Heartwarming Soup!

We had a wonderful weekend - both from a getting things done perspective and from an eating perspective. Saturday started out cold and cloudy so I decided to cook chicken noodle soup for supper. It was delicious, but the really cool thing about it was that I bought a whole organic chicken, cooked it all afternoon in a pot of water along with a cut up carrot, onion, celery, some parsley and a little white vinegar. The vinegar leaches the minerals out of the bones, adding a nutritious richness to the broth. When it was cooked, I was able to freeze 4 pints of broth and make the soup! I made the soup out of strained broth, carrots, celery, onion, basil, a bay leaf, some salt and freshly cracked pepper along and some whole grain spelt noodles. I only used 1/2 of the chicken for the soup.

Then yesterday I made a big chicken pot pie out of the other half of the chicken. Now I have wonderful leftovers that I can use for the rest of the week or I can freeze some of it and use it in a few weeks so I don't get tired of the leftovers! By taking a little time and planning, I maximized the use of the food I bought and minimized my preparation time!

As fall progresses and winter approaches, I resort more and more to soups and stews. This is because they are warming and dense in nature, providing me with nutrition I need to keep my immune system strong. I have found that I can't eat a lot of light or raw foods in cold weather - it makes me too cold and weakens my immune system and I find them difficult to digest. You can test this out on yourself - it is actually called seasonal eating - so go ahead and delight in the heavy winter foods!

The recipe I really want to share with you is one of my favorite soup recipes. It is truly heartwarming and tastes amazingly good. It satisfies a sweet tooth and is beneficial to your heart health and helps your body deal with the dryness of fall and winter. The recipe calls for red lentils and dried apricots (I know - sounds weird but is delicious).

According to Paul Pitchford (he is one of my gurus - he taught a class at the school I attended and I attended a week long intensive class of his at the Heartwood Institute in northern California) in his book "Healing with Whole Foods," lentils have the following properties: "Neutral thermal nature; mild flavor; diuretic; beneficial to the heart and circulation; stimulates the adrenal system; increases the vitality of the kidneys." Apricot properties include: "neutral thermal nature; sweet-and-sour flavor; moistens the lungs and increases the yin fluids; used for dry throat, thirst, asthma, and other lung conditions when there is fluid deficiency. Because of its high copper and cobalt content, it is commonly used to treat anemia. Apricots originated in China, where they are considered weakening of consumed abundantly. They must be used cautiously during pregnancy, and avoided in cases of diarrhea."

Paul's comments illustrate some of the concepts I have learned over the last several years. First, food is medicine - food used to be used as medicine and some medicines are actually created from food. Second, it is important to eat a wide variety of foods. Eating apricots illustrates this concept - while eating a few here and there can be beneficial, too many can cause problems in the body.

The recipe comes from diamondorganics.com, a website where you can purchase organic foods and have them delivered to your door. The website is worth checking out as it contains a lot of information about organic foods and also has a host of recipes. Their quality is great, however their products are quite pricey. The recipe is really quick and easy to fix.

Apricot Lentil Soup

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 large onion chopped

2 cloves garlic minced

1/3 cup dried apricots chopped

1 ½ cup red lentils, rinsed

5 cups vegetable stock

3 plum tomatoes (peeled, seeded and chopped)

½ teaspoon ground cumin

½ teaspoon dried thyme, salt and ground black pepper

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Saute onion, garlic and apricots in olive oil. Add lentils and stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer 30 minutes.

Add tomatoes, cumin, thyme, and salt and pepper to taste, and simmer 10 minutes more.

Add lemon juice. Puree ½ of the soup in a blender, then return to the pot.

Serves 6.

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we do.