Winter Soup

by Kristin Clara

When the weather turns colder and fresh produce is in short supply I turn to heartier vegetables….kale, cabbage, roots and tubers. Pulled from storage cellars or your local grocer’s aisles, these are the food that saw our ancestors through the leaner winter months. This is peasant comfort food at its best…meant to sustain and nourish us when the trees and fields are bare.

Winter-Soup-Ingredients

  • Ingredients

    2 pounds ground pork

    1 ½ pounds waxy potatoes, like Yukon Gold, you don’t need to peel if organic

    1 bunch kale, stem removed and torn into bite sized pieces

    1 large onion, peeled and chopped

    2 parsnips or turnips, peeled and chopped

    1 cup chicken broth (homemade bone broth is the best, but organic store bought is a good substitute).

    1 cup white wine…I use a decent chardonnay, if omitting wine just substitute with another cup of bone broth.

    1 quart water

    6 garlic cloves cut into thin slices

    1 TBSP ghee

    2 tsp salt

    ¼ tsp fresh ground pepper

    2 TBSP fresh sage, chopped (substitute 1 TBSP if using dried)

    1 TBSP  fresh thyme, leaves removed from stem and chopped (substitute ½ TBSP if using dried)

    1-2 tsp dried red pepper flakes

    * Note on cooking with alcohol. Wine and other spirits are not Paleo, so I don’t drink them often, but the lines become blurred once they become an ingredient.

    Cooking with alcohol over longer periods of time, in a wide bottomed pan, will remove 75-85 % of the alcohol. Which is good, but not great, 25% will remain…so this becomes a personal choice. I choose to include alcohol as part of my cooking pantry, the reasons being is that 25% alcohol diluted in a big pot of soup or roast just isn’t  that much. The other reason is that alcohol, particularly wine, imparts an incredible flavor that can’t be reproduced with any other ingredient.

  • Directions

    Peel and chop your vegetables into ¼ inch bite sized pieces.

    Over medium-high heat cook the pork until no longer pink. Add the sage, thyme and cook stirring for another minute.

    Remove the pork from the pan and add the onion. Over medium-high heat cook until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, stirring for another minute.

    Add water, broth and wine, red pepper, salt and black pepper

    Add the pork back into the pan and give everything a stir.

    Add the potatoes and parsnips, cover and simmer over medium-low heat for 45 minutes to an hour.

    Add the kale and cook until tender.

    Serve and let the aroma and steam warm you up on a winter’s day

Winter-Soup