Elimination Diet Vegetable Soup

After returning home from a little trip to Las Vegas, I was feeling leery about returning to the kitchen. Little sleep, the hot desert weather and one red-eye plane ride later, I began to think I forgot how to cook. But after indulging in too much good food & drink, my body was craving some healthy home cooking (and also a few more In-N-Out burgers but since we don’t have them on the East Coast, I quickly got over that urge…)

This is the last Gwyneth Paltrow recipe for a long time, I promise!!! This is a part of her “elimination diet” recipes. You can read more about it at her website: Goop.com. And after days of eating in excess, this vegetarian, easy on the stomach meal was BADLY needed. Badly.

Of course, as I can never quite seem to do with her recipes, I didn’t follow it exactly. I used store-bought veggie stock (I was still jet-lagged!!!) and added some vermicelli noodles. I was making healthy soup because I thought my body needed a break from the crap I’d be indulging in but I was really surprised how flavorful and tasty it was! GP’s recipes always seem to surprise me with the amount of flavor that comes from mostly mundane ingredients. At the very end I tried the soup with the Asian ingredients she suggested but I found I really enjoyed it without anything mixed in at all, although it really was quite good with some soy sauce & Sriracha!

It really just goes to show you that sometimes the best food is the good stuff plucked right from the ground. When cooked properly and seasoned well, the foods that we usually consider boring become rock stars on our plates.

Even after all of that and my Earth-shattering revelations, I still want an In-N-Out burger… I’ll never change.

Spring Vegetable Soup, Two Ways
From It’s All Good

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 2 large leeks, thoroughly washed and finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, finely minced
• Coarse sea salt
• 4 cups vegetable stock
• 1 zucchini, diced
• 2 packed cups of baby spinach
• Soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, and Sriracha sauce (for the Asian version)
• A few spoonful of pesto (for the Italian version)

Directions:

Heat olive oil in a large, heavy pot over medium heat. Add leeks and garlic, along with a big pinch of salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until softened but not browned, 10 minutes.

Add the vegetable stock and turn up the eat. After the soup begins to boil, lower the heat and allow it to simmer for 10 minutes. Add the zucchini and cook until just tender, about 2 minutes. Add the spinach and cook until wilted for barely a full minute.

For the Asian version, serve with bottles of soy sauce, sesame oil and Sriracha.

For the Italian version, serve with a big spoonful of pesto.