It's RECIPE TIME!
Please note: I have done this in freestyle, sometimes known as hippie-chow style. That means two things, I use whatever ingredients I wanted which are available; and there were no precise measurements, just lots of winging it, and TLAR style portions (That Looks About Right).
INGREDIENTS:
- 4 inch section leeks, thin sliced
- 1 whole purple sweet potato, cubed
- 1 large carrot, cubed
- 1 "tree" brocolli, cubed
- half stem rhubarb, sliced
- 1 cup sliced fresh shitake mushrooms, sliced
- one stem celery, sliced
- 1 orange worth of rind, including white inside, pieced
- 1 cup chopped green dandelion greens
- 4 brussel sprouts, separated into leaves
- 2 cups worth of chopped collard greens
- 1 cup worth of chopped dino kale
- 2 cups worth of sliced bok choy
- 1 cup worth of sectioned sugar snap peas
- 1 1/2 cup spinach
- 1/2 of a large mutant heirloom tomato
- 1 teaspoon sea salt, real salt, himilayan pink salt, or morrocan black salt
- 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1 tablespoon of your favorite cooking oil
- 1/2 gallon water, preferably filtered real good, or better
PREPARATION:
Spoon that cooking oil into bottom of pot, coat that bottom! Turn the heat on high. Using your hand, separate and sprinkle half the leeks into bottom of pan, let those sizzle real nice until you smell the strong aroma of cooking and browning leeks. Quickly pour in water, the more dramatic the loud sizzle, the better! It actually affects the soup stock.
Bring that pot to a rolling boil, then reduce heat to medium. Add in the rest of the leeks; sweet potato; carrots; brocolli STEMS (not the florets); rhubarb; mushrooms; celery; orange rinds; and dandelion greens. Cover and let cook for an hour. Lower heat to simmer at about 15 minutes in.
Now that hour has passed, add the rest of the ingredients mixing as you add a handful of the ingredients at a time. Turn heat off. Serve. Add in those last ingredients quickly, as you want to serve soup when those last set of ingredients are at their most vivid color. This soup feeds 4 to 6 people; or 2 Peter sized portions. :-)

Today, I went to help a friend do some work on her laptop - this has been something that was pending for several months now, mainly due to her needing her laptop all the time, and the issues on it not critical enough to outweigh being without it for more than a brief time. She also did not want the laptop to leave her home, so I went to her place to perform the services.
She left a pile of ingredients on the counter top and I knew what to do when the time came - make something fancy with the ingredients on hand. I also had a bit of young brussel sprouts with me in my backpack, so I added that to the pile, and grabbed some other ingredients and spices from their places and also added them to the pile. So without further ado:

Ingredients:

3 Granny Smith Apples
2 medium Cucumbers
2 peeled limes
1 knuckle ginger

Directions:

Juice ingredients, mix, serve with ice, or chilled.  Enjoy!

Please note that I used all SLO (Sustainable Organic Local) ingredients, as I do not have much of a spice repertoire to provide that extra flavor, and tended to use smaller vegetables as I found they tend to be much more flavorful then larger vegetables. So if you are not going to follow this, I suggest adding some savory and herb type spices. This was my way to compensate for the lack of spices. If you find any good spice suggestions that work well with this dish, please let me know. I am looking to build up my spice repertoire!

Ingredients:

1 avocado
1 cup milk (or nut milk)
Some maple syrup

Directions:

Blend all ingredients until uniformly smooth. Serve, enjoy!

The taste will be that of avocado, with a bit of sweetness.

Notes:

Actual recipe combines the latter two ingredients by using sweetened & condensed milk.  You can use any milk substitute here.

You can substitute the maple syrup with any sweetener.  I just happen to have had some Canadian maple syrup available, and it turned out fantastic!

Ingredients:

2 cups water
4 tablespoons butter
1 cup dry breadcrumbs
Some sage (My friend Barbara contributed this gem ingredient!, TLAR)
1 large eggplant, diced (or two smaller ones)
2 large zucchini, diced (or four smaller ones)
1 onion, chopped
1 tomato, chopped
Some sliced mushrooms (Barbara also contributed this gem!,TLAR)
Some thyme (TLAR)
Salt & Pepper to taste

Directions:

In a microwave-safe bowl, mix and water and butter (cut into pieces, or heat combo until butter melts). Stir in breadcrumbs; heat, covered for 8 to 10 minutes. Mix in sage and fluff with fork. Set aside.

Place eggplant, zucchini, tomato, onion, and mushroom into a large skillet. Season with thyme, salt, and pepper. Cook and stir over medium low heat for 15 to 20 minutes. Set aside, or let simmer.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 2 quart casserole dish.

Layer vegetables, cheese, and stuffing in a 2 quart casserole dish until all ingredients have been used.*

Bake for 30 to 40 minutes.

Enjoy!

Notes:

You may have seen a few mentions of TLAR. It stands for "That Looks About Right" where you just use an amount according to taste or preference, or you keep adding it in until it seems right. For spices, I seem to do a moderate sprinkling, for mushrooms, add to preference.

You can switch the cheese and bread-stuffing layer however you want. I usually put the vegetables at the bottom. Barbara and I liked the cheese to be the middle layer and the bread-stuffing at the top, so that the cheese melts into the vegetables.

You can choose to grease the pan or skip it. I usually dont because I do not see the point, the vegetables are not sticky, and the bread-stuffing is just a single layer, so theres minimal sticking.

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