Here are some quick and easy recipes using canned soups that will help you to get more raw veggies in your diet, particularly on a cold day when a bowl full of salad isn’t that inviting.
Celery Tomato Soup
This soup is a good one when you only want a small salad with your meal, since it contains lots of raw veggies.
Use a blender to finely chop equal amounts of:
- fresh parsley
- green onion (both white and green portions)
- celery, cut in 1/2 inch sections (preferably inner stalks and leaves)
Turn off blender and pour in Imagine Foods Creamy Tomato Soup, Roasted Tomato and Red Bell Pepper or an UnDiet compatible commercial brand of tomato soup (one that contains no refined sugars) and a little vegetable broth.
Place the top on your blender and puree until smooth. Taste and adjust seasoning if needed.
Quick Black Bean Soup
This soup is another good one to have when you only want a small salad with your meal, since it also contains lots of raw veggies.
Puree some fresh tomato salsa.
Heat a can of vegetarian refried black beans until very hot. Stir in pureed salsa at a ratio of about 1/4 cup salsa to 3/4 cup beans.
Variations: If you don’t have any salsa stir V-8 juice into your black beans. This won’t qualify as raw veggies but it’s still veggies.
Quick Carrot Risotto
Risotto isn’t really as time consuming as most people think that it is. There’s no need to stand in front of the stove watching the rice cook – in between adding broth you can be making a salad, setting the table, cleaning the kitchen … Before you know it you’re risotto is done and dinner is on.
- 1 large peeled carrot, finely shredded on the smallest setting on your grater
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- salt and pepper
- 1 garlic clove, finely diced
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 2 cups instant brown rice
- 2 – 3 cups vegetable broth
Saute onion in olive oil over medium heat. Season with sea salt and black pepper while sauteeing. When onion becomes translucent (about 5 minutes) add garlic. Stir occasionally to keep onion from browning. It may get light brown, but it shouldn’t get crispy.
Set onion aside and add butter to the pan along with the rice. Stir until rice starts to brown then add 1/2 cup vegetable broth and 1/4 teaspoon sea salt.
Let simmer without covering pan. When rice is almost dry add another 1/2 cup broth. Continue doing this until you’ve used 2 cups of broth.
Taste the rice. It should be chewy but not crunchy. You can stop adding liquid at this point or add up to another 1 cup of broth in 1/2 cup increments.
When liquid is absorbed remove from heat and stir in carrot puree and cooked onion. Taste and add more sea salt if needed.
