Tag: #veggiechallenge (Page 1 of 2)

Vegetable Soup for a Cold Weekend

January 15, 2024 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

Vegetable soup for a cold weekend seems like a natural for me.

It’s been very cold here in Northeast Ohio this weekend. So making various soups has been my go to response for eating. Here are some snapshots and recipes.

Super Quick Salsa Soup

Ingredients:

1 jar of mild or medium salsa
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon cilantro
2 cans black beans (rinse)
1 bag of frozen vegetables (thawed)
1 can corn undrained
3 cups chicken broth
2 cups shredded cooked chicken

Instructions:

Dump everything into a pot.
Bring just to a boil.
Reduce heat and simmer for about 10 minutes.

Top with shredded cheese, if you like. This is an easy way to get lots of vegetables and especially good if you have “put up” a lot of homemade salsa in the fall. The beans and chicken add protein and the heat in the salsa is enough of a kick for me.

Salsa Soup – Vegetable Soup for a Cold Weekend

I have been trying to get a variety of color in my meals by following the Eat The Rainbow challenge. Here is another soup that I ate but the colors are not rich and beautiful

Vegetable Soup with Chicken

Last weekend I made a vegetable soup with chicken and added a can of kidney beans and black beans. My big mistake was not rinsing the black beans enough.

Vegetable soup with chicken breast – Don’t forget to drain the black beans!

Without rinsing the beans, the broth and chicken, actually all the vegetables too, took on the hue of black beans. It all looked a little suspect and not very appealing.

It still tasted delicious.

Vegetable Soup with Shrimp – No broth

Shrimp and vegetables were also a great way to get a variety of color in my meal. I didn’t actually have a broth going so I shouldn’t call this soup… but it was really delicious too.

I got an air fryer for Christmas from my husband and I’ve been trying different food and meals in it. While the shrimp was cooking in air fryer, I defrosted the vegetables and did a quick stir fry to saute them. So far, I really like cooking the shrimp on it. I missed having the broth, because that is one way I sneak extra water in my system without actually drinking water. I find it hard to drink enough water in the winter when it is cold, so drinking it as a broth really helps!

Shrimp cooked in the air fryer over vegetables. Soup without the broth!

What’s your favorite vegetable soup recipe? Please share it here in the comments or on any of our social media pages using Becoming Elli as the handle.

My Roasting Eggplant in the Air Fryer Experiment

March 10, 2022 / Jill McCauslin / 0 Comments

If you Google how to roast eggplant in the air fryer, you will discover a lot of recipes. Trust me on that. I found lots of different recipes for roasting eggplant, even when I limited my search to using the Air Fryer.

I asked in the Becoming Elli Facebook Group (join us there if you haven’t already!) if anyone had any good ideas on what to do with eggplant. People made many suggestions so I have ways to prepare eggplant for a while. I also checked for other eggplant recipes in this site and found one recipe that Chris posted. It sounds good too so I may add that to my list of ways to prepare eggplant.

Roasted eggplant was one of the more popular suggestions so I decided to give that a try. I love most roasted vegetables so I thought roasted eggplant would probably also be good.

Once I started researching the best way to roast eggplant, I found the one dividing point between cooks. Salting the vegetable before cooking or not.

Eggplant has a lot of moisture in it. Typically if you’re making eggplant parmesan or some other Italian eggplant treat, you’re instructed to salt the slices of eggplant to draw out the moisture.

Some of the recipes for roasting eggplant insist the only way to get crips eggplant is to salt it first and remove the moisture. Other recipes said it doesn’t matter and you can skip that step.

The other discrepancy between the roasting methods was about removing the skin first. Some recipes said to peel the eggplant before cooking and other recipes said to keep it on.

To Salt or Not to Salt

I decided to try both methods of roasting. I cut one eggplant into cubes and cooked half at a time.

To make sure I was conducting a fair experiment, I kept everything the same with both batches. I used the same oil and the same spices for both batches. However, I sprinkled salt on one batch and let it sit for about 30 minutes. The second batch I roasted without bothering with the salt.

I decided to leave the skin on the eggplant because my inclination with all vegetables is to leave the skin on if possible. For one thing, it’s a lot easier not to peel a vegetable before cooking. Secondly, it seems that for most vegetables, there’s more vitamins and fiber if you keep the skin on the vegetable.

Easier and better for you? Let’s try keeping the skin on the eggplant.

Roasting the Batches

For each batch of eggplant, I used about a tablespoon of avocado oil and then sprinkled on a mixture of spices. I used pepper, garlic powder, oregano, and a pinch of red pepper. Because I knew one batch would already be salted, I did not add salt to the spice mixture.

