Double Deliciousness

I've been taking an internet class on culinary herbalism.

Hippocrates: Let your food be your medicine, your medicine be your food.

Basically, it teaches you how to incorporate medicinal quantities of healing herbs into foods to make them nourishing, tonic, and healing, while still enjoyable to eat. Today I succeeded in making over a delicious old friend, cream of broccoli soup, according to Ayurvadic principles but without ghee. Mmmmmmm

My hubby had a bit of oral surgery yesterday and was advised to stay away from spicy foods for 24 hours. So our usual heavily spiced lentil soups were out. I went hunting in the fridge for inspiration and found broccoli, white beans (cooked), onions, garlic, ginger, miso, and cashews. What a combination! But it turned out sublime with a predominately but not overwhelming ginger flavor.

Ginger Velvet Soup

2 lbs. broccoli, stems peeled and chopped, flowerets separated
2 medium onions, pureed in 1 c. water
2 c. cooked white beans of any variety
3 cloves garlic, sliced
2 t. dried thyme or 2 T. fresh
1c. chopped fresh parsley or 1/4 c. dried
1 piece of ginger about the size of a man's thumb, sliced
6 c. water
1 quart red clover, gotu cola, and red raspberry infusion (tea--1 T of each herb steeped for 20 minutes)
1 t. miso
1/4 c. cashews
1/8 t. cayenne pepper

Place pureed onion in a large soup pot and simmer over very low heat for 2-3 hours loosely covered until golden. Add two quarts water, garlic, ginger, thyme, parsley, and broccoli stems. Bring to boil and simmer for 20-30 min. Add flowerets and beans and cook 10 more minutes. Strain infusion. Blend veggies, infusion, miso, and cashews in a blender in batches until very smooth. Add more water if need be. Re-heat soup until steamy. Garnish with nutritional yeast, dulse flakes, and black pepper. It is delicious and beautiful. Both my men ate seconds so there you go.

So how is soup medicinal? Onion, garlic, and garlic are the trinity herbs--sort of Indian chicken soup--they cure what ails you but also reduce inflammation and build the immune, digestive, and urinary systems.  Ginger regulates blood pressure, aid digestion, and is anti-inflammatory as well. Garlic and onion remove excess cholesterol, clear the lungs, are anti-fungal, anti-bacterial, and anti-viral. Red clover is a diuretic and blood cleanser to clear the skin and prevent cancer. Red Raspberry regulates hormones and soothes/strengthens the entire alimentary tract. Gotu Cola has a variety of uses but mainly mental clarity. Parsley and thyme are diuretic, sweeten the breath, and clean/strengthen the kidneys. Broccoli is filled with phyto chemicals, protein, and minerals including calcium. Cashews give us a bit of omega-3 and creaminess. Beans remove cholesterol, contain isoflavones, prevent cancer, improve bone health, and provide creaminess. The miso and cayenne here are not enough to be medicinal and purely for flavor. It does not take a spoon full of sugar to make the medicine go down in this case.