Quick Soup & Biscuits

My husband is reading Dr. Furman's Eat to Live, where he extols (and we've heard this all before) that the American diet of highly processed, over fried, over sweetened, over salted foods are making us fat and unhealthy. Leo looked at his diet of several sandwiches a day with deli meats and cheeses. Although he snacks on plenty of fruit, he knew he needed to eat more vegetables. He decided to make a soup every week to pack in his lunch cooler. He could warm it up in a microwave and eliminate one of his sandwiches per day. Here is how he makes it in under an hour.

Vegetable Soup

3 containers (32 oz. each) of vegetable stock

chopped onions, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, potato, celery,

turnips, summer squash, green beans,

and every other veggie you can think of

but especially mushrooms!

Throw all your chopped vegetables in a stock pot. Pour vegetable stock in until pan is filled, leaving 2 inches from the pan's rim so that the contents can boil without overflowing. Bring to a boil, and turn down heat to simmer for about 30 minutes. At this point you may add canned or frozen vegetables if fresh are not available to heat through for 5 minutes or so. Salt and pepper to your tastes. If you want to add an interesting texture, try spaghetti squash. You have to cook it separately in the microwave (puncture with fork holes and cook on high until it is softens under your touch) then you cut it open, remove the seeds, then tease out the long fibers out of this marvelous squash with a fork.

Beer Biscuits

2 cups of flour

3 teaspoons of baking powder

1 teaspoon of salt

1/4 cup of shortening

3/4 cup beer

I was complaining about botching an egg-less, milk-less corn bread, which I will not go into the gory details here, but my helpful friend suggested these biscuits...no eggs and no milk!! They taste good and smell great baking too.

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees
2. Sift together dry ingredients, cut shortening into flour mixture until it has corn meal consistency. Stir in beer and kneed lightly.
3. Roll dough to 1/2 inch thickness. Cut with biscuit cutter or round cup or glass.
4. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until golden brown.