Black Quinoa Soup with Shrimp

I love making use of all the good food, let nothing go to waste. One of the best ways to make a great soup stock is by boiling rotisserie chicken "bones" (ones that still have some meat left on them). We buy the hot, cooked chicken at our local grocery store when we need a quick dinner, then use the bones to make soup sometime in the next couple days.


Boil:
• 4 quarts of water with the
• bones of a rotisserie chicken (cooked)

Add:
• 2 tbsp of Knoor’s Chicken Powde
• 5 carrots chopped
• 1 ½ stocks of celery chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic chopped

Boil the above and simmer for about an hour or until the chicken is falling off the bones. Turn off the heat, wash your hands, and add about:

• 4 cups of ice cubes to the water, then use a serving spoon to scoop soup and pull out all the chicken bones

Add:
• 1 cup red lentils and bring to a boil and simmer for about 15 minutes, then add
• 1 cup of black quinoa and boil for another 10 minutes, then add
• 1 bunch of fresh chives chopped (it’s what I had, parsley would be good too, also a diced onion and bay leaves at the beginning would have been good but I didn’t have any)

When serving hot soup, use frozen shrimp to cool the soup down, while the soup defrosts the shrimp. I add the shrimp as I serve each bowl, I don’t put the shrimp into the pot. The soup keeps longer in the fridge for a couple of days minus the shrimp. So…

Add:
• about 5 frozen cooked, tail off shrimp to the bowl and pour soup over the top of the shrimp
• Fresh lemon juice on top and
• Salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Roasted Eggplant and Sweet Bell Pepper Dip

I made this today, it was super delicious! Today I also started my friend Lisa's "Body Back" program. The diet portion of the program is not very different from what I am used to doing already so I plan to have some fun with it and create some yummy snacks from the vegetables that will be growing in my garden this summer.

There's something about roasting vegetables that makes them super sweet and delicious. The sweetness from the vegetables balances very nicely with the tartness of the non fat plain yogurt in this recipe.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Spray roasting pan with olive oil Pam spray

Put the following vegetables in the roasting pan and cover tight with tin foil, bake at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes:

• 2 eggplants diced into approx. 1 inch cubes
• 4 large red, orange, or yellow bell peppers cut into about 1-2 inch pieces
• drizzle with about ¼ cup olive oil. (Don’t worry, this recipe makes about 10 servings, so the oil will amount to about 1 ½ tsp. per serving) and remember, you are dipping vegetables and whole grains, into vegetables so you will need a little fat in order to absorb the fat soluble nutrients—A,D,E,and K—from the food.

Take the foil off and continue baking for 15 – 20 minutes longer until somewhat gold browned and soft. Let cool for a little while.

Pulse roasted vegetables in a food processor with about

• 1 – 2 tsp of crushed garlic, (I buy the Trader Joe’s brand garlic in the jar for convenience, but you can also roast your own garlic with the vegetables, just be careful not to burn, I think they cook a little faster than the eggplant and peppers)
• salt and pepper to taste.

Serve with:

• greek style not fat plain yogurt,

1/2 dip and ½ yogurt,. You can pre mix it or serve it side by side.

Garnish with:

• parsley

Dip with:

• raw vegetables,
• pita bread
• Sangak bread

*I like the mini Persian cucumbers at Wholesome Choice, they’re only .50 / lb.  and the Whole grain sourdough Sangak bread from their bakery is great too.

*You could also add some fresh parsley or chives right into the food processor with the vegetabels.