Curried Lentil Soup (vegan, gluten free)

Curried Lentil Soup (Spicy!)

This is a spicy soup that will awaken your senses. The pot brewing on the stove will fill the kitchen with the aroma of cumin, with notes of oregano and garlic. Tumeric adds a cheery colour while the lentils, and vegetables mingle in a rich broth. Winter? What winter?

[How hot do you like it? Follow the lowered amounts of the seasoning for a "medium" heat. If you find it too spicy, adding a couple of chopped potatoes to the pot can take the heat down.]

1/2 pound carrots
1 large onion
3 stalks celery
handful of mushrooms

1-2 tbsp garlic powder
2 tbsp- 1/4 cup cumin
2 tbsp tumeric
1-2 tbsp dry oregano leaf. If powder is what you have on hand, use half that.
1 tbsp crushed red pepper (Optional. This is where much of the heat comes from.)
1 tbsp salt or lite salt
1/2 cup olive oil

1 1/2 cups red or brown lentils

Finely chop the carrots, celery, onion, and mushrooms. Add these to a soup pot with the seasonings and oil. Cook the mixture on medium heat, stirring regularly, for about ten minutes, until the carrots are softened. This is your soup base. Add about four cups water and bring it to a boil. Once boiling, add the lentils and another four cups of water. Simmer for at least two hours.

[Crock Pot Directions: Cook the chopped veggies, seasonings and oil together in a sautee pan for ten minutes, then pour it into your crock pot. Add the lentils and eight cups of water. Cook on "medium" for 8-12 hours, and come home to a wonderful supper.]

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Crock Pot Black-Eyed Peas and Greens (gluten free, vegan)

Crock Pot Black-Eyed Peas and Greens

It was a gorgeous afternoon to work in the garden, but too hot a day to simmer beans on the stove. That is what crock pots are for. I tossed the dry beans, chopped greens, onions and seasonings into a the crock pot and walked away for a few hours.

I must confess that black-eyed peas and greens is not an old standby meal for us, me from Ontario and Stealthy Dad from Wisconsin. One day I will find some Southerner to teach me how to make it authentically. For today, I went to what is familiar to me: garlic, coriander, cumin, and a touch of turmeric. Those seasonings work for lentils, so why not black-eyed peas? Served over quinoa, it all came together well.

[This has a really mild, kid-friendly level of seasoning. For a bit of heat, double the coriander and cumin. For a more heat, triple the coriander and cumin and add a teaspoon or two of hot chili powder.]

To a crock pot, add:

2 cups dry black-eyed peas
4 cups chopped greens (We had kale on hand.)
1 small red onion, chopped
7 cups water
1 tsp salt
2 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp coriander
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp tumeric
1 tsp paprika

Set the crock pot to "high", and find something else to do for four hours. If you are headed off to work for the day, set it on "low" and return home to a hot, fresh meal.  Serve over quinoa or rice.

If you are into healthy recipe and homestead ideas, check out link-ups where bloggers around the world share their creations: Thriving on Thursday

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Rainbow Beans (vegan, gluten free)

Rainbow Beans with Gluten Free Cornbread

"Beans, beans are good for the heart..." Why, yes they are because they are full of soluble fiber. Soluble fiber may reduce LDL ("bad") cholesterol because it absorbs it during digestion.  Regulating the speed of digestion can help stabilize blood sugar spikes and reduce metabolic syndrome, too. (For more on soluble fiber, see this article at Livestrong.)

"Beans, beans the economical fruit..." A pound of mixed beans will cost about $2, and even less if you buy in bulk. I confess that I like canned baked beans. I like them a lot, but they contain an awful lot of sugar and salt and most have that dreadful porkish thingie at the top. Making them yourself provides a healthy, inexpensive meal that can be as low in salt or sugar as you want it to be.

Rainbow Beans is what G-man calls the mixed soup beans. You have colourful lentils and beans in various shades and sizes. The result is a pot of beans with varied textures and a broader mix of amino acids.

For the basics:

1 lb mixed soup beans
6 cups cold water
8 oz unsalted tomato sauce
1/4 cup blackstrap molasses
1 tsp onion powder (or 1/4 cup chopped, sauteed onion)
1/2 tsp garlic
salt to taste

[optional: 1/2 cup brown sugar or honey. We can get away with leaving this out, then drizzling a bit of honey over the kids' plates.]

