Sunday night burgers

I made so much soup last week that I just can't face my soup pot today. (Plus, I froze a lot of soup last week and don't have a lot of room left in the freezer.) Instead, I decided to make these burgers from Dreena Burton's site.

Of course, I had to change a couple of things... Here's what I did:

1 1/2 cups raw almonds

1 cup raw walnuts

1 small clove garlic

1/2 tsp sea salt

1 tbsp tomato paste

2 tbsp nutritional yeast (She said to add it and that it wouldn't be strong; I did even though I was worried about it. It was good.)

1 tbsp tamari

1/8 tsp each of dried thyme and ground sage (I didn't have thyme, so I just put in sage)

1 medium carrot

1 cup fresh kale (packed)

~1 cup rolled oats

Process the almonds, walnuts, garlic, and salt; make it a pretty fine consistency. Take most of the mixture out of the food processor to process the kale and carrots. (My food processor isn't big enough to handle nuts and the veggies at the same time.) Get kale and carrots into very small pieces. Add the nuts back and the tomato paste, nutritional yeast, tamari, and oats.  Pulse until mixed well. Now add the oats. My poor food processor couldn't really do it all so I helped by stirring in the oats up by hand.  (I need a new food processor.)

I made 10 patties and baked them at 400 on a silpat for 10 minutes on each side.

These are savory and nice. The whole family ate them. Yay! (I love meals that the whole family will eat.)  I'll try to get a picture of them soon, but take a look at Dreena's site if you want to see a picture sooner than I get to it. 

Soy is safe!

People always ask this question... It's another good article.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/27/ask-well-is-it-safe-to-eat-soy/?src=me&_r=0

pumpkin soup

1.5 cups  vegetable broth
1/4 cup cashews
1 cup water
2 cans canned organic pumpkin
1 large-ish onion, sautéed
1-3 garlic cloves, sautéed (with onion)
1/2 - 1 Tbsp maple syrup
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp freshly ground nutmeg (optional)
salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Sautee onions and garlic in a little veggie broth (in a soup pot) until nice and soft (about 15 minutes). (I let onions and garlic cool and then I did the next steps.)

Place all ingredients into your blender (including onions and garlic) and blend. (I started by blending the water and cashews, to make milk and then added the onions and garlic and broth. I then added everything else and blended.)

When it's blended pour it all back into the soup pot (note only one pot and one blender for clean up this way) and heat up--let simmer for 15-20 minutes so the flavors can really marry.

YUM!

Note, you could add more cashews for a creamier soup. I happen to really like cashew cream so I think I'll do this.  You could also blend everything and then heat up right before your meal so that it's easier timing on the soup.

Nutrition facts based on 1 cup serving size.

8 cups of glorious pumpkin soup!

Edited to add: I really liked this soup, but then I added a healthy teaspoon of peanut butter to one of my bowls of soup and WOWZA. It hit it out of the ballpark for me. Obviously, if you add PB, you're adding some fat and calories and the nutrition facts (above) are all wrong. It was worth it to me to add it.  

8 quarts

Last weekend, I made 8 quarts of this lovely creamy cauliflower soup. You can see a picture at that link and get a link to a variation. I've already frozen some and tomorrow I'll freeze some more. Yay!

And! I have a recipe for pumpkin soup that looks lovely, easy and yummy... I'll share it with you after I try making it. Stay tuned!