Thanks to the Chew....

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I like to watch "The Chew". For those of you who don't know about "The Chew", it's sort of a take off on "The View" with food, recipes and cooking -- and Dr. Oz's daughter.

I'm a big fan of Dr. Oz's and, though I don't agree with everything he says or has on his show,I respect him. I've read several of his "YOU" books (with his best friend Michael Roizen) and I try to watch his Fox program whenever I can.

While Dr. Oz isn't a vegetarian, he has mentioned that his wife is. A few days ago, Lisa Oz was on "The Chew" with her daughter, Daphne, and together they made a nice autumn chestnut soup. Now, of course, I never follow anyone's recipe (except my own :-) without making some changes.

I decided to keep some of the main ingredients, but I made it my own.

Here are the ingredients I used:

2 cups Vegetable broth (I used packaged Imagine)
1/2 cup frozen shiitake mushrooms
1 small sweet potato, diced
2-3 cups frozen broccoli florets
2 cups almond "milk"
1/2 teaspoon each turmeric, paprika, ground ginger and coriander
1/4 teaspoon each ground cloves, garam masala and cumin
5.3 ounce package of chestnuts
2 tablespoons dried cranberries (optional -- I use the apple juice sweetened variety)

(All the veggies and spices I use are organic, as are the chestnuts)
I basically started by putting the first 3 ingredients in a pot and started cooking until it boiled. I turned the flame down, simmering the ingredients. I added the "milk" and spices, continuing to simmer, then added the chestnuts. When everything was cooked through, I added the broccoli and simmered for about 2 minutes, then turned off the flame and allowed the mixture to cool a bit. I put all the solid ingredients with as much liquid as I needed into my food processor and pureed. I added the cranberries after most of the pureeing was finished and pureed some more, leaving some chunks of cranberries. The cranberries add a bit of sweetness.

I'm sure you can try this with other veggies, perhaps some onions, scallions, garlic, perhaps carrots (or other orange veggie) or even zucchini (or other "summer" squash).

If you'd like to see the segment where Daphne and Lisa Oz collaborate to make Daphne's version of this soup (the segment is about 6 minutes long with commercial), see it here.