Feel Good Guru

I like to shop for food without a plan and let the produce tell me what wants to be eaten. The other day while strolling through Kensington Market in Toronto, I ended up in 4 Life, my favorite privately owned health food store in town. There’s not a huge selection, but that’s the beauty. What does end up on the shelves is only the freshest seasonal produce available.

The collard greens were literally jumping out of their box at me. Large, leafy, deep green, full and fresh, so alive. I grabbed a couple of bunches, along with a yam, an onion, a bulb of garlic and a small bag of cashews. This simple dreamy creamy cleansing vegan soup is how it got deliciously devoured… (more…)

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This is my favorite super-healthy super-speedy insta-meal. If you have the ingredients on hand, this is a wonderful 5-minute creation.

It’s sometimes hard to find 100% buckwheat noodles. Most so called buckwheat noodles will contain about 30% wheat. Buckwheat isn’t wheat at all, but a seed, and is therefore much easier to digest and acceptable for most people with wheat allergies.

Eden brand makes an excellent quality organic buckwheat noodle you can find at good health food stores. And all Japanese specialty shops will carry them. Slurp on! (more…)

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It’s pumpkin season! You know it’s officially autumn when you can’t get past the doors of Whole Foods or through the gates of the local market without falling into the great pumpkin patch at the entrance.

Take this cosmic blip of fall to make yourself some beautiful soothing, spleen-tonifying, belly-warming, blood-cleansing soup instead of wasting all that gorgeous orange flesh on scary jack-o-lanterns.

There are countless varieties of pumpkins for cookin’ and at this time of year, there’s no need to use that canned stuff. Get your pretty pumpkin on with this easy and delicious Curried Pumpkin and Coconut Soup: (more…)

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There is almost nothing better in the world than a ripe market fresh heirloom tomato and they’re out in their full splendor right now. If ever there’s a time to eat tomatoes, it’s in the next few weeks. We all know in January a tomato just doesn’t taste like a tomato. So get ‘em while you can!

Heirlooms are painstakingly grown by smaller scale farmers for their extra juicy flavor and sweetness. They’re bursting with intense goodness, containing more nutrition than your average everyday tomato.

Tomatoes are rich in Vitamin C, which increases as it ripens on the vine, and they help rid the body of toxins. Lycopene, the antioxidant media darling du jour, present in tomatoes, can help prevent heart disease and certain types of cancer. It seems to be better absorbed by the body when we cook the tomatoes with a little oil. Easy shmeasy! Let’s do it!

Here’s a beautiful Roasted Heirloom Tomato and Basil Soup recipe:

Roasted Heirloom Tomato & Basil Soup

roughly 2 lbs of ripe juicy heirloom tomatoes (or any ripe juicy market fresh organic tomatoes)
8 cloves of garlic, whole
2 tsp Celtic sea salt
1 Tbsp red wine or apple cider vinegar
1 small bunch of fresh basil, chopped
1 cup of water
2 Tbsp olive oil

Preheat oven to 450. Cut tomatoes into quarters and place face up in a lightly oiled roasting pan with garlic. Drizzle the whole thing with olive oil and roast for half an hour or until sizzling and caramelized.

Remove from the oven and blend all ingredients to your desired consistency. Taste and adjust.

Serve hot, garnished with fresh basil.

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I made this soup two nights ago and just now have the last luscious bowl in front of me. The smooth sweetness from the sweet potatoes feels so good in my belly on a cold night, and I added a little bit of heat from my favorite quick condiment, Wewoff New Zealand sea salt & jalapeno. No fresh dill at this time of year, but a sprinkle of dried dill finishes this creamy soup off nicely.

You may note in the recipes here the absence of the instruction “peel” before chop, dice or slice. If I’m using organic veggies, which I almost exclusively do, I never peel. I simply wash and chop. Somewhere along the way, we got in to sanitizing everything, including our food. A good portion of a fruit or vegetable’s nutrients is in its skin. (more…)

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This is a recipe worth doing on a winter day. I just finished a big bowl for lunch and I want for nothing. There’s some sweetness from butternut squash and yams, a full load of high quality protein from the adzuki beans and a little quinoa, and a big blast of vitamins from some chard and kale thrown in at the last minute.

Adzukis are used a lot in Japan. You can get them in bulk at your health food store. They’re high in soluble fibre, low in fat, high in protein, low in sodium, high in minerals, low on the glycemic index, they support the kidneys and blood, they contain protease inhibitors, which “frustrate” the development of nasty cancer cells…basically, this little red bean is a food I’d consider to be “super”. (more…)

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My friend Dawn, who beat lymphoma with diet and meditation, swears by garlic. She crushes at least a clove of raw garlic on her food daily and recommends everyone do the same for optimum health. No argument from me. I happen to love love love garlic, and have sworn by its medicinal benefits for years.

There happen to be a few people around here coughing and wheezing with winter colds and flus, so today I pulled out the garlic, kale and chard and made a medicinal brew. It’s de-freakin-lish, so I’m posting the recipe for you to gobble up too. Serve it with a citrus & dandelion green salad. Never has medicine tasted so good! (more…)

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It’s a frigid February day, the kind of day you wouldn’t mind having an extra little layer of fat cells between your bones and the wind. It’s the kind of day you want to eat soup and sit by a fire.

This soup won’t fatten you, but it will warm you to the bone. It’s a hearty earthbound lentil soup with a lemony note that elevates it to sing-songy brightness.

