Zucchini Soup and Arugula Salad Vegan Whole Foods Plant Based No Oil

Soup and salad is a good meal to transition from winter to summer.  Here in California, spring can be short.  We kind of leap right into summer.

So I'm taking advantage of our short spring to enjoy this light and hearty meal (oxymoron?).

I made the zucchini soup in my Pampered Chef blender.  I recently saw an article about the top blenders.  So I was looking at the one they deemed the best, and honestly, I like my Pampered Chef better.  Not only is my blender less expensive, but mine actually COOKS the food (if I choose) whereas the other blender merely heats the food up from the friction of the blade.

Click this link if you are interested in seeing more.  This link is from my Pampered Chef friend, Hillary.  There are always all kinds of deals and specials.  (I also use the blender to make all my nut milks, nut butters, and nut flours... there's still many things I have to try.)

Anyway, I found a zucchini soup recipe online but then changed a few things (quelle surprise).  Here's my version...

Zucchini Soup

  • 3 zucchinis cut into large pieces
  • ¼ of an onion
  • 2-3 cloves of garlic
  • 2 teaspoons of southwest spice mix (see below)
  • 3 cups homemade veggie broth
  • Splash of vinegar (or lemon)
Several place make a southwest seasoning mix (the Pampered Chef one looks pretty good).  Next time I'll make my own, but I was in a hurry so I used a commercial blend I already had in my pantry.  If you want to make your own, this recipe looks good.

I throw everything except the vinegar into the blender and select "soup".  Then I can go away for 30 minutes (or whatever it is).  This blender doesn't just blend the soup... it cooks it for me.  Yay!

When time is up, I open the top, put some vinegar in and hit pulse for a few seconds (you can also just add vinegar to each bowl).

I can see why yogurt was part of the original recipe.  The soup is spicy.  It was okay for me, but you'll have to decide for yourself if you want to add something or use less spice.

The salad (the first night) was one I've made before.  Here's the link for that.  It's from the UC Davis website... Citrus Avocado salad... mmmm.



A few days later, I reheated the last of the soup and made a new salad.  I basically used what I had still on hand.  I was too lazy to segment a grapefruit, so I just grabbed two strawberries from the garden instead.

Salad
  • Arugula
  • Fennel, sliced
  • Toasted almond slivers
  • ½ avocado, cubed
  • Balsamic glaze (drizzled on top)
  • Dressing (from the first recipe... didn't measure... just put some wine vinegar, dijon mustard, and black pepper and mixed it up)

Anyway, if you try this recipe come back and post in the comments. I'd love to hear from you!

Index of all my recipes

Comments

Post a Comment

Thanks for leaving me a comment. I have "comment moderation" turned on so as soon as I see this comment I will publish it to the blog.

Popular posts from this blog

Vegan No Oil Burger Base Recipe

Image
Vegan No-Oil Burger Base Recipe Today I wanted to make some veggie burgers (or bean burgers… ‘cause I didn’t really use veggies in the prototype other than onion and garlic). ETA: Let me clarify why I’m making my own veggie burgers.  There are a lot of healthy choices for foods in grocery stores, but a lot of it is still processed foods.  My goal is to (without going crazy or turning this into a full time job) eat whole foods as often as possible and if a meal requires a mix of ingredients, I’d rather make it myself from scratch.  Oh… I’ll be posting a follow up to this as I got a new kitchen toy recently… so stay tuned. I found a recipe online but I have to admit I am a bit lost in trying to provide a link to the original source recipe.   Apparently there’s a site called “ Deliciously Ella ” and the recipes there look great but I could find no search function nor could I find this recipe there.   Oddly enough, if you google the name of the re...
Read more

Whole Foods Plant Based No Oil Lettuce Boats

Image
This first mention isn't the recipe... I'm just sharing about the lovely breakfast I had first.  I just peel and cut up some sweet potato or yam, drizzle a tiny bit of olive oil and mix them up (yes, there was a wee bit of oil in the breakfast... but that's not the recipe we're here for.... the oil free recipe is below... breakfast was just so yummy I wanted to mention it). Then I roast them at 400 degrees until done (30-40 mins depending on your oven).    No need for salt because… When they’re done, I remove the pan from the oven and spoon a lot of sauerkraut over them and then pop them back into the oven for about 5 more minutes. That keeps the cold sauerkraut from cooling off the potatoes, like if you just mixed them together without heating up the kraut. The sauerkraut provides more than enough salt. Mmmmm! Okay, but here’s why we’re really here today. I made these lettuce boats and they turned out so yummy I had to share. Lettuce Boats Ingredients 1 cup of ...
Read more

How It All Started

I used to pride myself on being the super low-maintenance person in almost all respects and particularly at restaurants.  I'd make faces when one of my companions became "that person" who asked the waiter a dozen questions and asked for this on the side and that on the side and "make sure they don't use oil" and "I want romaine not ice berg" and then they'd still take 30 minutes to decide what to order.  Ugh! But life has a funny way of throwing things back in our faces.  I am now "that person".  Not that I go to restaurants anymore, really, but let's start at the beginning... Last April (so it's been a year now, wow!), I decided on a whim to do an elimination diet.  If you're not familiar with that, google it, there's tons of info. What's the point or goal of an elimination diet?  To find out if there are any foods that maybe you shouldn't be having.  A certain food or food group could be an allergy for ...
Read more