Mulligatawny Detox Soup - Gluten-Free Goddess Style

Need to detox from the holiday? Make some mulligatawny soup.

Did you over indulge? Just a little? Don't worry, Darling. I've got a body and soul soothing cure. Mulligatawny detox soup. It's chock full of antioxidant vegetable goodness with detoxing spices to boot. Cook it on the stove top or in a Crock Pot and let it simmer for the afternoon, filling your kitchen with a comforting aroma that feels like one big hug.

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Cream of Broccoli Soup Recipe with Coconut Milk

An easy, creamy broccoli and potato soup that is vegan and gluten-free.

It's hard to not worry these days, I know. Epic snow storms dumping the white stuff without mercy- again. Students and protesters in Cairo risking life and limb for political change. Anderson Cooper- our lovely Silver Fox-  getting punched in the face by pro-Mubarak thugs. Where will it all lead, I ask you?

It's mighty tough for a sensitive soul prone to worry to cope with all this mishegas. To find a little comfort in this volatile atmosphere. That is why I am sharing another soup recipe. Just in case there is a kindred spirit out there in need of a bowl of creamy veggie comfort. A gluten-free vegan soup worthy of the Chinese New Year. It's the Year of the Rabbit, by the way (or as we like to say in my house, BUNNY!). And bunny's aren't known for punching or, in general, wreaking havoc. Unless you count Peter Rabbit's sneaky excursions into Mr. McGregor's garden or Max's devouring love of chocolate chickens.

The year of the bunny is ostensibly devoted to a milder temperment. To kindness and beauty and yes, comfort.

So it seemed only fitting I cook up a batch of vegan soup today as fresh and non-toxic as could be. Creamy, good-for-you soul food.

And by the way. Punxatawny Phil predicted an early spring today. True or not, it's got to be a welcome glimmer of hope for those shoveling out from under heaps of snow. Right?

Stay warm and safe, everyone. May peace prevail.


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Butternut Squash Soup with Coconut Milk

Smooth and silky vegan butternut squash soup with coconut milk.

Halloween is creeping toward us, minute by soon-to-be-an-hour-saved minute. Soft and slow but deft on black cat paws. I wake to the dry scratch clatter of leaves spinning down the sidewalk from Santa Monica Boulevard, riding the wind downhill like a gaggle of flattened tumbleweeds. I yawn awake dreaming of soup, imagining my favorite wooden spoon stirring the humble beginnings of some jewel toned potage as the French like to call it. Or so I'm told.

I don't speak French.

I'm craving soup like a mad woman, you see. Like some Shakespearean witch in the wild woods of West Hollywood, I long to stir a little seasonal magic into a pot of silky, orange hued soul food. So this week I conjured cooked up a curried fall classic. Every October I make batches of this gorgeous, comforting soup. That just so happens to be gluten-free, dairy-free and vegan.

The secret is- use ripe flavorful squash. Choose a butternut squash with firm golden-tan skin. The squash should make a hollow ring when thumped.

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Vegan Roasted Vegetable Chowder

Craving a bowl of comfort? Have I got a soup recipe for you.

Frost was not on the pumpkin this morning. Not my pumpkin, anyway. Mine's long gone. Turned into a pie. Well, that and it was 80 degrees yesterday. Skateboarders careening by my apartment (at impressive speeds for a Fat Tuesday) wore nothing but Aloha shorts. Welcome to Santa Monica in February.

But what was on my pumpkin- if I still had one?

Pollen, dude. The trees are blooming, doing their sexy spring thang. Bursting. Co-mingling. Giving the bees something to buzz about. And I'm all about having a good time. I believe in love. And bees. But tree pollen, I have to ask you. Why so hostile?

Can't we all just get along?

I am thick and stupid from your assault. Not to mention, dripping from frontal orifices (not the most attractive trait sported by a woman of a certain age, I assure you- though how would you even know? You're a microgametophyte, for goddess sake).

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Spicy Pumpkin Soup with Coconut Milk

Here's a recipe for a quick and easy pantry soup
that just so happens to be gluten-free.

Cleaning out the pantry always makes hungry. Come to think of it, so does packing. And lugging laundry. But the truth is, this time of year- anything can make me hungry. I could blame it on shorter daylight. Or the jarring touch of the cold tile floor when I tumble out of bed barefoot and sleepy and weave through boxes of books and movies to locate my tea mug, gone missing since three PM yesterday when I set it down- goddess knows where- to help my husband wrap one of my forty-inch square abstracts.

All of it makes me hungry.

But here's my top ten.

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Watermelon Gazpacho with Lime

Refreshing watermelon gazpacho. Serve cold, cold, cold.

Happy August. The Dog Days of Summer are upon us. The Back To School Sales have commenced. Evenings are shorter, sultry and sticky and it's too damn hot to cook. Here in our sweet little Santa Monica sublet the modest act of baking two potatoes nudges our ambient temperature to a hot flash inducing tie-dyed t-shirt peeling UGG tossing fever pitch. I pace and prowl for air like the downstairs yellow cat who slinks into our kitchen unnoticed despite his thunderous girth. I stick my sweaty matted head out the kitchen door inhaling the hope of an onshore breeze.

My restless, itchy body you see is trying to ignore the calendar.

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Vegan Carrot Soup

A simple and elegant vegan carrot soup.

Here's a fresh and easy vegan carrot soup recipe for spring. Why soup? Because it rains in spring. It snows in spring. It even does so simultaneously, accompanied by thunder, out here in the wilds of sunny New Mexico. We experienced the gamut of meteorological events over the weekend as we were loading boxes of books into the car. Four seasons in one day. Packing and unpacking. Once again weeding out what is no longer necessary, hunched in our cramped little storage unit, out of the stinging sleet, rummaging through boxes, weeding out for the next move. The migration West. To Southern California.

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Roasted Tomato Soup

A tomato soup recipe to cure all ills. Roasting is the secret.

When cabin fever hits, I am not a pretty sight. My hair has a static-inspired halo decidedly unholy. My chin breaks out (zits? At 53?). I pace and fidget. I am not the serene goddess you think I am.

I am itchy and creaky and sick to death of pilled winter sweaters- not to mention winter temperatures. You folks in Ohio? My thoughts are with you, Babycakes. Here in northern New Mexico I don't have much to kvetch about. But you? Oy. All that snow? It might crush me. Seriously. I'd be done.

So to celebrate the return of Daylight Saving (three weeks early, no less) I made a life affirming taste bud tingling pot of soup this weekend. See if this doesn't help quench your cabin fever.

Just a little.

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