best soup ever! and healthy too...

These are the smells that have been filling my kitchen of late...

Lemon. Garlic. Freshly toasted and ground cumin. Spicy harissa.

Photo by Tara Donne for the Wall Street Journal

Those are the basic ingredients that make lablabi the delicious concoction that it is. What is lablabi? A simple chickpea soup/stew commonly served by street vendors in Tunisia. You ladle the chickpeas and spicy broth over torn pieces of hearty bread, then add toppings to your liking...

Capers. Sun-dried tomatoes. Chopped parsley. Diced preserved lemon. (And more harissa and cumin if you like a lot of spice in your food.) A splash of olive oil.

It's one of the most addictive things I've ever eaten. And super easy to make.

And good for you!

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Nutrition research -- like the many studies cited in Colin Campbell's book, The China Study -- has demonstrated that a high-fiber, low-fat vegan diet can prevent a broad range of health problems we in the West have come to think of as inevitable. Obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart disease and stroke, osteoporosis, dementia, and many other problems can be attributed in large part to diets of animal-based and highly processed foods.

As a lover of cheese, eggs, ice cream, and other dairy products, this was a hard truth for me to swallow. But making the switch has paid off for me. This week marks 25 lbs. I've lost following a whole foods, plant-based diet. I'm looking forward to dropping another 25 in the new year, and to overall healthier prospects as I look to the longer-term future.

Cook up some lablabi in your kitchen, and you'll see (and smell and taste) that healthy food need not feel like a sacrifice!

The recipe I've been following is the one in this Wall Street Journal article. Leave out the optional eggs; it's fabulous (and healthier) without them. And double it! You'll inevitably want more.

The lablabi can be a meal in itself, but if you want to flesh out the menu add a simple green salad or a selection of Moroccan side salads such as sliced fennel with orange segments or roasted green peppers with preserved lemon.

Yum, yum, yum!