Two Soups?

Not content, last week, with resorting to stilton and broccoli soup, nor pea and ham, for lunch, I found I needed another recipe. Fresh kale was sitting in fridge number one, as were larger than average carrots. What to do?

Kale soup, perhaps? Now there's an idea.

Not only does the recipe leave us with plenty of kale for another day and in another way but it also uses up many of our many carrots. Kale is vitamin rich: it contains vitamins K, A, C, B6, B1, B2, B3, D and can also provide us with manganese, calcium, magnesium, sodium, iron, phosphorus and potassium. Eating foods containing magnesium may help reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Kale is known as one of the most nutritious foods in existence.

It also contains antioxidants that help reverse damage by free radicals. These devils are known to drive aging and cancer. Antioxidants found in kale also lower blood pressure, and are anti-inflammatory, anti-viral and anti-depressant. When cooked it wilts like spinach but it contains 4 1/2 times as much vitamin C as spinach. What’s more a cup of kale has more vitamin C than a whole orange! Kale contains bile acid sequestrants too. They bind bile acids in the digestive system which reduces the total amount of cholesterol in the body. A juice made from this super superfood, when drunk daily over 12 weeks, increases good HDL cholesterol and lowers LDL cholesterol.

Macular degeneration can be supported by eating orange foods eg apricots, carrots, orange peppers but also kale. These foods contain lutein which reduces the risk of macular degeneration development. And eating kale is much better for your digestive system than taking lutein-containing supplements. It can be eaten as a salad or made into kale crisps:simply drizzle olive oil over kale leaves, add salt and bake in the oven until dry.

However, today, I am sharing with you my kale soup recipe, having been very pleased with the taste. The sweetness is from the carrots and it certainly doesn't feel like you are being forced to eat boiled cabbage, even though kale is a brassica!

Ingredients
2 tbsp cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion - finely chopped
4 medium carrots - roughly chopped
200 g curly kale - chopped
2 garlic cloves - crushed
700 ml chicken stock or vegetable stock

( some recipes suggest adding pepper for flavour and milk for extra creaminess)

The method is a straightforward soup-making one:

Heat the oil in a large pan over a medium heat, sweat the vegetables, minus the kale, for 10 minutes to soften the onion. Introduce the kale and sweat for 5 minutes whereby it should have wilted. Add the stock, bring to the boil, then simmer for 20  minutes. I cool the soup if I'm not wanting to serve it immediately and finish off by blending it for 30 seconds in the food processor until it is smooth.

I don't find the soup needs added creaminess and I leave out the milk. If you have chives or leeks growing in the garden they are an excellent substitute for garlic. The garlic taste isn't, however, too strong. And the colour of the soup is a golden yellow with green speckles. Magnificent!

Eating or drinking kale on a daily basis is one of the simplest ways you can ensure your body is in a good position to fight free radicals and it's a good support for your whole system.

But I'm told kale is a bugger to grow in your back garden, requiring time, manure and a lot of 'fiddling' ... unlike spinach which is a doddle!