Become a soup master in 9 minutes!
What could be cozier or more welcome than homemade soup? If you've never tried cultivating this admirable culinary skill before, this popular post from the archives will guide you to success! Friends, family, and YOU will be thrilled.
Ladies and gentlemen, it’s soup season!
When I get that first whiff, that first little inkling of Fall, I take my big old soup pot out and I start sauteeing onions -- the beginning of broth, the foundation of soups to come, the veritable core of both health and flavor, the indescribable difference. The YUM!
I come by my love of soup making honestly. In my mind’s eye, I can still see the little girl who learned to make soup while sitting atop the kitchen counter, watching in wonder as three generations of women worked their culinary magic over my Ma’s flame-enameled Le Creuset cast iron soup pot.
There was something about soup that enchanted me from the get-go. I think I instinctively knew that soup had the power to heal not only oneself -- I always felt better after having a cup or bowl -- but others as well. At my alma mater, Northwestern University, exhausted classmates would straggle by at all hours looking for a bowl of my Nana’s chicken soup.
I honed my soup skills at The Chopra Center for Health and Well-Being, Dr. Andrew Weil’s Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine’s annual Nutrition and Health Conference, and the Commonweal Retreat Center in Bolinas, CA,where I often cooked for seriously ill people.
This was where I first realized how energizing a nutrient-dense, delicious soup could be.
It was amazing; people who could barely eat would return again and again to the soup pot, doling out a little liquid health with each swipe of the ladle.
I guess that makes me just the latest in a very long line of soup shamans. Some people may think of soup making for health purposes as a trend. But if this is a trend, it’s lasted for centuries!
With good reason.
Here’s why getting more soup into your life is so important.
Eating soup is a way to hit the body’s reset button, to allow internal organs devoted to detoxification the space and nutrients necessary to successfully do their job. The result, from a health viewpoint, is often remarkable. People who up their soup intake use a thesaurus of terms to describe their improved physical and mental state: words such as revitalized, regenerated, nourished, comforted, energized, healed, restored, and recharged.
No one should really be surprised. Soup, after all, is life distilled into a bowl. The heat of the pot slowly breaks down nutrients to a more digestible state, simultaneously releasing outrageous flavors that create the heady aromas that magnetically draw us to the broth.
Take your pick: Building immunity, fighting cancer, overcoming digestive issues, giving your memory a boost…soup can help get you there. That it does this while giving you the equivalent of a warm, culinary hug is all the better. Comfort food, soup be thy name!
The path to true soup empowerment is learning to make wonderful soup on your own.
My video, “Becoming a Soup Master in 9 Minutes,” shares the tricks of the trade you’ll need to acquire this delicious and healing skill.
The complete recipe for the soup featured in the video is right here:
Also, be sure to try the Moroccan Chickpea and Vegetable Soup pictured at the top of the post. Yummmm!
And of course you’ve got to start with those delicious broth basics! Take your pick, or choose your favorite homemade broth recipe:
Now you’re all set! Consider trying making a pot of soup a week, and see if you experience some of the aforementioned improvements. You will certainly enjoy some tasty and comforting meals and the pleasure of having a little something warm and fabulous on hand to add to lunch or dinner.
Blessings on your soup pot and your health!