Easiest Black Bean Soup

Warm and earthy, perhaps a little salty... Black Bean Soup warms the soul.  Healthy as well as belly filling, a slice of crusty bread makes a meal.  Or if you are my daughter, Liv, a side of tortilla chips makes the dish a tasty dip.  Or, if you are my son, a tortilla wrap makes it a very messy burrito.

However you serve it, the beauty of this recipe is the ease of preparation.  Minimal ingredients find their way into a pot for maximum flavor.  After a 20 minutes simmer a quick spin with an immersion blender lets you decide silky or chunky.

And do I have an immersion blender for you!  Add this powerful beauty to any foodie gift giving list and you'll have a best friend for life.  May I introduce the OXO On Illuminating Digital Immersion Blender?

With an easy to use dial allowing adjustments through a range of speeds the choice of delicate blending or powerful pureeing is up to you.  Note powerful as a keyword here... using the blender for the first time in our Coconut Sweet Potato Soup, the ingredients transformed from chunky to silky in mere seconds.  Smooth like I've never seen before... pure puréed perfection.

Illuminating, you may ask?  Yes, illuminating, literally.  With a decently bright headlamp just at the top of the stick, the immersion blender brings better light into your pot on our dark winter nights (and poorly lit kitchens like mine).  A feature Liv though was so cool she took to blending water in the dark just to try it out.  If only I had taken video...

The nylon head covering the powerful blade makes the blender safe for even your most delicate pans, but it's the ease of cleanup that made me smile.  The stick easily pops off after use, and while it's not meant for the dishwasher a quick rinse directly after use makes clean up a breeze with no worry of damaging the electric parts or keeping the plug out of the water.

But one of my favorite reasons to use an immersion blender is the ability to see and control how smooth you want your final product.  For soups such as this Black Bean version, I like a chunkier texture that on past occasions became over processed when using a counter blender.  And besides, how many times have you poured hot soup into a blender only to have the steam splatter your face after lifting the lid?

Have I sold you on the OXO On yet?  Good.  Now let me sell you on this soup.

Aromatic onions and garlic sautee with oregano and cumin before adding canned beans.  Simmering in broth and water until soft, all that's remaining are seasonings and my favorite part - the garnish.

Ripe avocado, chopped cilantro and a drizzle of sublime Coconut Lime Cashew Crema bring irresistible flavors, textures and colors to the bowl.  Be it soup, dip or burrito filling, your family will be returning for seconds and once again you're a superhero.

Coconut Sweet Potato Soup plus Abound Sweet Potato Treats for your Pup!

Chock-full of disease-fighting, cancer-preventing and immune-boosting properties, one may understand that sweet potatoes are healthy, perhaps even super healthy, but most may not think of them as life saving.  With massive amounts of beta carotene and twice the fiber of regular potatoes, sweet potatoes are rich in vitamins C and E, contain iron and magnesium, and rate low on the glycemic scale providing a slower sugar release with less effect on blood glucose levels.

But it's the ease of digestibility that helped save my dog's life.  Many of you will remember our two Maltese pups, Kona and Tavo.  It's been a tough year for these little guys (Our sweet Tavo passed away in early October from a genetic issue), and a bout with canine pancreatitis almost did Kona in.

Lethargic and sicker than I've seen any dog, the vet provided IV fluids and strict instructions to use a low-fat prescription dog food diet after a 24 hours fast.  We got him through the first 24 hours and he woke feeling much better.  We started the prescription food and within an hour he was sick again.  This happened twice more over the next week with multiple rushed visits to the vet for more fluids.  Taking to the internet to research foods and pancreatitis I found sources recommending rice and sweet potato time and again.

Discarding the vet food, I began making my own beginning with the highly digestible rice and sweet potato combo for 48 hours.  Slowly we began adding more and more foods, but the sweet potato remained constant, and the dog once again began to thrive.

With 6 small meals a day (including one in the middle of the night...), making dog food in addition to feeding my family got old fairly quickly.  We've since found a very low fat canned food with the special ingredients his finicky stomach can tolerate supplemented with homemade ingredients (and reduced feedings to 3 times a day... none at night!), but had not found a suitable treat until an offer from Abound Natural Pet Food arrived by email.

Offering to send us a few sample bags of their grain-free superfood treats, the words "sweet potato" as a main ingredient brought my answer to definite "yes, please!".  Receiving a box with treats and a few toys, Abound also suggested a challenge should we be pleased with the products.  Since our pup would be enjoying the super food ingredients, would we create a human dish with one of the ingredients as well?

Well... you know me and a food challenge!  But, would Kona take to the treats?  He's possibly the finickiest dog in existence, and I'll admit I had worry he would turn up his nose.  Trying the Sweet Potato Sticks with Blueberries (Ingredients:  Sweet Potato, Citrus Fiber and Blueberries - Crude Fat .5%) first I got a little lick, then a no go.  Ok, a new food, I get it.  But let's try the Free Fish Sweet Potato Sticks (Ingredients:  Sweet Potato, Salmon, Whitefish, Citrus Fiber and Cranberry - Crude Fat: 12.2%).  Again a little lick and a turn of the head...  But then just as quickly a turn of the head right back and he took the treat out of my hand!  For him, unprecedented as new foods almost always take 10-15 tries to get past.

