It's A Soup Kinda Day

I am one of those "lucky ones" to have colitis. Thankfully it's not too bad, and usually I am not limited by it, but I still suffer from time to time. And yesterday, I was lucky enough to have my routine colonoscopy. 
Woop woop.  

Needless to say, I need something gentle on the tummy today! 

So... Soup is on the menu tonight.

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Between stress management and diet, my colitis has been fairly under control, but I sometimes find it difficult to eat properly. A lot of really healthy things actually make my stomache hurt. Like raw broccoli or red onions. I've only just discovered this, and knowing this now, it would have saved me a world of hurt! 

This new "raw" food fad diet sounds great and everything, but please don't push it on me! It would probably kill me. Not literally at this point for myself, but for others, it could be a serious health setback if they were to try that diet. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying there is anything wrong with certain diets, 
but it is very important to know and to do what is best for your body.

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The Ingredient List

A good glug of olive oil
5 cloves of garlic
2 white onions
1 shallot
1 red pepper
1-2 tbsp Balsamic vinegar
4-5 carrots
3-4 potatoes
1 celery root
1 small butternut squash
About 5 cups of water
Bouillon (amount proportional to water used)
S&P
Shaved ginger (about 1-2 tbsp)

I chopped everything up in large, rough chunks before hand, so it would all be easy to throw into the pot of soup. 

Chopped Celery Root

After some serious tears over the onions, I started off cooking the garlic, shallots and onions 
over medium heat in the olive oil. 

One they were browned, I threw in the red pepper with the balsamic vinegar to sweeten the peppers. 
Then I threw in the carrots to get a little extra cooking time. 

I threw everything else in (potatoes, celery root, butternut squash) and just covered with water and bouillon mixture. 

Then let it boil until everything is soft. Blend with a hand held mixer or blender.

This time, I decided on going with a ginger for the seasoning, but sometimes I leave out the seasoning altogether, and when I feel like having soup, I just heat it up and then add my extra flavours. 

A few variations of flavours you can add to the base soup might be:

• Ginger and Siracha with some Sesame Oil
  
• Nutmeg and Maple Syrup
  
• Honey Mustard and Dill
  
• Cilantro and Curry with Lime
  
• Olive oil and Herbs Du Provence

Did you know? 

A little trick I've come to use so I always have fresh ginger on hand is to freeze it. It makes it easy to scrape the skin off, and then I use a small grater to shave the ginger. Voila!  Fresh/ frozen ginger is always better than powdered! 

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Butternut Squash and Ginger Soup- complete with sesame and seaweed garnish! Yum

There you have it- my favourite soup recipe. 

What's your favourite soup recipe? Which of the variations would you try or what are some other ideas? Feel free to add ideas in the comments. I always love hearing from you. 

Here's to a healthy soup! 

xo Jena