Cream of Dinner Soup

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Ingredients:

(one serving--for me):

2 tablespoons each:

• cooked (brown rice, millet/amaranth [makes a complete protein], barley, rye berries, wheat berries, couscous, etc.)
• cooked legumes (beans, chickpeas, edamame, lentils, peas, etc.)
• red/orange vegetables* (tomato, red bell pepper, carrot, etc.)
• leafy green vegetables* (spinach, kale, collards, cabbage, etc.)

* the vegetables can be frozen, which makes both storage and handling easier. Canned, also, though I don't like the flavors as much.

4 ounces each:

• canned broth (beef, chicken, mushroom, vegetable, etc.)
• water

Optional ingredients:

• 2 TB meat
• 1 TB fancy oil (olive, toasted sesame, etc.)
• 1 TB nuts (walnuts, almonds, peanuts, pecans, etc.)
• 1 tsp dried fruit (raisins, craisins, dried apricot, etc.)
• a dash of your favorite seasonings. I like:
• garlic
• olives
• onions
• soy sauce

Directions:

1. Heave everything but the rice into a saucepan. Bring to a boil, then remove from heat let stand while you:
 

2. Set up your blender.
 

3. Pour contents of saucepan into a blender. Blend until smooth. (Watch out: blending hot liquids can be dangerous; carefully read the instructions for your appliance.)
 

4. Stir rice into blended mixture, then serve.
 

It is possible to blend the whole business and just swig it down, but I've found that causes me funky digestion. It seems that most of the digestion of carbohydrates (including vegs) takes place in the mouth during the chewing process, so if I don't have something to chew thoroughly (the rice), the soup tends to run right through me unmodified. Which is, shall we say, non-optimal. YMMV.

One of these plus a fruit smoothie (see below) per day will keep me in reasonably good operating order.

I like to keep bags of several different kinds of frozen vegs (both green and red) on hand in the freezer, and just grab out a small handful of one or two for a given meal. Prefab kits can be made by tossing putting ingredients in containers in the freezer to be pulled out, boiled up, and blended on demand.

I prefer not to freeze the finished soup as I find it tastes better if it's made up fresh. OTOH, frozen soups are very handy for lunch for the workweek.

Warning: It's very easy to make way too much.

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Fruit Smoothie

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Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup frozen mixed berries
• 1/4 cup frozen orange juice concentrate
• 1/4 cup plain yogurt
• 1/2 banana (can be frozen or fresh. If frozen, break up into small pieces or banana chunks may remin in finished smoothie.)
• enough water to make a pint

Blend thoroughly, pour into a pint mug.