Look the beans over for impurities such as bits of gravel. Rinse the beans by covering them with water, giving them a gentle stir and pouring the water off.

Put the beans, water, molasses, and seasonings into the pot. Cook on "Low" for about 12 hours. Salt to taste, adding about a teaspoon at a time.

Notice that I did not soak them first? With the crock pot, cooking and soaking can be a combined step. You can leave for the day and come home to the aroma of fresh baked beans. 

I shared this post with Fight Back! Friday. 

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Chicken and Summer Corn Soup (gluten free, crock pot)

Chicken and Summer Corn Soup

G-man asked to make chicken soup. Specifically, he wanted make soup with chicken, sweet corn, tomatoes and beans. That kid is onto something... Every bite tastes like summer. Tomatoes and kidney beans add a touch of cheerful color and the sweet corn kernels have a slight crunch. Our son may only be four years old, but he sure has great ideas in the kitchen!

4 chicken (Free range makes better soup. Trust me.)
1 large, ripe tomato
6 ears corn, kernels sliced off
2 cups cooked/ 1 can drained red kidney beans
2 tbsp parsley
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp basil
salt to taste

Place the chicken thighs into the crock pot and cover with water. Cook on "high" for 2-3 hours, until chicken is cooked. (All night on "low" would work if you are prepping the soup before leaving for work.) Take the chicken from the pot,  Bone is and skin it, placing the bones in the freezer for future bone broth. Chop up the chicken and put it back in the pot.

Ad the chopped tomato, beans, corn, and all seasonings except the salt. Allow the soup to cook for at least another two hours on "high" or all day on "low."

Before serving, salt the soup, a little at a time. Half a teaspoon for the whole pot was enough for us.


I shared this recipe with these natural food recipe link-ups: Traditional Tuesdays, Slightly Indulgent Tuesday, Fat Tuesday,  the Hearth and Soul Hop and Empty Your Archives.

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Curried Chicken (crock pot, gluten free)

Chicken Vindaloo

We used to use Patak's curry pastes. They are easy and flavourful and come in a range of spiciness from mild to mind-blowing. The Mild Curry Paste contains 910mg sodium per two tablespoons, however, and the first ingredient listed is canola oil. Canola oil, then salt.... We can do better. Learning to blend the spices that could be commonly found in a small town grocery store, and then to adapt them to the palates of our little kids took a few tries.

You will find this recipe for curried chicken to be quick and easy. Just pop everything into the crock pot and come back in a few hours to discover an aromatic pot of tender chicken and potatoes in a smooth, barely spicy sauce. (You can easily crank up the heat if you like.)

Summer Veggies and Lentil Soup (gluten free, vegan)

Summer Veggies and Lentil Soup

Our garden is growing! Despite a couple weeks of highs at or near a hundred Fahrenheit, there are some edibles a few feet from our front door. Some things are doing better than others, so preparing a meal with our small harvest was like a bizarre episode of Chopped. My "basket" contained small beets and a zucchini. In my "pantry" there were organic Yukon Gold potatoes, lentils, and seasonings. The oven and range were strictly off limits due to the heat wave... Thank goodness for crock pots!

Beets are interesting because they are like two vegetables in one. The tops are delicious as greens and are rich in Vitamin A. The roots have a sweet and slightly peppery flavour and when cooked have a texture like a potato. Except for trimming the root ends, I chopped up the beets- tops and all- and added them to the pot.

Slow BBQ Pork Roast (gluten free)

Slow BBQ Pork Roast with Yukon Golds, Zucchini and Mini Bell Peppers

Today I played around with the kids. We went to the store, hung out at the library, and put together jigsaw puzzles. When a sudden rain hit I didn't even retrieve the laundry from the line. What's an extra rinse, right? It was just not a "domestic" kind of day. It was too hot for the oven and too wet for the grill. Still, "What's for supper?" had a great answer. With about five minutes' prep in the morning, a sweet, tender pork roast cooked slowly all day in the crock pot. Perfect!


