I am sure you will agree that there is no food more comforting than a warm bowl of soup. In my house they are welcome on any nights but especially on cold, wintery nights. Although spring is here, last weekend ended up being chilly. As I was wondering what to cook for dinner on sunday night, I noticed that there were a lot of different vegetables leftover in the refrigerator. So what better meal than a soup to be able to use all of them?
I make this ‘fridge clean up’ soup quite a lot. And usually it is on sunday nights. Best part about soups is that you can create variations by just changing the combination of vegetables and the spices used. Before I went paleo, I used to make Minestrone soup all the time where I would add vegetables to the beans and use tomatoes to make the typical Italian favorite. So now I decided to make some changes – since I wasn’t going to add the beans, I decided to add in more of the starchy vegetables like turnip and taro root.
And I used my favorite substitute for tomatoes – cranberries! The soup turned out fabulous. The family ate it with some whole grain bread while I had mine with a small piece of boiled yucca on the side. Yes and that’s how I got the idea of adding the grated yucca on top! I couldn’t resist – the grated yucca looked so much like grated mozzarella! But tasted so much better 🙂 Yum! 
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 medium onion chopped
- ½ cup chopped celery
- 2 large cloves of garlic chopped
- ½ inch piece of ginger
- 1 bay leaf
- ½ of a large purple turnip, chopped about 1 cup
- 2 medium size taro root, peeled and diced
- ½ cup green beans, cut into 1 inch pieces (skip for AIP)
- 1½ tsp sea salt
- ¼ tsp red chilli powder or cayenne pepper ( omit for AIP)
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- 1 tbsp dried oregano
- 2 tbsp dried parsley
- ½ tsp cumin powder (omit for AIP)
- 1 tsp coriander powder (omit for AIP)
- 1 cup chopped pumpkin
- 1 cup shredded purple cabbage
- 1 cup cubed zucchini or smooth gourd
- 6-8 frozen or fresh cranberries
- 6 cups water
- Boiled yucca, grated
- In a large cooking pot, heat the oil. Then add the chopped onions and celery.Saute for about 2 minutes.
- Next add the garlic and ginger and the bay leaf. Sauce for a minute.
- Then add the turnip, taro root and green beans. Add the salt and all the spices. Stir for a minute.Then cover the pot with a lid and turn heat to low. Cook for about 5 minutes.
- Next add the pumpkin, cabbage, the zucchini (or gourd) and the cranberries. Add the water and cover and cook on low heat for about 20 minutes or until all the vegetables are cooked.
- Check for seasoning and add salt or pepper as needed. Turn heat off.
- Serve soup warm with grated boiled yucca on top!
For AIP version, skip the green beans, cumin, coriander and cayenne powder
One of my favourite soup. Easy to make and delicious. Nice share Indu.
Yes definitely Sumith! Its a regular in our household!
I must try this!
Hi Aruna, yes do try it! Such simple flavors but comes out so tasty. And very filling too even without the beans. But you can add some blackeans or kidney beans towards the end too if you like.