Roasted Bell Pepper and Tomato Soup

INGREDIENTS

2 bell peppers, sliced and with seeds removed

olive oil

1 onion, chopped

1 or 2 carrots, chopped

2 or 3 stalks celery, chopped

2 to 4 cloves garlic

1 clamshell cherry tomatoes (or 2 to 3 large tomatoes, or 4-6 smaller ones)

1 1/2 quarts vegetable broth or water plus 2 cubes bouillon

herbs, fresh or dried—try any combination of basil, thyme, oregano and/or marjoram

salt and pepper to taste

TOPPINGS— Try serving with croutons, tortellini, crusty bread or even tortilla chips, and of course, pile on this week’s purple kohlrabi microgreens (or any microgreens you’ve got around) and parsley (or other chopped leafy greens like kale or arugula) to feed the good stuff to your gut microbiome! Don’t forget the slice of lemon or lime on the side.

INSTRUCTIONS

Pan roast the bell pepper in a bit of olive oil for a few minutes, until the skin starts to blister and it gets brown in spots.

Add the onion and saute for a few more minutes until it’s a bit transparent and also starts to brown

Add the carrots, celery, garlic, salt and pepper with a bit more olive oil and saute a couple more minutes

Add the tomatoes and stir fry another minute or two.

Add the broth or water and bouillon and herbs and cover and let simmer for 10 to 20 minutes.

Use an immersion blender to puree the soup or remove from heat, let cool a bit and then puree in a blender.

Serve with your choice of croutons, crusty bread, tortellini or tortilla chips (so many directions to take it!) and top with microgreens, parsley or other leafy greens, and a slice of lemon or lime on the side.

Minestrone Soup

This flexible recipe is a lovely meal all on its own. It’s specially exciting if you have some pesto and croutons to top it.

Ingredients:

2 tbs olive oil

1 onion, chopped

3 or 4 carrots, sliced

2 celery sticks (optional, but add lots of good flavor)

4 to 6 cloves garlic

1/2 cup tomato paste, or 1 cup of tomato sauce, or 3 medium tomatoes, finely chopped

2 potatoes and/or 1 or 2 zucchini or other summer squash and/or green beans, or other seasonal veggies, chopped

2 cups spinach and/or kale and/or turnip greens and/or beet greens or other seasonal greens

1 tbs fresh oregano or 1 tsp dried oregano

1 tbs fresh thyme or 1 tsp dried thyme

2 or 3 bay leaves

8 to 10 cups water and 3 cubes vegetable bouillon or 8 cups liquid vegetable broth

1 tsp salt or more as desired

1 tsp pepper (optional, but cooks in to add wonderful flavor)

1 cup pasta (elbow, rotini or shell pasta works well)

2 to 3 cups cooked white beans (black eyed peas work well, too!)

Optional Toppings—

lemon juice

parmesan or nutritional yeast

parsley

basil

microgreens

INSTRUCTIONS

In a pan, saute onions with olive oil for a few minutes, when starting to become translucent, add chopped garlic, carrots and celery and saute for 3 more minutes. Add a splash of water if it’s looking too dry

In a pot, add the water and bouillon or vegetable broth, cooked beans, sauteed onion, carrots, celery and garlic, chopped potatoes/zucchini, summer squash/green beans, herbs and spices, cover and bring to a medium boil for 10 or 15 minutes, until the potato is cooked through

Add pasta and greens and boil for a few more minutes until the pasta is cooked.

Serve hot and serve with any or all of the optional toppings for your steamy enjoyment!

My Mom's Colache Recipe

Colache is a comfort food in our family. It’s what you do when you have a calabacita (zucchini or other summer squash) that’s really big, or your harvest is just so abundant…in short, it’s a great way to use up your summer squash. My mom just moved in with us and my kids are so lucky to have their abuelita around to play, teach and make yummy food. I am so lucky that she’s embracing retirement and spending her time with us. For the first time in my almost forty (!) years, I am getting her to write down some of her recipes for me. Here’s the first:

3 medium zucchini or other summer squash (or 4 smaller ones, or one HUGE one…), grated

1 tomato, chopped

1/2 - 1 cup chopped onion

1 chile (anaheim, or bell pepper if you don’t want it to be spicy), finely chopped (you can also skip the chile entirely to make it more kid-friendly!)

4 tbs olive oil

2 garlic cloves

2 cups corn (optional)

1 cup queso fresco, crumbled or grated (optional)

1 cup water

2 cubes veggie bouillon

salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

Saute onion and garlic in olive oil for a couple of minutes.

Add tomato and chile and saute for a couple more minutes

Add water, bouillon cubes, corn and grated zucchini or other summer squash and cook over low medium-low heat for a few more minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste and top with queso fresco, if you like.

