You can use cauliflower to thicken any soup. Simply blend cooked cauliflower with some broth from the soup until it is silky smooth. Add back to your soup. There is no need to cook the soup any further since the cauliflower is already cooked.

After creating the cauliflower leek soup last week, I realized that not only did the cauliflower add thickness to the soup, it also added a silky creaminess that you normally only get with lots of fat.  This gave me the idea to make a cream of asparagus soup with no cream.

Asparagus has been good at the farmer’s market, so I bought a few bunches last week.  We ate the tender parts roasted on the grill but I saved the tough stems to use for the soup.  How’s that for frugal!!!  Here is my simple recipe that was super healthy and quite delicious.  I will definitely make this again.

Cauliflower asparagus soup

• 1 head of cauliflower, chopped in 1 inch pieces
• End from 2-3 bunches of asparagus
• 4 cups of water (or chicken or vegetable stock)
• 2t chicken bouillon (omit if using stock above)
• white pepper and salt to taste

Put the cauliflower and asparagus in a large pot with the water (or stock) and bouillon.  Bring to a boil and simmer for 1 hour.  Let cool to at least room temperature and then blend until very smooth.  The stems are fibery so you’ll need to strain it with a coarse strainer.  I didn’t have a suitable strainer and actually strained this through a mesh bag that onions came in.  It totally worked!!!  Season with white pepper and salt.  If you don’t have white pepper you can use regular pepper.  White pepper really is perfect for this, though.

More ideas to thicken soup with cauliflower!

I have more cauliflower and vegetables lined up to try more variations on this.  I can’t wait to try this cauliflower soup with:

• brocolli
• roasted peppers
• pumpkin
• bacon and onion
• bacon, onion and clams (like chowder)

I better cut this post off now because I keep thinking of new variations.  I hope this gives you ideas of your own.

The post How to thicken soup with cauliflower- cream of asparagus appeared first on Frugal Cooking.

It’s no surprise that we crave sugar.  Our bodies still have built-in mechanisms that helped our ancestors survive regular cycles of feast and famine.  Those mechanisms now tell us to shovel in the sugar.  When we do, our brains reward us with a release of beta endorphins, which makes us feel good.  We then crave that good feeling sugar gives us and the cycle repeats.  The craving-reward cycle turns into an addiction, not unlike smoking or alcohol abuse.

You can break this sugar cycle, but not overnight.  Simply swapping out fruit for Oreos is likely to cause rebellion in your household.  Done gradually, reducing your family’s consumption of sugar using the tips below can get your kids to reach for fruit and healthy snacks without them even noticing.

Read food labels.  Mayonnaise has added sugar.  Ewwww… Why?!?!?!  There is sugar in a lot more food items than you may realize.  Reading labels will help you know what foods are adding to your family’s sugar consumption.  Look for things like sugar, high fructose corn syrup, dextrose, glucose, etc…   Consider cutting down on those foods or making them yourself so you can control the ingredients.

Make more things from scratch– especially food items that normally contain a lot of sugar, like cookies, cereal, granola and other treats and desserts.  Making thses items from scratch help you control exactly what’s in the foods your family eats.

Reduce the amount of sugar in recipes.  If a recipe calls for 1 cup of sugar and you cut that down to 3/4, in most cases, no one will even notice.  There are ways to make EVERYTHING with less sugar that will still make your family smile.  Slowly cutting down on the amount of sugar and sweetener will get your family’s taste buds reset so items with less sugar will taste just as sweet.

Use healthy sugar substitutes. Natural substitutes like fruit juice, stevia and agave can be used along with or combined with sugar to create treats that are amazingly delicious without adding tons of sugar OR chemical sweeteners.

Substitute healthy treats. Once your family starts getting used to foods that are less sweet, fruit will taste much better.  Try combining fruit with your treats to get your family used to eating fruit again.

When you’ve cut down on your family’s sugar consumption you’ll be rewarded by knowing you’re helping them be their best and live long, healthy lives.

