Roasted Carrot Soup with Leeks and Thyme

With this cooler weather upon us, thick hearty steaming bowls of homemade soup can warm your insides better than a cozy blanket by the fireplace. Soup is one of my favourite fall meals, its like a warm inside out hug.
This one takes a bit of time to prep, but you can always roast the veggies when you have your oven on for something else and refrigerate them until you were ready to make soup. Saving that roasting step would have this soup on the table in 20 minutes flat.

The carrots in my garden this year are lovely and this soup is a wonderful showcase for their delicious flavour. It is creamy and smooth without the need for dairy (although a swirl of sour cream would be lovely on top…!) I don't peel my

carrots for this recipe, but you may want to for store bought carrots.

As with most of my soups I prefer to use my homemade bone broth as the base. Nutrient dense and made from what would typically be waste; bone broth is both frugal and delicious! If you choose to use a store bought stock, be sure to read the ingredients first and avoid any with ingredients you cannot pronounce (and therefore should not eat!!)

this handy tool strips
the tender thyme leaves
 from the woody stem,
easy as pie!

Roasted Carrot Soup with Leeks and Thyme

Approx. 2 lbs of carrots, peeled if necessary and chopped

5 cups chopped leeks, (rinsed, white part only-see ***below)

2 Tbsp avocado oil (or coconut)

2 Tbsp fresh thyme, woody stems removed

1 tsp herbamare or sea salt of choice

5 stalks celery, chopped

2 Tbsp butter

8 cups bone broth or broth of choice.

Preheat oven to 400F.

On a large parchment lined baking sheet, toss chopped carrots and leeks with the avocado oil, thyme and herbamare.

Pictured without the thyme, I forgot to add it
before I took the picture :(

Roast in preheated oven for 30 minutes. Stir on the pan and roast for another 20 minutes.

When veggies are done, remove from oven and set aside.

In a large pot, melt the butter over medium-high heat until it starts to bubble. Add celery, and stir frequently until it starts to soften, approx 8-10 minutes. Add the roasted veggies and your broth. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for 10 minutes.

Remove from heat, and puree til smooth with an immersion blender (or whiz in a blender, in batches if necessary, being careful as hot soup in a  blender can be dangerous!!)

Check for seasoning and serve hot!

***Prepping your Leeks!

Cut leeks where they just start to turn colour. Using a bit of the green is ok! Trim off the root ends.

Cut the trimmed leek pieces in half lengthwise. 

Rinse well under running water, leeks are often sandy in between their layers. 

Chop and use as directed :) 

Egg Drop Soup with Kale and Miso

I was driving home the other day, and talking to my hubbie on the phone(using the  Bluetooth in my car, of course...safety first!!) about what he was going to feed me when I arrived home (He had the day off, it was his turn to cook!). He was going thru all of the bits and pieces of leftovers in the fridge, but they were all spoken for already other dinners (these lovely Stuffed Baked Sweet Potatoes from Against All Grain were one of those meals). I could hear his frustration building as we spoke…there was NOTHING to eat quickly….or so he thought, silly guy! I had him start sautéing some veggies, and when I arrived home threw the rest of the soup together in a flash. We had two beautiful bowls of hearty, nutrient dense soup that was absolutely delicious, and ready in about 20 minutes flat. (and the bone broth was frozen too!) Dilemma solved, and in such a tasty way!


Egg Drop Soup with Kale and Miso

Makes 2 generous bowls of soup.

 1 medium red onion, peeled and chopped

1 cup chopped kale, (approx 2 lg leaves) thick stem removed

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tbsp avocado oil (or coconut, or butter)

2 cups bone broth (use beef or chicken, I believe we used beef )

1 cup water

1 tsp Mame miso (or miso of choice)

2 tbsp water

½-1 tsp sriracha sauce (optional, look for one with good ingredients!)

2 eggs, lightly beaten

Smoked sea salt to taste

This is a traditional soybean
Miso... there are many other
types. The flavour will differ
slightly, but any of them
would work!

In a medium pot, sauté the onion and garlic for 2-3 minutes over medium heat. Add the chopped kale and sauté until the veggies just start to brown and soften, 3-4 minutes more approx.  Add bone broth and the first amount of water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and let simmer. (if your bone broth is frozen, like mine almost always is, add the frozen stock to the veggies, put a lid on the pot and leave on medium heat until melted, then bring to a boil and simmer)

While it simmers, in a small bowl, mix the Miso paste with the second amount of water until well combined.  Add the sriracha if using, and stir into gently simmering soup.

Slowly drizzle the beaten eggs back and forth over the surface of the soup, taking care not to pour all in one spot. Lightly stir (you don’t want to mix the egg in totally) until the egg turns opaque, approx 1 minute.

Season with salt and serve warm. 

