Since I love any soup that includes butternut squash, I wanted to try Joe’s recipe from the Winter Soups: Community Cookbook. Joe has an awesome site at the Wellness Punks that I highly recommend you check out. I’m really looking forward to catching up on his youTube channel. Most people don’t know this about me, but I love watching youTube especially for cooking and makeup tutorials. It’s also a great resource for health related lectures and interviews with health living authors. So, I’m happy to have some new material to watch. I’ve altered his recipe a little to be dairy free, since I have an allergy and I used bagged butternut squash that was already chopped so it would be less effort on my arms. Then I reduced the amount of ingredients to fit in my dutch oven.

My Version:

Butternut Squash and Parsnip Soup with Bacon

 

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Prep time

30 mins

Cook time

45 mins

Total time

1 hour 15 mins

 

Ingredients

• 1 package of nitrate, gluten, and casein free bacon
• 1 medium white onion
• 4 bags of butternut squash (1⅔ cups)
• 2 medium parsnips
• 4 cups of water
• 2 cloves of garlic roughly chopped
• 1 chopped granny smith apple
• 1 tsp of sea salt
• ½ cup of coconut milk (I like Native Forest organic and unsweetened)
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• ½ tsp of ground cardamom
• ½ tsp of paprika (I used hungarian sweet paprika since that was what I had in my pantry)
• ¼ tsp of cayenne pepper

Instructions

1. Dice and saute bacon until crunchy in a large dutch oven. No oil needed bacon has saturated fat which is great for cooking. Remove bacon bits from pan.
2. Chop onion and carmelize in bacon grease.
3. In same pot add butternut squash, parsnips, garlic, apple, sea salt, coconut milk, and water. Water should just cover ingredients in pot.
4. Then add ginger, cardamon and paprika.
5. Bring pot to a boil, and let ingredients soften.
6. Add spices but remember to go slowly and start small, you can always add more and this soup has a nice kick, or you can wait until after blending to add in spices so you can monitor them by taste testing.
7. Then use an immersion blender or transfer to blender in batches.
8. Then garnish with bacon bits.

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For more delicious soups and awesome blogs check out:

I got this turkey leg over the holidays when I went to my mom’s regular farmer’s market. My farmer’s market only carries whole chickens and beef, so I was really excited to cook something different. We froze it along with another leg and two packs of chicken livers, then put it into a beach bag and my fiance carried it onto the airplane. Thank you Shameer! The turkey legs stayed frozen and kept everything cold as well.

When I went to cook the turkey leg, it didn’t fit in my slow cooker or dutch oven so my recipe would be much different if I had large stockpot and roasting pan. Since I don’t have these kitchen tools, what I did was a bit messy and complicated. Luckily, it still tasted delicious, even when my carrots turned the broth purple.

Turkey Leg Soup with “Cosmic Purple” Heirloom Carrots

 

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Prep time

1 hour 15 mins

Cook time

2 hours

Total time

3 hours 15 mins

 

Serves: 4-6

Ingredients

• 1 turkey leg
• 3 (medium/large) cosmic purple heirloom carrots
• 1 handful of fresh parsley
• 1 half a white onion
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1 tsp of black pepper
• 1 tbsp of coconut oil

Instructions

1. Roast turkey leg on a cookie sheet that's been greased with coconut oil.
2. Pat top dry so skin get cripsy and season with sea salt and black pepper.
3. Bake at 350 degrees fahrenheit for about an hour.
4. Remove carefully from oven, there is lots of oil and juice in pan.
5. Let cool until safe to handle.
6. Then chop off as much as you can and add it to the pot. Keep the chopped pieces large, we take them out and shred later. Discard bones that will not fit in pot.
7. In a pot add turkey parts including skin and bones. Add water, and unchopped parsley and unchopped onion, sea salt and black pepper to pot.
8. Let it simmer for a couple hours. The longer the better.
9. When ready to serve, fish out skin and bones and discard. Shred meat and set aside. Fish out mushy parsley and onion, and discard.
10. To the turkey stock, add meat back in with chopped carrots.
11. I don't like mushy vegetables, so I let carrots simmer for 10 to 15 minutes before serving. (Broth will turn purple from cosmic purple heirloom carrots)

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