This recipe gives me a chance to clarify the goals of my blog. First and foremost, I simply want to show my friends, family & acquaintances how to eat Paleo/Primal/Grain-Free/Whole Foods. What you see on the blog is what we are eating for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I tend to show the good stuff. If something doesn’t turn out, I keep it to myself. Every once in a while I get hit with a stroke of creativity and come up with something on my own. If my blog post has no links, it is an original. Most of the time, I am inspired by something I find on a blog and I tweak it here and there and show off my finished product. In that case, I will always provide the links to the original blogs. Sometimes, like today, I find a recipe that I have heard is amazing and I follow it perfectly. Hence, the need for you to click back to the source. I will not likely ever write a cookbook, as I am not much of a recipe developer, but I love being a filter for good recipes and ideas for family, friends & followers!
I had been wanting to try a version of this soup for a while and our recent dip in temperatures made this just the day for a hot bowl of soup! This recipe for Sweet Potato Lime Soup comes from Paleo Diet Lifestyle. I found a few more versions on other sites, but they seemed like straight copies of this recipe with very little variation.
I also followed this recipe pretty closely. I forgot to pick up limes, so I just used lemon juice instead. I did have lime leaves in the freezer that I had picked up at Global Foods a few weeks ago. I knew that I had seen them listed in some recipes, but couldn’t remember which one. This was it. Here they are:
Lime Leaves
The only other slight modification was I seasoned it with some Florida Seasoned Pepper from Penzey’s. It is a salt-free blend of “Tellicherry black pepper, lemon peel, orange peel, citric acid, garlic and onion.” I thought the citrus elements would go nicely with the soup. I also seasoned a couple of chicken breasts with it and grilled them in my “Spaceship” (aka Sharper Image Super Wave Oven).
I rarely have fresh herbs around the house, but I have dried cilantro from Penzey’s and I garnished our soup with that. We really enjoyed this soup! Glad I made a big batch so we will have leftovers. Next time I may try to cook the sweet potatoes in the chicken broth on low in the CrockPot. I can just add the final few ingredients and blend. I will let you know how that method works when I make it again!
This may be the most surprised I have ever been at how a recipe turned out. I am pretty sure I spent 32 years of my life hating beets and I just made a chili using beets instead of tomatoes. It was delicious.
Chili is one of my most favorite foods. I don’t even see it as a seasonally appropriate food, we eat it all year round. I used to really love chili (made with lots of beef and 2 or 3 different kinds of beans) topped with cheese, Frito’s corn chips & sour cream. My chili recipe has morphed over time to be bean-free and therefore Paleo. On occasion, I will still throw in a handful of Frito’s. They are still GMO corn and high PUFA corn oil, but they are gluten free. A girl’s gotta live. I can say that over time, it has become a lot easier to enjoy the chili plain without all the garnishes, so I don’t feel deprived at all.
We had not had chili in a while and the hubby was requesting it. Selfishly, I haven’t been making chili and other tomato based dishes lately because I have been trying to follow a nightshade-free diet to see if it would make any further improvements in my health (skin, digestion & otherwise). This is based on recommendations from Robb Wolf, Chris Kresser & Diane Sanfillipo and their respective blog posts and podcasts. The nightshade family includes potatoes, tomatoes, peppers & eggplants. For various reasons, they have a tendency to be allergenic and inflammatory to the immune system, not for everyone of course, but enough that they are often listed on restriction & isolation diets. It is hard to make and then watch someone else eat your most favorite dish and not be able to partake.
I debated whether i could just make chili without using tomatoes, but quickly realized that the other huge component in chili is chili powder made of peppers. I figured it was a shot in the dark but through the magic of Google I was able to find a “nightshade-free chili” recipe. I still had my doubts. Keep the beef, onions & cumin. Ditch the tomatoes and chili pepper. Add beets & squash for color and texture. It sounded crazy! The results were delicious!
I simply made a few minor tweaks to this recipe I found from And Love It Too! Gluten and Dairy Free Living I used acorn squash instead of Hubbard. I think any kind of squash would do. I also did not puree it, I cooked it a bit in the microwave first, cut it up and let it simmer in the chili, which broke the squash down quite a bit. I also did not use Dry Basil or Cloves and instead used about 1 tsp of allspice. I was able to start a pot of our regular Chocolate Chili on one burner and pot of this chili on the other burner. Most of the ingredients were the same, so it was easy to saute, season & simmer them at the same time.
