Saturday, April 27, 2013

A Shot of Green

I sometimes make soup to have for lunch.  I started with a recipe for Broccoli soup that I got from a book by two Canadian doctors about food that fights cancer.  I do not have cancer, but a lot of people around me do and I was intrigued by the title.  This was many years ago and I have since been mindful to include some or all of the super healthy stuff in my diet, one way or another.

I have also experimented with this recipe, trying different kinds of vegetables, depending on what I had handy in the fridge.  One can really use pretty much any vegetables and adjust the seasoning to taste.

Cauliflower would be nice and light with its delicate flavor.  Beetroot would be a bright pinkish red, carrots for an orange soup and rutabaga for a yellow one.  An addition of linseed could be interesting.  My mom used to make a really good linseed soup.

But anyway, the other day I made this soup, and it's just really, really good.  It oozes healthiness and my mouth waters when I think of it's thoroughly green taste.

Start with sautéing one onion, preferably in butter.  If garlic is added, it should go in at the last stages, it doesn't take as much heat as the onions.  Add to the onions a tablespoon of turmeric (I am a firm believer in the health benefits of herbs and spices, turmeric is wonderful stuff and this soup is one way to get it naturally and in a form that makes is easy for the body to absorb.  So do not skip sautéing the turmeric and do include black pepper to get all the benefits.), half a tablespoon of freshly ground pepper and the same of crushed coriander seeds and mustard seeds.  Let the spices fry a bit in the butter.

Add a quart/liter of chicken stock to the pot (it's great to have homemade for this, but use the best quality store bought if that isn't available. Chop up one head of broccoli and add to the stock as well as one cup each, spinach and kale (in winter all I have is frozen and I use 4 balls each).  Let this simmer for 10-15 minutes. Take a stickblender to this a whizz it smooth.  Salt to taste and snip a lot of fresh parsley over the soup if it's available.

I store the soup in a large mason jar and keep it for a week in the fridge, it lasts me 5 days ( I guess the soup is 4-5 servings) which makes it perfect for weekday lunch, with two soft boiled eggs.  I have been changing my diet somewhat and feel much better for it. I avoid grains, sugar and starches.  For someone who isn't doing that, an addition of one potato will make the soup thicker, but I find that I don't really notice much difference.

3 comments:

  1. Hello! This post is a couple of weeks old but I couldn't resist commenting. The soup sounds incredible and I'm going to browbeat my boything into agreeing to have it for dinner one night this week.

    This cookbook by these two Canadian doctors, does it have other similarly delicious recipes in it?

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  2. There were some good ones in there. I've mostly used the book for inspiration and adapted things. The title of the book that I got is:
    Foods That Fight Cancer: Preventing Cancer through Diet by Richard Béliveau, Denis Gingras and Pierre Bruneau (May 23, 2006), but I think I got the recipe from another book by them, which I borrowed from the library:
    Cooking with Foods That Fight Cancer by Richard Béliveau and Denis Gingras (Oct 16, 2007). Sorry I didn't put that into the original post. You can find those on Amazon.com.

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  3. Thanks for the info! I'll have a look for one or both of those books sometime soon.

    In the meantime, I'm definitely going to give this soup a try as soon as I can find kale (which I love, but which is just a bit unpredictable in its availability here, as our supermarket situation is limited/the greengrocer's selection is inconsistent with regard to bitter leafy greens). Not that the many possible variations aren't also incredibly appealing. I just love the crap out of kale (and all bitter leafy greens om nom nom).

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