The Art of Consciously Creating Food: Kasey's Creamy Mushroom Lentil Kale Soup

This blog is for all things related to "The Art of Consciously Creating Life."  

By practicing this art, we become more and more aware of ourselves and the world around us.  As we become more aware of ourselves, we also are uncovering our deepest soul desires for this life, our strengths and weaknesses, and our gifts and talents.  As we become more aware of the world around us, we begin to connect to the support of the ground beneath us and the inspiration from source above us - and we begin to realize ourselves as the vessel of manifestation between the two.  We begin to pay attention to the seasons and the travels of the sun and moon and align with those energies that tell us when to move and when to pull back and regroup.  And we begin to understand ourselves as the complex beings that we are.  We are not just the physical.  We are not just the spiritual.  We do not create in a vacuum.  We are made up of things seen and unseen, as is our world.  The more conscious we become, the better we are able to integrate our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual beings, and the more adept we become at aligning our truest soul desires with the energies at play around us in order to co-create with the universe.  

What I have experienced personally is that we work on one piece, and then another follows, as we have to catch up the rest of our being.  So for example if we experience profound spiritual growth, we will then probably find ourselves cleaning up our diet and habits.  We could change jobs in this case or our entire social circle might fall away to make room for a new one.  If we grow by leaps and bounds on the physical plane by cleaning up our habits, routines, and diet, and by honoring our body as a temple, we may then find ourselves shifting on the mental, emotional and spiritual planes as a result.  

What I have found is many times as well, I can see in an astrology chart when certain types of growth are likely to occur.  I have seen it in my own, and having lived it, I can say that I don't think I could've forced it to happen faster or somehow found a shortcut around it.  Knowing about the work we need to do in life and understanding it doesn't get us out of it.  We still have to live it to actually learn and grow.  Yet, I feel that astrology is a tool for becoming more and more conscious of ourselves, our work and the world around us, and that is why I focus so intently on it.

Which brings me to something else I am intently focused on:  food.  Years ago after dealing with multiple health issues for years, I ended up being diagnosed by blood test under the guidance of a naturopath with food allergies.  I was allergic to the trifecta of foods - gluten, dairy and eggs.  Not only was I suffering from migraines and depression, at the same time I was diagnosed with the food allergies I was diagnosed with low thyroid and adrenal fatigue.  And after years of avoiding the foods my body finds poisonous, I was able to go off of the thyroid medication, and I am migraine-free.  

More recently I have found myself in a battle with parasites - hitchhikers from my travels abroad.  Funny thing - the physical manifestation of those vampiric drainers of life-force are not only a sign of giving away one's power, but of those same energies existing on a person's emotional and spiritual planes.  More on that in another post.  The point is, this has sent me on a mission of exploring how upsets in our enteric nervous system (the nervous system that lines our digestive tract) affects our everything.  This peculiar predicament has forced me into being way more conscious about food and the effect it has on my system.  In this process, I have realized that our bodies truly are our temples and what happens in our physical realm most definitely affects us on a mental, emotional and spiritual level.  Eating for anxiety, eating for depression, eating for enlightenment - these are all very real things.

And so the arts of consciously creating food and consciously eating are absolutely parts of The Art of Consciously Creating Life.

With fall now fast turning to winter, this soup recipe has been on my mind.  I developed it with a creamy mushroom soup in mind I had tasted at a restaurant before I knew about my food allergies.  The soup I remembered was absolutely delicious (enough for me to remember it years later) but I had not come across anything since then that was similar that was dairy-free.  

There are actually two recipes here.  The first one is for the vegetable broth that makes the base of the soup.  This vegetable broth recipe is from an ayurvedic cookbook that I no longer have - it is just that I loved this recipe to much it has been committed to memory over the years.  You can of course substitute store-bought broth instead of making this, but I promise it will not be as good.

​Happy Eating!

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Veggie Broth
2 fennel bulbs, coarsely chopped
5 carrots, coarsely chopped
4 leaves bok choy, coarsely chopped
2 zucchini (small, or 1 large, peeled, coarsely chopped)
1 sweet potato, coarsely chopped
4” leek, coarsely chopped
Thyme
Parsley
8 C filtered water

Make 6 C Veggie Broth: (2 fennel bulbs, 5 carrots, 4” leek, 4 leaves bok choy, 2 zucchinis, 1 sweet potato, thyme, parsley – coarsely chop, add 8 cups filtered water, bring to boil and simmer for 40 minutes…strain.)

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Kasey's Creamy Mushroom Lentil Kale Soup
1 ½ C oyster mushrooms, coarsely chopped
1 ½  C baby Portobello mushrooms, coarsely chopped
1 ½  C shitake mushrooms, coarsely chopped
4” leek, sliced
6 cloves garlic
2 T butter/Earthbalance vegan butter to saute mushrooms, leek and garlic in
1 C red lentils
½ bunch kale, rolled and thinly sliced
Veggie Broth

Take mushrooms, leek and garlic and saute in butter, set aside.

Bring lentils in broth to a simmer and simmer 15 minutes or until tender.
Strain lentils from broth.

Set aside 1 C of mushroom leek mix and ½ C lentils.
Puree the rest in food processor of mushroom mix and lentils together in food processor.
Slowly add broth to puree in the food processor to blend together.
Put pureed mixture back in pot on stove.
Bring to simmer.
Add sliced kale and simmer 15 minutes.
Season to taste with salt and pepper.