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Why Soups Can Be So Absurdly SANE and Scrumptious


CARRIE: Lovely listeners. This is Carrie Brown in a beautiful warm sunny studio in the heart of Seattle with Mr. Jonathan Bailor.

JONATHAN: What’s up Carrie? Yourpronunciation was exceptional on that introduction. You used many words which would trip most up, but you did not stumble at all.

CARRIE: It’s the sunshine. Makes me happy.

JONATHAN: The sunshine makes your pronunciation better?

CARRIE: It makes me talk better when I’m happy.

JONATHAN: (Inaudible 00:00:52)

CARRIE: I did. Anyway, what are we talking about kind sir?

JONATHAN: Well, Madam Carrie, I have the good fortune this morning to author the forward to a book which quite honestly changed my life.

CARRIE: Wow. That must be quite some book if it changed your life.

JONATHAN: Well, the author gets on my nerves sometimes, but the concept of the book is quite good.

CARRIE: I’m just scared to ask.

JONATHAN: Well, no, lovely listeners, you definitely know and hopefully have purchased and very much enjoyed Carrie Brown’s first book which is called…Carrie…

CARRIE: Eat Desert First. Ice Creams.

JONATHAN: And I had the great, great opportunity to write a forward for her second book which is called…

CARRIE: Something. Something and then Soups.

JONATHAN: Something and then Soups, so yes it is about soups, but what is amazing about this book is before Carrie turned it into book format, she explained the premise to me and I say this not an exaggeration — after understanding what Carrie was doing and creating my lazy person version of it, it has literally changed the way I eat, and I mean — I’m a little weird, so when something fundamentally changes the way I eat, it’s noteworthy, so I am so excited about this work. Carrie how did you come to create this?

CARRIE: Well, I asked my – lovely Facebook followers what they wanted me to focus on next – after I knocked out the ice cream book and the resounding response was — vegetables – help us eat more vegetables, give us new ways to eat vegetables, we need more vegetables, veggies, veggies, veggies — there were requests for other things too, but the most frequent response was, we know we need to eat more veggies, help us do that – and I guess in my mind there’s four ways to maximize your veggies — that would be smoothies, salads, vegetable sides, and soups and since it is just the start of fall here and kind of heading into soup season in the northern hemisphere that seemed like the most fitting option to work on first, so soups it was.

JONATHAN: The thing that blew my mind about this and Carrie will get into this more in the show, but you know I’m a fan of the Vitamix and just blending stuff up and I’m a green smoothie king and I cannot believe how much more value the Vitamix could add to my life when I started thinking of it as a way to create soups, which I know, I mean they market it that way, any good blender is marketed that way, but I never really believed it. I don’t know why, but literally for the past two weeks for at least ten meals a week I have been eating a variance of these soups and that’s what I’m saying, it’s like literally changed my life because not only are they extremely SANE and vegetable packed they are delicious and even for me, number one vegetable fan in the whole world or at least up there, sometimes vegetables were a necessary evil. That is not at all the case with these soups.

CARRIE: Well, thank you. You’re very kind. I must say (Inaudible 00:04:46) that I was at Jonathan’s house recently and he opened his fridge and I was very humbled and very honored to see that the insides just screamed Carrie Brown. There was Carrie Brown soup, this soup, that soup, the other soup, the freezer was full of Carrie Brown soups, there was just Carrie Brown soups everywhere because I’ve been coming over quite frequently and every time I come over I tend to bring one or two or three soups for Jonathan and Angela to taste test for me and as a result of that, Jonathan’s gone soup crazy.

JONATHAN: Soup crazy and I will let Carrie talk more about her actual soups and what you can find in the book, because it’s just amazing, but for all of the assemblers, all my fellow assemblers out there, and again Carrie will shudder when she hears this, but I saw these soups as an inspiration point and the thing that is so transformative for me is the way I’ve thought of these soups and again Carrie I’m sorry, these are not Carrie’s soups, now this is Jonathan Bailor’s assembled variance of Carrie’s soups, so for those non-assemblers out there please don’t let this sour you on Carrie’s spectacular soups, but what I found is that so you get a wonderful whole food peeling, hormonally beneficial fat, like a coconut cream or just coconut, you puree it, you then add in non-starchy vegetables, Vitamixed up, you then add seasoning, and then you add the protein of your choice and – forms of protein that are otherwise difficult to consume, but are nutritionally amazing are especially amazing in his soups. One example are mollusks.

