It’s still technically summer as I write, but I’m already in the mood for soup. It’s one of the easiest things to make, it’s filling, and after a week on vacation in Portugal, I’m desperate for the chance to detox! I searched for healthy soup recipes and came across one for a hearty turkey and veggie soup called Portuguese Kale Soup. It seemed as though it was meant to be.
While the actual cooking of the soup was easy, everything leading up to it was rough going. I had to begin by taking my two kids to the grocery store to shop for ingredients. Here’s what a typical trip to the grocery store looks like: They argue over who gets to sit in the cart, and when I tell them they can both walk, they argue about who gets to push. One of my boys is a collector, so he runs off in the produce section grabbing plastic produce bags and stashing them in my purse.
“What do you need these for?” I’ll ask, grabbing them in my hand.
“I just do!” my oldest says.
I take the bags out of my purse and fill them with carrots, leeks, kale and other fruits and vegetables I need for the next few days of food prep. Meanwhile, my other son finds a bag of key limes and tosses them into the cart.
“I need a bag of avocados, not key limes,” I say.
“I want you to make key lime pie!”
I’m making soup, not pie, so I put the limes back and do the rest of the shopping myself.
Inevitably, one of my kids will playfully kick the other in the butt and take off down the aisle, resulting in a mad chase in the produce section. “Get back here, boys! No wrestling in the aisles!”
Exasperated, I grab whatever else I can in haphazard fashion. Who has time to check items off a shopping list when your boys have run off with the cart? I stop them an instant before they topple a display of taco shells. In the checkout, they hang from the bars that divide the cashiers and in the time it takes to ring in my groceries, no less than two people tell them to be careful. I give them stern looks, pay for my groceries and usher them out the store and into the car.
Now that they have “stirred the pot” and caused some mischief, I can start the actual cooking:
- In a soup pot, melt 1 Tbsp ghee (clarified butter) and sautée three large leeks. (I thinly sliced the white and light-green parts only and washed it in a bowl to get rid of the dirt.)
- When softened, add 1 Tbsp chopped garlic and a package of ground turkey meat. Cook the meat until no longer pink.
- Add in a can of diced tomatoes and 6 cups of low-sodium chicken broth.
- Crack some pepper into the pot, toss in some crushed red chilli flakes and let the soup simmer on low for about 30 minutes.
- Just before serving, add in a few handfuls of chopped kale. As soon as the kale is wilted, the soup is ready to eat.
After a great trip to Portugal and a difficult time in the grocery store, this soup was soothing in more ways than one. You’ve got to try it!
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