One of the ways that food allergies have taken over my brain is that I’m always planning ahead — you have to. A lack of planning can mean not eating, which in my case leads to extreme crankiness or just a complete lack of functioning. I’m also completely incapable of deciding what to eat if I’m too hungry. So I usually know what’s for dinner — tonight and tomorrow night, maybe for the whole week, but certainly for any important dates or busy nights coming up.
On the other hand, life with food allergies also makes you pretty flexible — again, by necessity. So when I had plans to make Winter is Coming Chicken and Kale, I had chicken, polenta, and kale on hand. Or, rather, I thought I did. Turns out, hey, winter is ending and the chicken I’d defrosted (properly — in the fridge, though for two days instead of one) was not good.I don’t really know if it was bad when I bought and froze it or what, but that left me with kale and polenta, which is a really sad meal.
So I ended up making this soup. I’m just going to call it “kitchen sink soup” because that’s pretty much what went into it — everything but the kitchen sink. It turned out so well, though, that I thought I’d go ahead and share it. I wish that it were too late to post soup recipes, but it really isn’t. We’ve moved into cool and rainy, so soup is still all over my menu. If you live somewhere where it’s not soup weather? Yeah, don’t tell me about it, please. I love soup because it’s a one-pot, one-bowl meal that can be entirely balanced.
The key to this soup, I think, is the *right* amount of really good hot sauce for you. Even if you “don’t like spicy things,” you need the hot sauce — you will just add less. GOOD hot sauce will give you tons of flavor and it doesn’t need to have a kick. I’ve written the version for the light end — taste and add more as you see fit.
Kitchen Sink Soup
- 2 teaspoons oil of your choice
- 1/2 an onion, chopped
- pinch of salt
- 8 oz mushrooms, de-stemmed and broken (I prefer crimini)
- 3 carrots, chopped
- 3 celery stalks, sliced thin
- 15 oz of canned or cooked garbanzo beans
- 1 teaspoon good hot sauce (or as much as you want)
- 4 cups of vegetable broth
- 1 potato, peeled and chopped small
- about 4 cups of kale, de-stemmed and shredded
Heat soup pot over medium heat. When the pot is hot, add the oil. When the oil is hot, add the onion and the pinch of salt. Cook, stirring regularly, until onion starts to brown.
Add the broken mushrooms. Breaking mushrooms rather than chopping them gives you bigger mushroom chunks and reduces the shrinkage. Cook until the mushrooms have sweated and darkened.
Add the carrots, celery, garbanzo, hot sauce, and vegetable broth. Stir well, and stir in the potato. Cover and bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook for 20 – 30 minutes — when the carrots and potatoes are cooked, you’re good.
Add the kale, stir, and let cook another 2-3 minutes until the kale is brighter green. Do NOT overcook the kale! Taste and adjust the hot sauce and salt if you need to.
Enjoy the warm veggies and dream of summer.
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