I roasted the first batch (the unsalted one) in the air fryer at 400 for about 15 minutes. I shook them up a couple of times while cooking. When they came out, the pieces were very dark so I thought I had burnt them. It turned out that they were fine but just had a dark color.

The second batch sat in a colander with the salt on for about thirty minutes. I stirred them occasionally to help remove any moisture. When I was ready to roast them, I wiped the salt and moisture off the eggplant chunks, and then prepared in the same way as the first batch.

I did cook the second batch for a couple of minutes less than the first batch. I thought I had burnt the first batch so wanted to try for a slightly shorter time.

Results

By the time the second batch had finished cooking, I had eaten most of the first batch. I forced myself to leave some so that I’d have them when the second batch finished. You can see in this photo how much I ate in the 12 minutes the second batch cooked. (The second batch is on the left. I know, they should have been on the right.)

The second batch was also good but did have a saltier flavor than the first batch. I was glad that I had not put any salt in the spice mixture.

I did not notice any difference in the crunchiness of the eggplant. Based on this small experiment, I would say you can safely skip the salting and wiping off part of the process.

And what about the skin?

The roasted eggplant became very soft so the only real crunch was from the skin. I really liked it. I thought the roasted skin added some great texture to the dish.

The result was that I ate an entire eggplant as a snack in the middle of the afternoon. It was delicious.

Roasting Eggplant in the Air Fryer

So here’s the simple recipe I used for the eggplant.

Ingredients

Eggplant

Oil

Spice Mixture. Use what you want for this but I used about 1 teaspoon each of oregano and garlic powder, ½ teaspoon of black pepper, and a scant 1/8 teaspoon of cayenne pepper.

Cut the eggplant into about one-inch cubes.

Toss them in about a tablespoon of oil. I used avocado oil but olive oil would work well.

Mix the spices together and then toss with the eggplant cubes.

Add the eggplant to the air fryer.

Roast at 400 for about 12 minutes. Stir at least once, halfway through the cooking.

These were good hot, right out of the air fryer, warm, and at room temperature.

They weren’t around long enough for me to try them on salad or any other dish.

I’m still open to other ideas for eggplant but I absolutely loved the roasted eggplant.

If you have any suggestions about roasting eggplant in the Air Fryer, other ways to cook eggplant or roasting other type of vegetables for me, be sure to share them with me.

Spicing Up My Bland Vegetable Soup

November 11, 2021 / Jill McCauslin / 0 Comments

I made a pot of vegetable soup the other day using my Instant Pot. My son and daughter-in-law were coming to visit and I wanted to have soup since it was one of the first cooler days of fall. I was rushed and just sort of threw the soup together. It wasn’t bad but it was rather bland. It definitely needed some spicing up.

Here’s how I made the soup. I used:

Onions
Carrots
Celery
Cabbage
Potatoes
Chicken
Can of diced tomatoes
Chicken broth

Because I was rushed, I didn’t sauté any of the vegetables before adding the other ingredients. I decided it didn’t really matter. The Instant Pot was full, almost overly so. I cooked the soup and served it up right away when my guests arrived.

I shouldn’t have been surprised but the soup was bland. It wasn’t bad but it sure wasn’t the best soup I’ve ever made.

Ideas for Spicing Up My Bland Vegetable Soup

I asked for advice on the Becoming Elli Facebook Group on spicing up my bland vegetable soup. Here’s the list of suggestions I received.

RustySue said to try Sriracha. That would add some kick, for sure.

Souza recommended adding carmelized onions. I wouldn’t have thought of that. I definitely wouldn’t have had the patience for this batch of soup but it’s great advice for a later batch.

Janet said she uses a veggie juice like V8 as the broth in place of water. I remember using V8 in the past but had forgotten about it. It’s a good way to add some flavor to the soup.

A couple of spoons of basil pesto was suggested by Karen. I would never have thought of that but it would be a nice addition.

Sherry had a suggestion that I could use on the bowl of soup. She said, “top it with some garlic bread croutons and feta cheese!” I think this would have been a great addition to my soup.

Spice Recommendations

Beth recommended adding bay leaf or cumin. I had both of those in my spice cabinet. That would have worked.

Lisa suggested garlic and lots of salt. I didn’t have garlic cloves but could have used garlic powder. I definitely under-salted the soup. Lisa said she’s learned that salting more heavily really brings out the flavors in food.

A little tomato sauce, garlic, salt, and bay leaves while cooking was Patty’s recommendation.