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So why is agave better than just plain table sugar?  It has to do with the balance of sugars it contains.  Agave contains mostly fructose, which is also the main sugar in most fruits.  Fructose is much slower to raise blood sugar than sucrose (white table sugar) so doesn’t cause the sugar highs and lows associated with most sugary foods.  This is measured using the glycemic index.  Agave is very low on the glycemic index (15) compared with table sugar (70) or corn syrup (110).  Foods low on the glycemic index keep your blood sugar more even which results in less of the sugar converted to fat.  It’s a good idea, in general, to eat more foods low on the glycemic index.

Use agave in most recipes where you would use regular sugar.  It’s sweeter than sugar by 3x so use 1/3cup per 1cup of regular sugar.  You might need to reduce the amount of liquid in your recipe a bit since agave is a liquid itself.  It dissolves easier than sugar in cold drinks so is great in iced tea.  It is a great substitute for sugar in cereal and oatmeal.  Once of my favorite places to use agave is in homemade granola:

Agave granola

• 3 cups old fashioned rolled oats (not instant)
• 1 cup of any kind of chopped nuts
• 2T flax seeds
• 2T almond flour
• 2T shelled sunflower seeds
• 1/2t salt
• 1/3 cup agave syrup
• 1/3 cup canola or safflower oil
• 1 cup raisins or other dried fruit

Mix up the dry stuff and add the wet stuff, except for the raisins.  Bake at 300F for about 30min, stirring every 5-10min.  It should pick up a light brown color.  Make sure it doesn’t burn.  Take it out and mix in the raisins and cool completely.  I eat this with plain yogurt.  YUM!

Ok, you’re probably wondering how frugal agave really is.  Well, it definitely costs more than regular sugar.  The health benefits of avoiding regular sugar are so high that I feel the extra price is worth it.  I wouldn’t use agave to make up items for a bake sale, but when it comes to my family, they’re worth it.

I hope you try agave some time.  If you end up using agave in a favorite recipe, post a comment and share it with us!

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I’m sure you’ve heard that brown rice is better for you than white rice.  There are many web pages that go into all the specifics of exactly why.  I don’t need to repeat that.  I’m just going to give you the basic reasons brown rice is better and then give you some suggestions for what to do with it so your family won’t freak out when you switch them over.  If some of these reasons sound oversimplified, it’s because they are- just trust me on this.

White rice starts as brown rice but then has all the “good stuff” stripped off.  Here is the result of this:

• Brown rice is higher in fiber which makes you feel full and helps keep your insides moving
• Brown rice is higher in vitamins and minerals which are (duh) good for you
• Brown rice is lower glycemic, which (very roughly) translates into “it doesn’t make you fat”

Ok, so how do you use brown rice?  First, it takes longer to cook and needs more water since it still has it’s outer bran coating.  You’ll need to cook it for about 50min with 2x as much water as rice- so for 1 cup of brown rice use 2 cups of water.  If you have a rice cooker, it will work just fine- just adjust the water and the rice cooker will automatically cook for the right time.  If you’re making a recipe that calls for uncooked white rice, you can parboil brown rice for 30 min and then add to the recipe.

To get your family used to brown rice, try making separate half batches of white and brown rice and then mix them together when cooked.  You can vary the size of the batches until they’re eating mostly or all brown rice.  Brown rice also makes great fried rice- they may not even notice the difference.  Also use brown rice in receipes by either fully cooking or parboiling as mentioned in the paragraph above.

If you come up with a good way to get your family on the brown rice bandwagon, post a comment to let us all know.

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Quinoa is high in protein (12%-18%) and has a complete set of amino acids unlike most other grains.  This makes quinoa especially good for vegans and vegetarians that don’t get protein from animal products.  Quinoa is also high in fiber, phosphorous, magnesium and iron.  It also has no gluten.

Quinoa is also very low on the glycemic index with a value of 35.  Foods with a low glycemic index are great for diabetics and anyone watching his/her weight.  By comparison brown rice has a glycemic index of 50, white rice 85, and corn syrup 115 (which goes into many commercially processed foods).

There is a very complete article of quinoa at Wikipedia.

Cook quinoa just like you cook rice except use 2 cups water for every cup of quinoa.  If you search online you will find many recipes that use quinoa.  Quinoa also comes ground as a flour that can be used in recipes calling for rice, oat, or other flours that contain no gluten.

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