CARRIE: Ah, the lovely clam and his brethren.

JONATHAN: Clam…oysters, generally it’s hard to sit down and eat a bowl of clams — what’s for dinner, clams —

CARRIE: Nothing surprises me with you Mr. Bailor.

JONATHAN: But, I have almost like a little Mongolian grill going in my house because it’s like I have these various bases for the soups and then some chicken or some cinnamon or some tuna or some clams or some oysters and then just vary that up and being an engineer at heart, it’s like wow, I have 16 different combinations if I just make these two things and – it is super convenient and super delicious, but now Carrie will tell you about the non-lame way to make the soups.

CARRIE: The non-lame way, however, be assured lovely listeners that these soups are all fast, none of them are complicated, they’re very simple, they’re very easy, they’re very fast – and from what I’ve heard, they all taste fantastic, so I’m very, very, very excited for you to have all these recipes, there’s 40 new, brand new recipes in total and the book will be out very soon – in fact, by the time you hear this I expect it will be out.

JONATHAN: Yes, absolutely and the one disclaimer I will give and Carrie correct me if I’m wrong — and I have a little color commentary about this as well — if you do not yet own a Vitamix, and again, nor Carrie or I work for the Vitamix Corporation, correct me if I’m wrong, but having a Vitamix is basically required to create these, is that fair — no?

CARRIE: It’s not required.

JONATHAN: It’s not required, okay.

CARRIE: Then you’ll get a better faster result.

JONATHAN: Okay.

CARRIE: And it will probably be easier, less work with the Vitamix, but not required. If you have a blender that will work. If you have a heavy food processor that will work. If you can spring for a Vitamix or I’ve heard Blendtec (Inaudible 00:08:46), then I would do so if you’re going to make a lot of soups and smoothies you absolutely will notice an enormous difference in the finished product.

JONATHAN: And so speaking to and I hate to throw things under the bus – but, I have to report this for the listeners. So recently, our lovely Vitamix broke and down and we had to send it in to get fixed, but it was within their whatever five to seven year warranty and given my new addiction to Carrie’s soups and my constant consumption of smoothies, I could not be without a good blender for two weeks and so my local Costco did not carry Vitamix, but it did carry Blendtec, so I bought a Blendtec with the hope that it would be fabulous. First of all, a Blendtec probably weighs one-fifth of what the Vitamix weighs and it is on the first time we tried to make smoothie the same way we make it in the Vitamix, it overheated and it did not work. Like it is not —

CARRIE: Wow.

JONATHAN: I would say that I was shocked because the Blendtec was $330.00. I think you can get the refurbished Vitamix that I use…

CARRIE: Same amount.

JONATHAN: For the same amount and yeah, it has a computer in it and it has automatic settings, but personally folks, especially, like the green smoothies, there were some folks like my mom and dad they’re just like I’m not going to make green smoothies, it just doesn’t appeal to them, but they’ll eat soups, so if there was not enough reason to invest in a Vitamix, which remember, given the warranty breaks down to about $50.00 a year, do it, it will so simplify your life, especially with the advent of these SANE soups.

CARRIE: Yes. If you can, I would definitely do it, however, don’t bankrupt yourself in order to do so if you have a blender, you can make it work, I just think you will get a better result, you will get that result faster and it will be easier working with the Vitamix than not.

JONATHAN: And Carrie will get into more of the details here, but just to really illustrate how compelling this is, so often times people say, vegetables it’s just, ah, you can swap them in for the starch, you can serve things on top of them, you can have salads, but a lot of people, no matter what, will perceive the vegetables as okay, how are we going to get vegetables into this, like sigh, oh, we still have to do the vegetables — I mean they get the fat, they get the protein, that’s easy breezy, but the vegetables is like, really?

CARRIE: And that’s a great point, because that’s why these soups are magical because they don’t look like vegetables.

JONATHAN: Yeah.