A handful or two of fresh baby spinach at the end ties it all together and a slice of organic pumpernickel with spicy hummus completes the meal. Throw a log on the fire and enjoy!

(more…)

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This was a version of “Clean Out the Fridge Soup” which I make quite often. In Clean Out the Fridge Soup, anything goes. All the veggies in the veggie drawer qualify.

And you can use a can of chick peas unless you had the foresight the night before to soak some. Usually when I make hummus, I soak and cook a lot of chick peas so that I have some ready and waiting in the fridge for either another batch of hummus or a soup or curry.

Here’s the how-to for this easy and wonderfully warming soup: (more…)

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This is one of my all-time favorite winter soups. It’s rich and creamy and sweet and dense with sweet potatoes and coconut milk with a balance of brightness from ginger and lime. The color is soothing and it’s absolutely delish. I swear it’s the ultimate cure for the common cold…and the blues…and lovesickness…and just about any virus, bacteria or bug life wants to throw at you.

It’s so easy you’ll wonder why you ever bought soup in a tetrapac. Never again! You’ll shout upon feeling the first spoonful of this velvety vegan soup on your lips. (more…)

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It’s cold in Toronto. A perfect day for lots and lots of ginger tea and some fall macrobiotic foods. Get your macro on!

The macrobiotic philosophy is about finding balance. Not just within your body, but in your life. Local and seasonal foods can help bring that balance.

The balance comes from foods that are neither extreme yin nor extreme yang. If we eat too much salt, for example, which is extremely yang, we will need to balance that with extreme yin foods like sugar. Ever wondered why meat and red wine go together so well? Meat is extremely yang while alcohol is extremely yin. Extremes in our diet will cause cravings. (more…)

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It’s been a gorgeously warm week here in Toronto and I haven’t had soup on my mind since last week’s cold weather, but today I needed to use up some veggies in the fridge, and a quick soup seemed like the way to go. I had a can of organic cannellini beans, a zucchini, a head of spinach, a bulb of fennel, some celery, onions, garlic and a lemon. Perfect ingredients for a hearty veggie and Italian white bean soup with a refreshing lemon broth.

The beans help reduce cholesterol, are a great source of fiber and contain twice as much iron as beef. Eat beans, not beef! Here’s how for a pot of Cannellini Lemon Soup: (more…)

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The under appreciated parsnip came out in my kitchen yesterday to become the star of a wonderful Mellow Yellow Soup. Light and slightly sweet in flavor, parsnips make beautiful purees because of their starchy nature. Where normally you’d need a potato or yam to give a vegan cream soup some creaminess, the parsnip performs beautifully when cooked and blended.

This root veggie is at its best at this time of year. It’s low in calories and contains no saturated fat or cholesterol, so all of you who thought you’d gained a pound at the sight of the word “starchy” can carry on. (more…)

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It was cold in Toronto yesterday, and the winds were biting. I love fall for that. The great wake-up call before the deep slumber. And fall food is the best.

I picked up one of every fall vegetable in stock at my local health food store, then came home and made a big pot of Autumn Sunshine Soup to warm myself and all the Arpixies in the house, 3 out of 6 of whom are vegetarians - that’s 50% of a downtown Toronto entertainment business. Do I sense a movement? These kids know how to stay healthy, go green, and groove with the woowoo. (more…)

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This warming soup is always a hit. Even people who claim not to like curry like this soup. It’s soothing on the stomach and all the digestive organs, good for the blood, good for the spleen and good for the soul.

A fresh, good quality curry powder is the key here. I usually purchase small amounts of spices from ethnic markets or independent health food stores that still carry spices (more…)

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Mild, sweet, soothing and nurturing.

In a soup pot, sautee five or six cloves of chopped garlic and half a chopped onion in a little olive oil.

Add four medium carrots, chopped, two chopped celery stalks and half a butternut squash, chopped. Stir until veggies soften, then cover with spring water and bring to a boil. (more…)

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Nothing satisfies better than a hearty bowl of lentil soup. Lentils are high in soluble fibre, protein, iron, complex carbohydrates and folic acid. Not only are these little legumes low in fat with zero cholesterol, they are also extremely inexpensive for the nutritional value they bring to the body.

This soup is one of the easiest soups in the world to prepare.

For the recipe, order “Feel Good Fast - 21 days the Feel Good Guru way.”

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Beets are powerful blood purifiers and cleansers, so much so that it’s recommended to go easy on pure beet juice if doing a de-tox because it can flush out toxins very quickly, causing dizziness or light-headedness.

In this beautiful borscht, we use both the roots and the leaves. The leaves have even more nutrition than the roots, so when buying beets, don’t throw them away!

You’ll love the deep red colour of this soup, and your blood will sing with renewed vibrancy. (more…)

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In Chinese medicine, the colour green is associated with the liver, our body’s de-tox organ. Just looking at this soup is nourishing to the liver - one sip your little hepatocytes will be dancing.

For the recipe, order “Feel Good Fast - 21 days the Feel Good Guru way.”

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Get your vitamin A and Beta Carotene fix with a warming, healing, soothing carrot soup. It’s quick and easy, with only a handful of ingredients, fresh from the market.

Make enough to have for lunch tomorrow!

For the recipe, order “Feel Good Fast - 21 days the Feel Good Guru way.”

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