orange soup is following me

On Halloween, a day with orange as its theme color and dark and mysterious overtones, this post seemed fitting:

Orange soup is following me.

It’s the only thing I can think of.

I was at Steve’s and we were hungry (obviously).

He had some pre-roasted sweet potatoes… Orange Soup Of Leftovers.

I did my usual “pot lid” (Steve’s kitchen is sort of a man cave…)

Started with green pepper and carrot..

Then said, what the heck, let’s throw some onion and tomato in there too…

Plus some curry powder, cumin, other spices to add general excitement.

Lots of broth, a roasted sweet potato mooshed in surprisingly well sans blender.

This was totally delicious!

  

Next, we have Orange Soup That I Needed for Warmth.

I arrived home from work fah-reezing, as I always do.

I hate winter. I hate fall because it’s Winter Lite and it sometimes does things like taunting you with beautiful sunny days (like earlier this week) and then SLAMS YOU WITH SNOW IN OCTOBER (as is anticipated later today, Saturday, as I write this).

Anyway, soup is an essential on raw days. I still had more of my 15 lb. pumpkin to deal with, so I threw a cup or so of it on the stove along with another half cup or so of milk to thin it into brothiness and some spices (let’s see… cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger powder, cumin, chili powder, salt- a lot! This was plain pumpkin, uncanned!)

I also had a nice warm sweet/savory sandwich of a fried egg on a blueberry bagel thin. Kind of like a healthier McGriddle, eh?! Also some celery and hummus.

Rounded out with, as is essential this time of year, a veritable cauldron of tea.

   

More orange! More!

Orange Soup that Isn’t Actually Orange Soup!

Pumpkin+yogurt+stevia+pumpkin pie spice!

Identical! I’m beginning to fear I will be turning orange from this diet! I also can think of at least three unphotographed occasions upon which I have eaten this stuff, because it’s suuuuuuuuper delicious. With Greek or regular yogurt. It’s all light and fluffy and subtly sweet. A bit like a pumpkin chiffon pie, without the Frankenfood coolwhip.

I rounded out the meal with some mashed white beans and rosemary on toast (I love beans on toast so much. Never regret eating it!)

Annnnd some raw kale salad (massaged with olive oil, lemon juice, honey, and red pepper flakes), and an apple picking apple.

All together now.

 

I went to another tremendously inspiring work event. I am super in love with my job right now!

It was held in an apartment complex in Ward 8, one of the more economically disadvantaged areas of DC (though there is a really concerted effort right now by both city developers and the area’s residents to push for progress there).

The woman who runs this place, Ms Clark, is as radiant as the bright yellow they have painted their community center.

I arrived to a tantalizing poster of yummy and healthy looking foods.

Upon my enthusiasm in viewing that, she brought me out her recipe and ingredient binder. I totally love this idea: as part of our program, we were distributing farmer’s market vouchers at the end. However, I understand that particularly in a part of the city that only has one farmer’s market, people probably get a little overwhelmed seeing a lot of unfamiliar foods. (Haven’t we all looked at a random pile of greens like, uh, wtf is this?)

This binder makes it all make sense, and has recipe tips for everything! Love that!

Ms. Clark makes a daily supper for the kids at the community center in this:

That’s the entire kitchen. Oh, and that mini toaster and microwave? The extent of the kitchen equipment.

There used to be a larger toaster oven and a hot plate, but both were used and a little careworn looking. Someone inadvertently, in an effort to clean up, put them out with the garbage!

It made our cooking demo a leeetle tricky.

But Grace just did everything in the microwave, rather brilliantly I thought.

Micro-sauteed onions…

  

Which served as a flavor base for, you must have seen this coming, YET ANOTHER ORANGE SOUP!

On-the-job, Cooking-Demo Orange Soup.

This was sweet potato black bean soup. Super simple, healthy, cooked quickly, and as you can see by the dearth of options here, you really could use basically any cooking method.

Next- MASSAGED KALE SALAD!

Grace, my boss, was totally candid with the crowd that massaged kale salad is sort of an adventurous food, but it was also one of her favorites and she wanted everyone’s opinion.

What ended up happening? Everyone mixed the green salad with the orange soup :D Colorful, tasty, superfood.