CARRIE: And they don’t taste like vegetables and you can eat a whole lot more vegetables in soup form than you can in whole form, and so on top of the fact that these soups are probably about the most nutritious meal that you can get, there’s all these other benefits. You don’t feel like you’ve spent all day eating vegetables even though you actually have and soups as Jonathan and I were talking about this just before we started here that soups are just so comforting even though they don’t have any of the traditional comfort foods, like potatoes or starch, pastas, rice, they are incredibly comforting so you kind of get everything. Soup is just magical.

JONATHAN: And just for the folks if you just think, okay they’re just going to blend vegetables up in the Vitamix, it’s basically just a smoothie, so there’s two big distinctions and it’s shocking to me that I did not realize that this earlier considering how long I’ve been living this lifestyle, but one, adding whole food fats to vegetables and I’m just going to say in the Vitamix because it works so well for me — is transformative. Like when you use a coconut milk or even just coconut flakes and you puree it or you completely liquefy them using the Vitamix I do believe you need a Vitamix to do that otherwise you’re going to get chunky nonsense — that gives you a creamy-like base that if someone told you there was no dairy in what you’re eating, not to throw dairy under the bus, but if someone there’s no dairy in what you’re eating you would not believe them and it doesn’t taste like coconut, it just tastes like a creamy, like a broccoli cream soup or a clam chowder. Anytime you’ve had these creamy things and then you come to find out that you’re basically eating coconut with mushrooms and onions, you’re like wait and I promise you, you will not actually believe you’re eating what you’re eating and also the quantity — of vegetables you’ll consume like ten servings in non-starchy vegetables you will accidentally consume four to six servings of non-starchy vegetables per bowl of this stuff, easily.

CARRIE: And I’m English so bragging does not come naturally to me and it embarrasses me, but when I was taste testing these soups with Jonathan and Angela, but also for other people, when they tasted them, they would have sworn that they were regular soups with all the typical soupy milk and starch and potato and they simply do not taste like they are pretty much 100 percent vegetable. They don’t have to consistency, they don’t have the texture, they don’t have the (Inaudible 00:14:46) they taste like I want to say the real thing, but you know what I mean — they taste like all your favorite soups, but they are 100 percent nutrition powerhouses of SANEity.

JONATHAN: And that’s really the key thing is I’ve gotten some feedback that it’s great that we have SANE versions of ice cream and it’s great that we have SANE versions of cookies and cakes and biscuits and yada-yada-yada, but I have gotten emails from some people saying, okay, like, got it, but I really want to be SANE – like I don’t really just want to be not inSANE and I want to be SANE. If you want to be SANE, like I want to be really SANE — I have very hard core goals, being able to integrate, even the diversity of non-starchy vegetables because for example I really struggle to eat a diversity of non-starchy vegetables. I would eat plenty of greens because I could make those in smoothies, but when it came to mushrooms or just a variety of vegetables, I think the thing that I like the most about these soups, Carrie, is that once people get the hang of it, not only can they enjoy your recipes, but they’ll start to see just again the flexibility and they’ll start to do experimentations on their own and maybe even find their own recipes.

CARRIE: I tried very hard. I was very conscious of trying to include as many varieties of vegetables as I could. I’d stand in the produce department and go what haven’t I used yet? The other thing I think is that people — that there’ll be vegetables that you haven’t tried, please try them. Just try them once and I think you’ll love them and also vegetables that you think you hate or things that you don’t like, don’t be afraid of them. Try them in these soups because I promise you they taste absolutely nothing like any vegetable you’ve tasted before. I think Jonathan is nodding so, I think he agrees, but I’ve tried very hard to get a huge range of vegetables and there’s no base that’s the same for all of them. They’re all completely different because it is important to not just eat spinach. It’s very important to get a variety and a range of vegetables in there. These soups and there’s 40 of them so you don’t even need to eat them once a month, you’re not going to get bored, and you will have if you try them all, you’re going to have a very wide range of different vegetables that you probably would have never tried otherwise and that could only be a good thing.

JONATHAN: And let me give you just a geek out nerd scenario of why I’m such a fan of these Carrie. I know there’s 40 in your book so we’re certainly not going to give away the farm here, but if you hint towards the nature of just kind of maybe one of them, one that you really like, I think that would really entice the listeners.

