A Soup & A Plan for Staying Healthy

Thank you for the comments on my post yesterday where I admittedly whined a bit about my health issues. I will say that even though I described my feelings as “health envy,” they weren’t directed at any one individual, it was more of a feeling of frustration and fear about what the future holds for me. But, as I mentioned at the end of the post and later in the comments, I am feeling great now and so grateful that I have the tools to do my very best to stay this way. Here I am yesterday on my way out to do some errands (note how my hair is already growing out a bit!):

In honor of that commitment and for my husband who had a birthday yesterday who I want to also stay healthy and strong, I decided to make a batch of my bean and vegetable blended soup using fresh vegetable juice as the soup base. I’ve made this soup many times before, I’ve described it here and here. Dr. Fuhrman always talks about how he makes this soup every week and then just eats the leftovers for lunch and dinner. By the way, are you ever curious to know if Dr. Fuhrman ever falls off the wagon? I’m guessing by how passionate he is that he doesn’t. I’m going to have the chance to observe myself in August when I meet him at this event (I’m soooo excited!)!

This soup is pretty labor-intensive with all of the veggies to prep, so I’ve learned to take short-cuts when I can. For the juice, I bought a 10 lb. bag of organic carrots at Costco because they just need a quick rinse before juicing. I also used up a bag of pre-washed, organic spinach that was on its way out and several beets that I just rinsed and chopped:

It took a good ten minutes to juice the carrots, spinach and beets, but it’s worth it to use as the base for the soup. I got about seven cups of juice:

I blended that juice with one-half cup of raw, unsalted cashews, one-fourth cup of raw sunflower seeds and one-fourth cup of pistachio nuts. So, the total amount of nuts and seeds I used was one cup. Divided over the ten servings that this soup made, that makes for about about 1.5 tablespoons of nuts/seeds per soup serving. I may reduce the amount of nuts and seeds in the future by just a little bit. Here is the blended juice:

Here are the rest of the ingredients for the soup, my life was made easier by using the pre-cut squash from Costco. The rest of the ingredients were chopped mushrooms, onion, garlic, beans and a big bowl of bok choy and collard greens:

Sometimes I think I need a bigger pot:

The greens wilted down enough where I was able to add the veggie-nut blended juice:

The last step is to batch-process the soup in the Vitamix so it is all pureed. Here is what the final product looked like:

I drizzled some vinegar on top at the dinner table to make the flavors pop. Not only do I believe this soup will help me stay healthy, but it is wonderfully delicious. The sweetness of the butternut squash and the carrot juice combined with the creaminess of the nuts makes it one of my absolute favorite recipes. And, because it made so much, I have leftovers for at least two more nights plus a big bowl I stuck in the freezer for next week.

Besides making and eating health-promoting recipes such as this one, I also follow other advice from Dr. Fuhrman’s Autoimmune Protocol. I found a blogger who wrote about it here if you want to read more. Have a happy, healthy day and I’ll be back tomorrow with a photo journal of everything I eat today. See you then!

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