Savory Lentil Soup; Soup that started out a salad

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Savory Lentil Soup

Some say that lentils are to India as meatloaf is to America, it’s the ultimate comfort food. I’ve been Vegan since 1992, I haven’t eaten meatloaf since the late 80’s, however, I’ve made numerous dishes that included lentils.

For the past few days I’ve been craving lentils. I prepare Lentils in creamy Dhal. They make an appearance in sauces, and occasionally you’ll see them popping up in salads too. Regardless of how I prepare them, lentils usually have the starring role in dishes I prepare, and for good reason.

Despite their small size, lentils are a nutritional powerhouse. Serving up a variety of healthy and tasty, nutritional options that will keep you (and your loved ones) clamoring for more. Over 80 nutrients can be found in this tiny bean. Important minerals like iron, manganese, copper, phosphorus, folate, and molybdenum. It also boasts two types of B vitamins. Let’s not forget about fiber, just like most legumes you’ll find lentils far ahead of the pack serving up a healthy dose of soluble and insoluble fiber.

Yesterday, after my daughter’s piano practice was over, we stopped by the store and I purchased some dry lentils. I prefer purchasing my beans dry, unlike other dried beans it lentils don’t take as long to cook. So if you don’t have a pressure cooker, your beans won’t take hours to prepare.

A few days ago, I stumbled upon Pig in the Kitchen’s truly delightful virtual community. Although many posts caught my eye, I couldn’t help but to chuckle at her latest post. In that post, she wrote about her competitive nature (I can completely relate) and at the end of her post she shared a recipe for a truly delightful lentil salad. Although I had every intention of making some type of salad, my lentils had a mind of their own and I found myself making a savory lentil soup. Ahh, no worries, I haven’t made lentil soup in a long time.

Savory Lentil Soup

  • 2 cups of dried lentils
  • 8 cups of water
  • 1 yellow onion
  • 2 medium tomatoes
  • 1.5 cups of corn
  • 3 cloves of garlic, chopped fine
  • 2 tbsp of lemon juice (I used freshly squeezed lemon juice)
  • 1 tbsp curry
  • 1 bay leaf
  • organic sea salt
  • freshly ground black pepper

Directions

  1. In a large stock pot, add lentils, water, garlic, onions, and bay leaf. Bring to a boil. Turn down the heat and simmer for about an hour.
  2. Add the corn, tomatoes, lemon juice, and curry.
  3. let simmer for two – three minutes
  4. Add salt and pepper, season to taste
  5. Serve and enjoy

I tend to add my vegetables towards the end of the cooking time because I like the fresh taste of vegetables. They’re so flavorful. The good news is, there are so many different vegetables you can add to this dish. I had every intention of adding carrots, but checking my vegetable crisper I realized I didn’t have any. Although I love my dark leafy greens, I chose not to add them to this soup. It didn’t stop me from munching on them throughout the day.

Oh, I did add about six leaves of fresh lemon balm to this dish. We have it growing in our yard; it’s right next to the bee balm. I wanted to see how it turned out. I liked it, but think I should have added more leaves. There’s always next time, right? Cumin was purposely left out of the dish, simply because I wanted to see how I liked the soup with curry, it still tasted great and my daughter wanted more.

I had no intentions of making soup on an extremely hot day, but I really enjoyed the results, and we have leftovers!

By the way with the exception of the seasonings, lemon and garlic, everything else came from our garden. Now how’s that for fresh?

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Moondancer, Recipes, Vegan, Vegetarian, whole food

Homemade skin care products: Natural ingredients to pamper your skin

fruit.07.12.10.jpgIf you open up your kitchen cabinets or peek into your refrigerator, you might find some of the most common ingredients I use in some of my natural beauty recipes; Mangoes, pineapple, lime, lemon, banana, avocadoes, coconut oil, apple cider vinegar, etc.,

If you cannot find some of the items like your carrier oils (coconut oil, jojoba oil) or essential oils (rose geranium, lavender, Rosemary) check out your local health food store or pick them up at an online store. I incorporate aromatherapy into my natural beauty products. I first discovered aromatherapy in 1994, read numerous books on the subject. I took courses, received certifications, and happily included them in my natural beauty products.