Humanely Raised Pork Roast*
8 oz unsalted tomato sauce, canned or homemade
2 tbsp molasses
2 tbsp brown sugar (optional)
1 tsp garlic powder
(1/2 tsp salt, optional)

Place the roast into the crock pot. Mix the rest of the ingredients together and pour the sauce over the top of the roast. Turn the crock pot on high for four hours or low to cook all day Add an hour if the roast starts off frozen. Dinner's ready!


* Typical grocery store pork comes from hogs raised indoors in tiny confinements. Animal welfare issues aside, it just does not taste as good as pork purchased from a farmer who raises them the old fashioned way.

I shared this recipe with Monday Mania and Foodie Friends Friday.

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White Borscht (gluten free, vegan)

White Borscht

Did I miss the memo and forget to put beets in the borscht? No. G-man asked to make soup with potatoes.  The beets available at our local store looked really puny, and the beets in our garden are mere cotyledons peeking through the soil. The last time we tried to get him to eat beets was unsuccessful and I am not going to try again until he harvests what he and the Cadet planted. G-man helped make the soup today, and it had all of the elements of a hearty borscht with extra potatoes and beans to stand in for beets. Both boys loved it, so let's call it a win.

All-Purpose Tomato Sauce

All-Purpose Tomato Sauce

Last summer, I came across a great buy on tomatoes at the farmer's market. Some became pizza sauce, some became pasta sauce, and some were simply peeled, popped into ziplocks and frozen. We gobbled up all of little eight-ounce containers of pizza sauce rather quickly, since we eat pizza at least every week. The pasta sauce was also eaten up. We came to the last of the tomatoes in the freezer, about six quarts' worth, so I decided to make an all-purpose, plain tomato sauce with it. That way it could be seasoned up for pasta, pizza, or even homemade BBQ sauce.

To prepare 10-12 pounds (5-6 quarts) of fresh or frozen tomatoes...

Blend them up whole. The post originally had instructions to peel the tomatoes. Skip it and just blend them up whole. Just be sure to wash them and cut off any bad parts first.

Simmer in your crock pot until reduced.  There is no need to add water; just put the lid on, turn on the crock pot and walk away. For a ten-pound batch, all day (or night) on high is just right.

(If your tomatoes did not all fit in, blend up and add more as the sauce reduces.)

Blend the Sauce Again.  Even though the tomatoes were blended, the sauce will get lumpy as it cooks. Allow the sauce to cool, then blend it again, batch by batch.

[Season. I left this batch plain to be seasoned as needed. If you intend to use the sauce for pasta, you can add sauteed onions, peppers, carrots, or mushrooms at this point. You can also add oregano, marjoram, basil, garlic... Remember that the sauce will reduce so if you plan to add salt wait until you have the final volume.]

Portion and freeze. If you are using plastic containers, cool the sauce down first. Don't ask me what I know about melting plastic containers with hot sauce because I will admit to nothing. I find eight-ounce portions to be just right. If you are making enchiladas or lasagna, you can take out and thaw as many as you need.

Thaw as needed. For spaghetti, saute carrots, peppers, onions, mushrooms, and fresh garlic in olive oil. You can add ground grassfed beef or a bit of romano or parmesan cheese, too. Season with oregano, marjoram, basil, parsley, and garlic as you wish, then add the plain tomato sauce and simmer as long as you have time for. Salt as needed.

For pizza, pour the sauce over the prepared crust and sprinkle seasonings right over top before adding other toppings. Oregano and basil, garlic, onion powder... Sometimes we blend up plain tomato sauce with spinach to make Monster Pizza.

I shared this post with these natural food link-ups:  Meatless Mondays, Real Food 101, Make Your Own Monday!  Monday Mania, Fat Tuesday,  Real Food Wednesday, and Simple Lives Thursday.

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Chicken and Vegetable Soup (crock pot hybrid)

Chicken and Vegetable Soup with a Whole Wheat and Flaxseed Biscuit

Time to clean out the fridge.... how about some chicken soup?

Sometimes you have vegetables in the fridge that are ready for stock, but not compost. While their addition to a soup would contribute nutrients and depth of flavour, you might not want the texture in the final bowl. Wilted greens, washed carrot peels, beet tops, celery ends, stuff like that.

This is what I call a crock pot hybrid: a recipe where you can use your crock pot, but not in the true sense of chucking stuff in and coming back in eight hours. You chuck stuff in, come back in four hours to tamper with it, chuck more stuff in, and serve in another two to three hours. Essentially, you are making a stock, then a soup.

