Shortly before the lockdown started, I picked up this book “The Soups of France” from a neighbor who was moving. The book is exactly what I hoped it would be – traditional rustic soups featuring seasonal ingredients. Although many of the recipes don’t cut it for the protocol (who knew there were so many different soups with a cheese base?!), the spring soup section has promise. There are a few solid “cream of” french soups that can be staples to your diet with a few modifications to meet the protocol. The best part of these soups is that they are rich in flavor and nourishing if you use your homemade bone broth.
Here is my adapted version of the soup, making it Level 2 Wahls approved and with ingredients you probably already have in your freezer (AKA week 3 after your last grocery shopping trip during coronavirus). The original recipe says you could use fresh peas, but frozen is much cheaper and easier to stock up. I was surprised that the soup has a sweet taste as I had never had pea soup before. If you find yours is too sweet, add a teaspoon or two of apple cider vinegar to tone it down.
Green peas are legumes but they are allowed in Level 1 & 2 and count as a color vegetable. Since the soup ends as half liquid, I divide by the volume by 2 so 1 cup of soup = .5 cup color. I consider the onions to be bonus sulfur.
Cream of Pea Soup with Bacon Toppings
- 30 oz frozen peas
- 1 large onion (diced)
- 3 cups chicken bone broth
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- 12 slices of bacon (diced)
- Saute 2 spoonfuls of bacon per bowl of soup you want to serve today. Saute directly in your soup pan. Remove bacon from fat and set aside. Refrigerate the extra diced bacon.
- In the bacon fat, cook the onions until translucent.
- Add the chicken broth, peas, bay leaf, and thyme into the soup pan.
- Simmer for 15 minutes or until the peas and onions are cooked. Turn stove off and let soup cool. Remove the bay leaf.
- In your blender, blend all the soup until well pureed. If you eat ghee, add a few dollops to blend in.
- Return the blended soup to the pan. Heat backup. Add additional water until it is the consistency you want. Salt to taste.
- To serve, ladle the soup into bowls and sprinkle the bacon on top.
To reheat the leftovers, I start with putting the diced bacon into a small saucepan and saute. Again, I take the cooked bacon out of the fat and add the soup directly into the bacon fat to heat up. This way I don’t waste that tasty bacon fat and it adds a good flavor to the soup.