GLUTEN FREE, DAIRY FREE
It’s early October, which means it’s time for one thing.
SOUP
Soup tends to be one of the easiest and best things to make around this time of year for me. I generally have so many vegetables hanging around my kitchen, and I’m also usually very cold as soon as August ends. This results in my throwing everything into a pot, walking away, coming back an hour later and hoping everything tastes good. This is why I love soup.
A few key things I had for this particular recipe I made were all bought in the same grocery trip. Ginger root, leek, and acorn squash. Everything else I pretty much had hanging around.
I decided to call it Singer’s Soup because it’s great to clear out your sinuses and a lot of these ingredients us singers swear by. I.e. ginger, lemon, cayenne, broth.
Quick story-
A few years ago I was In the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival’s production of Fiddler on the Roof. I was playing Fruma Sarah. If you’ve never seen Fiddler on the Roof, Fruma Sarah is a wacky dead ghost lady who appears to the main character in a fun dream sequence (BEST SCENE IN THE SHOW. In my opinion at least) and anyway…This is a difficult singing role. SO…basically all of the sudden, I start feeling really sick (I get sicker in the Summer than the Winter, anyone else?) ANYWAY, I go to the urgent care, and I have tonsillitis….My tonsils were SO swollen, and just honestly mangled, it was absurd. Guess what. I didn’t miss one performance of that show. I had no understudy, and it was one of my first professional credits. Every morning I woke up, had ginger tea, hot water with lemon and cayenne, and gargled with apple cider vinegar (and of course took antibiotics.) But the point is, I took care of myself, and healed my throat and my instrument. Singer’s soup would have been good too 🙂 Now that you’ve tortured yourself by reading that whole paragraph or just skipped it entirely…
Here’s the recipe:
1 carton of chicken broth
1 carton of chicken stock
2 cups water
1 finger of ginger (it looks kind of like a weird finger soooo…)
1 whole bunch of fresh parsley, finely chopped
1 large raw chicken breast
1 medium yellow onion
1 leek stalk
1 spoonful of minced garlic, or 2 garlic cloves, minced
1 lil’ acorn squash
1 bunch of carrots (save the tops for fresh pesto)
2 bay leaves
1 lemon, sliced
salt
Pep
Cayenne
Paprika
Let’s get started over here!
Turn your oven on! 350 will be good. Get a lil’ pan, and slice the top and bottom off of your acorn squash. Pop this sucker in the oven and let it bake for about a half hour or so.
Do you guys know how to peel ginger? just cut off a healthy chunk of it and take a spoon and just scrape off that outside bit! Easy! Now just take a good knife and chop that stuff up real good.
Take that onion, chop it up, chop those carrots (don’t forget to save the tops!!)
Turn your burner on to medium heat. Throw all of your liquid ingredients in that pot, along with your chopped onions and ginger. I also chopped that parsley up really well and super fine and threw that right in as well. This parsley is a great anti-inflammatory so that’s cool.
ALSO, guys do you know how to cook a leek? Leeks grow in the sand so just washing them under the faucet isn’t really going to do the trick. All you have to do is cut that sucker from the top of the stalk to the base of the stalk, long ways. Then you can chop it like it’s an onion. The good parts of the leek are the lighter part of the stalk. The tougher, greener parts of the stalk don’t have much flavor, and are tough and difficult to cook. The lighter parts of the stalk are easier to chop, and are tasty when you cook them up. Use your judgment! If it seems too dark and tough, toss it/compost it! If it seems tender and easy to cut through, chop it up to use in your soup! I love the taste of leek. Oh my gosh. I got off track. Okay so after you’ve chopped up your leek properly, get a big bowl and fill it with water. Throw all of those sandy and tender pieces, throw them in that bowl of water and kind of just wash them with your hands. All of that sand and dirt will sink to the bottom of the bowl! Take those buoyant leeks and toss them in the pot with your onions and ginger!
I’d also add those bay leaves now if I were you.
Get that big ole lemon, slice it up in five or six slices, toss it in the pot. This will flavor the soup really beautifully, and look really pretty floating on top, as well.
DID YOU FORGET ABOUT THE ACORN SQUASH IN THE OVEN. TAKE IT OUT NOW, OKAY?! Let it chill out for a few minutes while the base of your soup is simmering. When you feel okay about not burning yourself, you can slice the outsides right off that acorn squash. It will be much easier now that it’s a bit baked. Cut it into cubes and toss it into your soup!
Chop the rest of the ingredients like the raw chicken and carrots, and throw them into the pot as well. SEASON YOUR SOUP. NOBODY LIKES UNSEASONED SOUP. Throw a bunch of salt and pep in. Throw in some paprika and some cayenne and also your garlic. Use your discretion here, friends. My husband hates anything spicy, so I like to wait to put the cayenne in until he’s had his own share. Let the soup cook until the chicken is cooked through! OKAY! ENJOY!!!
See if it helps your cold 🙂
Merry Weather 