Clean out the crisper soup

I don’t know about you, but I hate wasting food.

I have the privilege of being able to afford a fresh organic and whole food-based diet, and I don’t take this for granted. I’ve had times in my life when I had to pick and choose what I put in my cart, mentally doing the math as I made my way to the cash, hoping I had enough for what was there.

I also just really respect the plant world and the amount of energy and time it takes to grow food. Flashback to last summer when I nurtured and tended to my first broccoli plant that took, ALL summer to grow, and just when I was ready to pick it, I walked outside to see it being devoured by one veggie-loving and enthusiastic pup last year. To say I almost wept might be a bit dramatic, but dang, I was disappointed.

If you’re growing your food and something happens, well, you can’t just start over at the end of the growing season.

But I, like so many of us, can find myself with a crisper full of odds and sods that are starting to look a little tired and withered.

Often there isn’t enough for a meal, but I don’t want to toss them out or wait for them to die a slow and soggy death in my crisper.

So I decided to come up with another way to make use of the foods I have and hit all my food honouring points in the process. Enter the clean-out-the-crisper soup.

What I’m amazed at, is that even though on paper it may seem like many of the things won’t naturally fit together, but when held together with the trusty trio of onions, garlic, and ginger, and an immersion blender, this can be one of the most satisfying and tasty things I make all week.

I’ll give you the basics below and then play around with what you have hanging out at the bottom of your crisper, and give it a go.

Base:
1 onion
2-3 cloves garlic
1 1-2” nub of ginger

Bone broth if you have it (powdered is great to have on hand, or chicken stock)

1 medium sized starchy veg (sweet potato, yam, ** organic potato, beets…)
1-2 pieces of celery
1 carrot
Greens greens greens – anything green you might have lingering (bok choy, spinach, kale, chard, romaine lettuce, broccoli (even save the stems for this if you don’t normally eat them all and just trim away the woody bits))
Some fresh herbs if you have
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Put a solid amount of olive oil in the bottom of a cooking pot
Heat over medium heat
Add onions and let simmer for a minute and then add garlic and ginger
Add celery if you have it after everything has softened. Sautee for about 1 min
Add your bone broth (You’ll want enough to cover all the vegetables by about an inch once everything has been added)
Once it’s boiling, add the carrot and starchy veg and simmer until a knife can pierce through easily but it’s not soft.
Add your greens and cook very briefly (1 min max, broccoli will need a tad bit longer and the stocks can be added in with the carrot)
Turn off the heat.
Add your fresh herbs and spices

Add all ingredients into an immersion blender and puree on high until creamy smooth.
Add salt and pepper to taste.
You can also add some kefir or nut milk to make it creamier
Drizzle with a healthy oil (I love pumpkin seed oil for this)
Add a handful of the nut and seed mix as well or toast some pumpkin seeds, throw a handful of hemp or a sprinkle of nutritional yeast on to zhuzh it up a bit more!

Enjoy!