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Chicken & Vegetable Soup-Gluten Free | Allergy Friendly Recipes | Gourmet Food on an Allergy Diet
By Trish Barbara - Warm Winter Soup with Finger Toast
July 3, 2008

WARM WINTER SOUP with FINGER TOAST

Here is a fantastic recipe for good old fashioned Chicken and Vegetable Soup to keep you warm on a chilly winters' day or help you get through a cold or flu. Serve with Finger Toast for a warm comforting meal.

It is not complicated; it just requires throwing together a selection of your favourite vegetables, a whole chook, and a couple of flavour makers (herbs/spices). It beats anything you can buy in a tin, is highly nutritious and tasty and of course has none of the nasty additives that you may find in processed tinned or packet soups. It is filling, easily digested, non- fattening and most of all, as Ned Flanders might say . .. scrum-diddly-doodly-umptious!

Winter is a time of year when we are mostly looking to warm foods for our meals. Mmmm, soup, the perfect winter meal. Soup can be whatever you want it to be. There are no great secrets; you can create your own personal recipe according to the foods you like. Preparation time is minimal - however long it takes to collect a few ingredients and chop up your vegetables. Cooking time, however, is the key. Use plenty of water and with the lid on and the heat way down low, allow 1.5 - 2.5 hours for your soup to boil gently - cook it slowly (the key), this way you retain the flavours and most importantly the nutrition - the all important vitamins and minerals.

This soup is very easy. You can use the same vegetables as in this recipe or choose your own favourites according to the vegetables you like and the ones you are not allergic to. The vegetables I use are because I like them; because of their nutritional value to my immune system and skin and because they cause me no allergic response. The quantities used will of course vary according to how many people you are cooking for. This recipe makes enough for 2-4 people and extra serve or two to go in the freezer.

Organic chicken or not organic chicken, that is the question? Even though it is a little more expensive when it comes to chicken, I stick with Organic chicken, raised free range and free of antibiotics and other growth stimulators. I believe it important to my overall health for the long-term; and personally, I find the way caged chickens are raised and fed offensive.

Always use a whole chicken. Using a whole chicken offers much more nutritional benefits than using breast meat or thigh fillets. When you have a cold or flu, chicken soup (amoung other things) is an excellent remedy for warmth, nutrition and fluids. Foods consumed during a cold or flu or even emphysema should aid in the clearing of mucus from the body. Chicken soup is good for these conditions because the chicken contains Cysteine, which thins mucus and is useful for all respiratory problems.

Some of the above information was sourced from Nutrition Almanac, John D. Kirschmann & Nutrition Search Inc.

Let's get cooking ...

SOUP INGREDIENTS

Approximately 3.5 to 4 Litres of water in a large soup pot

1 Whole Chicken

1 tsp Salt

1 medium to large onion - roughly chopped

2-4 cloves of Garlic - just squash with flat of knife

1 - 2 Bay leaves - fresh or dried

½ bunch parsley - washed & dried then roughly chopped

1 large carrot or 2 medium carrots - roughly chopped into bite size pieces

1 bunch Bok Choy - washed & dried then roughly chopped

A sizeable chunk of Pumpkin - skin removed, roughly chopped into bite size pieces

1 medium Sweet Potato - roughly chopped into bite size pieces, skin on or off - up to you

A generous handful of snow-peas - cut or broken into bite size pieces

-or any other seasonal green vegetable

that you like ie., zucchini, broccoli.

Something to remember: Wash all your vegetables well. Use a soft nylon kitchen brush to scrub away pesticide residue.

HOW TO

Firstly remove your whole chicken from its packaging, quickly rinse inside & out in cold water and place in a large saucepan or soup pot.
Add 3.5 to 4 litres of water (filtered or spring where possible).
Toss in the salt, garlic, onion and Bay leaf then place the saucepan on the stove with the lid on and set element on high so as to bring the water to the boil.
While you are waiting for the water to come to the boil, start chopping your other vegetables adding them to the pot as you go.
Once the water is boiling well, reduce the element heat so the water boils gently - simmer with the lid on for up to 2.5 hours. Every so often, carefully take off the lid and push the vegetables around a little.

To give your soup some weight, add a generous cup of barley or brown rice at the beginning of the cooking process. Keep an eye on the water though; the grains will soak up a portion of the water; so, as you see the water level drop, just top up the soup pot with hot water from the kettle (so as not to lose your boil).

You'll know when your soup is ready because the meat of the chicken will fall away from the bones very easily and fall apart in shreds. When the soup is ready, remove from the heat and allow it to sit and cool for a little while, long enough to be able to handle it without scalding yourself.

Remove the whole chicken (and any bones that have come away), from the soup pot into a strong standing colander/strainer. Strip away the meat from the bones and return it (the meat) to the soup pot. Do not include any skin or gristle. Discard the bones, gristle and skin. Soup-making tip - If you use a standing colander you'll have both hands free. Stand the colander in another dish - you can catch juices from the chicken carcass and return into the soup.
Pour your soup into a container with an airtight lid (or use plastic wrap over the container and place in the fridge overnight. A layer of solidified fat will form on the surface of the soup. You can use a spatula or a kitchen ladle to scrape off the top layer of fat. Underneath you will find your delicious chicken and vegetable soup. Another soup-making tip - If you want to stretch your soup a little further, at this point you could add another litre of water.

Your soup is now ready. To serve it needs reheating, which is as long as it will take to prepare some yummy Finger Toast. Now, that wasn't so complicated or difficult.

You do need to allow yourself time with soup, especially chicken or other meat soups. Refridgeration solidifies the fat and makes for easy removal thus giving you very low fat soup.

Purely vegetable soups do not need this procedure so you can tuck in as soon as it's ready!

FINGER TOAST

This way of preparing bread has been around for a long time; I don't know where it originated, except that whilst growing up and into my adult years I enjoyed many a meal with people of mediteranean backgrounds and this was often an accompanyment to soups. The bread they used, however, was often thick, crusty, chunky and home baked - mmmm, mmm!

Whatever bread you choose to use is entirely up to you. You may have discovered some of the safe and healthy breads at the Health Food Shop in their freezer. If you haven't yet, go and check it out. You may even be making you own. My local Health food shop has several types of alternative grain breads such as , Buckwheat bread, Rice bread and other specialty gluten free breads.

Ok, back to the Toast ...

Ingredients

Choose your Bread

Rice Bran Oil

Salt - Rock-, Sea- or Herbamare - My fave is herbamare

How To...

Place your bread into the toaster - while the bread is toasting, prepare on a flat dish a thin spread of Rice Bran Oil covering the plate.

Lightly sprinkle your favourite salt evenly across the oil.

When the toast is ready, lay it flat on the plate for a couple of seconds - to soak up a little salted oil - not too much!

Remove to a clean plate and cut the toast into sticks.

Repeat this for each slice of toast. You may have to replenish the salt and oil as you go depending on how much toast you have.

Your Finger Toast is now ready to dip into your soup. Bon Apetite.