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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Beef Teriyaki in Fifteen Minutes without Soy Sauce! (gluten free, low sodium)

Beef Teriyaki without Soy Sauce (gluten free)

Have you ever heard of a low-sodium Teriyaki sauce? Me neither.* A quick check of the jar labels in the store can be hair raising. When I went cruising for recipes I kept finding soy sauce, and lots of it. Hmmm.... what does soy sauce taste like, besides salty? Rich, earthy (from fermentation), and a bit tangy. I played around for a while with some things we had in the cupboard, and came up with a really good impostor!

The trick here is to have everything chopped and prepped to you do not overcook anything. Your steak will be tender, your veggies will have a bit of crunch, and the sauce will marry the tastes and textures together.

1 lb grassfed beef steak, thinly sliced

1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup blackstrap molasses
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp salt or lite salt
1/2 tsp sesame oil
1/4 cup diced onion

1 tbsp sesame seeds
3 large mushrooms
3 carrots
3 stalks celery
1/2 cup chopped cabbage

In a stainless or glass bowl, mix the balsamic vinegar, molasses, garlic, salt, sesame oil, and diced onion. Add the sliced steak and let it marinate for a few minutes while you chop your vegetables.

Heat up a wok or sauté pan. (I like an Ultimate Pan, which is sort of a halfway between.) Add the meat and sauce mixture to the hot pan and cook, stirring, just long enough to heat up the sauce. Add the vegetables and sesame seeds, and continue to stir until the meat is cooked through. Serve over cooked quinoa or rice.


*Kikkomen's "low sodium" teriyaki sauce still contains 320mg sodium per tablespoon, and LaChoy's version contains 284mg sodium per tablespoon.  You'd need at least a couple tablespoons of sauce per serving.


I shared this post with Swap-n-Share Sunday.


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One Dish Wonder: Beef and Potato Bake (gluten free, dairy free, low sodium)

One Dish Wonder: Beef and Potato Bake

There were no cans of soup harmed in the making of this hearty bowl of manly-man fare. None opened, nor even purchased, actually. It is just as easy to make a quick beef and potato casserole, with its own creamy mushroom sauce, without the soup! As a bonus, when cooking with grassfed beef, you do not even have to brown the beef first. Just chop, layer, and pop it in the oven. Find something constructive to do for an hour, and return to find that dinner is done! (There is a serving of vegetables stashed in there, too.)

1 lb ground, grassfed beef
4 medium potatoes
1/2 lb mushrooms, finely chopped
3-4 stalks celery, finely chopped
1 small onion, finely chopped
1/4-1/2 tsp salt, or lite salt to further reduce sodium
1/4 tsp black pepper

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Chop the mushrooms, celery, and onions and put them together in a bowl. Mix in the salt and pepper. (This replaces the seasoning and moisture of a can of soup.) Chop the potatoes and set aside.

Layer the ingredients into a lidded casserole dish: First, put half of the potatoes, and sprinkle with a handful of the mushroom mixture. Next, spread half of the ground beef on top, followed by chopped mushroom mixture. Top with the remaining potatoes, then mushroom mixture, the rest of the beef, and the rest of the mushroom mixture. Gently press down on the top to fill in the gaps.

Put the lid on and bake for an hour. (If the oven is not quite preheated yet, pop it in as it is and add a couple of minutes to the timer.)


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Quinoa with Veggies (vegan, gluten free)

Quinoa with Veggies (vegan, gluten free)

Quinoa and cabbage are great together. Add carrots for colour, celery for crunch, lightly sauté it all with sesame oil and aminos, and you have a hearty and delicious veggie meal. The Cadet tore into his bowl, bits aflyin', and G-man needed each bite to be assembled with at least one piece of celery. Quinoa and preschoolers can be a pretty messy combination but well worth the clean-up to have them eat lots of vegetables.

For four servings,

1 cup quinoa
2 1/2 cups water
1 tbsp toasted sesame oil
2 tsp coconut aminos (or soy sauce)
1/4 head cabbage, chopped
1 cup grated carrots
2 stalks celery, chopped
1/2 tsp salt

Bring the quinoa and water to a boil in a lidded sauce pan. (I use an "Ultimate" pan for just about everything.) Keep boiling for about five minutes, then put the cover on the pan and turn off the heat. Allow it to sit for fifteen minutes while you chop your vegetables.

In a sauté pan (or the same "Ultimate"pan,) pour the sesame oil and aminos. Stir in the quinoa until it is coated. Add the cabbage and cook for about five minutes. Turn off the heat and add the carrots, celery, and salt. Give everything a toss and serve it up.


I shared this recipe with  Monday Mania,  Meatless Mondays and Fat Tuesday.


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