Making Soup from Scratch is Easy

We make soup stock all winter long by saving chicken bones and pieces of vegetables in a bag in the freezer. You know those ends of carrots, green peppers and other veggie bits you don’t eat? Well, don’t toss them. Save them up and then once you get enough, put them in a pan and cover with filtered water and simmer for a few hours on the stove or in a slow cooker. Then strain it and you’ve got the basics to make a great soup. Keep in mind, for best flavor you probably want to keep cruciferous vegetables to a minimum when making stock since they tend to give up off odors when boiled for a long time.

Soup stock made this way contains minerals like magnesium and potassium that are very easy for your body to absorb. Since many of us are deficient in magnesium this is a good thing. And you also have control over what goes into it. You add the salt, avoid MSG (aka yeast extract and many other names) and make it with organic ingredients. Plus it does not cost anything but the power to cook it!

The soup pictured below has a stock made from chicken bones, celery bits, carrot ends, red pepper tops, bay leaves, fresh rosemary from my garden and a few other vegetable bits. Once I strained the stock (and tossed the solids) I added celery, zucchini, tomatoes, chard, garlic, salt and other seasonings. You can also add meat. In this case I had some beef sausage from the farmers market that I cooked in a pan.

If you start making soup from your own soup stock, you’ll be pleasantly surprised how good it can be.

Vegetable and Chipotle Beef Soup

Prepare Great Almond Milk in Ten Minutes

Prepare Great Almond Milk in Ten Minutes

Have you ever tried commercial almond milk in tea and been disappointed by the taste? Are you also concerned about additives like carrageenan? Well now you are about to learn how to prepare almond milk at home. It tastes wonderful, takes about ten minutes and bit of planning. Here’s how I do it:

Soak almonds first: A day or two before I want to make almond milk, I put 1/2 cup of raw almonds in a bowl, cover them with filtered water and leave them on the counter. Then once a day I rinse them and cover again with fresh water. This soaking method helps make the almonds soft and some say it results in a slightly sweeter taste. It also makes them easier to digest and increases protein content. But if you don’t have soaked almonds, go ahead and use dry nuts.

Making the milk: I usually just make two cup of milk at a time, but if you want to make more just adjust the recipe. The basic proportion is 1/4 cup of almonds to each cup of water.

• Take 1/2 cup of soaked almonds and mix for one minute in a blender with 2 cup of water.
• If desired, add a dash of glycerin based vanilla extract from Trader Joe’s.
• Pour the milk mixture though a fine mesh strainer into a bowl.
• Transfer to airtight glass container and store in fridge up to 4 days.
• For a little more flavor, add a sprinkle or two of nutmeg and a date before blending.

Using the almond “meal” that is left over: I usually eat this with a little sweetener and some coconut flakes. It reminds me of the Kretchemer wheat germ I used to eat as a kid. Some people save it for smoothies.

Very easy, don’t you think? And homemade almond milk tastes great in tea, on cereal or just alone.