Chunky Butternut Squash Soup With Bacon And Kale

With fall settling in to Southern Ontario, the days are rapidly changing from salad days to soup days. Hearty stick to your ribs kind of soups that comfort , nourish and warm you to the core. This is a perfect recipe for a fall lunch or dinner, I hope you enjoy it!

The squash could be roasted in advance to save a bit of time, making this an easy soup to get on the dinner table fast. 

Chunky Butternut Squash Soup With Bacon And Kale

1 large butternut squash

1 tbsp coconut oil

1 cup finely diced bacon

2 onions, peeled and chopped (a very generous cup full!)

1 bunch kale, tough stems removed, and chopped

1 tsp dried oregano

½ tsp paprika

½ tsp turmeric

1 clove garlic

1 tsp salt

7 cups bone broth (I used chicken)

Preheat oven to 375F

Cut squash into manageable chunks, peel and remove the seeds. Cut into 1 ½ inch chunks, toss with coconut oil, and roast in a large pan in preheated oven for 60 minutes. The squash should be softened and just starting to brown slightly. Remove from oven and set aside. 

Sauté the bacon in a heavy bottomed large pot, stirring often until just cooked thru, approx 4-5 minutes. Add the diced onions and cook until the onions start to soften, another 4-5 minutes. Add the Kale and the spices, and sauté for another 2-3 minutes.

Add the pre-roasted squash to the pot and lightly mash to break up the chunks slightly. This helps add some body to the soup.

Add 1 cup of the bone broth to the pot, and stir, scraping  to deglaze the bottom of the pan. Add the remaining broth and bring to a boil. Simmer for 5 minutes, and serve. 

Moroccan Chicken and Lentil Soup

These last few days of cold spring weather have left me craving soup. Salads on a cold day just don’t seem to warm your insides the way a nice bowl of soup does.  I had a big bowl of bone broth waiting to be bagged for the freezer, so I decided to make some soup for our lunch tomorrow with some of it. These spices are used together in a rub that we love on chicken. ( I think that recipe came from one of those old smaller sized  Chatelaine type recipe magazines that you see in the grocery store check outs?) We have used it here forever, and had it on some drumsticks on the grill this past week.  I thought these warming flavours would go really well in a soup, and my intuition was bang on. The lime definitely makes it...although it is not the first thing you taste, it pulls all of the flavours together beautifully.

I added the cooked lentils at the end, they were kind of a last minute inspiration, but they seemed to compliment the Moroccan vibe going on in the soup pot. I imagine you could add them dry when you add the stock and water to the soup and cook them at the same time, as they generally take about 20 minutes to cook on their own .

You can easily convert this soup for vegetarians by using veggie broth  and leaving out the chicken.

Moroccan Chicken and Lentil Soup

1 tbsp coconut oil

1 onion, chopped

1 ½ cups chopped carrots

2 cups purple cabbage roughly chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp cumin powder

1 tsp curry powder

1 tsp allspice

4 cups chicken bone-broth

1 cup water

Juice of 1 lime

1 cup pre-cooked chicken

1 cup pre-cooked lentils**

Sauté the onion in the coconut oil over medium high heat for 3-4 minutes. Add the carrots, cabbage and garlic. Continue to sauté for 8-10 minutes, stirring often, until the veggies are getting some nice brown colour. Stir in the cinnamon, cumin curry and allspice and sauté for another minute.  Add the chicken broth, salt and water, and the juice of the lime. Simmer covered for about 20 minutes. Add the chicken and the lentils and simmer another 8 minutes, until everything is nice and soft and fragrant.

  Serve hot!

**To cook lentils on their own, rinse 1 cup of dried lentils, pick out any debris or stones. Place in a pot with 3 cups of water. Bring to a boil and reduce right away to a simmer. DO NOT ADD SALT until they are cooked! Cook  for about 20 minutes or until they are just softened. Drain any extra liquid, and use as desired.

Beef And Spinach Soup With Thyme

I am always looking for ways to use up leftovers, and they often end up in a soup of some kind.  With a leftover protein and some veggies, plus a freezer full of bone broth, a nourishing soup is easy to throw together quickly.

Beef And Spinach Soup With Thyme

1 small- ish red onion, diced, mine yielded about ¾ cup

1 ½ cups chopped mushrooms

3 stalks celery

2 cloves garlic

1 1/2 cups leftover cooked grass-fed beef, shredded or sliced in thin bite sized pieces

4 cups beef bone broth 

Bundle of thyme **(see below for pictures) or 1 tsp dried

3 cups baby spinach

Salt and pepper to taste

Sauté the onion, mushrooms, celery and garlic over medium high heat, stirring often until the veggies start to brown and the bottom of the pot looks like this: 

Add broth, thyme bundle and beef. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 20 minutes or until the veggies are all tender.

