Seasonal Soups HEALTHY AND HEARTY FALL FAVORITES.
BY KIMBER DEAN · PHOTOS BY L.G. PATTERSON
I
n my family you either love or you tolerate soup season. My chicken noodle soup is my 5-year-old daughter’s favorite meal year-round, but my
husband cannot stand too many days in a row that we have soup for dinner. I love that my three daughters enjoy soups because they are one of the easiest ways to get extra nutrients into my family’s bodies without them knowing it. I use a lot of bone broths for gut health, vegetables they would normally eat, herbs and spices for phytonutrients and micronutrients. Herbs and spices are some of the most powerful forms of healing foods in the world, and buying them organic is so important because of the toxic load of non-organic from pesticides and herbicides. I love the abundance of local farmers here in Columbia with fall and winter seasonal produce. I’ve made pumpkin chili with local pumpkin that I roasted and pureed myself (so much cheaper than canned pumpkin and you avoid BPA from cans). I make a lot of creamy squash soups with local acorn, butternut, hubbard or carnival squashes. I never cook with dairy, so I like to make my creamy soups and bisques with my cashew ricotta recipe from Happy Food Cookbook, shared below, or other vegan cheese sauce recipes I have created. I love making vegan, gluten free cream of mushroom soup, broccoli cheddar or tomato bisque for customers at Nourish Cafe & Market and Nourish Sedalia to give them classic favorites that are as healthy and convenient as possible. Bisques or creamy soups are the easiest way to use up vegetables that are going to expire soon in your kitchen, plus you can usually mask the flavor for those in your home who don’t like that specific vegetable by using extra seasoning.
34 INSIDE COLUMBIA OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021