I first became interested in natural skin care products when I was a teenager. The reason was simple, many of the over the counter products caused skin irritations with my sensitive skin, and so I headed to the local library, researching skin care products, and why some ingredients caused a reaction.

It was an eye-opening experience reading about the ingredients that make up some of the beauty products, and I searched for alternate ways to cleanse my skin. I guess you could say that’s where it all began, my love for natural things and eventually creating my own business focused on homemade natural beauty products.

Whether your looking for facial masks, cold creams, all natural toothpaste, facial scrubs, or sports rubs, many of the products you find in stores can be duplicated at home. You might enjoy them even more. The shelf life won’t be as long as your over the counter products, unless you add a preservative. However they’ll be fresh and can be replenished once it’s gone.

Here’s hoping you enjoy some of the recipes that I share here at I’m Celebrating Life, homemade skin care products are a simple but effective way to pamper your skin.

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Aromatherapy, Moondancer, natural skin care

Peach & Banana fruit pudding; Simple, delicious, & nutritious

peachesnbananas.06.30.10.jpgDesserts don’t have to be elaborate to taste good. I like the simple things in life so it’s no surprise that it applies to my food too.

Take my vegan food photos, I usually don’t go out of my way to arrange the food before I snap the shot. It’s more of a here this is what I made kind of thing, no bells or whistles, lol. However I do know that some really do enjoy seeing those type of things, so you might see me do a little bit now and again.

Anyway back to simplistic desserts (that are anything but that in the way they taste.) My daughter was asking for something to eat last night, and so I let her choose her dessert. She eagerly reached for two peaches and a banana and said, “Mommy, can you make me some of that yummy fruit pudding?” So here’s it is…

Peach and Banana Fruit pudding

  • 2 peaches
  • 1 Banana

Directions

  • Place ingredients in food processor
  • Blend until smooth

That’s it, serve and enjoy!

I only made enough for my daughter; I did spoon the remaining batter out of the food processor before I washed it. Yum, it was delicious. It’s a perfect, not to mention a healthy treat, anytime, and it’s good for you too. How’s that for simple, nutritous, but delicious?

Homemade fruit bars/popsicles

Here’s an idea, if you want something different you can make homemade fruit bars too. Why make them when you can purchase them from the store? I’ve been making homemade popsicles and fruit bars for years. Let me tell you something, they taste a lot better than the store bought variety.

Benefits of making homemade fruit bars

  1. Cheaper than store bought fruit bars
  2. They’re preservative free
  3. Only thing in them is raw fruit
  4. Freshly made, so you’re getting the maximum nutrition
  5. You know exactly what’s going into the fruit bars

Where can I purchase popsicle molds?

You can purchase them at many discount stores. I’ve even seen them at grocery stores. You can always find popsicle molds online too. The ones I have are similar to these popsicle molds. If you cannot find them, or don’t want to purchase the molds. You could use paper cups. You could scoop out the frozen dessert with a spoon or add Popsicle sticks (available at most craft stores.)

The beauty of making your homemade popsicles/fruit pops, is that you have a large variety of fruits to choose from. Yes you can sneak vegetables in the homemade fruit pops also! You can come up with the ones you like the best.

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Raw food, Recipes, Vegan, Vegetarian, whole food, Moondancer, New Tag, Raw food, Recipes, Vegan, Vegetarian, whole food, Fruit pudding

Grilling: Black Bean Burgers

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Grilled Bean Burgers: First batch of bean burgers

Grilling is something I enjoy doing when the weather is nice. I’m an outdoor girl, so soaking up the sun while I grill a variety of dishes on the outdoor grill is tops on my list.

In my pre-veggie days, I wasn’t too fond of grilling meat. I did enjoy grilling the sides that accompanied the main meat dishes; asparagus, greens, beans, French fries, root vegetables, etc., Well… you get the idea.

