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I like soup. (you may have already known that about me ~ from a post not so long ago). Who doesn’t? It’s comfort food on those murky days when the world is not your oyster. I don’t know if it’s just me, but today’s been a rough ride, maybe it’s the ill effects of the day that follows a nice long-weekend. I was not ready to take over the world today. I was not ready to even leave the house, although I did with a pj top underneath a sweater to grab my daughter from school ~ um…. late. (ok, to save my style sense, she finishes school at 11:15 am – I think pj tops are allowed till noon, ok :) Not my best day for sure. So inside my own safe space, that I call home, I saved myself and I saved the day….. with soup.

My fridge was running on nearly empty when I threw these ingredients together. I like a challenge when there isn’t much on hand. I like these hardy vegetables of potatoes, onions, celery root and cabbage – good winter foods that keep well in the fridge longer. It seemed that I ended up pulling mostly white vegetables for this soup, and I kind of liked where I was heading. I liked the texture of the cabbage and all the other chunks of veggies. You can make this soup with large chunks too and it totally works. And whenever there’s cabbage in my soup, I always add a few bay leaves – the two just go together ~ my mom taught me that ;) ps. This is a vegan, meatless soup that is also gluten-free as it’s made with buckwheat.

Country Cabbage Soup

1 large onion
2 cloves of garlic
2-3 white or yukon gold potatoes
1/4 of large white cabbage (use as much or as little as you like)
1 large parsley root/ parsnip
1/4 celery root
1 can of organic white kidney beans
1/2 cup buckwheat grains (or barley if not gluten-free)
olive oil for frying
2 dried bay leaves
2 tbsp of sea salt
fresh ground pepper to taste
water, boiled in a kettle

Because this is a vegan recipe, as I avoid meat and meat broths, I like to add a rich flavour to my soup base with sauteing some of the ingredients before they are filled with hot water (start the kettle with the water so it’s hot to add in). So in a large pot, I drizzle in some olive oil and throw in my diced onion and cook that until softened, lightly golden but not burned. I add in my finally chopped garlic to that and let that simmer. Continue adding the celery root and parsnip, and lastly the potatoes as they will stick to the bottom of the pot very quickly. You can season with salt at this time.  Your vegetables should be softened but not cooked yet. Add the hot water that you’ve boiled in the kettle until all is covered and stir. Add buckwheat and bay leaves, bring to a boil and then reduce heat and cover to simmer for for another 10 minutes. Add the kidney beans, unrinsed from the can. Continue cooking just to warm up the beans for 2 more minutes. Garnish with thinly sliced raw cabbage leaves. Enjoy.

This is of course a vegan, meatless soup but you could add a chicken stock to the recipe or even a chicken breast if you so preferred. And also, this is a gluten-free recipe which has unroasted buckwheat at the main grain, but you could substitute with barley if you are not sensitive to gluten.

How do you survive those rough days? I find something as simple as having soup just hits the spot right ;) The rest can wait.

ps. I’m doing end-of day posts lately…. hopefully I will catch up with my own shadow and get back into a better rhythm… so check back later if you don’t see a post in the morning, or grab the feeds to receive notice of new posts. xo