Chips Were My Downfall

Today was the first time I had anything non-vegan to eat in four days! Yea! It was a bag of harvest cheddar Sun Chips so it wasn't that bad. Grocery shopping was a lot better/easier this time and the only dairy product we bought was 2% milk for Chris since he doesn't like the soy milk I bought. I, however, love the new soy milk and went through it faster than I have gone through any cow milk. So yummy!

On another note, tonight I donated plasma for the first time. I apparently did not drink enough water beforehand and felt extremely lightheaded after. I was extremely happy that I prepared dinner in the slow cooker earlier in the day. And even happier with my choice since it contains a variety of vegetables, meaning a variety of nutrients :) I love it even more than the tortilla soup and therefore am sharing this one as well. It's brown rice, chickpea, and vegetable soup (I know it's long but that's the name from the book) from my favorite  'Get Healthy, Go Vegan' cookbook.

Chickpea Soup (way shorter name)

What you need:

• 5 cups vegetable broth
• 1/2 cup brown rice
• 1 (15 oz) can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 1 medium carrot, chopped
• 1/2 cup small cauliflower florets
• 1/2 small broccoli florets
• 1 (15 oz) can chopped tomatoes
• 2 tsp dried basil
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• Kosher or sea salt to taste (completely forgot this and it was still great)
• Freshly ground black pepper to taste

The process:

• Bring the broth to a boil in a large saucepan. Add chickpeas, carrot, cauliflower, broccoli, tomatoes, basil, and oregano and simmer for 15-20 minutes.
• Add the brown rice. Cover, reduce heat to low, and cook for 10 minutes. Season with salt and black pepper. 

As you can see from the process, in his recipe, you would normally cook it stove top with quick cooking brown rice. We didn't have that so I slow cooked all of the ingredients on low for six hours. And here's the results! Sorry, it's a bad phone picture.