CARRIE: Well, I think the one that made me laugh the hardest – was I was standing in Trader Joes one day and I’m standing in the produce aisle because I’m trying to get the variety. I’m deliberately trying vegetables I haven’t done and my eyes fell upon the green beans. And I thought — green beans. Green beans are not my favorite, but I really ought to use green beans. People in America like green beans, I should do something with that. And then I thought, green beans, they’re green…ah…no, another green soup, I don’t want another green soup. And then I thought, what do Americans use green beans for, I thought, they make green bean casserole so that was the starting point for my green bean casserole soup, which I’ll let Jonathan tell you how he feels about that.

JONATHAN: So, yeah, I like the green bean casserole soup so much that the next day, I emailed Carrie and said I need you to send me the recipe. I don’t care if it’s finalized. You know I’m not going to cook it the actual way you say it, I’m going to create the Jonathan version, but I needed just the inspiration for it and that was the turning point in my life, because again, this isn’t the actual recipe, this is the Jonathan version of it, but, I did not believe that taking – again this is not the recipe so Carrie don’t get angry, but it’s a natural healthy fat of like the coconut milk or just pureed coconut with onions, and mushrooms. I put broccoli in it and some seasonings and then you blend that all up in the Vitamix, you heat it up or not. I’ve discovered I actually really don’t need to heat it up and you can “eat it raw” and you throw some green beans in. I throw some clams in and it’s delicious. It’s just spectacular, and here’s the geek out part – if you are just a workaholic like me and you don’t like to stop working to eat sometimes, if you exclude the green beans you can actually have a sort of hands free lunch. You can put this hot liquid in a thermos and actually drink it and chew it instead of actually having to sit down with a fork and spend all the time eating.

CARRIE: You’re impossible, Bailor. Impossible.

JONATHAN: So, Carrie, and again the folks will be able to get this book on Amazon and it’s got 40 soup recipes and correct me if I’m wrong, but fundamentally the soups — again folks, this is why I was so excited to write the forward — you’re going to have your whole food fats, extremely healthy, not just the okay kind, but the extremely healthy kind, then you’re going to have your five star non-starchy vegetables and then you can add protein that is so nutrient and dense it’s actually hard to eat otherwise because it just takes on a flavor of the soup. That’s like – it is literally, that is the perfect SANE meal and it’s convenient and it’s portable and it’s freezable and you can cook it in bulk and you can be a geek and not have to worry about using silverware if you just want to work while you eat.

CARRIE: You leave me speechless sometimes. I have to go back to my green bean casserole soup for a minute because the lovely ladies that taste tested it for me apart from Jonathan and Angela, were…

JONATHAN: I’m included in the lovely ladies that taste tested it for you?

CARRIE: Were so thrilled with this soup and then I told them how fast and easy it was to make and they said they are abandoning green bean casserole at Thanksgiving this year. They are doing my green bean casserole soup instead because it’s far more nutritious, it’s just as easy to make and it tastes better.

JONATHAN: So, absolutely listeners, there are very few things in my life that have dramatically changed the way that I personally eat and because of that — not just because Carrie is my podcast co-host and dear friend, but the discovery of how to incorporate vegetables, as well as sources of protein that I otherwise was not able to enjoy because it just didn’t taste good and at the end of the day, right, we’re eating stuff that needs to taste good. It has enabled me personally to take what I would hope is already very SANE living to another level of not only SANEity, but also deliciousness and convenience and quite honestly, friends, that’s not something I thought was possible, so kudos to you Carrie and I really could not recommend any more highly for everyone hopping over to Amazon and grabbing a copy.

CARRIE: You’re going to make me cry.

JONATHAN: Yay…well, I think you’re going to make all the listeners cry with joy when they try these soups, so —

CARRIE: I hope so, I really hope so. I hope my goal for this book was to give you a way to really get those veggies in and at the same time keep your mouth supremely happy. That was my goal and I really hope that I’ve hit it.

JONATHAN: You have succeeded without a doubt and now I hope listeners that it will enable you to succeed because remember one of the things that makes a SANE lifestyle distinct from any and every other lifestyle is the primacy of double digit servings of non-starchy vegetables and I am just so happy personally and professionally that now we have such a delicious and practical way to recommend that you do that. So, kudos to you Carrie Brown and listeners please remember this week and every week after, whether it be soups or some other way, eat smarter, exercise smarter, and live better. Reach out to you soon.

CARRIE: See ya.

This week we chat about how Carrie’s most recent recipe book on soups completely changed Jonathan’s life!