Tomato and Vegetable Soup (gluten free, vegan, low sodium)

Tomato and Vegetable Soup

Most of last summer's tomato bounty became sauces for pizza and pasta. Some were frozen in ziplocks, peeled and whole, for occasions like cold and dreary March afternoons.

As I was preparing Tomato and Vegetable Soup, I chopped organic potatoes and carrots into little pieces and added peas, just like the vegetable soup I liked when I was a kid. Instead of alphabet macaroni or barley, I added quinoa, so all  of the "letters" were "C's." (It was especially missing the M's, S's and G's that the canned version contains, as in monosodium glutamate.)

Quinoa Pudding (gluten free, egg free)

Quinoa Pudding

Since I was ten, I have been searching for the perfect non-rice pudding. My mom used to make the best rice pudding, and when we discovered I was allergic to rice, I had had my last bowl. *sigh* It has been so long that I do not remember the taste. Nonetheless, rice pudding was the inspiration for this dish. It is baked slowly with milk, like the old fashioned classic. Plump, juicy raisins and hints of nutmeg and cinnamon compliment the quinoa grains.

1.5 cups quinoa
1/3 to 2/3 cup maple syrup. (Think, "breakfast" or "dessert?")
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3 cups milk
1 cup water
1/2 cup seedless raisins

Preheat the oven to 300F.

Butter a casserole dish. Mix all of the ingredients except the raisins together in the dish. Bake for an hour at 300F, uncovered. Turn the oven down to 250F.

Stir the mixture up in the dish, and drop in the raisins. Return it to the oven to bake for another hour and a half at 250F.

Serve warm or cold. A night in the fridge makes for a great breakfast!

[Yes! This worked in the crock pot! Keep it on the lowest setting. At first I reduced the liquid but quickly learned that it not necessary.]

This recipe is shared with Monday Mania, Fat Tuesdays , Slightly Indulgent Tuesday,  Tasty Tuesdays,  Frugal Days Sustainable Ways,  Real Food Wednesdays, Simple Lives Thursday and Full Plate Thursdays the Living Well Blog Hop,  Fight Back Friday and Empty Your Archives- Puddings.


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Quinoa for Breakfast (gluten free)

Quinoa for Breakfast

Quinoa is simply delightful dressed up like oatmeal in the morning. Topped with a bit of milk and either brown sugar or maple syrup you get a sweet warm bowl of cereal that has a unique crunch. The only downside is that quinoa takes so long to cook. I prepared a pot last night and stuck it in the fridge to heat up when we wanted it.

(The directions on the package from Bob's Red Mill indicated to use two cups of water, but I used three. I also increased the cooking time.)

3 cups water
1 cup quinoa

Bring the water to boil in a sauce pot. Add the quinoa and bring back up to a boil. Cook on medium heat until all of the water is absorbed, about 25 minutes. Allow the quinoa to sit and cool for another half an hour before putting it in the fridge.



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This was shared at Meatless Mondays.

Venison Stew (gluten free)

Venison Stew

Here in the rural Midwest, there is no shortage of lean, free range and antibiotic-free venison. I have heard many people say they do not like it because it is tough and gamey. If you are not a vegetarian, would you not eat venison if it was tender and delicious? (Some of the crowd is saying, "aw shucks, but they are so cute." Well, they are not so cute when you hit them with your car, which happens more often when they get overpopulated. Steers and piggies are cute, too, and many people eat them without thinking about it.)

An easy way to take the gaminess out is with red wine. I do not know the chemistry involved, but if you pitch a cup of red wine into the crock pot with stew or over a roast, the venison will taste more like beef. The alcohol evaporates with cooking.

For the stew pictured above, I used a cup of Sugar Clay Winery's Bandana Red, which is slightly sweet. Dry wines also do the trick. The greatest factor in choosing the wine is what you would like in your glass. A cupful will do, and since the bottle is open, why let it go to waste?

