Vegetable Soup

 I grew up eating this soup. From time to time my mom would make it at home and I would just eat soup. I wouldn't eat anything else but this soup until it was all gone. Though I was already skinny and didn't need it. My mom would normally make it for herself and my dad to eat as a diet food. But I would trade out whatever mom made for me and my twin for lunch just to eat this soup no matter what lunch was.  She hated me eating this soup because I would always loose weight eating it; but I didn't care. Just wanted more and more of this delicious soup.

It has so many vegetables and healthy ingredients for your body (If you are a little overweight and want to shed a few pounds) chances are you will do just that by eating this soup. But the best part is you wont feel  nauseated doing it. Normally with diets and diet foods you tend to hate the foods you are allotted to eat. But as I mentioned earlier this soup is so good even those who are not on diets like myself make it just on a regular to eat for lunch or a light dinner just because it is so good. So enjoy it as a diet food, or as an appetizer dish before your main meal or even as a light lunch or dinner.

For this soup all you basically need to do is throw everything in a pot and your good to go : - ) It is really delicious and can be eaten in two ways which I call chunky style (just as is) or smooth style (blended and creamed, as shown in picture above)

Ingredients

2 packs of Collard greens or Kale
1/3 bag  of lentils or Split Peas
5 carrots
2 sweet potatoes or 4 regular potatoes cut into cubes
Seasonings: Salt, Pepper, Lawrys
Frozen mixed vegetables
Chicken (the part of the chicken you can use is optional, your choice. What I normally do is cook a whole chicken (recipe here) and then after I ate the chicken I use all the bones and left over tiny pieces of meat on the bones to make my soup) But you can use chicken breast, thighs or whatever you want.


Rinse your lentils or split peas well then place  it in a big pot ( the biggest pot that you have at home)  almost filled with water. Allow to boil on high for about 1 hour or until you see that your lentils or peas are very soft. (Lentils and Peas are in the bean family they take a long time to cook) While that is boiling take your collard greens or kale and rinse it well then cut it up into small chunks. Once your lentils/split peas are nice and soft throw your chopped up kale and chicken into the pot let it boil for about another 45 minutes. Then add in your seasonings to taste.

Now add in your potatoes and carrots, allow to cook for about another 10 minutes or until a little soft. Now add in your frozen mixed vegetables and allow to boil another 5 minutes and you are all done.

                           Remember to remove all the chicken bones from your soup


Serve just as is for chunky style soup or put your soup in a blender and blend for a few minutes until it is creamed just as in the picture above.

The good thing about this soup is that you can play around a lot with the flavors. You can add as little or as much of each thing as you'd like you can add other things of your own or you can use completely different ingredients and experiment with different flavors to make this unique soup. I've done it before where I chose to use lentils and split peas, sweet potatoes and potatoes. Create your own unique soup. something that you will like.

Which ever way you choose to eat your soup. Whether it be chunky or smooth or even different flavor all together, make sure you Enjoy it...

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From my kitchen to yours
God Bless