Clean Soups: Simple, Nourishing Recipes for Health and Vitality [A Cookbook]Hardcover (2024)

ISBN-13: 9780399578250

Media Type: Hardcover

Publisher: Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed

Publication Date: 09-06-2016

Pages: 160

Product Dimensions: 7.70(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.70(d)

INTRODUCTION

Throughout my twenty-year culinary consulting and cooking career in the food-as-medicine movement, I’ve been, first and foremost,
a soup-maker. I’ve practiced my craft in kitchens as diverse as the Chopra
Center for Wellbeing, Dr. Andrew Weil’s Arizona Center for Integrative
Medicine’s annual Nutrition and Health Conference, and the Commonweal
Retreat Center in Bolinas, California. It was at Commonweal’s retreats,
when I was often cooking for seriously ill people, that I 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.
I was doling out a little liquid health with each dip 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 the truth is, from the Baha’i to the Buddhists, and from the Christians to the simply curious, using soup to help the body detoxify and renew itself is as old as humankind. Hippocrates and Greek physicians used bone broths as a curative for the sick and fatigued.

Flash forward a couple of millenia, and you’ve got companies coming out of the woodwork promoting their healthy soups. Sure, if you want to spend up to $300 for a week’s worth of commercially made soups, this is a possible option, but wouldn’t you rather learn from a master how to make healthy soups on your own? Delicious soups that you can pull together in a half hour or less can lead you to true soup empowerment.

It’s really that easy, as you’ll see in this book. And it’s really that healthy.
Eating soup is a way to hit the body’s reset button, to allow internal organs devoted to detoxification the rest and nutrients necessary to successfully do their job. The result, from a health viewpoint, is often startling, but no one should really be surprised. Soup, after all, is life distilled into a bowl.
Unlike juicing, nothing is lost in the stockpot; indeed, just the opposite takes place. The heat of the pot slowly breaks down nutrients to a more digestible state, simultaneously releasing outrageous flavors that create heady aromas that magnetically draw us to the broth.

This book is dedicated to the proposition that everyone can enjoy making soup, whether the goal is a full-blown, two-day, nothing-but-soup cleanse,
or a more general commitment to incorporate soup on a daily or weekly basis. Believe me, the ability to create culinary alchemy in a pot can be learned (I’m living proof), and the payoff is so high: when you’re feeling out of sorts, and your appetite or digestion may be off, soup is the absolutely best way to make a healthy reconnection with food. It’s like taking your body to a spa. You’ll come out feeling marvelous.

KALE SOUP WITH COCONUT AND LIME

Talk about counterbalancing tastes: here the überhealthy kale and coconutmilk are a magical pairing, with the sweetness of the coconut neutralizingthe natural bitterness of the kale. The ginger and lime are like Fourth of Julysparklers on top of the flavor profile. The soup is purposely a bit thin, andmany people enjoy it as a broth in a cup or take it to go in a thermos. If youwant to give it a little heft, try adding glass noodles or shredded sweet potato.

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil or coconut oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons mincedfresh ginger
2 bunches kale, stemmed andcut into bite-size pieces
Sea salt
6 cups Thai Coconut Broth
1 1/2 tablespoons freshlysqueezed lime juice
2 1/2 teaspoons dark maple syrup
1 tablespoon finely choppedfresh Thai basil, for garnish

Heat the oil in a soup pot over medium-highheat, then add the garlic and ginger, stir, andcook for about 1 minute. Add the kale and1/2 teaspoon sea salt and saute for 3 minutes,or just until emerald green. Add the broth andcook until the kale is tender, about 3 minutes.Remove from the heat.

Pour 2 cups of the broth into a blender,add one-third of the kale mixture, andblend until smooth. Transfer to a souppot over low heat, and repeat the processtwo more times. Stir in the limejuice, maple syrup and . teaspoon sea salt. Serve garnished with thebasil, or store in an airtight containerin the refrigerator for up to 5 days or inthe freezer for up to 3 months.