Barbara said, “I add a beef billion cube, oregano, basil and garlic.” That would definitely spice up the soup. The bullion usually adds a lot of sodium so you get a lot of salty flavor.

“Six pepper, sparingly”, Laureen said. She added, “It adds flavor, a little heat.” I did not know this spice blend so I had to look it up. It’s a spice blend made up of a mix of black and white pepper, red and green bell peppers, plus chili peppers. I suspect this would be a fantastic way for spicing up bland vegetable soup.

A suggestion made by MiMi was to add curry. This is a great reminder that I have a cabinet full of spices and that I could simply rummage around in it and find some easy ways to spice up any dish I’m making.

Bobbie’s answer was turmeric and cayenne pepper. For a while I was a big turmeric fan. I added it to a lot of things but then got out of the habit. I do like to use cayenne pepper too.

Start at the Beginning

Kathy provided a detailed response:

I always find it difficult to season a soup after it’s been made, I usually try to add no sodium type flavors in the very beginning – you might try beginning with a bit of olive oil in the pan and adding just a few red pepper flakes, let cook a minute, then add onions until translucent, during this time, add pepper, paprika, a bit of garlic powder and if you want to kick it up a bit, cayenne pepper, or cumin depending on the flavor profile you like, cook for a minute or so, then begin to make your soup, see if this helps.

I think that is good advice.

Nourishing Slow Cooked Vegetable Soup

Sue passed on a link from the Women Living Well after 50 website for a great sounding vegetable soup. I like the recipe and thought adding ginger was a fantastic idea.

Conclusion

After reading everyone’s suggestions, I’m now much more prepared to make a zestier vegetable soup. Also, I realized that our private Facebook Group is a great source of ideas. I just bought some greens and can’t decide what to do with them so I guess I should go to the Becoming Elli Facebook group and ask for advice.

Do you have any suggestions for spicing up my bland vegetable soup?

Green Goodness Salad Dressing

April 1, 2021 / Jill McCauslin / 0 Comments

You’re going to like this Green Goodness Salad Dressing. I recently reviewed the Wild About Greens cookbook by Nava Atlas and thought I would try to make something out of the cookbook.

I chose to make the Green Goodness Salad Dressing. As you can see in the photograph, this dressing is a gorgeous green color. It’s just lovely.

Green Goodness Salad Dressing

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 good handfuls of baby spinach leaves

1/2 cup peeled seeded and chopped cucumber

1/2 cup firmly packed fresh parsley

Two tablespoons lemon juice

Two tablespoons white or red wine vinegar

One tablespoon chopped fresh dill or one teaspoon dried dill

Freshly ground pepper to taste

Place all ingredients in the container of a food processor. Process until all that remains of the parsley is tiny flakes.
refrigerate the unused portion in an airtight container. Use within 2 days.

The cookbook says that this is a delicious dressing for grain or bean salads. It’s also tasty drizzled on lightly cooked or roasted vegetables.

Wild about greens, by Nava Atlas. Publisher is Sterling publishing,
Copyright 2012

This was about the easiest recipe to make. Just throw the ingredients in the food processor and turn it on. In seconds, you have a gorgeous salad dressing. It tastes good though I will confess that I added a bit of sea salt. I thought it needed it. That’s certainly personal preference though.

I continue to try to find new ways to prepare a variety of greens and this is a good addition to the repertoire. We’re still doing the 2021 Veggie Challenge and I think this recipe qualifies as a hit.

Chris posted a recipe for a Veggie Blender Dressing a while ago and this reminded me of that. I wonder how this compares to her dressing.

Frittata with Pepper Stir Fry Veggie Challenge

Frittata with Pepper Stir Fry Isn’t Cheating on the Challenge

February 27, 2021 / Chris Brown / 2 Comments

In one of the recent podcasts I was thinking about my Frittata with Pepper Stir Fry breakfast when I said that I was cheating on the 2021 Veggie Challenge. We are all trying to add vegetables to our meals.

The challenge for me is to eat more vegetables in my diet. The way I’ve been cheating is buying frozen vegetable packs and using them instead of cleaning, cutting and preparing fresh veggies. Jill replied that she doesn’t think it is cheating, so I’ve decided to share this “recipe” with all of you.

It’s very easy and delicious too. Some people cook the eggs in an oven ready pan so they can bake the veggies into the frittata, but I take the easy stove top way instead.

