Veggie Soup and Sunshine Burgers

This is what I've been having for lunch for the past 3 days-- so yummy!

So I noticed (or rather, Sam noticed) that in the background of the picture in this post, there's a sneaky little visitor. That's Stanley the Seal. He belongs to this little guy.

This is Yosemite (and me in my pj's behind him). And I just realized that he looks giant in this picture because of the angle of the camera and his relation to me-- he weighs about 8 pounds, he's pretty small. Anyway, that's one of our our amazing pups-- I'll introduce the others another time! Now it's on to recipes... Well, sort of recipes. The pita sandwich is one of these amazing veggie burgers from The Vegan Chickpea in a pita with some spicy mustard-- that was weird, I just typed "hummus" after "spicy", I wonder if that means I secretly want some spicy hummus, I'll have to look into that-- anyway, veggie burger in pita with mustard and iceberg lettuce. I think iceberg gets a bad rap from foodies sometimes. Sure, it doesn't have the good looks, nutrition, or varying tastes of your darker greens, but it's delicious in it's own right. It's light and crunchy and really cheap, so that's good too. I used the sunflower seeds I had left over from making sunflower butter-- which by the way, was gone after a week and a half, yum! The only things I changed in making the sunshine burgers is that I doubled that batch and made 4 patties, meaning they were bigger, and I left out the garlic. You''ll probably want to make a double batch of these, they're seriously good.

And now for a recipe from me, sort of. I say sort of because it's a "throw everything you have in a pot" kind of soup, but it's the method I use over and over.

The ingredients are highly variable, but this is what I put in this last time:

Directions:

1. Add the olive oil (or canola, or other neutral oil) to a large soup pot and then start chopping.
2. Rinse everything and chop roughly, adding the chopped veggies to the pot as you go.

• 1 tsp olive oil
• 3 large carrot
• 4 stalks large celery
• 1.5 medium onion
• 2 large zucchini
• 4 large summer squash
• 1 medium sweet potato
• 1 poblano pepper, de-seeded for less spice or with seeds left in
• 1 clove garlic, minced

3.      Then add the crushed tomatoes and their juice-- I add fresh chopped tomatoes instead when they're on sale. Then rinse your split peas and add them to the pot as well. Then fill your (very full) pot the rest of the way up with water, stopping when the water level reaches about 2 inches from the top. Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer, simmering for 30 minutes.

• 1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
• 1.25 cups uncooked split peas

4. After 30 minutes, add your Old Bay Seasoning (my favorite way to season veggie soup), collard greens, and mushrooms and simmer for another 30 minutes.

• 2 tablespoons Less Sodium Old Bay Seasoning
• 4 cups, or 1 bunch collard greens, de-stemmed and chopped roughly
• 9 large button mushrooms

This recipe makes a whole bunch of soup. I usually make it when the veggies go on sale during the season and freeze some of it to enjoy later. It’s also really low calorie, meaning it’s good for people eating lower-calorie, or meaning that you can eat it with bread and margarine, whichever way you want to look at it. I hope you guys enjoy!

Per 1 full cup: cals: 59kcal | fat: 0.42g | carbs: 12.47g | prot: 3.98g