Turn off heat, remove the thyme bundle, add the spinach and stir until it wilts. Season with salt and pepper and serve hot.

Bundle the thyme with butchers twine

if you cover your thyme in the garden
 you can pick it fresh all winter :)

Creamy Broccoli Soup

I was hoping, being as it is the beginning of April, to start a bunch of healthy salad posts for spring. But alas, winter seems like it is staying for at least a few more days, so you get a soup instead!

This soup goes together quickly, taking about ½ hr start to finish. (if your broth is frozen like mine generally is, add 10 minutes) It is filling enough for a hearty lunch or dinner, and easily converted to become vegetarian if so desired.  So enjoy the soup, and hope, along with me,  for some warm spring weather soon!

Creamy Broccoli Soup

1 organic onion chopped

2 cloves organic garlic roughly chopped

2 tbsp coconut oil

2 cups chopped organic potatoes

4 cups chicken bone broth (or sub a good quality veggie broth for a vegetarian soup)

4 cups chopped organic raw broccoli (peel the stems if necessary)

Optional:  sour cream or thick yogurt  to swirl on top for serving

Sauté the onion and garlic in the coconut oil over medium high heat until the onion starts to get a bit of colour to it. Add the potatoes, and sauté for about 5-6 minutes. Add broth (mine was frozen, so I left it cooking on medium high, covered for an extra 10 minutes for it to thaw the broth) Bring to a boil, and simmer, covered for 10 minutes. Add broccoli, cover and simmer until the veggies are all cooked thru, approx 5-6 minutes.   Purée the  soup right in pot with an immersion blender, or in batches in your blender and return to the pot. (If you use your blender, take care, as the hot soup can spurt and burn!!) 

Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve hot with a swirl of sour cream if desired.

Potato Kale Soup

This recipe was born out of a need to use up a bag of frozen Kale (the last bag left from my garden in the fall, boo!) that had inadvertently thawed when the freezer door was left slightly ajar for a day (Luckily only the things in the door thawed, I did manage to salvage a bit, thank goodness!) The combo of kale and potatoes makes a hearty enough soup for any meal. This could easily be made vegetarian by using a veggie broth in place of the beef.

Potato Kale Soup

2 T coconut oil

1 med-lg onion, chopped

2-3 cups of chopped yellow potatoes (I think I had about 8 smallish ones)

3 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped

2 large carrots, chopped

4 cups broth of choice, (I used some frozen beef bone broth)

2-3 cups chopped Kale (mine was frozen and then defrosted, you could also use fresh, just sauté it with the onion and potato at the beginning)

Salt and pepper to taste

Heat the coconut oil in a large stock pot over medium high heat until melted. Add the onion and sauté for 3 min. Add the chopped potatoes, carrots  and garlic (and fresh kale if not using frozen) and sauté until everything starts to brown slightly, or about 6-8 minutes.

Add broth to the pot and scrape the bottom with a spatula to release all of the nice brown bits. Add frozen kale , and salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes until all of the veggies are tender.

At this point, you can serve the soup as is, or puree to the consistency you desire with an immersion blender. I  pureed about half of it, so it is still just slightly chunky. This way the potatoes add a thick creaminess to the broth without adding any dairy. (that being said, I think this soup would be lovely with a swirl of sour cream or crème fraiche added just before serving!)

Miso Mushroom Barley Soup

I haven’t been in my kitchen at all the past week. My wonderful boys shared a not so wonderful flu with me that knocked me on my butt for days. I am finally starting to feel human again and just had to get back in the kitchen. The first thing I felt like making was a big pot of nourishing soup. My soups are often a kind of a hodge-podge of ingredients, I like to survey what I have on hand and something yummy emerges magically in the pot (usually, that is!). The only problem being remembering the ingredients and writing them down when the soup turns out amazing!

 The Miso brings an amazing depth of flavour to the broth in this soup, and adds a big punch of nutrients and beneficial bacteria, perfect for a post flu meal.

Feel free to change up the greens to use up what you have, kale would be great, (add to the pot when sautéing the mushrooms, it needs to cook a little longer) and spinach would rock too, but add it when you add the Miso, as it is a bit more delicate.

The barley in this soup is entirely optional. Leave it out for a grain free or gluten free version, as barley does contain gluten. I do not seem to have any adverse reactions with barley, but it is still a grain, and we only have it occasionally.

Miso Mushroom Barley Soup

2 tbsp coconut oil

1 med-lg onion, chopped

2 stalks celery, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 lb mushrooms, thickly sliced (I had white button, but crimini or other type would be great)

2 cups (packed) Swiss chard, coarsely chopped

1 cup cooked barley**

6 cups chicken broth, homemade if possible! (Sub veggie stock to make it vegetarian!)

