Soup Weather Adventure

I woke up this morning and I knew it was here.  Soup weather.  Tis the season here in Seattle--gray, misty days that are just cool enough to spark the desire to wear flannel and switch from sneakers to hiking boots.  I love it.  I welcome the gray with flannel-covered open arms.

So here's the thing.  I wasn't really expecting the lovely gray Soup Weather day, so I was caught off guard.  No freshly made bone broth, no celery, no carrots on hand...what was a soup-obsessed girl to do?

I decided to wing it.

Those of you who know me may know that on any given day, I might be trying a new "way of eating".  I do this for two reasons...(One) I'm in the process of healing my gut and my thyroid and (Two) because I'm a health coach and I think it's really important to try out different ways of eating so when clients have questions about a particular way of eating I can answer them based on true life experiences.

Now that being said, I just finished reading two books-- "Eat Right 4 Your Type:  The Individualized Blood Type Diet Solution" by Dr. Peter J. D'Adamo and "Happy Healthy Thyroid" by Andrea Beaman.  Both interesting books.  The funny thing is, based on my blood type (O) and my thyroid issues, both books had similar recommendations about how to eat.  So...I'm doing a little combo of the two and we'll see how it goes.

OK, now back to my soup dilemma!  I needed to find blood-type friendly soup ingredients that I could just toss into the Instant Pot and let it do its magic (cuz I'm totally lazy on gray Seattle days).  So...I found the following:

Not bad, right?  Boxed Chicken stock, onions, garlic, ginger, sweet potatoes, kombu, and power greens.  All blood type O powerhouses!  Yay!  Not really sure how it's going to taste, but we'll see!

I roughly chop the onions, garlic and sweet potatoes and then shave off some ginger.  I keep the finely chopped power greens and the kombu separate.

Now comes the Instant Pot.  Hit Saute and throw in a bit of olive oil and let it heat.  Next comes the onions, garlic, sweet potato and ginger.  And a little salt.  Stir it around.  Crap...the ginger is sticking!  I should have anticipated that!  So I throw in a splash of broth and scrape it up.  Note to self:  Next time add ginger after the broth. 

Oh well.  Live and learn.  So now I dump in the broth and re-set the Instant Pot to the Soup setting.  12 mins on high pressure.  Go!

Of course I totally lose track of time (because I'm writing this) so the Instant Pot beeps and it gets to depressurize naturally due to my lack of focus.  I open up the IP.  It looks like this:

  

Which is fine, but I'm more of a creamy soup girl, so out comes the immersion blender which I stick directly into the Instant Pot and blend like crazy until the contents look like this:

Then I cut the kombu into strips (by the way, this is my first time trying kombu) and add them to the pot.  I press saute and saute for about 4 minutes to soften and release the nutrients. 

Almost time for the big taste test!  I sprinkle a little chopped power greens into a bowl (just a little), pour in a little soup, add a dash of turmeric and give it a stir.  Top with a sprinkle of parsley.  Let it sit for a bit to let the greens soften.  Results?  Pretty great.  Warming and healing.  Though next time, I think I'd leave out the turmeric (and maybe the power greens...as much as I love the extra nutrients, I really DO prefer a creamy soup).  Maybe next time I will sub out the turmeric for a little cinnamon or maybe even chili powder.  Mmmm.  I'm dreaming of my next soup day already!

So that's my Soup Weather adventure...have you got a favorite that you just "throw together" on a crisp Fall day?  Share below if you like!