Lentsch Plant Based Journey

This is our favorite, go-to, last minute suppers. My husband normally HATES soup because “I don’t want to drink my supper”. This soup is just chunky enough (and flavorful) that he doesn’t complain. I love how easy this recipe is too.

Don’t mind my old-iphone-not-so-insta-worthy picture of this amazing soup!

Vegan Cabbage Roll Soup

Ingredients

1/2 head of cabbage OR 2 – 16 oz bags of coleslaw mix
1 -12 oz bag frozen sliced carrots
1 – 28 oz can Petite diced tomatoes
2 cups rice or quinoa
2 tbsp granulated beef bouillon
4 cups water
*3 fresh medium sized tomatoes (diced)
*1 finely chopped onion

*optional

Directions

If using head of cabbage finely slice into strips.
Add all ingredients but the rice to your favorite soup pot and boil until cabbage and carrots are tender.
While remaining ingredients are cooking, cook the rice according to directions.
Enjoy your super easy supper!

A few things I have learned with this recipe:

You can add your rice directly to the pot and boil with the other ingredients to make this a one pot meal; however, I usually always have left over rice or quinoa in my fridge and just add it into the bottom of my bowl. I also enjoy the texture of the rice when it is cooked separately. I have a rice cooker so this makes the process easy and makes perfect rice (or quinoa) EVERY time.

The taste of this soup gets better and better the longer it boils. I have never tried it in my slow cooker (due to the fact this is usually a last minute meal) but I can only imagine how amazing the taste would be!

Let me start off by saying that I am by no means a professional at this. I am simply another lame human looking to improve my health and eating habits. This brings us to how we began this journey. I tried convincing the husband a couple of times to make the switch to a more plant based style eating and my lord you would have thought I cursed his grandmothers grave. And then he watched that new documentary, Game Changers, on Netflix and poof he was on board. We are currently six weeks into this journey and we are loving it; however, we still are riding the roller coaster of bad eating habits. The only good thing is that instead of our bad eating habits including binge eating fast food it now consists of the occasional use of dairy and meat…well and maybe the occasional fast food outing. We are currently struggling with the problem of variety in our meals. I was doing the usual Pinterest search for recipes and the light bulb turned on – why not start a blog to hold our new recipes and share them with others who are also struggling with variety? We have definitely had our share of failed attempts at WFPB meals as well – I figured these were just as important to share with others as the good stuff. So, here we are! We hope you enjoy and I hope this helps with our roller coaster and motivates us to stick with this healthy lifestyle!

What are some of the reasons we decided to make the switch?

Fertility. We have been trying to conceive for over a year and all the research supports a plant based diet. This is due to the fact of removing red meats, etc. from your diet. This was my #1 reason for deciding the switch.
Muscle gain. This is my husbands #1 reason. After watching the Game Changers documentary he realized that he doesn’t have to have animal protein in order to gain muscle. This was his #1 concern the first few rounds of me trying to convince him. So ladies (and gentleman) I highly suggest the documentary Game Changers for those who are gym rats. (The documentary that opened my eyes was What The Health – also on Netflix)
Fatigue. This was a reason after the fact of starting the WFPB diet that has kept us from stopping. One of the BIGGEST things both of us has noticed is the increase in energy that we have had.
Overall health. We have known for a long time that veggie based meals are obviously the better way to go. I’ve been on the weight loss bandwagon for awhile and have rode that roller coaster for a LONG time. Six weeks in and this has been the easier weight loss I’ve ever had. The best part? I haven’t actually really been trying. I eat until i’m full and I don’t count calories or drink shakes and honestly haven’t worked out in a good four weeks (oops). I will jump back into the gym after the holidays are over, but until then i’m going to use every excuse I have to not workout simply because I don’t want to and because I am confident in my eating habits!
Now obviously there are many other factors that have contributed to this eating lifestyle and we want to share these with you along the way. Or maybe it will just be for us and nobody will ever read this. Either way we are excited to start documenting this journey!!