Chilled GAPS soups

At this time of year, hot soups aren't as appealing as during winter. So I've been searching for chilled soups for our daily dose of GAPS stock. I'm especially looking for red and green soups that would be nice for Xmas Day. I haven't actually made any of these yet, but hopefully will get away from the computer for some recipe testing over the weekend.


Borscht:

• Make Dr Natasha's borscht recipe from the GAPS book. Let it go cold. Puree or keep it chunky - your choice. Chill. Serve with the recommended garnishes.
• Or this recipe looks good too. Omit the sugar from the soup recipe, and of course no potato to garnish. Use your own cultured cream or drained yoghurt.

Gazpacho:

• For this Tomato Soup recipe, omit the sugar. Note that cilantro = coriander, and consomme = stock
• This Cold Spiced Tomato Soup recipe doesn't need any adjustments - it's already GAPs friendly

Green soups:

• Green Goddess Soup (avocado and spinach) - use meat or chicken stock instead of vegetable stock
• Avocado Island - replace the vegetable broth with chicken
• Chilled Cucumber and Green Apple Soup with Cilantro - actually this doesn't have stock in it, but it does have olive oil. Green onions = spring onions.

Winter Warmer Soup

This is a quick and easy way to make your daily stock more interesting, when you can't be bothered making a vegetable soup. 

Have a mug of this warming soup at first signs of a flu or cold, or when you're feeling the winter weather. If you get sick, sip throughout the day.

• 1 litre of chicken, duck or turkey stock
• 1 teaspoon fresh ginger, grated or finely chopped
• 4-8 Tablespoons creamed coconut
• juice of 1 lemon
• sea salt to taste

Bring the stock to a boil, skim off any foam. Add the ginger (and optional extras) and simmer for 10 minutes. Stir in the creamed coconut and simmer for another 5 minutes. Add the lemon juice and sea salt to taste, and serve.

Variations:

• For an even more heating soup, also add 1/4 teaspoon dried chilli flakes -OR- 1-3 dried chillies (depending on their size)
• Use as a base for a more filling soup by adding pumpkin, butternut or kumera. After adding the lemon and sea salt, take out the chillies (if you used whole ones) and puree with a handheld wand blender.
• Garnish with a spring onion, very finely chopped

Bone broths & GAPS Intro soup

Bone broths (or stocks) are a basic for a Weston Price foundation style diet, and for the GAPS protocol.

They are a good source of minerals and amino acids, and aid digestion.

For more information on the benefits of broth, see this article on the WAPF website. It also has full recipes for classic beef, chicken and fish stocks, towards the bottom of the page. Have a read of this article and familiarise yourself with the full recipes before reading the summary below.

The classic recipes above use a variety of bones, plus vegetables and seasonings for flavour, and are simmered for several hours (4+ for fish, 6+ for poultry and 12+ for beef).

• For beef stock (or other red meats), you need a combination of meaty bones for flavour, marrow bones and knuckle bones.
• For poultry, use a full carcass or a whole bird. If you use the whole bird, simmer for 2-3 hours, just till the meat is cooked. Then take that off the bones, and put aside, and simmer the bones for a few more hours.
• For fish, ideally use all the bones and the head.

After simmering, pour the contents into a colander to seperate out the bones. Take any meat off the bones to use later. If you're doing GAPS, you may also want to put the skin, fat, etc into a separate bowl for adding back to your soup.

Let the stock cool, then refrigerate it. You can then take the fat off the top if you want a clear soup, or leave it on if you want to make a thicker, higher calorie GAPS soup.

GAPS Intro soup

If you're going to turn your stock into vegetable soup, you can simplify the basic recipes by leaving the vegetables out of the initial stock.

When you're doing stage 1 of the GAPS intro - you need to use all the meat, fat and marrow in your soup, to give you enough sustenance.

Make your stock as usual, using quite meaty cuts. Cook till the meat or chicken is just cooked, then take the meat off the bones and put to one side. I like to have three bowls - one for meat; one for fat, skin, marrow, any gelatinous bits, etc; and one for the bones. The meat and fats go into the fridge. The bones go back into the pot with a splash of apple cider vinegar and cook for a few hours more.

When you're ready to make your soup, pour into a clean pan through a colander, and throw the bones away. In the classic stock recipe, you would then skim the liquid fat off the top, but we need it in this soup.

Chop up your veges and cook in the stock till tender. Choose low starch veges like pumpkin, butternut, zucchini, onion, garlic, carrots, etc.

Then get your bowl of fatty bits out of the fridge and add it back to the soup. Take a wand blender and blend till everything is combined, and you have a thick creamy soup. Add salt to taste. Shred the meat and add it back to the soup.

This will be your main food while on the early stages of GAPS Intro.

Variations: I like this variation as it "hides" the fat and the veges, which some children (and adults for that matter) don't like. But you can leave your veges chunky, and have the fatty bits loose, if you prefer.