Beach Walk, Sangria, and Freezer Soup

On a beautiful winter day, we decided to explore a local beach that we had never been to before.

Lots of tide pools to explore.  Bonus - I didn't fall once while climbing over all of those rocks!  I had a rough landing or two, that Ryan politely pretended he didn't see.

The striated pattern in the top left was a house!  

After a long, hot day we thought sangria and crosswords on our porch was an excellent idea.  We stopped at a new grocery store that Ryan has been eyeing, Lazy Acres, and were pretty impressed with the selection of products.  They had a giant bulk section, which is the biggest thing we were hoping for, and even purchased tea towel bags for future bulk purchases.  Their produce selection was awesome, thus making Lazy Acres a great replacement for our usual Whole Foods shopping trips.

For the sangria, we mixed one bottle of red wine with one bottle of sparkling lemonade.  We added strawberries, blueberries, sliced apples, and ice.  It was super simple and delish.

We both enjoyed it, and Tune was thrilled for cuddle time on the porch.

Maybe a little too thrilled....

We then decided to make a large batch of soup so we could have leftovers.  

Start by washing an assortment of greens.  Here we used one bunch of collards, one bunch of kale, and one bunch of spinach.  We forgot to use the brussel sprouts on the right side of the photo, but don't worry, they will make an appearance in a later post.

Chiffonade greens and set aside.

Slice a couple large onions and one to two cups of sun-dried tomatoes.

Slice any other veggies you like.  We added carrots as well, and steamed yams would be great, too.

Rinse lentils and wild or brown rice (rice not pictured).  You could also use beans, but they should be cooked first.

In each tupperware, we started by adding some lentils and rice.  Then added the non-green chopped veggies (carrot, onion, sun-dried tomatoes, whatever else you are using), then topped with greens. 

Ooops, forgot about garlic.  Add that to each tupperware also.

Cover each tupperware with water and freeze.

You may be wondering why we haven't actually cooked the soup.  Feel free to cook your soup, let cool, then add to tupperware and freeze.  For me, I just feel like it takes too much time to cook, cool, and freeze so I add ingredients that will cook quickly when the soup is heated.  (That's why I recommended using cooked beans and cooked potatoes instead of raw.)  When I need a quick dinner, I dump the frozen block of soup in a pot, cover, and turn on low to medium.  Once the lentils and rice are cooked, it's ready!  Experiment with flavors.  Flavor-wise, this recipe is pretty bare bones.  In ours, we had some frozen cubed of pesto so we added a couple of those in each tupperware.  Get creative and enjoy!