Bloody Good Vegetable Soup

If you don’t want to read the blah blah, just scroll to the end of the page for the recipe.

I attribute the fact that I never get sick to the fact that I eat this soup every day for the whole of the cooler months and its based on good old bone broth. Its so simple and versatile and doesn’t really need a recipe. I just wanted to share because I think people often put bone broth in the too hard, don’t have time basket and I have found a way to make it so quick and simple. I am sure with more effort and time you could probably get an even better broth but this works, hits the taste mark, hits the immunity mark so that’s a winner to me.

I am all about food that makes you thrive. And I am all about “giving your body what it needs and make it taste great”. This does both. I eat it for lunch, dinner and even brunch on the weekends on occasion. There are sooo many varieties you can make simply but mixing up the veggie combination and the spices/herbs/flavours.

When you cook, cook big. Having good food prepared ahead of time helps us make good choices that make us feel great when we are short on time or find ourselves out of routine. The one thing I would love to encourage everyone to do is eat more veggies. The easiest way to do that is to put them in every meal you make and make them taste good.

I do simple food with not too many ingredients. That’s how I have managed to make it a part of my busy life. Having eaten a mostly whole food diet for many many years now my taste buds get excited by very simple food but if you are used to more intense flavours go with what suits your taste buds, just make sure you eat your veggies!!  Oh and I dont cook from a recipe.  I just play with stuff that I think will go together.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it needs some tweaking.

So here is how I do things, well I think it is.

INGREDIENTS
2 free range chicken frames or about 500g of chicken wings or necks (I like wings best)
3 litres of water
Salt to taste
Veggies to 1/2 fill a big stock pot, I use:
1 zucchini
1 small sweet potato
¼ of a butternut or small pumpkin
2  carrots
4 large sticks of celery plus tops
1/4 of a cauliflower
1 onion (red is nice and sweet)
1 inch piece of ginger
Keep it subtle by stopping here or spice things up by adding –

1 teaspoon ish of turmeric
1 teaspoon ish of cumin
1 teaspoon ish of coriander
1 teaspoon ish of sweet paprika
1 teaspoon ish of chilli flakes or fresh chilli (optional)

METHOD
Put the bones in a slow cooker with 3 ish litres of water and salt and go to bed. In the morning you have bone broth. Tada! That simple. I don’t add any veggies, herbs or spices with the bones in the slow cooker as it is going straight into a pot to make soup where I add the flavours then but feel free to add veg and herbs at this stage if you like.  Bone broth often has vinegar in it to help leach gelatin from the bones. I don’t add it as I don’t like it and my broth still gels so thats ok with me.

Later in the afternoon/evening or once cooled, I strain the broth and pour into a big stock pot, add veggies of choice, herbs and spices, simmer on stove top, the longer the better for flavour but if in a hurry just until veggies soft then blitz through the Thermomix or food processor.
That’s it. It stores in fridge for days at which point I have my next slow cook on the go.

NOTES:
You can use any veggie combination you like. That’s why we refer to it as the “Crisper Soup”, just empty what you have in the fridge veggie crisper into the pot! It will go an ugly colour if you add too many greens like kale but it still tastes good!

A really good kid friendly combo is – Potato, cauliflower and leek.  This is one of my favourites too, the texture is a amazing!