"Gotta Make Soup"

 “I gotta go make soup” has become a bit of a catchphrase for me during the last few months, since starting our new food experiment. I might be out for a cup of coffee with my fab foodie friend, and after a while she’ll ask if I want another, to which I reply “No sorry, gotta go make soup.” I really should be more organised at this stage and batch-cook, but I don't have a chest freezer so fitting everything in the fridge would be tricky! I managed it once, and as you can see there was very little room for anything else!

Soup and stock making has become second nature at this stage, which is just as well as it needs to be done fairly often. With 5 hungry people in our house, food just disappears as fast as I can make it.  I used to be the type of person who stuck religiously to a recipe, weighing out every item carefully, but in the last four months I find I’m making soup in the “toss it in and see” method! It’s much quicker than weighing everything, and the soup is delicious, if slightly different every time! Little Einstein’s favourite soup is squash and vegetable soup so I make a lot of this. Sometimes it tastes more of squash and sometimes it tastes more of leek or carrot but he eats it every time. His appetite is huge. He has two bowls of soup every day when he comes home after school and today he had three!

Soup really is one of the most nourishing things you can eat, and so is a very important part of the SCD. Soups should be made from home-made stock (which is surprisingly easy) and they will keep in the fridge for a week or so and of course can be frozen. I make stock once or twice a week from a chicken or duck carcass or from beef or pork bones. If you have chicken drumsticks or thighs for dinner you can keep the bones in the freezer until you have a good collection of them and make lovely stock from these. You don’t even have to defrost them first.  Just put them in a BIG pot with some vegetables for flavour, like onion, leek, or carrot and boil for a few hours. I like to have different types of stock so I can vary the flavour of soups or sauces for dinner. I made fish stock once but I wouldn’t be in a hurry to do that again, the SMELL in my kitchen was rotten!!

Squash and Vegetable soup

1.5 to 2 litres of stock, chicken or duck is best

1 small butternut squash, or ½ a large one, peeled, de-seeded and cut into chunks

1 or 2 leeks, washed, trimmed and sliced

1 onion, peeled and chopped

1 or 2 carrots, peeled and sliced

Parsley, about a handful, chopped (or any other herbs you have)

Salt and Pepper

Put everything into a large pot, bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer for about half an hour. Blend until smooth.

This makes a nice thick soup, which I find is easiest for little people, they don’t tend to spill so much! You can play around with this recipe too, adding broccoli or garlic or any other veg really. The veg I use are pretty easy on the gut, and so are good choices when you’re starting out on the diet.