The other day I saw a soup recipe on Whole Foods’ website that peeked my interest. It was a kale and white bean soup which looks delicious and the ingredients list was rather small and simple, plus I recently cooked some cannellini beans from the bulk section and they have been sitting in my freezer for over a week, begging to be put into a soup. Despite not having one of the main ingredients, kale, I decided to try the recipe with what I had on hand. It turned out quite nice and can easily outshine any ‘regular’ minestrone I’ve ever eaten in my formerly gluten filled life. As I said, I started out with the basics of the WF’s kale and white bean soup recipe, but instead of 4 cups of kale I used 2 cups of chopped broccoli + 1/2 cup chopped celery + 3/4 cup chopped leek. I also used extra onions, about 1/4 more, and since the white beans I had seemed less than 14.5 oz. I added about 1/4 cup french green lentils I had also stored in the freezer. Once I had all of that in the soup according to WF’s directions, I added about a teaspoon of thyme and at least a tablespoon each of oregano and basil (all dried) + a lot of freshly ground black pepper and some Mediterranean sea salt. While that was all coming together I cooked up half a box of Quinoa noodles (the multi-colored veggie spiral kind) and added them in the soup. After scooping into bowls I added shredded Parmesan on top. I think this will become a regular in my soup rotations.

Amy’s Bistro Burger is my favorite gluten free patty by far, and my favorite thing to do with it is to throw it on a salad. If I am just doing it for myself then I use spinach or kale, cut into bite-size pieces with scissors. I add chopped tomato, sliced onions, and a diced up kosher dill pickle. Then I add Karam’s garlic sauce to the salad, with the burger on top. It is delicious, easy, and nutritious. By the way, years ago when I was still a sales manager for a natural foods/supplements distributor I had a customer on the east side of the mountains where you could not easily get Karam’s garlic sauce. She loved it so much that she timed her visits to her granddaughter on the west side of the mountains to when she ran out of it! I totally understand~ the stuff is that good. Anyway, when I make the same salad/burger mix for my hubby I do it mostly the same but I shred cheddar cheese on top, exchange the dark leafy greens for a crispy lettuce like romaine, and instead of the garlic sauce I use either a mixture of ketchup and mustard or ketchup and mayo on top of the burger. When the knife then slices up the patty, the sauce mixture gets distributed through the salad a bit. This combo is definitely more traditional-burger tasting so I hope one day my sons will eat salad this way too. Right now they are still not interested in salad or veggie burgers or real burgers for that matter.