Stew is a great way to clear the fridge out somewhat. Today's (and tomorrow's) stew contains:

about a pound of venison loin, thinly sliced
1 cup red wine
4 cups water (or leftover whey from cheese if you need a use for it)
2 cups chopped carrots
2 cups chopped yellow carrots
4 potatoes, peeled and sliced
1/2 bag (approx 8oz) mixed vegetables

Add the venison and wine to a crock pot. Turn it on high, and, after an hour or two, throw in the rest of the ingredients then turn the pot to low. Let it cook for about twenty-four hours total. Just before serving, add a little salt to taste. I added one teaspoon of "lite" salt.

The kids were funny today at the table. The Cadet wanted only carrots, and G-man wanted only broth. We'll see what happens when it is reheated tomorrow.



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This recipe was shared at Traditional Tuesdays, Gluten Free Wednesdays, and Sunday Night Soup Night, collections of natural food recipes.

Precooking and Freezing Beans

Last week, I read an article by Jane Mountain at Grist.com describing five packaged foods you never need to buy again.  The list includes canned soup, stock/bouillon and beans; hummus and boxed cereal. I don't think we can let go of our Cheerios. Otherwise, the list is quite doeable. We already cook our own soup, stock, and hummus.

Mazto Ball Soup (Knaidlach)

Over the weekend, we roasted a chicken. Stealthy Dad carved it to serve, and immediately put the carcass into the crock pot to make stock.

I covered it with water and added some sad-but-not-ready-for-compost vegetables from the fridge. Thanks to the idea from on the Traditional Foods blog, I also added a couple tablespoons of vinegar to break the bones down, releasing more minerals into the broth. A day and a half later, I strained the solids from the broth. After pouring it back into the (rinsed) crock pot, I added some light seasoning to the broth: salt, ginger, sage, thyme, and dried onions.

The decision of what soup to make was not an easy one. Nearly every culture has a version of dumplings and broth. It came down to two: Won Ton or Matzo Ball. I can get decent Won Ton soup down the street, so chose to make the latter.

Matzo Ball Soup 

Basic Mild Chili (vegan, gluten free, low sodium)

Basic Mild Chili

To someone following a low sodium diet, the typical "add X cans of beans..." chili recipe is not a great idea. Cooking beans from dry may seem intimidating but is really quite simple when you use a crock pot. This vegan version is a starting point.  If you prefer to add beef or venison, wait until the beans have cooked at least eight hours.

To a crock pot, add:

Homemade Chicken Soup

The days are getting shorter, the nights chillier, and everywhere you go there are people sniffling. It is time for a nice big bowl of chicken soup.

It is also time to get out the crock pot and make your own.

Reading labels of some popular brands of canned soup for sodium content is a shocker. One cup of Progresso Roasted Chicken Garlic contains 690mg/cup. Campbell's Select harvest Light Savory Chicken and Vegetables contains 650mg per cup, while their Healthy Request Vegetable contains 410 mg/cup. A single cup of Campbell's Chicken Vegetable soup, the classic soup with the red label, contains 890 mg of sodium!  (Mmmmm, mmmm.... not so good?)

Homemade Chicken Soup

Get A Crock Pot

A cup of Campbell's 100% natural, New England-Style Braised Beef Pot Roast soup has 650mg of sodium. A cup of Healthy Request Beef and Vegetables contains 410mg.  Regular Chunky soup contains 890mg of sodium per cup, including a heaping helping of monosodium glutamate.

Hearty and packed with nutrition, a bowl of this soup has as little as 75mg sodium:

Hearty Venison Stew

By slowly cooking a soup (or stew) in a crock pot, more of the flavours are released and mingle together in the broth. This pot cooked on "low" for 24 hours, with the lid on, though it was perfectly edible after 12. The longer you wait, however, the tastier and more satisfying your meal will be. Very little salt is required, so you do not have to stop at one cup!

We rarely have the same exact soup twice because making soup is the perfect opportunity to clean out the crisper.  Today's bowl contains:

Black Beans

This recipe is cheap, gluten-free, low-sodium, high in soluble fiber and protein, low in fat. Don’t tell the kids that. All they need to know is that, served with some corn bread or rice, this is a delicious meal.

It does not get any easier than this. Just toss these things into your crock pot before bed to have them for lunch the next day, or before you leave for work to have them for supper:

1 pound bag of dried black beans

2 tbsp sesame oil

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp ginger powder

7 cups of water

If you wish to use “lite” salt to taste, wait until after the beans are cooked and the liquid is reduced. You will use far less that way.


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