In early October, when the new crop is harvested, I am eager to enjoy fresh cranberries. This ruby soup, which pairs their tart-sweet flavor with apples and cider, is good with any autumn dinner as a prelude to a pork, venison, or chicken main dish. When fresh cranberries have disappeared, you can make this soup using frozen ones, which helps you serve this antioxidant-loaded fruit right through to spring.
Fast Fact: Cranberries are a North American native, with most of today’s commercial crop grown in Massachusetts and Michigan
Quick Tip: A cast iron frying pan works best for cooking the apple croutons; a non-stick pan slows their browning

If you love Indian food but think making it at home seems complicated, try this golden soup. The red lentils called for are available in most supermarkets, at Wild Oats, and other natural foods markets, and they cook quickly, so this soup is ready in 30 minutes. If you want this main-dish soup to pack heat, include some cayenne pepper along with its other aromatic spices. Vegetarians can use vegetable broth.
Fast Fact: The fennel in this spice blend rounds out its flavors and works as an aid to digestion
Quick Tip: To add even more vegetables to this a one-dish meal, mix in chopped spinach along with the tomatoes

This delicious, vegetable-filled broth can be served by itself or used as a base for other soups. The vegetables used in this soup are often just added to soup liquids for cooking. This recipe oven-roasts them first, enhancing their flavor. Your kitchen will fill with the aromas of the roasting vegetables evoking old-fashioned, home-style meals. Comfort food at its finest.

This light, low-carbohydrate breakfast or lunch dish combines two of Dr Weil’s favorite ingredients – greens and fresh ginger. Baby spinach or other baby greens work great in this recipe.

Traditional Shepherd’s Pie is usually made with ground meat and white potatoes. I like this one because it has sweet potatoes mixed in and omits the meat filling. The curried lentil filling is sandwiched between two layers of creamy potato filling sitting on a crouton crust baked on top of sweet zucchini. I serve this as an entree with a simple chopped tomato salad.

If tofu is prepared right, it’s delicious. If not, it can taste like rubber. Tofu is curdled soy milk that’s been pressed in a process similar to making cheese. You’ll find tofu in natural food stores and many supermarkets these days. Several brands are available with varying texture from extra firm to soft (tofu’s firmness depends on the amount of liquid that’s been pressed out of it. In large cities with oriental markets you can often find tofu sold in bulk, usually stored in open barrels. Tofu sold this way has been found to occasionally be infected with E. coli bacteria, so be cautious. You might also try the delicious varieties of baked, pressed tofu you’ll find in refrigerator cases at natural food stores. These are already flavored and ready to eat without additional cooking. The idea behind stir-frying is to produce a mixture in which all the items are crunchy-tender and retain their colors and individual character.

One of my favorite chilis and because its vegetarian, Elyssa can eat.

You can use vegetable broth to make it vegetarian.

I used water and not stock and that was fine.
*The fresh parsley is nice but not necessary.
***This is lovely w/ just a green salad and some fresh bread and butter.

I’ve been making this for a long time! Art found this recipe in the newspaper and brought it home for us to try. He was still working in NY then.