One of my favorite dishes to prepare is a pot of soup especially when the winter day is gray and gloomy. There is no snow on the ground today and it is actually warm for the middle of winter. But as I thought about what to prepare for lunch today, the thought of a savory soup came to mind.
The first thing I did was check out the soup section of my personal notebook of recipes to get some ideas. Yes!! Cabbage Fat-Burning Soup sounded great! I checked out my storehouse of food to see what ingredients I had available.
The freezer had frozen bags of shredded zucchini and cabbage from my summer garden. Also a bag of cooked black beans.
Umm…I love making a cabbage soup with lots of other ingredients. It seemed like a opportune time to empty the remainder of the bag of Swiss Chard into the soup.
The cellar yielded chopped tomatoes and tomato juice in glass jars. I choose chicken broth in a cardboard box as the liquid base of the soup.
The vegetable keeper in the fridge had the last bag of carrots from the garden. Amazingly, they were still usable. There was some chopped onion, extra stalks of celery leftover from a veggie platter, and cooked chicken breast with some broth. To finish the soup, the kitchen cupboard had pearled barley and Italian seasoning.
I immediately started the process by sauteing onion and celery in coconut oil. I added about 2 cups of the chicken broth, a pint of the tomatoes in their liquid, and 2 cups of the tomato juice.
Next, 1/3 cup of barley, about 1 cup of chopped carrots, the bag of black beans, the cabbage and zucchini were added. I thawed them enough so they would break apart and not be one solid chunk.
While those ingredients simmered, I chopped and added the cooked chicken breast and Italian seasonings. More broth was needed so it would not be too thick. The soup simmered for about 40 minutes so the barley would be soft and all the flavors combined.
This would be considered a thick, chunky soup but not a chowder since it is not thickened with flour. The barley seemed to add a bit of thickness so it not completely a clear broth base.
This soup is great for an easy lunch and full of nutrition. You can do your own version with what you have on hand when you start thinking it is a soup day!
I would love to hear what soups you enjoy.
“My husband said that his favorite soup is my homemade tomato soup!”