roasted garlic soup

Of all the foods on the planet, I believe I adore garlic the most. I love it in everything, but I have to make sure that my hubby eats some when I do otherwise he gets a little distant.

Garlic happens to be very healthful and so delicious - when properly utilized, that is.

I made a soup for today's lunch that had garlic in the soup itself (using the garlic from making garlic oil) and in the croutons as the garlic oil.

So, so good.

This is relatively a quick soup, but oh so elegant. I gave the soup some body with some cashew milk (only works if it is homemade) and added a few yellow chillies for flavor. To serve, I put some 'queso fresco' (that I had in the fridge, using the same basic recipe that I used for making Feta a few weeks back), some black beans, avocado and tomatoes from our garden, into a bowl, ladled the soup on and topped it with the garlic croutons.

Cost Breakdown:

homemade stock: $1

cashews: $1

garlic, olive oil: $2

queso freso (optional): $1

chili: $.50

black beans: $2

avocado: :1.50

tomato: $1

bread: $1

Total to feed 5 people:

$11.00

banana french toast

The family has loved the 'Fronch Toast' recipe out of Vegan With a Vengeance, so when I saw 'Banana Rabanada' in Vegan Brunch, we had to give it a try. It is French Toast with bananas and cocoa. Now those two are a match made in heaven, so this recipe was bound to be great.

It was. Very simple to make. The only problem I had was with my cast-iron griddle - I should have used a little more fat to keep them from sticking. The sugar in the bananas were caramelizing the toast and making them stick too much.

Cost Breakdown

bread: $3

almond milk: $1

bananas: $1

cocoa: $.25

maple syrup:  $2

Total to feed a family of 5:

$7.25