Veggie Dinner (How To) No added oil or sugar.

Happy December everyone!  Its getting cold so let's make some hot soup.  I'm thinking vegetable.  Better yet, let's make a hot meal!
Since you're not sure about the whole vegan thing, let's just make a hot meal that's plant based instead (wink wink).

So let's begin. First take everything that isn't a plant, seed, vegetable, fruit or nut and don't use it. Since you have a heart, let's respect it and leave out oil as well.  Humor me. We'll get wild with salt or something.

Here's what I used:

1 small onion chopped, 2 cloves garlic chopped, 2 stalks celery and 2 carrots sliced into sticks, 2 stalks kale chopped, 1 head romaine lettuce chopped, 1 red pepper cut into sticks, one bunch of asparagus, one cup of snap peas chopped, 1 inch of fresh ginger pealed and chopped, 6 fresh dates pitted and chopped, a big handful of black bean noodles, 1/2 cup Quinoa, smoked paprika, sea salt, cayenne pepper, 1/2 cup nutritional yeast.

Toast the onions and garlic. Cook the Quinoa with a pinch of salt.  Add the toasted onions and garlic.  Cover and set aside.

Roast the red pepper sticks and set aside.

Steam the asparagus, salt to taste.  Set aside.

Boil the black bean noodles with a little salt in 4 cups of water.  Keep the water.

In a large pot bring 2 cups of water to a boil with the sea salt, about 3 dashes of Cayenne pepper, a tsp of smoked paprika, a pinch of rosemary and all the stuff that has yet to be cooked in the above list.  Bring it back to a boil and then reduce the heat to simmer covered for an hour.  Add the noodles along with the water they were cooked in. Simmer for another 20 minutes uncovered to reduce the water.  Salt and pepper to taste.

Put 2 cups of the soup with noodles in a bowl. Top with a TBS of nutritional yeast.

Arrange the asparagus on a plate with the roasted red peppers, some of the cooked veggies strained from the soup and the Quinoa.  Sprinkle it with a little rosemary and you've got a meal!

Each bowl of soup with 2 oz of black bean noodles contains 25 grams of protein.

Half a cup of Quinoa with a cup of asparagus is an additional 16 grams of protein.

That's a meal!  I'm stuffed.

Enjoy!