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Herbal Branch 34:
Nourishing Herbal Soup Recipe

Perfect for the holidays...

herbal soup recipe Okay, one final branch in our Holiday Herbal Branch extravaganza to warm up your December.

Someone emailed asking for a branch about integrating herbs into their daily lives. Here’s one way we do that in our house on a regular basis…

With warming, nourishing soup! This is great medicine for easing your way through seasonal transitions... (Our herbal soup recipe is continued below...)

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!

We cannot thank you enough for your amazing support. Thanks to you and folks in our local community, we sold nearly 500 Wildcraft! games in our FIRST WEEK!!!

We appreciate your patience in the game arriving a bit late. After a couple all-nighters, we managed to get most of them out in Friday's mail. The process took up our entire lower floor of our house and we even had to store boxes in the shower! (no worries, Hailey didn't turn it on)

We had a BIG PARTY at a local coffee house Friday night to celebrate the game's debut. We PACKED the place and played some great music. I even got up an sang a few tunes from my cd!

Here are a few photos of the evening...

wildcraft

There are plenty of games left, and we are shipping fast for the holidays. Check out Wildcraft! here.

Nourishing Herbal Soup Recipe

herbal soup recipe

So, my first step in putting together the herbal soup recipe was to look in my refrigerator and see what vegetables I had available.

I chose an onion, two carrots, a delicata squash, 3 small potatoes, a leek, 3 leaves of kale, 2 cups chopped cabbage, 1 1⁄2 cups of dried shitaki mushrooms, and a can of diced tomatoes.

So, look in your own refrigerator and see what you’ve got, feel free to make substitutions – sweet potatoes instead of squash for instance – or to leave ingredients out that you don’t have.

I also added 4 cloves of chopped garlic, 2 Tablespoons of freshly grated ginger, 2 tsp. curry powder, 1½ tsp. basil and oregano, sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, ¼ cup dry sherry, 3 cups of chicken stock and 2 cups of water.

Ginger, garlic, onions, curry powder, and black pepper all help make this soup extra warming.

[A note about the chicken stock: I make my own by simmering the bones, skin and cooking juices of one chicken in 1 ½ gallons of water for about 6 hours. Sometimes, I’ll add onions, carrots and garlic to the pot, and I also add .4 ounces of dandelion root, and .1 ounce burdock and astragulus root. Strained, this makes an incredibly nourishing and immune system building stock that can be stored in the refrigerator or freezer for future use.

You can also use vegetable stock if you prefer a vegetarian option, or store bought chicken broth. I recommend adding burdock and astragulus root to your soup pot if they are not part of your stock already. I use tongues of astragulus root that can be taken out before serving the soup.]

Burdock, shitaki mushrooms, chicken stock, and of course all the fresh vegetables are very nourishing for our bodies.

Then, garlic and astragulus help give a boost to our immune systems. This really helps us avoid colds and flues as we move from the warmth of summer into winter cold.

You can get burdock, shiitake mushrooms and astragulus right here. You can also find fresh burdock and shiitake mushrooms at natural grocery stores.

So, after making my stock, my first step in making the soup was to re-hydrate the mushrooms by covering them with boiling water for 15 minutes.

herbal soup recipe

Next, I sauted the chopped onion in olive oil for about 3 minutes in the soup pot. Then I added the sliced carrots and squash (peeled, seeded, and cut into bite sized pieces). At this point I put the ginger, garlic, curry powder, basil, and oregano, and basil in with the sauté and cooked the combination for 3 more minutes.

Now add the chopped potatoes and 3 cups stock ¼ cup dry sherry, a cup of water and the mushrooms with their soaking water. Bring to boil and simmer for 10 minutes.

herbal soup recipe