Plant Bites: Simply Healthy

Here are some of our favorite recipes, made as we used to make them - very simple, quick, and easy. They are great for times when you are under stress or time pressures or for the beginner cook. Most of my 5 ingredient or less recipes used to involve meat, but these are all meat-free.

Tips for simplifying soups and stews:

Buy canned or frozen beans, low or no sodium
Use lentils as a soup base (they cook much faster)
Buy frozen vegetables to add to your soups
Buy frozen greens to add to your soups
Buy frozen, chopped onions & bell peppers to add to your soup. These can be sold separately or as a cooking mix.
Buy minced garlic in the jar.
Use a store bought or make-your-own seasoning blend that works for all soups. Then, customizing the individual soup only takes 1 or 2 separate spices. (See recipe below).
Buy pre-chopped mushrooms
Buy other fresh vegetables in the packaged produce section (as in, sno peas, shredded carrots, shredded broccoli slaw, and so on)
Buy jarred tomatoes or tubes of tomato paste.

STOCK:
All about stock - you can use a canned vegetable stock or a vegetable juice base like carrots, or you can make your own. Now, this one won't be as fast as opening a can, but the taste doesn't compare either. A very simple way to make stock is to heat a teaspoon of oil or a half cup of water in a sauté pan, then add chopped onions, bell peppers, garlic, and mushrooms to it. Let it simmer while you gather your other soup ingredients. You'll know it's ready by its aroma and by the onions turning translucent. You can make it as you make the soup or make it in advance and freeze in individual portions (approximately 1-2 cups of the mix per batch of soup). ALL of my soups start the same way – heating the onions, mushrooms, garlic and so on in a pan. It’s a running joke around here that I get those things going in the pan even before I know what I’m cooking. If you use canned or jarred stock or juice, you can skip the sauté step if you want and just add the ingredients in blue to the soup, but I'll say it's usually always worth taking the few minutes to sauté.

Seasoning blends – ours has equal parts black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and paprika, and a 1/4^th portion of cayenne and/or crushed red pepper. Make your own, store it and save lots of time when you cook.

Black Bean Chili, Simplified

http://plantbites.blogspot.com/2012/09/black-bean-chili.html

Really, this chili can be made from any bean you have or any combination of beans. Many times, we've popped in the three leftover cans of navy, pinto, and black beans to scrounge up a batch of chili.

3 Sisters Stew

http://plantbites.blogspot.com/2012/10/three-sisters-harvest-soup.html

Quick Lentil Soup

http://plantbites.blogspot.com/2012/10/quick-soup-healthy-soup.html

Split Pea and Carrot Soup

http://plantbites.blogspot.com/2012/10/split-peas-and-carrots-soup.html

Cheezy Kale Soup

http://plantbites.blogspot.com/2013/01/cheezy-kale-soup.html

Other simple meals:

Vegetable fajitas http://plantbites.blogspot.com/2012/08/veggie-fajitas.html

Rice bowls http://plantbites.blogspot.com/2013/03/rice-bowls.html

Lettuce bundles - http://plantbites.blogspot.com/2012/08/lettuce-bundles.html