Yesterday, was an incredibly warm day the flavorful veggie sandwiches played the starring role in our afternoon meal but I decided to toss some bean burgers on the grill too. Huge bonus points that some non veggie friends sampled and raved about the bean burgers.

I’ll get around to posting a recipe for these bean burgers. I admit since closing my foodie blog a little over a year ago I’ve gotten out of the habit of measuring whatever I prepare. I’m not one to follow a recipe, so toss in whatever feels ‘right’ at the time.

For the most part, I tend to stay away from the fake meats. Instead I use whole food ingredients that don’t mimic their meat counterparts but taste good anyway! Initially when I attempted to make grilled bean burgers, they would fall apart. Wendy from The Vision Quest of Life mentioned encountering this issue to. In response to her comment I said…

My bean burgers used to fall apart too, it took some tweaking before I had a burger that stayed together on the grill. I tend to chill my bean burger mix at least an hour, but usually overnight, before adding them to the grill. Adding a binding ingredient such as ground flax seeds can help also.

Since following these rules I haven’t had an issue with my vegetarian/vegan burgers crumbling. Why flax seeds? Flax seeds acts a binding agent, so it can be used in place of eggs to bind your ingredients together. Therefore giving you a firm burger that won’t crumble as easily. I’m all out of flax seeds, so didn’t use them in yesterdays grilled bean burgers but they held up their shape throughout the grilling.

Celebrate Life is a new blog. It’s less than a week old. Since that’s the case, I really don’t have a lot of readers; however, I’d urge those that have wondered to my virtual home to check out Wendy’s virtual home too. I’m enjoying reading through her posts. Check out her post on a Summer BBQ Feast. I think it’s great for those looking for veggie friendly BBQ ideas. While you’re there, you might want to read her Why not Dairy post too.

What’s in the Grilled bean burger?

  • Black beans
  • Carrots
  • Green onions
  • Collards
  • Garlic
  • Corn meal
  • Squash
  • Cumin
  • Curry
  • Sea Salt

With the exception of the carrots and some of the green onions, I tossed everything into my food processor and pulsed. The grated carrots and green onions were grated and folded into the mixture.

I would love to say that the grilled bean burgers are still around but they’re gone. No, my daughter and I didn’t eat them all ourselves. I had friends over, remember! Non veggie friends that gobbled them up. There was only one lowly burger left this morning and that burger was chopped up and added to the homemade home fries I prepared this morning.

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Recipes, Vegan, Vegetarian, whole food

Gardening: Table of Organic Produce

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Gardening: Organic produce fresh from the garden

As a child, my parents had a nice size garden. It was a little over one and a half acres. I’ll admit, assisting my parents in the garden wasn’t a job I enjoyed but I truly appreciate it now.

It’s amazing how much you can remember from childhood. I applied a lot of that knowledge into my gardening today. These days my garden isn’t quite that size. It’s a little over three quarters of an acre, but it still brings in a lot of produce.

When I worked out in the corporate world, a coworker brought me in his only zucchini plant. It was a pitiful looking thing. For some reason it wasn’t thriving in his tiny garden. He gave it to me since he knew I had a ‘green thumb.’ I took ‘Little zucchi’ (what I named his plant) home and planted it amongst my other zucchini plants. It flourished and when it was time it produced a lot of zucchini, I happily brought in the zucchini (along with tons of other vegetables) to my co-worker. It wasn’t something he was expecting, but he surely appreciated receiving the produce. I really enjoy sharing with others. It makes me feel great!

Gardening is my ‘me time’, yes at times it can be strenuous work but it’s an excellent workout. On the intense gardening days, I tend to skip my rigorous gym workouts. The initial phase require a lot of commitement; tilling, hoeing, weeding, sowing the seeds or putting out the plants, mulching, composting, etc., but seeing the fruits of our labor, makes it worth it. It also gives me a healthy respect for those where farming is their full-time job.

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whole food, garden