Corn Chowder from the McDougall Quick & Easy Cookbook :-) :-) :-) thank you Janet Wooton for telling me about this cookbook :-) :-) :-)

Coconut Almond Banana Coffee Ice Cream

Coconut Almond Banana Coffee Ice Cream

Vegan and Sugar Free

My Best Ice Cream Yet!!!

This came out as creamy as a really good  high cream-content ice cream plus it tastes amazing with all that almond butter & banana and coconut milk & coffee in there. :-) :-) :-)  Just be aware the mixture tastes kind of gross until it has had time to sit for awhile before going into the ice cream maker :-)  I guess the thing about making ice cream is that you really need cream or something very creamy as a base.  This came out SO GREAT YUUUUUUUUUUUM!!!!

Ingredients

1 13.5 oz can coconut milk

1 1/2 cups unsweetened organic almond milk

3 medium bananas

1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon almond butter

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3/4 cups water

3 tablespoons decaffeinated coffee

Agave syrup to taste

3/4 cup grain-sweeted carob chips (optional)

Instructions

In a small saucepan, boil the water. Place a 1-cup paper filter into a 1-cup manual plastic coffee maker thingy and put the coffee into the filter. Pour the water through the coffee in the filter into a mug. Into a medium saucepan place the coconut milk, almond milk, bananas, almond butter, vanilla extract, and coffee and puree with an immersion blender until it looks like a smoothie. If it's not sweet enough for you add a little agave syrup & blend some more until it tastes good but be careful a little agave syrup seems to go a long way. :-) Put a lid on the pot and refrigerate the mixture preferably overnight until it is quite cold. This is important also because it gives the flavors time to blend! My refrigerator is on a very cold setting so after it sat all night it was almost frozen in a slushy sort of way which is perfect for starting it in the ice cream maker. Place the mixture in an ice cream maker and run for 20 minutes, then add the carob chips if desired and run for another 5 to 20 minutes until done. Place finished product into jars or a bowl and freeze in the freezer for another couple of hours or overnight. Yum!

Red Lentil Sweet Potato Soup

Red Lentil & Yam Soup

Ingredients
2 1/12 cups red lentils
1 giant + 1 medium small garnet yam, chopped coarsely into cubes
4 cubes vegetable bouillon (enough to make 8 cups of broth)
4 medium cloves garlic, minced
1 large yellow onion, coarsely chopped
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp chili powder
8 cups water
salt

Instructions
Put all ingredients into a large soup pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for about 45 minutes or until the lentils are done. Usually a good indicator is when the lentils start sticking to the bottom to the pot. Blend with an immersion blender until creamy. Add salt to taste – you might like it with up to 3 tablespoons salt or you might like it with a lot less.

Notes:
Extremely creamy & quite tasty! I would try it with less yam next time, also it seemed like it could use quite a bit more cumin and chili powder so i might do 1 1/2 times the amount next time. Also maybe adding other vegetables would probably make it very tasty. I ripped the ingredients to this this off of a pot of hot soup at Mother Earth :-)

Mushroom Barley Soup

Mushroom Barley Soup

Ingredients
1 large onion, chopped
6 large cloves garlic, minced
4 large portobello mushrooms, chopped into chunks
1 1/4 cup pearled barley, uncooked
2 quarts vegetable broth (I like Pacific)
1 cup chopped parsley
1 15 oz cans black beans
Fresh green beans, cut into 1-inch pieces – not sure how many I used but I think a little less than a pound
1 tsp Italian seasoning
up to 2 tablespoons salt


Throw all the ingredients except the salt and the vegetable broth into a large soup pot. Pour in enough of the vegetable broth to a little more than cover. If there is not enough vegetable broth, add enough water to a little more than cover everything. Bring to a boil, lower heat and simmer for about 1½ hours until it tastes like soup. Do not be disturbed if it seems bland it probably just needs salt! At the end of cooking, add the salt a bit at a time until it tastes good. If it just doesn't seem to taste flavorful enough add some miso paste however I made the soup just this way and it didn't need it. :-) It takes about an hour for the barley to get done but this soup is yummy!

Note: I will make this soup next time using enough vegetable bouillon cubes to make 8 cups and use that instead of the vegetable broth because I think the soup would taste better even though it actually tasted quite good this way.

Also, it tastes much much better with pearled barley but originally I made it with unpearled barley which still has the bran.