Pop the frozen veggies into the microwave to thaw a bit.
Put a little olive oil in the pan and add the veggies.
Saute them until slightly brown and warm. Set aside.
Wipe out the pan and pour in two eggs, scrambled.
Cook them like you’re going to make an omelette.
Don’t stir or flip the eggs.
When they are almost done, add the veggies on top.
Put a lid over the eggs/veggies as the eggs finish cooking.
After the eggs are done and the veggies rewarmed, sprinkle a little mozzarella or cheddar cheese on top.

Slide the frittata from the pan to the plate and voila! Yummy and easy!

Veggie challenge: 5 servings of vegetables before noon. Boom!! Not bad!!

What are you doing to add more veggies to your meals? Have any easy and delicious “cheats?” Please share!

Chicken Cucumber Olive Salad

February 13, 2021 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

I am loving my new creation of cucumber chicken salad!

What is your favorite way to make Chicken Salad? I have found that I really like having chicken salad made with cucumbers, olives, a little celery and onions.. and just a bit of cheese. Sometimes I’ll put in Parmesan cheese, other times feta cheese.

I’ve also made this type of cucumber chicken salad by adding a lot of broccoli slaw, but I end up really dicing the broccoli slaw a lot so that it doesn’t have a large ribbon of broccoli. I think it fits better with the bite size pieces.

Spices I like are dill and parsley with a little bit of regular salt and pepper as well. This time I just used lemon juice and vinegar – the same juices as I used to cook the chicken breast in the crock pot before making the salad. No waste!

The cucumbers make this cucumber chicken salad part of the #veggiechallenge for me because it helps me eat some delicious vegetables without even really thinking about it.

Please let me know your favorite chicken salad recipe! Is it with or without cucumbers and olives? Leave a message here or email me at Chris@becomingelli.com

Creamy Vegetable Soup in the Instant Pot

January 7, 2021 / Jill McCauslin / 2 Comments

I came up with my version of creamy vegetable soup in the Instant Pot.

I was out of town unexpectedly recently and left with a refrigerator full of vegetables. When I got back, I realized that I needed to use some of the produce quickly or I was going to have to throw it out. It was more than I could eat in one sitting so I tried to come up with a creative solution.

We’ve shared a variety of vegetable recipes on this site. Chris shared a recipe for vegetable soup. I didn’t have enough variety of veggies to make her recipe so had to come up with something different.

Creamy Vegetable Soup in the Instant Pot

Here’s the recipe I created. I used the Instant Pot for this though I suspect you could make this on your stove top. This ended up being a quick and easy recipe that was came out well.

I took the head of broccoli and chopped it roughly into large pieces, including the stalks. There was a bag of Brussels sprouts that needed to be used so I cleaned them. I ended up with about a pound of broccoli and a half pound of Brussels sprouts.

I think you could switch out the vegetables to something different. Perhaps a squash and carrots would be good. Cauliflower added with either the broccoli or the Brussels sprouts would be good.

Experiment with different combinations of vegetables for a variety of quick and easy soups.

I put all the ingredients in the Instant Pot and set it for 10 minutes.

I think you could make this soup with any number of vegetable combinations.

Ingredients

1 pound chopped broccoli

1/2 pound Brussels sprouts

½ yellow onion, chopped

4 cloves of garlic, chopped

1 tsp ground ginger (fresh ginger would be great)

Salt \

Pepper

1 can coconut milk

1.5 cups of chicken broth

Juice of half a lemon

Directions

Put everything in the Instant Pot. Set the Instant Pot to 10 minutes. Let it release naturally.

Use an immersion blender to cream the soup. Or put the soup in a heavy duty blender (I use a Vitamix) and blend. Take the center piece out of the lid and cover the lid with a towel.

Toppings

If you have toppings, go ahead and add them to the bowl of soup. I used raw pumpkin seeds. They worked well. You could probably use croutons or a bit of coconut cream or pine nuts. Toppings aren’t necessary but they do add a bit of crunch to the soup.

Walking More and Increasing Veggies during the Quarantine

April 20, 2020 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

I’ve been working on increasing my daily steps and so I’ve been walking a bit more.

Here are a couple of photos from yesterday’s walk.

The weather here is still mid 40’s so walking with a face mask is not a problem. I wear a bandana type face mask and then my neck gaiter from skiing over top of that.

I’ve also been trying to eat more vegetables. Being in quarantine with the days seeming to be the same over and over has caused me to not eat as well as I should. I enjoy eating what my husband cooks, but he definitely cooks for taste and not for calories… if you know what I mean!

Here are a couple of photos of some good veggies that I had over the weekend.

Roasting veggies on parchment paper with some olive oil tastes absolutely delicious.

My favorite salad recipe is this one:

Chop and mix: Fresh veggies from the fridge. A a little bit of each type with variety of colors is most fun.

