Sometimes the greatest inventions in my kitchen happen when I am just about outta food 🙂
I made this soup up a couple years ago in the dead middle of winter (ie fresh produce selection was slim pickin’s in the frozen tundra that is Michigan.)
This is my backyard last winter…oy!
I was tired of kale, spinach, squash, and all those other hardy winter veggies. And that particular week I just couldn’t bring myself to pay what they were asking for some of the other veggies they had stocked up, so I made up this soup!
You really could use whatever veggies you like. I grab a couple bags of the frozen organic mixed veggies our grocer provides, and then some potatoes, onions, and garlic. It makes a surprisingly SWEET and CREAMY soup I really think your whole family will love.
My girls typically inhale it – the potatoes and little bits of corn and carrot combined with onions that have been cooked right give a very sweet, kid friendly taste. By blending half the soup to a puree and mixing it back together, you will have the most comforting creamy soup!
This is a fun first food soup for the babies being introduced to solids too 🙂 What a great way to get nourishing homemade stock in them! And I promise there is way more veggies in this compared to the jarred baby food soups at the store which are generally a lot of water.
You’ll need:
3 TB friendly fat to cook in (butter, coconut oil, lard, tallow)
2 medium onions, chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 ½ quarts chicken or beef stock (homemade preferable)
2 one pound bags organic mixed veggies
4 medium potatoes, chopped (if using small red or yellow potatoes go for 6 or so)
Sea salt/pepper to taste
- Sauté the onions in the friendly fat for 5 minutes or so. Add a pinch of salt while they cook to bring the juices out and let them sweeten up.
- Add the garlic and cook for a minute.
- Add the potatoes, mixed veggies, and stock and bring to a boil.
- Reduce to a simmer until the potatoes and veggies are cooked through – about 15-20 minutes.
- Take about half the soup out and puree it completely with handheld blender or in a blender.
- Add the soup puree back into the soup to make it creamy and sweet.
- If you have a “picky eater” that might “pick out” the whole veggies in the soup, you can puree the entire soup completely.
Kitchen Tips:
Freezes up great! I very often double batch this one. This single batch makes enough for the girls and I to have lunch that day and freeze up about 2 ½ quarts.- This is a great thermos soup for school or work. Just warm it through on the stove good, and store in a thermos. If you put some boiling water in the thermos then dump the water out the thermos will be nice and hot for the soup.
- This is a fantastic soup to bring to a new Mama! Perfect snack, lunch, or side to dinner! Mama will benefit from the homemade stock for her healing and replenishment, and if the new Mama has other littles around you can bet she won’t have to force them to eat this yummy soup. I usually keep pints of these kind of soups in the freezer and if I’m making a dinner for a new Mama I can easily throw in a soup for lunch too!
- The soup comes together really quick! You can dump the mixed veggies in still frozen!
- Rice or quinoa would work nicely if you don’t have potatoes around.
- Don’t forget the babies! My girls LOVED this soup as a great first foods soup! If they aren’t doing small chunks well yet just puree the whole thing. When my youngest was doing first foods last year, I would fully puree about ¼ of the batch and freeze in her baby food containers.
YOUR TURN!
What sort of meals have you born out of a “slim pickin’s” sort of a week?! Let me know how you like the soup if you try it!
This post was shared at Real Food Forager’s Fat Tuesday, Butter Believer’s Sunday School, and Real Food Freaks Freaky Friday, and Too Many Jars In My Kitchen’s Fill Those Jars Friday!
