108 CHAKRA SOUPS recipe 1 "Sahasrara chakra"

As a child I never liked the vegetable soups that my mom made eat insisting that it was good for me!

I carried that feeling up to my adult age until I moved to New York. The freezing winter's wind hitting my face changed the way I looked at all those people with steamy bowl of soup in their hands. I decided to venture into that world... Very fast enjoyed the warm feeling and the delicious flavours.

One winter, my dear friend, Elena, came from Italy to spend some time in New York. She initiated me into the cooking of healthy and yummy soups.

Being Italian I naturally like to cook, but two other elements have influenced my taste. The encounter with Ayurveda and the years spent in various countries and cultures. 
In 2007 I moved to Paris and was forced to face the hard life of a vegetarian, in a meat/fish ruled country. 
No place to have tasty vegetarian soups! Paris winter is cold, gray, humid and very long. 
Something need it to be done... I started cooking... home made soups became my best friends. 
Chakra can be balanced with yoga, meditation, colours, mantra, smells and food.

It so happened that I started preparing my soups not based on the taste but more according to the colours of the vegetables, spices and other ingredients; connecting them to the Chakra in order to create a soup that will have a inner, energetic balancing purpose and effects, beyond being tasty, healthy and nutritious.

In the preparation I let the inner intuition guide me into the ingredients choice and selection. The soup's name will manifest itself at some point.

Over the years many friends kept on claiming my soups were special and that I should share my recipes, let people benefit of it. Finally I surrendered...

Preparation:

The study of the Bhagavad Gita with Swamini Umananda at Chinmaya made me to be even more careful in the preparation and choice of food.

The soups have to be made with fresh ingredients. Please avoid as much as possible canned or even frozen food because it impacts not only the taste but also the nutrient aspects. I also advice of please do not freeze the soup.  

In general my recipe are for 2 meals for one person or one meal for two people. You can always cut the ingredients in half, if you want to make it less. 

When possible it is better if the soup can rest for sometimes before to be warmed up again and eaten. The rest will allow the flavours of the various ingredients to better melt into each other and bring up the final taste of the soup.

Recipe 1: Sahasrara variation #1 

The seventh center, Sahasrara, is the chakra which integrates all the 7 chakra with their respective qualities.
Ingredients:

1oignon

1 or two clove of garlic

3 spoons of bio vegetable oil

2 zucchini

2 carrots

1/2 bell pepper

a piece of red cabbage

3 or 4 full spoons of green moong 

fresh curry leaves 

25cl of coconut milk
1 small spoon of green curry paste

1 Bio vegetable cube

fresh cilantro 

Put the oil into the pot then cut the onion into pieces add the garlic and let it fry a little  while you will be cutting the other vegetable into pieces. Add the vegetable,the green moong. Add the coconut milk, then add 3/4 of a liter of boiling filtered water if by the end the soup seams to thick you can add a bit more of water. Add the cube, the green curry paste, curry leaves. 
I never add any salt because it is already enough the one contained in the cube!
Once the mix is boiling lower the flame and let it cook up to 45 min. 
It is the green moong that takes a bit longer to be cooked. Ten min before switching off the fire add the fresh cilantro. 

Once done switch off, let it cool down a bit before blending it in the pot itself. When you blend do not make it completely creamy but leaves some chunks, for that a manual blender is better. 
Now the soup is done let it sit and warm it up before eating.

Hare OM