Cherry tomatoes
Sweet peppers
Celery
Onions
Cucumbers
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Mushrooms
Onion
Use what you have!

Protein: Black beans or Cooked lentils or chick peas or even a drained can of tuna.

Salad dressing:

Olive oil
Cider vinegar
Lemon juice
Salt
Pepper

Mix together and enjoy!! What do you find keeps you eating healthy during this unprecedented time? Do you make the same thing over and over or are you mixing it up and trying new recipes?

Veggie Blender Dressing – Tricking Myself into Eating More Vegetables

March 7, 2020 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

This veggie blender dressing makes a big difference. Getting lots of vegetables can be more difficult in the winter months. Yesterday I got an idea on how to increase the amount of vegetables I eat.

So often I make the same veggies, my Brussel sprouts, cauliflower or my easy no panic potluck salad.

I thought, what if I use vegetables as the base of my salad dressing? This is my first attempt. It wasn’t bad, but I’m looking forward to making some modifications.

Recipe for Veggie Blender Dressing:

1 large Green Pepper
1 Yellow Squash
1 large carrot

Each of these veggies were rough chopped and placed into the blender (Vita-Mix)

Then I added some liquid: extra virgin olive oil, apple cider vinegar, lemon juice.

I blended the mixture on the smoothie setting and it took about a minute to get smooth and fully mixed.

Pour over a large bowl of spring mix. Toss.

Voila! Spring Mix Salad with a Veggie Blender Dressing. I think this might be really easy and good as a warm dressing over a cooked California Mix frozen vegetable dish.

Have you ever tried using veggies in your dressing? What were your results! Leave a message below.
#veggiechallenge #MoreVegetables

Cabbage Soup is Lunch of Choice

March 5, 2020 / Jill McCauslin / 2 Comments

I am having cabbage soup for lunch today. I made a large batch of soup a few weeks ago and put some containers of it in the freezer to save for later. Today is a cold, snowy day here in Ohio and I’m working from home. I was daydreaming about what I was going to eat for lunch and decided to get a container of soup out of the freezer.

Customizing the Soup

The best thing about this soup is that I can add to it. When I made this soup originally, I added some cooked chicken and beans to the soup.

Today I decided to use up the chopped butternut squash that was in my refrigerator so I chopped it into smaller pieces, coated it with some avocado oil, and roasted it. I intend to add the butternut squash to my soup. I also have spinach in the refrigerator. It doesn’t take long to cook spinach so I’ll heat up the soup, add the squash, and add a handful of the spinach. That makes a great bowl of soup. If I wanted to add protein, some beans or shredded chicken might be a nice addition.

I make the big pot of soup without adding much in the way to seasoning. I’ll add some salt and pepper maybe. When I’m doctoring up the soup for a meal, I can add more seasoning to the smaller bowl. Some ideas on that might be some Italian seasonings or just some oregano with the salt and pepper. Sometimes I add some cayenne pepper to spice it up a bit. I think you could add some taco seasoning to the soup as well. Whatever strikes your fancy will work.

I’ll have some Mary’s Gone Crackers and goat cheese as a side dish. If you read this blog often, you know that I love those crackers.

I just noticed that we have many recipes for cabbage on the Becoming Elli website and recipes for soup but we don’t have a recipe for cabbage soup. The closest thing is Chris’ recipe for vegetable soup. So, let me give you my recipe.

You’ll want to know that you can swap vegetables in or out of this soup. Use what you have on hand.

Recipe for Basic Cabbage Soup

Ingredients

1 Tbs oil (I use avocado oil)

1 onion, diced

3 carrots, sliced

2 celery stalks, chopped

1½ cups green beans, chopped into 1 inch pieces

1 can diced tomatoes

½ head of cabbage, chopped into small pieces

8 cups chicken broth or vegetable broth

Directions

In a large Dutch oven or soup pot, heat the oil and then saute the onion in it until the onion begins to soften.

Add the carrots, celery, green beans, tomatoes, and cabbage.

Pour in the chicken broth.

Simmer for 10 to 15 minutes until cabbage is tender.

Notes

When you’re ready to eat the soup, add whatever ingredients you want.

Suggestions could be pasta or noodles, cooked chicken, chopped sausage, canned beans, greens, cooked potato. Use what you have on hand.

If you add white beans, kale, and some Italian spices, top your bowl of soup with some Parmesan cheese.

If you add chicken and cumin, top the soup with tortilla strips or some cheddar cheese.

Consider your soup to be the base for whatever you want.