Vegetable Noodle Soup

I just came back from a spiritual retreat… the ones I spend in silence, meditating about 10 hours a day and fasting.  Yes… fasting.  No solid food – only water, lemon juice and honey…  We drink that “watered down lemonade” about 5 times a day, which helps our body use up all the energy it usually uses up digesting food to actually eliminate a lot of toxins that accumulate over time…

After these retreats, you feel light and energized, but you also you need to ease your body into taking solid foods again… We usually start with a huge fruit salad – today’s salad had a lot of papaya and bananas with a little bit of mangoes and other “sweet” fruits.  But after that, your body starts getting hungry… and what better way to welcome your system to solid food again than with a hearty vegetable soup.

Literally, it took me 25 minutes to make this soup.  It hit the spot…

VEGETABLE NOODLE SOUP

4 baby red-skinned potatoes, quartered

1 carrot, sliced

1/2 onion, sliced

1 tbs sofrito

1 tbs olive oil

1 vegetable broth bullion cube

1 bunch of noodles – whole wheat vermicelli

Salt and Pepper to taste

about 2 cups of water

5-6 grape tomatoes, quartered – optional

2 handfuls of fresh spinach leaves – optional

1. In a medium pot over medium heat, pour olive oil.  When the oil has heat up a bit, add sofrito and the vegetable bullion cube.  Smash the cube a bit so that it dissolves better.
2. Add the onions.  Saute for a little while.
3. Add the cut potatoes and the carrots.  Saute for a little while to give it a head start.
4. Add the tomatoes.
5. Add enough water to cover the vegetables.  Cover and let it boil at a medium roll for about 20 minutes.
6. After 20 minutes, the potatoes and the carrots should be done.
7. Add the noodles and stir so the noodles separate and they don’t stick together.  Cover again.
8. After the noodles have cooked, about 5 minutes, add the spinach leaves.  They will wilt into the broth almost immediately.  Cover and turn off the heat.  Let the soup finish cooking with the residual heat.
9.  After about 10 minutes… serve and enjoy.

This is the foundation recipe – to this you can add anything else you might have on your fridge – mushrooms, peppers, celery, etc.  Your imagination is the limit… 

 This is also the same soup recipe I make when I am feeling “under-the-weather”…  so you can say this is my “vegetable soup for my soul”.  From my soul to yours… buen provecho.