Anyone who knows me knows I love soup. I really do. Soup is a passion of mine. I love all kinds of soups from hearty winter soups, to light and fresh cold spring soups. I eat a bowl of soup just about everyday. For breakfast, lunch, or dinner, it doesn’t matter give me a bowl of soup and I will be your bff!
People that know me would also say that I am impatient and they might be right. I don’t like to wait long to eat. I also don’t like to follow recipes or measure ingredients. The food I make has to be quick, uncomplicated, and easy and that is exactly what soup is. Throw a bunch of ingredients in a pot and 20 minutes later you’ll have a bowl of warm sparkly goodness.
In the next few posts I am going to teach you how to make the best soups without having to search up and down the grocery isles to find that one last ingredient. Most of my recipes include ingredients that are already in your fridge.
1 tbsp butter or ghee
1 onion chopped
8 or so tomatoes, chopped
a couple carrots, chopped
a potato, chopped
a turnip, chopped
salt, pepper, and your favorite spices
some chicken. could be dark meat, white meat, boneless, skinless or whatever you like. if you are feeling saucy add a whole chicken including the innards
turn the heat up to medium high on the stove. put the butter in the pot. as soon as it melts add the onions and give them a minute or so to sweat. then add the chicken and cover for about 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes and let them cook down for a couple minutes. then add the rest of the ingredients and fill the pot half way up with water. Bring to a boil and simmer until all ingredients are cooked. Serve in a pretty bowl and eat with a smile.
I know what you are thinking. Butter has a bad reputation in this country as being an evil food that causes heat disease and weight gain. Not so!
When cooking on high heats it is best to use stable saturated fats. Why? Because you want a fat that doesn’t breakdown or become rancid in the heat. Rancid oils create toxic free radicals in your body that can cause all kinds of diseases from allergies to cancer.
Good fats to cook with are saturated like butter, ghee, lard, coconut oil, palm oil, and duck fat. Do not use olive oil, flax, safflower, sunflower, or other delicate oils. Save these oils for salad dressing or for flavoring a warm dish right before you serve it.
Happy souping and check back shortly for more Nom Nom Soup recipes by Dawna Ara.
With a vast drop in temperature, darker skies and rainy days, winter is the most yin of all the seasons. It is associated with the kidney and bladder organs, the color black, the element water, the emotion fear, and salty and bitter flavors.
Goji berries are one of the most well known Chinese herbs in the US. Used for over 2000 years in China, they were first mentioned in the Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing, the oldest known book on Chinese herbs in 200 BC. They are prized for their ability to tonify blood and yin without causing stagnation. Consumed daily in China as a food and herbal medicine, goji berries are revered for their anti-aging properties. They are used in many beauty tonics.
