I love covers that have drastically different arrangements from the original. My favourite cover of all time is M. Ward’s cover of Bowie’s “Let’s Dance,” followed by Obadiah Parker’s cover of Outkast’s “Hey Yeah.”

The first cover I ever fell in love with, however, was Van Morrison’s cover of Kermit-the-Frog’s “Bein’ Green” from (one of the greatest albums of all time) Hardnose the Highway.

Anyway, the segue here is that “Bein’ Green” is the theme for the day because I had a fridge full of green things that were about to go off, most particularly, broccoli, zucchini, green beans, celery, and spinach.

After scouring the internet for a bit, I located a soup recipe that contains all of the ingredients. I made a few adjustments (because I also wanted to add a few greens from the garden and I had no asparagus). I also added a cup of almond milk to make it a bit creamier and to add the essential nut element for absorption purposes (according to Joel Fuhrman, “…nuts and seeds with greens can enhance the body’s absorption of fat-soluble nutrients from the greens”).

The soup actually turned out much better than I expected. Indeed, it’s as addictive as my morning green drink (and not dissimilar in appearance, texture, and nutritional benefits!).

Here we go!

Bein’ Green Soup

Ingredients

• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 celery stick, chopped
• 1 zucchini, chopped
• 1 head of broccoli, chopped
• 5 cups vegetable stock
• 5  oz green beans, trimmed and chopped
• 5  oz green peas (I used frozen)
• 5 mixed garden greens (I used kale, Swiss chard, and beet leaves)
•  5  oz baby spinach leaves, torn into pieces
• 1 cup almond (or other nut) milk
• 1/2 cup fresh basil
• LOTS of pepper

Instructions

• Spray cooking oil in a large saucepan and cook the onion, garlic and celery until lightly browned. Add the zucchini and broccoli and cook for 5 minutes.
• Pour in the stock and bring to a boil. Simmer for 5 minutes then add the green beans, peas, garden greens and spinach. Continue to simmer for 5 minutes or until the vegetables are tender.

• Blend soup with an immersion blender.
• Add cup of almond milk and bring back to a boil.
• Remove from heat, add fresh basil, and blend again with immersion blender.

• Season WELL with cracked black pepper. You’ll want it to have a nice basilly-peppery taste.

It’s actually very good–I’m already on my second bowl! And, according to the site where I discovered the original recipe, it’s also VERY good for you. From the site: “This is one amazing soup. The celery alone reduces acidity, which is beneficial in cases of arthritis, gout and stomach acidity. It’s also a natural diuretic, helping to reduce fluid retention as well as balancing PH levels. Once you add the onion, broccoli, courgette, garlic, green beans, peas, asparagus and spinach, you have an ultimate power soup, which helps feed every cell in the body and flush out the waste.”

Not sure how accurate all that is, but I’m sure not going to argue with the “natural diuretic” point. That might’ve been too much information.

For dinner, I served it with that amazing Pad Thai Salad over brown basmati rice and hunks of olive bread.