“So how is this different from a smoothie?” asks my hubby, as he looks at the blender full of veggies.

I look at the blender, then at him and say, “because we are putting it in a bowl and eating it with a spoon.”

“Fair enough.” He replies.

This was the conversation in my kitchen last night as I prepared my first ever raw soup. Not only had I never made one, I had never tried one before. Not even gazpacho. Despite all the reading I had done the past few days, his question made me very nervous, even though that wasn’t his intention; he was genuinely curious. I was just thankful that we had eaten a large lunch.

Five minutes later, Hubby tried it first and exclaimed, “Wow, this is actually pretty good.”

I had to agree! After the initial spoonful and getting over the weirdness of eating a cold soup, each bite became even better. More surprisingly, we were full after a single serving. Plus, I have been fighting a pretty wicked asthmatic cough the past week and after eating the soup I had my first solid night sleep in over five days.  I can’t swear that it was due to all the super flu buster foods I added, but it is the only thing I had changed from the previous days. Unfortunately, when I woke up the cough is still hanging on so I may have to eat the soup again tonight. Might as well, being as it only took ten minutes to make!

I would like to give a shout out to Eva at Uncooking 101 for guiding me through my 21 day raw food adventure! It has been thrilling so far!! Can’t wait to see where the journey takes me!

Ingredients:
1 lb roma tomatoes
1 jalapeno (take out seed for less heat)
2 stalks celery
1 carrot
1 large small shallot
2 cloves garlic
juice of one orange
juice of one lime
1/2 cup cashew cream
1/4 of one yellow bell pepper (that’s how much I had, you could use more)
2 dates soaked for 30 minutes
1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 cup cilantro
1/4 tsp Himalayan salt
1 tbsp raw pumpkin seeds

Directions:
Dice 1 tomato and 1/4 of the jalapeno. Mix this tomato and jalapeno with 1/2 of the cilantro and all of the pumpkin seeds in a bowl. Set aside

Put all remaining ingredients into blender including date water. Run blender on high for 1 minute until everything is creamy. Pour into bowls. Sprinkle pumpkin seed mixture over each soup and serve. Serves 2-4.