. Ultimately, they are at higher risk of a range of chronic diseases. So if you still eat wheat and find yourself feeling unwell for any reason, it could be a general feeling of being tired all the time, or having frequent upset stomach or head aches ~ GS could be your reason.

So wheat-free, rice-based pasta it is then. But what about that delicious looking and sounding sauce topping you’ve got there? ~ you ask.

This is one of those recipes I call ‘cooking outside the pot’! All ingredients in this beautiful delicious sauce are roasted in a large pan in the oven. Easy one-pan recipe, easy clean up, no need to stand there over a pot watching your sauce so it doesn’t get burned, and watching yourself get ‘sprinkled with red blotches of sauce all over your clothes.

Roasting your ‘sauce’ is also terrific because it adds so much depth to your veggies, lets the flavours mingle and give you that richness only ‘oven-roasted’ cooking can give you. Simply put : delicious!

As you can see, all my veggies get placed on a large baking dish. I do it in two stages, the tomatoes goes in first, then the zucchini slices as I don’t want them to pick up the red colour of the tomatoes on them, plus, I like it if they seem a little under-cooked in a few places. One of the added experiences with this pasta dish is that it’s meant to be rustic ~ ‘broken’. Here’s the recipe:

PASTA ROTTO

a rustic pasta dish that’s rich and flavourful and still gluten-free and vegan

2 medium sized onions

2-3 cloves of garlic

6-8 garden picked tomatoes (if you’re lucky to have some)

2 teaspoons of dried thyme

2 teaspoons of dried basil

2-3 zucchinis

small handful of pine nuts, or 1/4 cup

sprinkle of sea salt to taste

fresh cracked black pepper

1 package of gluten-free, whole grain rice-based pasta

olive oil for cooking

fresh basil for plating

Oven-Roasted Tomato & Zucchini Sauce : (the tomato part) Preheat the oven to 430 C. Start with roughly chopping up the tomatoes, onions and garlic. Take a large baking dish (I like the enamel based not the aluminum pans – if you do have aluminum, cover with parchment paper first) and drizzle with a generous amount of olive oil, about 4-6 tablespoons should be good, until the bottom is covered. Spread out your chopped fresh tomatoes (with skins on), onions and garlic and cover with a lid or aluminium foil or parchment paper. Cook for about 15-20 minutes. Check on them and flip them over, move them around a bit so they cook evenly and are not getting burned. (be sure to use a hard spatula to scrub off some of the pieces if they do get stuck, leaving them and just sliding over the top will only make them burn more). Cook for another 10 minutes or so.

This is a good time to start boiling your pasta!

Pasta : Bring a large pot of water to a boil, add 1 tbsp of salt to it, mix it, and  add the pasta to it, stir, bring to a boil, cover and reduce heat and cook as per instructions. You will move onto the sauce once you put it into the pot, but once it’s done cooking, pour out onto a large colander, and run with cold water, that’s to stop it from cooking a bit and also rinse out the starch so it will prevent it from sticking together. Drizzle it with light olive oil, give it a shake, still in the colander and keep aside to be served.

When your tomatoes are placed in the oven and the pasta is cooking, let’s get going with your zucchinis. I used a mandolin to slice mine. I like how thin they are, faster to cook and shape nicely on the plate when done. If you don’t have a mandolin, try slicing them as thinly as possible, and then giving them a slice through across to make smaller pieces. That way they will cook/soften faster even if they are a little thicker.

Remove your now roasted tomatoes from the oven, and spread out your sliced zucchinis, sprinkle with sea salt and pepper and pine nuts! This way, having the pine nuts on top will give them a little roasting of their own and boost the flavour. Give it another drizzle of OO (olive oil) you can even get your hands in there and ‘massage’ the zucchinis a little). They are quite gentle so the OO will help preserve the flavour of them so they don’t dry out. You do not need to cover this one. Pop back in the oven and cook for 10-15 minutes. Keep checking to see that they don’t get burned and just looked softened. It’s ok, if some pieces remain slightly under-cooked ~ a little ‘crunch’ from the zucchinis makes this dish really good.

Now remove the pan again, you’re done! Give this whole roasted awesomeness a good stir ~ it’s ready to be served on your linguini rice noodles ;D

Top with fresh basil! Oh my, so good! Enjoy.

So not everyone’s vegan at your house?

I sauteed some shrimp in butter with a little garlic over in a separate small pan, and then topped my Pasta Rotto with shrimp for a different take on the recipe. Everyone gets the ‘main’ pasta dish and a few exceptions/requests are made for others. Everyone’s happy in the end.

I do not eat shrimp, because shrimp is a very common allergen to some people. On my healing journey, I removed many foods that potentially could make me sick. Removing the top allergen foods like wheat, eggs, dairy and shrimp is a win-win, and you still don’t have to sacrifice on taste ;D

• Going with gluten-free (rice-based) pasta, no cheese or other dairy in this dish makes this pasta dish very healthy.
• Roasting the veggies instead of frying them is also a healthier cooking method.
• Topping a dish with a few favourite non-vegan ingredients once a while makes some family members happy about what they eat ~ adjusting can be a hard game sometimes when they don’t ‘have’ to eat what you eat!
• Slow and steady is the way to transition over to the healthier (gluten-free and vegan) side! ;D

Any more ideas how you could make a pasta dish healthier? Share your ideas in the comments. xo