Since our first try the Fish Sweet Potato version is still a favorite, but now he never turns down a Sweet Potato Blueberry stick either.  We've been putting them into his chew toys where he has to work to get to the treat and he works tirelessly to get those little treats out.  I think he loves the crunch of these sticks as many other treats are soft and not as appealing to my picky little guy.

And I love the ingredients - actually real food.  I love that they are grain-free, low in fat, free of fillers and do not contain soy, animal by-product meal or anything artificial.  And I love that I don't have to cook them myself.  Abound... yes, he loves the treats, and I'm up for the challenge!

Human food with sweet potato?  Not a problem!  How about a little Sweet Potato Soup with Coconut and a squeeze of lime?

Silky in texture, this plant-based soup fills your bowl with all sorts of healthy ingredients and like the treats, no artificial fillers.  Sweet potatoes we already know enter the superfood category, and turmeric and ginger only serve increase the soup's healthy ingredient potential.  Onions, garlic, coconut and lime?  Well they all bring their own health benefits, but they also lend a touch of the tropics to our cooling temperatures - don't laugh... our high yesterday was only 65º.  Positively freezing for us here in San Diego and yes Kona is sitting in his heated bed.

So whether you are looking for a healthy dish in the midst of your holiday festivities or a meal to warm you to your toes on these chilly days, this soup's for you.  Just don't forget to pass an Abound Superfood Treat to your little buddy while you're eating.

Split Pea Soup with Barley - A Fire Driven Life

I love a good success story, don't you?  And I can't wait to tell you about the latest I've found!  Filled with inspiration and motivation Vanessa Chamberlin's book, The Fire Driven Life, is one of those success stories that sticks with you.  Exuding health and a penchant for living life, Vanessa's book has the potential to be life changing as it creates a simple foundation for igniting health and happiness in your own life.

With The Fire Driven Life, Vanessa lays out a way of eating, not what I would call a diet perse, but more of a lifestyle paving the way to passion for a healthier life.  Mixing a recipe of science, common sense and culinary creativity, Vanessa shows how living a plant-based lifestyle is not only easy to do, but also budget friendly.

For anyone on your holiday list thinking of moving to a healthier lifestyle, this book is what they are looking for.  Jumping right in, the first chapter lays a foundation to help you figure out why you would want to eat a plant-based diet in the first place (Food over pills, anyone??).  From simply feeling better and more energetic to reversing heart disease and diabetes, a plant-based lifestyle has been proven beneficial and life saving for many people.

Moving on, Vanessa's next chapters help you understand that eating plants is more than just salad.  Identifying the best foods for health, Vanessa calls them "Green Fire Foods", she's splashed the pages with lists of go-to foods and ingredients that you can (and should) eat to your heart's content.

From there Vanessa takes you through "Yellow Fire" and "Red Fire" Foods (foods to be consumed in moderation and those that should be avoided), and then she helps you revamp and set up ingredients and pantry staples in your own kitchen.  Seriously, it's all there and figured out for you.

Once you are ready to start Vanessa brings a support section where she coaches you through some of the challenges in transforming your diet.  Being plant-based myself I understand how difficult change can be, but once you begin down the plant path it gets easier and easier and then simply becomes a preferred way of life where you will hopefully feel better than you ever have.

Next Vanessa completes the whole lifestyle by including exercise and stress management along with a frequently asked Q and A section.  For example... did you know that you don't need dairy products for calcium?  (Actually the most usable sources of calcium are found in plant based foods like many greens and other veggies).

And then, of course, my favorite part of the book... the recipes!!  Featuring delectable entrees along with sides, appetizers and snacks (including smoothies and juices) , soups and salads, condiments (and sauces and spreads) and a collection of tempting Happy Endings (how about a few Chai Spiced Cookies or Cocoa Cupcakes?), Vanessa's recipes are clearly written and easy to follow.

With beautiful photography her recipes tempt and motivate you into the kitchen to create a little bit of awesomeness for yourself.  And that's just what we did!

First off, Liv picked the Chocolate Monkey Shake featuring a few of her favorite ingredients (bananas, peanut butter and chocolate) and we had an immediate new favorite recipe (she even loved that it added spinach so she didn't have to eat it later!).  Moving on to the Mexican Spaghetti (super popular with the men in our family) and then the Smashed Pea Soup with Barley, I'm thrilled with everything we've tried.

Only a few books on my shelf do I reach for over and over again, and The Fire Driven Life has quickly become one of them. This book will be on my holiday list of gifts to give for friends who are looking for health in the new year.

More than a cookbook, I love the inspiration jumping from every page, and after following Vanessa on Instagram I'm loving the motivation from her frequent posts as well.

Vanessa, thanks for sharing your story with the world, but more importantly for inspiring us and for igniting a passion for health in your readers!