It's so easy being green

When I saw a recipe for green minestrone recently, my first thought was "Why didn't I think of that?" Because I really hadn't, ever. And if there's anything I appreciate, it's green! I get routinely teased for green shoes, coats, toenails... but I can handle it. What good is a favorite color if you can't take a little teasing?

So I tucked away the basic idea behind the various green soups I saw online, gathered every green vegetable in the house and went to town.

Green vegetable soup 
Makes 12 cups
1 Tbsp olive oil
3 stalks of leeks, halved lengthwise and sliced thinly
6 green onions, chopped finely
2 large garlic cloves, minced
2 Anaheim peppers, seeded and chopped semi-finely
3 cups kale leaves, destemmed and chopped finely
1.5 cups edamame, shelled
4 baby zucchini, halved lengthwise and sliced
1 bunch asparagus, cleaned and chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
8 cups vegetable broth
Salt and pepper

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat and add the leeks, onions and garlic. Saute until tender and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the kale and edamame and broth, and bring to a simmer for 10-12 minutes, add the zucchini and asparagus and cook for 5-7 minutes more. Taste the soup for desired vegetable tenderness, and add salt and pepper to taste.

Tip: this soup is a great one to make one evening and eat the following. The flavor is, as with most soups, really better the next day.

This is a really healthy soup! Maybe a little too healthy for some of us (me)... so I trotted out a bit of ricotta and whipped up a quick batch of ricotta gnocchi to go along with the healthy goodness. Lovely. Just the right bit of cheese to counteract the rolicking good health of the soup, and fabulous flavor, to boot.

The variations on this could be somewhat endless... is it green? Toss it in! And if one wanted to make it a true minestrone, little pasta shapes could help toward that end, as well as maybe some cannellini beans...

Enjoy!

Chickpea salad

This one is an old favorite from way back when. Well, a favorite from maybe 5 or so years ago... that's way back when, right? Anyway, I used to make it for husband during the early romance days (ah, sweet), and he always gave me high praise for it. Shucks.

I'm surprised I haven't made it and posted about it before, but I just haven't made it in eons. I can't actually remember where the recipe came from. I think a girlfriend made something similar at a book club meeting years ago, and I tried to recreate from memory and this is what I came up with. I poked around epicurious for awhile (5 years ago that's where I turned 9 times out of 10 for a recipe) but didn't see anything too close, so I'm pretty sure I'm not ripping someone off here!

Chickpea salad

3 cups chickpeas, cooked

1 8 oz. can diced green chiles

1/2 cup green onions, chopped

2 roma tomatos, chopped

2 tsp. ground cumin

2 Tbsp. lime juice

1/3 cup mayonnaise (I use a light version, horrors!)

Salt to taste

Very complicated: Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl. I add them in the order I've listed, with mayo last. I stir in just enough to coat the other ingredients, so you can go a little lighter on the mayo if you like, adding as you go until you have the desired amount of creaminess.

Yummy and healthy(ish)!