Cover and let sit for 5 minutes before serving.

Honey Citrus Roasted Sheet Pan Dinner

Click here for the original inspiration for this recipe.

Inspired by this Salmon Sheet Pan recipe, I am taking this quick and easy (and beautiful) recipe and simplifying it to be quicker, easier and more flexible. Oh, and maybe even better for you since I’m cutting the honey in half and replacing some of the sweetness with orange juice. If you have the time and ingredients, I recommend you try the original recipe linked above. If you’re feeling like me, this week, thinking “a glaze AND a marinade—there’s no time for that around here”…then maybe you’ll want to try this one better. You can adjust proportions of ingredients based on your preference or what you have around.

Ingredients:

to roast—-

bok choy (whole if it’s small enough, chopped into big pieces if you’ve got a large one)

bell pepper (seeds removed and sliced into wedges)

cherry tomatoes (whole or cut in half)

onion (green onions roughly sliced or any other kind, chopped into wedges)

protein of choice (the original calls for salmon, tofu, tempeh or, even more exciting, a combination of mushrooms and cashews are good vegetarian substitutes)

the marinade/glaze—-

1/8 cup honey

zest and juice of 1 orange

4 tbs freshly squeezed lime juice (and the zest of one lime)

1/4 soy sauce

3 cloves garlic (pressed or finely chopped)

3 tbs oil (try roasted sesame oil or olive oil)

pepper to taste

sesame seeds

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees

Line a baking pan with a sheet of parchment paper.

Mix marinade ingredients in a cup.

In a large bowl, toss the veggies with half of the glaze mix, then arrange in a layer on the lined baking sheet.

Place the protein on top of the layer of veggies and drizzle with 1/4 of the glaze.

Bake for 10 to 20 minutes, depending on how long your protein needs to cook (mushrooms are usually done in 10 minutes, tofu is safe to eat undercooked so it just depends on how crispy you want it, but maybe the salmon doesn’t have that flexibility) and how well-cooked you like your vegetables.

Save the last 1/4 of the glaze and add it as you pull it out of the oven just before serving.

Pico de Gallo Fresh and Simple Salsa Recipe

The freshest, most simple salsa recipe—pico de gallo (some also call it Salsa Bandera because, you know, red-green-white are the colors on the Mexican flag). I’m no flag waver of any kind, but I do love the tasty simplicity of this mix: Tomato, onion, chile, cilantro and lime. It brings so many dishes to life—a bowl of frijol de la olla (just fresh cooked beans in its own broth), a quesadilla, pretty much any taco or tostada, oh and nopales and verdolagas! And of course, all of the above-mentioned dishes look and taste great with a sprinkle of microgreens. There’s nothing like the raw goodness of this rainbow of fresh fruits and veggies to keep you healthy. The raw onion alone has so many medicinal properties!

So, here’s the basic recipe for a good-sized batch. Proportions can definitely be adjusted to your personal preference—

Ingredients:

1 lb tomato, diced (any kind will do! This could be roughly 1 large tomato, or 3 roma tomatoes or 1 dozen cherry tomatoes)

1 onion, diced (white is most traditional, but yellow, red or green onions could work, too!)

1 to 3 jalapeño or serrano chiles, finely chopped (you decide how spicy)

1/3 cup cilantro, chopped (I love it, but if you got someone with that weird cilantro-tastes-like-soap gene, you can leave it out or substitute with a handful of fresh oregano, maybe even parsley but that’s a big step away from Mexico and into Greece, I think!)

1 to 2 limes or lemon (the more you put, the better it keeps)

salt to taste

This fresh salsa has the best texture if eaten that same day but will keep just fine for a couple of days in the fridge.

Laotian-Inspired Eggplant

Ingredients

• 2 Tbs. roasted sesame oil

• 3 cups cut into 1 inch slices Japanese eggplant

• 1 medium red onion, thinly sliced

• 3 cloves garlic, chopped

• 2 cups cherry tomatoes tomatoes, cut in halves

• 3 Tbs. low-sodium soy sauce

• Juice from one orange

• Juice from one lime

• 1 tbs miso

• 1 box pea shoots

• 1/2 cup chopped fresh mint (optional)

Instructions

Heat oil in wok or large pan over high heat. Add eggplant, onion and garlic and stir-fry 6 minutes. Stir in tomatoes and stir-fry for two more minutes. Add soy sauce, orange and lime juice, and pea shoots and cook 2 minutes more. Garnish with mint. Serve over rice.

You can add tofu to the stir-fry to make it a complete dinner. Add your favorite pepper to spice it up. I’m learning to do this on my own plate, to keep it palatable for my kids. It’s tough not making everything spicy right from the start!