2 cups water

2 TBSP Miso paste (I used a Traditional Mame Miso, feel free to use your favourite!)

Salt and pepper to taste (use salt sparingly, AFTER adding the Miso, as the Miso is salty)

Directions:

Sauté onions in the coconut oil over medium heat for 2-3 minutes. Add the celery and garlic. Sauté for 2-3 min more. Add the mushrooms and sauté for just a few minutes more, just until the mushrooms start to release their juices. Add the stock and the water and bring to a boil. Before it boils, steal a few tbsp of broth and put in a small bowl.

Add the 2 tbsp of Miso paste to your small bowl of broth, and mix together until it becomes a thinner paste. Set aside.

Stir in the barley and the Swiss chard; turn down heat and let simmer, covered for 5 minutes.

Remove from heat, let stand uncovered for a minute or two, and then add your Miso mixture. Stir to combine thoroughly. Miso should be added at the very last, after the soup has boiled. Being a fermented food, it is full of beneficial bacteria and nutrients, so the less heat the better!

Adjust seasonings to taste, and enjoy!

**I like to cook large pots of barley and quinoa, and then freeze in 1 cup portions to throw in soups etc. The ratio of pot barley to water is 1-2 ½, so if you use 1 cup of barley, boil it in 2 ½ cups water or broth for 45 minutes. I prefer pot barley to pearl barley, as it is less refined, but it does take longer to cook.

Chicken and Rice Soup

This is my go to recipe for Chicken soup. I posted a picture on my Facebook recipe page after making it one day, and had requests for the recipe, so I finally typed it out.  I used up some leftover chicken that was in the freezer, as well as about a cup of a leftover wild rice mix that I had frozen from a previous meal, so this went together quickly. If you don’t have any leftovers lingering in your freezer, you can always brown a skinless boneless chicken breast or 4 skinless boneless chicken thighs in some coconut oil, and then throw them in at the same time as the chicken broth, to finish cooking thru. I often cook “planned leftovers” and freeze things like rice and quinoa in 1 cup portions to throw into soups like this.

Chicken and Rice Soup

1 cup chopped onion

2 -3 cloves garlic, minced

4 stalks celery chopped (include leaves if you have them!)

2 carrots, medium dice

2 tbsp coconut oil

2 tsp dried thyme

1 tbsp dried oregano

7 cups Chicken bone broth** (or good quality organic chicken stock)

1 ½ cups pre-cooked chicken, chopped into bite sized pieces

1 cup pre-cooked rice (I used a leftover wild rice blend that I had frozen from another meal, Quinoa would also be great!)

Juice of ½ an organic lemon (around 2 tbsp)

Salt and pepper to taste

Sauté the onion, garlic, celery and carrots in the coconut oil over medium heat. Add the dried herbs and continue to sauté. You want the veggies to just start to brown for the best flavour.

Add the broth, cover, and reduce heat to a simmer until veggies are just softened, about 15 minutes.

Add the pre-cooked chicken and rice. Simmer until they are warmed thru (mine were both frozen when I added them, it took about 10 minutes)

Add the lemon juice, (the secret ingredient!! Trust me on this one; it brings a subtle brightness to the soup! )

Season with salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy! 

**for a quick primer on making your own bone broth or stock, here is a post from my old blog. I leave it for much longer now though, cooking for close to 24 hrs to get the most nutrients out of the bones. 

http://9cooks.blogspot.ca/2009/10/stocking-up.html

Thyme Infused Creamy Tomato Veggie Soup

Thyme is one of my favourite herbs, and I discovered last year that you can have fresh thyme all winter if you cover it with something to keep the snow off of it.  I pulled a few stems today, from underneath all the snow that covers my herb garden at present, and used it to infuse this tomato soup.  Dried thyme can be used if you don’t have access to fresh.

The sour cream that is added at the end is by no means necessary, but it adds a nice creamy finish to an already tasty soup. Enjoy!

Thyme Infused Creamy Tomato Veggie Soup

Thyme bundle

1 med onion chopped

1 lg carrot chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 tbsp butter

1- 28 oz can organic diced tomatoes

2 cups beef bone broth (or veggie or chicken)

Bundle of fresh thyme or 1 tsp dried

Generous tsp each of oregano and basil

1/4 cup sour cream (optional)

Salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter in a medium heavy bottomed pot. Add the onions, celery carrot and garlic and sauté over medium heat until they just start to brown a wee bit.

Add the can of diced tomatoes, the beef stock, the bundle of thyme if using, and the rest of the herbs .  Bring to a boil, and then reduce heat and simmer covered for 15-20 min or until the veggies are all tender.

Remove bundle of thyme (if using), and then puree  the soup with hand blender until as smooth as desired.

Stir in sour cream if using, and season to taste with salt and pepper.