Smooth Beet Soup...a nutritional powerhouse!

Love that there aren't many ingredients!

1 1/2 pounds beets (about 6 medium) trimmed & scrubbed

4oz. shallots (about 4 medium) peeled & cut into 1/2 inch slices

2 garlic cloves

1 Tbsp. olive oil

1-2 tsp. balsamic vinegar

1/4 tsp both salt & pepper

2 Tbsp toasted chopped walnuts

4 tsp. snipped fresh dill

4 tsp. low-fat plain Greek yogurt

1. Preheat oven to 400F

2. In a shallow baking pan place beets, shallots and garlic. Pour the olive oil over the beets and stir to coat the vegetables. Cover the pan tightly with aluminum foil and roast until the beets are very tender when pierced with a knife, about 50 minutes.

3. When the beets are cool enough to handle, peel the skins off. Coarsely chop them and place them in a food processor with the garlic and shallots.

4. Pour 1 cup of water into the pan and use a wooden spoon to scrape any browned bits from the bottom of the pan (place the pan over low heat, if necessary, to help scrape the bottom clean). Transfer the water and drippings to the food processor. Process until smooth. Transfer to a saucepan and add 2 cups water. Heat over medium heat and stir in 1-2 tsp. balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper.

5. Spoon soup into four bowls and top each with walnuts, dill  & yogurt.

an easier version to Borscht

Recipe taken directly from this book

So I have a new friend, and her name is Jillian Michaels. Wasn't really looking for any of her books, she is more known as a workout guru. Which by the way, I have 4 of her DVDs and they are fabulous & butt-kicking!! But since I was doing her workouts, I wanted to know her mentality on nutrition. The book featured is her cookbook, but the theory behind this cookbook is in her other book 'Master Your Metabolism'. Bascially she links how 10 of our hormones control our metabolism, mood, appetite & how it gets processed in our body. It was quite interesting because I have never read it coming from this angle, and from my nursing perspective it made a lot of sense!! She talks about: insulin, thyroid, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone (yep women have it too), DHEA, norepinephrine, epinephrine, cortisol, & growth hormone. She also stressed how the chemicals in our environment also effect these hormones: everything from our cosmetics to pesticides, and much more in between. Planning to purchase both books, waiting for the cookbook to come out with the Kindle edition. Since I am such a book worm, had to buy a Kindle bc my book library was getting much too big. Plus we have been moving every 9-12months, and packing & moving those books is a real haul!