It is 80 degrees here in St Louis, the week before Spring Break. Crazy. So a soup recipe seems like a weird choice, right? I am actually playing catch-up. I made this recipe a couple of months ago when my website was in “transition.” So, it was never offically posted. I made it pretty step by step out of the Primal Blueprint Quick and Easy Meals cookbook, since it was my first go ’round with a cream soup in a VERY long time. Obviously, since this recipe includes butter and heavy cream, it is Primal and not Paleo. Still delicious.
It caught my eye because my sister LOVES sauerkraut and it was the dead of winter and soup sounded good. And it was. Really, really, really good. I wouldn’t eat this very often, very rich and creamy, but I will make it at least once every winter. Next time, maybe I will even save some for my sister.
Cream of Sausage and Sauerkraut Soup
In a soup pot, cook sausage in 1 Tbsp of the butter until browned. Remove from pot and set aside.
Add last Tbsp of butter and saute onion until soft. Add saurkraut and wine, cook over high heat for 5 minutes.
Turn down heat medium, add stock. Simmer uncovered for 10 minutes.
Remove from heat, add heavy cream and mustard. Use an immersion blender to puree the soup until creamy. Add sausage back to the soup. Taste, season with salt (probably NOT needed) and pepper.
I made 3 recipes out of The Food Lovers Make it Paleo by Bill Staley and Haley Mason over the weekend. Chocolate Pudding pie (p. 382), Bacon Wrapped Scallops (p. 108) & Butternut Squash Soup (p. 290).
All three recipes turned out lovely. I hadn’t had anything like a pie or a cake in a very looonnnggg time, so it was pretty flippin’ delicious!
I have had a couple of Paleo successes in the kitchen this week, but I have no proof. Either I forgot to get a picture, or it was eaten quickly. Pictures are tricky. I read a food blog this week that featured photography tips and found a few of my critical errors.
1) Fully knowing how to work your camera and its settings. I don’t. Keep trying to find the time, but in the meanwhile it takes great pictures of my kids with me knowing only about 10% of its capabilities. 
2) Best food pics come from using natural light. So pics need to be taken in the daytime. My pics are taken about 30 seconds before they are eaten for dinner, so I am not getting a lot of natural light. I don’t see this problem resolving itself. So subpar pics will continue…
I got a few new cookbooks this week. I had been putting off purchasing some of the new Paleo books that are out, so I finally just got on Amazon.com and they showed up at the door. Lots of great new ideas and already inspired a few meals. The hubby is excited that there is a way to make “biscuits and sausage gravy” that is paleo.
Paleo Comfort Foods by Julie and Charles Mayfield
Make it Paleo by Bill Staley and Hayley Mason
Quick and Easy Meals: Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson
Chicken “Tortilla” Soup
I called it this so that my husband would have a frame of reference for what he about to eat. There is a fabulous recipe for “chicken tomatillo stew” in the Paleo Comfort Foods cookbook. I already had shredded chicken as leftovers, only seasoned with garlic,salt and pepper. I also had some diced red/yellow/orange peppers frozen .After reading through the recipe I realized that I could skip the garlic, onion, jalapeno and tomatillo steps by just using a jar of Trader Joe’s Salsa Verde. So this is what happened:
In a soup pot:
2 Tbsp coconut oil
Sauteed a handful of diced frozen peppers
Added chili powder, cumin, smoked paprika (about 1 Tbsp of each)
Sauteed a couple of minutes
Added shredded chicken
Added 4 cups of chicken broth
Added 1 jar of Trader Joe’s Salsa Verde
Stir and simmer.
It was delicious and quick.
I “borrowed” something I have been coveting for a very long time from my mother. She has this Saladmaster gadget she uses for cabbage, potatoes and vegetables that I love. They are expensive and hard to come across. She bought one at an estate sale and gave it to MY SISTER. (I knew then that she was the favorite.) Now it is at my house, and I put it to work with this chili recipe.
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